And Now, Back to You — Chapter no 37

CHAPTER 37

DELILAH

It’s a relief to focus on a problem that isn’t of my own making.

Some of my fog clears in the face of Jackson’s outright panic, and it’s an easy decision to climb into the passenger seat of his car. To take his phone and navigate to his tracker app, clicking on the tiny picture of a blond- haired girl with her tongue sticking out. It’s paired with another tiny circle, and I calmly direct him to the museum on the water—the place the girls were supposed to be having their brunch gala.

I break everything down into easy-to-follow steps. I call the school. I call the police nonemergency line. I call Aiden and quickly tell him to be home, in case Adeline goes to Maya. I reduce myself to efficiency, because that’s what Jackson needs. And I want so badly to be what Jackson needs.

Jackson, who is bending every speed limit between the station and the waterfront, weaving his way in and out of traffic, his hands fisted so tight on the steering wheel his knuckles are white.

Penelope is waiting at the curb with tear tracks on her cheeks, a school official at her side. Jackson barely stops the car before he’s launching himself out of it, pulling Penelope into a hug. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t show any anger, and the tightness at the base of my throat pulls tighter. He’s so good. He’s always doing the right thing, the perfect thing, and I’m— I’m a disaster.

You made a fool of yourself and this station.

You made a fool of yourself.

The door to the back seat swings open and Penelope clambers inside. Her eyes are swollen and pink and I offer her one of the small, travel-sized tissues I found in the glove compartment. She takes it gratefully, looking up at me shyly through her lashes as she buckles her seat belt.

“Hi, Delilah.” She sniffles. “This isn’t how I wanted us to meet.”

I twist in the passenger seat. “I know, but I am happy to meet you. I’ll be happy to meet your sister too. We’ll find her, okay?”

She nods, pressing the tissue under her nose. “If Jackson doesn’t get arrested first.”

Outside the car, Jackson is tearing into the school official. A few words press through the thick glass of the car window: irresponsible, unbelievable, and my favorite, fucking idiots. He turns to climb back into the car, and the official breathes an obvious sigh of relief.

The door slams so hard the entire vehicle shakes. The three of us sit in heavy silence.

Jackson’s eyes lift to the rearview mirror. “Where would she go?”

We go to the ice-cream shop, the pagoda in Patterson Park, and the Bond Street Wharf where the geese congregate for stale crusts of bread. I start to get recognized at our second stop, hushed whispers and not-so-hushed whispers behind my back of That’s Delilah Stewart and Did you see she quit on air? and I wonder what happened, so I stay in the car for the rest of the stops. I search through the window for Jackson and Penelope, hoping there’s a third blond head with them.

But there isn’t, and I watch as Jackson slowly slips further into himself. I try to tuck myself into his problem as a distraction while my own mess muddies the water around me. I’m an oil spill hemorrhaging damage, but maybe if I fix this for him, I’ll be able to fix everything else too.

“Did you see what bus she got on?” I ask Penelope, pulling up the schedules and maps on my phone. “Maybe if we check the route—”

The car comes to an abrupt stop. We’re in the Federal Hill neighborhood, cresting the park. After we checked the girls’ favorite spots, Penelope thought Adeline might have headed for Blue Moon Too, a tiny breakfast spot on this side of the city. The pancakes make her happy, she had said, voice thick. And I think she wanted to be happy.

The seat belt digs in across my chest. I stare at Jackson, but he’s staring through the windshield, ducking his head a little to see— A girl. Sitting alone on one of the benches at the very top of the hill, overlooking the city. Her arms are wrapped around her knees as she shivers in the cold. She’s not wearing a coat. Just a pale blue dress, her honey blond hair in loose curls spilling down her back.

Jackson jerks the car into park, uncaring that he’s in the middle of the street. A car honks behind us, then another, and he bites out a furious curse under his breath.

“There’s no fucking parking in this neighborhood. I don’t—” His hand flexes on the wheel. His eyes are panicked, unsure. The driver behind us lays on their horn again. On the bench, Adeline turns to look. Jackson tenses. “I don’t want her to leave,” he breathes in a rush.

Penelope is already scrambling out of the back seat. Her door slams and she takes off running toward her sister. I quickly unbuckle, rushing to

follow.

“I’ve got them.”

I rush across the street, resisting the urge to flick off the small backup of cars behind Jackson’s Honda. Despite Jackson’s fears, Adeline hasn’t rushed off. She’s clinging to her sister like a lifeline, both of them shivering in their pretty dresses.

I slip off my jacket and cover them both, offering a smile when Adeline’s red-rimmed eyes dart up to mine. They widen slightly in surprise.

“Am I on the news?” she asks.

My smile widens. “No. Though if your brother had it his way, he’d probably have one of the helicopters circling.”

She looks down. “Is he mad?”

Penelope pulls back, grabbing her sister’s face and squeezing her cheeks.

“He’s freaked out because you ran away from me and we couldn’t find you.” She wiggles her head back and forth. Affection with a touch of violence, exactly right between siblings. “Why did you do that? What were you thinking? That bus could have taken you anywhere.”

Adeline grabs her sister’s wrists and lowers her hands. I notice she keeps their fingers knit tightly together. “I don’t know. I panicked. The stuff with Mom—” Her chin wobbles. “I know you’re right about her, but I don’t want you to be,” she confesses quietly. “I wanted it to be different. Why can’t she be different?”

Penelope scoots closer. My purple jacket slips off her shoulder and I lift it back, tucking it around them both. I bend down to one knee so I can zip the bottom, inching it up.

“Has Jackson told you anything about my mom?” I ask.

Both of the girls shake their heads in unison and I smile. Of course he hasn’t. Jackson, who holds on to my secrets and keeps them like promises.

“She’s a pretty famous violinist. She signed over custody to my grandfather when I was barely six months so she could pursue an orchestra seat. He was the one who raised me, just like Jackson is the one who is raising you.”

Adeline blinks at me, her eyes puffy but bright. Her lashes are a sticky clump around her eyes, some light mascara smudged in circles over the tops of her cheeks. So much about her young face is familiar. I know what the hollow ache in her heart feels like. I know what it’s like to chase answers that don’t exist.

“When I was thirteen,” I continue, my voice soft, the cold, muddy ground seeping through my tights, “I decided to run away from home. I was convinced I needed to know my mother to be able to—I don’t know.” I laugh. “I guess fill up the parts of me that felt empty.”

“Where did you go?” Penelope asks.

I snort. “I stole some cash out of my grandfather’s dresser and called a cab. I went to BWI and tried to get a ticket to Amsterdam. That’s where my mother played at the time. Her precious orchestra seat. But I didn’t have a passport, or enough money for a transatlantic flight.” I smile. “I really didn’t think the plan through.”

The start, maybe, of a string of disasters that led me to exactly right here.

But if this one can make these girls feel a little less alone, then maybe it was worth it. Maybe all heartache can lead somewhere better, if I’m just patient enough.

Gravel crunches behind me, but I don’t turn my head.

“I sat in baggage claim for a couple of hours, crying my eyes out. I couldn’t stop thinking about what must be wrong with me for my mom to put an entire ocean between us. I couldn’t understand why she would love music more than me.”

Adeline wipes her hand under her nose. “Did you figure it out?”

I shake my head. “No. I stopped thinking about it when my grandpa showed up.” I grin. I can still remember how frazzled he was, wearing his

safety vest from the docks. His steel-toed boots clomping across the shiny floors of the airport. “He yelled at me for so long, TSA agents started to wander over. But when he was done, he hugged me tight and—I don’t know. I think I got something better than any sort of explanation or answer from my mom.”

“What?” they breathe, shivering under my sparkly purple coat.

“I realized how special it is to be loved by someone who chose me. Over and over again.” The press of tears makes my voice turn thick. I have to take a deep breath before I say, “And it was enough to make up for all the rest.”

Adeline watches me. A tear falls down her cheek and she brushes it away with the back of her hand. Resolve settles across her young face, and her bright, blue eyes melt into something relieved.

Her gaze lifts, over my shoulder. Jackson moves closer, his hand brushing down my arm.

“Yeah,” she rasps. “That’s enough for me too.”

I’m still shivering by the time we make it back to Jackson’s house, my arms clinging to my elbows in the small hallway outside of his kitchen. He’s upstairs with the girls while I study the tile work that loops in a pattern down the length of the wall. I wonder if he did it himself, or if the girls helped. If they pressed laughter and clay-stained fingertips into the wall together, Jackson working with the same meticulous attention to detail he uses with everything else.

I trace the edge of a tile and wonder why he’s never asked me to come here. If maybe, somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d knew I’d fuck it all up.

He finds me like that, staring at the tile on his wall, trying hard not to cry.

I don’t have any more distractions, and the day is slowly catching up to me.

“They’re watching a movie,” he says, weary, scrubbing his hand roughly against the back of his head. “Fuck,” he breathes. “What a shit show of a day.”

“Yeah.” I laugh, but it sounds hollow and sad. “I can relate.”

I’m jittery and uncomfortable, standing in this narrow hallway with

Jackson perfectly apart from me. My toes are being pinched by my shoes, my eyes feel gritty and dry from all my almost-crying, and my heart— My heart squeezes when Jackson slips both of his arms around my waist and curls his body over mine, gathering me close, burying his face in my neck with a bone-deep sigh.

“Thank you,” he breathes. He squeezes me so tight my lungs pinch, his arms wrapped over each other across my back, his big palms spanning my rib cage. I am completely enveloped by him, and my composure fractures a little bit more. “Thank you for today. For what you said to the girls. For helping me. I can’t—” He swallows, his voice thick. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

The tears are sudden and ferocious. The dam I’ve been struggling to hold all day breaks, ugly sobs pouring out of me. Jackson scoops me closer, walking me across the small kitchen and into the living room. He tries to deposit me gently on the couch, but I won’t let him go, clinging tightly with my arms around his neck.

“Delilah,” he whispers. He sits with me draped over his lap, his hands pushing my hair away from my face. I keep my nose against his neck, refusing to look at him. “What’s going on? What happened today?”

“Keith wanted to move me to features,” I mumble against his skin.

His hands keep moving over my hair. Down my shoulders. Across my back. “He tried to take you off weather?”

I nod.

“So you quit?”

I nod again.

Jackson’s sigh makes his chest rise and fall. “I hate that he did that to you. I hate that you felt like you only had one choice.”

More tears burn behind my eyes and I’m—I’m so tired of being like this.

“It was my fault,” I manage. “I messed up.”

Jackson urges me backward on his lap. He has dark circles under his eyes. Weariness etched in the set of his shoulders. He drags his hand over his face and guilt hangs like a noose around my neck. He’s so tired and I’m making it worse. He has enough to deal with without this layered on. He’s always taking care of me when he already has so much on his plate.

“How did you mess up?” he asks.

I run a shaky hand under my nose. “In the mountains. I thought I could

be different. More professional, maybe. I wanted to show everyone that I can be taken seriously. But I fumbled it, just like I do everything else.”

Jackson shakes his head. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” I slide off his lap and curl into the space next to him, tucking my legs beneath me. “I’ve always been like this. Maybe I should take some time, you know? Some space to figure things out.”

Jackson goes still. “Space from what?”

I lift my hands and drop them. “I don’t know. Everything. Is it possible to have a quarter-life crisis?”

He ignores the question. “Am I included in everything, Delilah?” He swallows, the line of his throat working. “Will you be taking time and space from me?”

I shake my head, then nod, then shake my head again. God. I’m a mess. I keep my gaze on his hand flat against the couch cushion. His rolled sleeves and the glint of his watch. “We said this thing between us would only last for our time in the mountains. We’re not in the mountains anymore.”

Jackson’s knuckles find my chin. He forces the eye contact, because he

knows I’m too afraid to do it myself.

“No,” he says.

I blink. “No?”

“Yeah, no.” He drops his hand and fishes around for something in his back pocket. “I never agreed to while we were in the mountains. That was

your idea, and it was a stupid one.”

“Excuse me?”

He pulls out his wallet and tosses it on the cushion between us, flipping it open and pulling a folded piece of paper from the back.

“You said friends, and I said okay, because I’m going to take you however I can get you. If you wanted to call it casual, I’d take that too.

Because I’d still get a corner of you to call mine. But I won’t have you call it nothing. I won’t have you taking time and space away from me. Not when I know how good it is.”

He unfolds the paper he pulled from his wallet, running his thumb along the heavy crease in the middle. It’s stained with coffee and has clearly been folded and refolded a thousand times. Jackson extends it to me. “We have a signed agreement, Delilah Stewart.”

I stare at our contract Post-it note from that day in the café.

“This agreement was for the duration of the trip.”

He extends his arm over the back of the couch, his fingers tangling in the ends of my hair. “Was it?”

I grab the coffee-stained note with shaking hands, bringing it closer to my face. He’s struck through one very important sentence.

I, Jackson Clark, promise to be on my best behavior for the duration of this trip.* No picking fights, no making fun, and no sad-face notes left on car windows.

*and will allow for mishaps and mistakes, without complaint

“How did you get this?”

“I found it in your coat pocket.”

I trace the crooked line through the note. “When did you change it?”

“After that first radio broadcast. Before we left for our trip.”

I sniff. “Why?”

“Because I knew I wouldn’t be done with you by the end of it.” He swallows, knuckles nudging his glasses up his nose. “Our contract says we will allow for mishaps and mistakes, without complaint. Why can you help me with my problems, but I can’t help you with yours? What happened to us taking care of each other?” He moves closer. “What about . . . getting to

be loved by the people who choose us?”

I grip his wrist. “Jackson.”

“I’m not done with you,” he whispers. “Please don’t be done with me.”

I press my lips in a firm line so they don’t tremble. “I’m a mess,” I

whisper.

“Then be a mess with me.”

“I’m too much.”

He laughs. “Yeah, baby. You’re too much. You and your hot pink snow pants. Your doughnut snow sled. Your sunshine smile and your ridiculous puns. You laugh too loud at jokes and you talk to every stranger you meet. I don’t think we were on time for a single thing in the mountains, because you were busy learning someone’s life story. You think candy is a food group and you smile even when you don’t mean it and—Jesus, Delilah. You drive me insane. You might be too much, baby, but maybe sometimes I’m not enough. Maybe when we’re together, we fill each other up the way we —the way we need.” His voice cracks and he lifts his hand to my face, the

pads of his fingers brushing gently over my cheekbone. “Be too much with me,” he whispers.

I want it so badly, but I’m afraid to believe in something else that could be taken away from me. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Neither do I.” He ducks his face down and brushes a kiss against my

mouth. I sway into him.

“I don’t want to mess it up.”

He smiles against my mouth. “You hit me with your car once. I don’t

think you can mess it up.”

I rear back and stare at him. “Did I?”

He nods, his smile growing wider. “You nudged me in the parking lot.”

He pecks a kiss on the bridge of my nose. “It’s only up from here.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He trails small, fleeting kisses every place my tears touch.

“Things with us have never been simple or easy, but I’d rather be messy with you than have perfect with anyone else.” He presses his forehead against mine. “Stay with me. Let’s figure it out together.”

I nod, more tears cascading down my cheeks. Jackson wipes them away patiently with his thumbs, his eyes impossibly soft.

“Will you let me help?” he asks.

I nod and I feel the weight pressing down on my chest lighten. How easy it is, in the end, to open the door for him. To trust and believe that he’ll take care of me.

It’s just like he said. We fill in each other’s cracks and crevices. Maybe together we can be something whole.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Yeah, okay. I don’t want space.”

“Good,” he says, and he punctuates it with another kiss. “I don’t want it either.”

LEON KENNEDY: And you can expect showers. Later in the week.

LEON KENNEDY: I don’t know how to—how does this clicker thing work?

LEON KENNEDY: All right, well. Enjoy this random stock photo of a duckling in a basket, I guess.

LEON KENNEDY: You really want me doing the weather instead of Delilah? Like, for real?