Wild with All Regrets, page 21
“Mmhm. Grandpa and Grandma liked him, too. Do you want to say hello?”
He nodded and stepped forward, extending his hand like a proper little gentleman.
“Hullo. It’s nice to meet you, I’m James Regan. Most people call me Jamie, though.”
Lucas knelt down and took his hand, giving it a nice firm shake. “A pleasure to meet you, Jamie. My name is Lucas Connolly, and most people just call me Lucas. What kind of things do you like to do?”
Little Jamie looked to his mother for guidance, and she shrugged, giving him a somewhat uneasy smile.
“I like to play,” he muttered. “I’m going to my room.”
Jamie crouched down beside Lucas, staring at the little boy. His expression was a mix of awe and despair . . . He’d lost so much; he’d missed so much.
The whole family had been altered irrevocably from their grief. The gentle girl from Jamie’s stories had grown into a woman whose life was peppered with relentless, unimaginable losses.
One by one, the important people in her life had died off, from pointless conflict, stupidity, or illness. The life she’d made for herself was beautiful, fulfilling and perfect; she had a husband who loved her, a beautiful growing family, a large comfortable flat. Of course she didn’t want some gutter trash digging up old memories, forcing her to deal with her anger and resentment.
Lucas didn’t care for her very much either, but she was the only link to Jamie’s family left in the world. He met Jamie’s eyes and nodded, willing to weather the storm to help him find his freedom. Fiona looked small somehow as she sat on the couch and sipped her tea. She was as beautiful as Jamie had been, but Lucas could almost see the lengthy tirade of long-stifled anger hammering away at the back of her teeth. To her credit, she took a deep breath and centered herself. “Mr. Connolly, why are you here?”
“I wasn’t lying to you earlier. I did want to find out how to get in contact with your mother.”
“And the second part? Wanting to know me because Jamie and I were so close? I can tell a lie when I hear one.” She crossed her arms. “So, what’s the game this time, Connolly? Worm your way back into this flat, get close to little Jamie, see how much of the past I’ve kept boxed up so you can spirit it away to your hoard?”
“With all due respect, Miss Murray—”
“Mrs. Regan.”
“Mrs. Regan, I don’t understand where this hostility is coming from. I’ve never even met you before today.”
“No? You said earlier you already feel so close to me after a few conversations you had a bloody decade ago,” she said.
Lucas narrowed his eyes. This fucking bitch was nothing like Jamie.
She poured a bit of milk into her tea. “Maybe I feel close to you for the same reasons. Maybe I spent the better part of five years listening to my brother ramble on and on about how great you were, how you were teaching him how to fight and gamble, how you were going to go to Germany and save the world together.
“Maybe I see some socially inept little pauper trying to squeeze his way back into the family he helped to destroy. Maybe I see a man who had an unhealthy obsession with my brother and can’t move on after ten goddamn years! Maybe I see what love and attachment can do to people, maybe I think my mother would still be alive if she’d never met you, that certainly my brother would still be here if not for you.”
“Mrs. Regan . . . I never—I didn’t mean to—I tried to help him . . . all I ever did, I did to protect him.”
Fiona stood up at that, her fists balled, tears welling in her eyes.
“You’re the one who encouraged him and let him do whatever the hell he wanted! You’re the one who said he should take that year off at university! You’re the one who went with him and kept him there after our father died! You watched him deteriorate and didn’t fucking get him sent home before it was too late!” she spat, her whole body trembling.
“You’re the reason my brother is dead! You’re the reason my mother’s misery consumed her, the reason she started drinking again! You destroyed this family! You took my brother away from me!” She had tears in her eyes, her face was red. “We needed him! I needed him! And you—and you—!” She turned away, her breaths coming in soft hiccupping gasps.
Jamie was hovering beside her, tears in his eyes. “Fi, I love you, I’m so sorry I left you, I didn’t—I never would have—you were right, you were right all along, and I shouldn’t have joined up.” He was almost shouting, but of course she couldn’t hear him. He swore loudly and kicked the air, deeply frustrated by his lot in life . . . or death.
“Lucas! Tell her!” he implored.
“Jamie . . . says he’s sorry, Mrs. Regan. He says he loves you; he says you’re right.”
She took a step back, eyes wide.
“What the hell are you talking about? How can—you’re insane! You’re completely off your nut!”
“No, Mrs. Regan. Jamie’s spirit is here with me, and he wants to talk to you.”
Unlike Angela, Fiona did not want to test if Lucas was crazy or not.
“You’re sick. You’re sick in the head, and if you don’t get out of my home, I will call the police. I never want to see you again. Do you understand me?”
He nodded; he didn’t want to fight. She was never gonna understand him, and . . . Christ, maybe she was right. Maybe he was completely insane. Anna Murray had nearly said as much, hadn’t she? He shut his eyes and tried to still his aching heart. Why did it hurt so much, still?
Fiona’s expression softened. Like maybe she understood that Lucas was truly mentally unwell.
“I had to let go of my father,” she said, “and I had to let go of Jamie. It was the only way I could function. I think the fact that you’re still this obsessed with him after all this time is really, truly disgusting. I can’t imagine what you thought you would get out of this visit . . . I got rid of most of Jamie’s things when my mother died.” She avoided his eyes.
“I don’t want my home to be a tomb, I don’t want to live for the dead. Jamie is gone and he’s never coming back. Get used to it and get the hell out of my life.”
She shut the door in his face and Lucas walked back to the flat in silence, Jamie floating wordlessly beside him. It was a little disconcerting; Jamie had gone quiet like this right before he was about to snap, back in the trenches . . . Lucas hoped things were different now. They got to his flat and Lucas lay down on the couch, not sure what he could say to Jamie. ‘I’m sorry your mother is dead, and your sister wants nothing to do with us . . . but at least I suppose that’s a form of closure for you?’
Jamie floated to the corner and stared out the window. “Life’s moved on without me. My father died, and I wasn’t there to protect him. My mother died because she couldn’t bear the pain of my death. My sister wishes she’d never known me . . . she hates and resents me for following my stupid goddamn heart all the time.”
He looked over to Lucas.
“And I destroyed you, too. Everything I touched, I ruined— unless they were smart enough to cut their memories of me out like a cancer.” Jamie put his head in his hands. “What was the point of my life? I might as well have died in the womb!” His shoulders were shaking.
Lucas ran over to hold him in whatever way one could hold a spirit. “Jamie, no, your life had meaning, you meant everything to me, you know that,” he repeated softly, a chant or a prayer to stop Jamie from losing himself to his fears once more.
“I shouldn’t have died out there, I should have come back home . . . I don’t . . . I almost made it back, I almost . . . fuck! Fuck!” Jamie’s shaking worsened, his eyes weren’t focused, his hair had somehow become disheveled . . . no. Not this again.
Lucas tried to grab him, but of course, it was impossible.
“Jamie! Goddamn it Jamie, look at me,” he snapped, his own voice cracking. “For Christ’s sake . . . Jamie . . . ”
Their eyes met, and Lucas saw a flash of Jamie, normal Jamie, hiding behind the fear and desperation. Lucas had fallen back into using the same words he’d used during the war to get Jamie out of himself . . . maybe it would work again.
“She said I’d be alive if it weren’t for you . . . she—she said I would have made it back . . . ”
Lucas managed a smile, reaching out a hand to feign clasping his shoulder. “No, Jamie, no,” he said softly, his eyes never moving away from those near-transparent blue irises he loved so much. “I’ve got you, Jamie. I’ve got you.”
Jamie’s brows were furrowed, his eyes darting from side to side as he racked his memories. “I was with you, you were holding me—we were in the trenches; we were safe from . . . from bullets . . . ” Jamie’s eyes widened. “You . . . ” He trembled, his mouth dropped open, and his expression turned manic.
Lucas’s eyes widened, too. He didn’t like the look on Jamie’s face right now.
“You . . . you were there when I died. We were together—we were in the trenches. You kept me calm, you kept me safe, but . . . that last time . . . it . . . ” His throat bobbed; his pupils were blown wide. “It was you. You had me, you held me, you tried to keep me calm . . . and then you shot me, Lucas. On purpose. It was you. It was you!”
Jamie’s eyes flashed scarlet and he pushed away from Lucas, a burst of white-hot energy surrounding his form. There was a hole in his chest, right where Lucas had shot him, and fresh blood leaked down his uniform. A dribble of sanguineous saliva fell from Jamie’s mouth, and he rose up, somehow bigger, brighter, and deadlier than he ever had been. Lucas backed himself against the wall, hyperventilating as he watched the truth hit Jamie all at once.
“You lied to me! You fucking shot me in the goddamn heart, you watched me die! How!? How could you, Lucas?!” Jamie paused, his eyes full of tears. “Say something!”
Oh Jesus, oh fucking Jesus Christ. No, no, no, no, no, no, not now, not now, Jamie please, please, please don’t—stay with me. I need you to stay with me Jamie, please, please, please don’t— if you’re gonna kill me then— I’d rather that than losing you— Jamie, Jamie, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Jamie—I—you don’t understand—it—I just—”
“It was you. You killed me. You killed me and condemned me to this hell,” he whispered, shaking his head. “You fucking murderer.”
“Jamie—no!”
In a flash of white light, Jamie disappeared from the flat without a trace. Lucas shielded his eyes and his face, expecting to be burned or blinded or . . . or to receive some kind of punishment for his part in Jamie’s death.
Jamie should have killed him, but . . . no, that would have been too easy, too merciful. He looked down at himself, disgusted that once more he was fucking unscathed. Jamie had left him once again, in a colder, darker world. Jesus, Jesus Christ, no.
Lucas tried standing up straight, but his legs wouldn’t support him.
“Jamie! Jamie, please!” he cried out to an empty flat, no doubt alarming the neighbors. “I’m sorry, Jamie! I—I’d take it back if I could . . . ” he whispered, sliding his back down the wall and shaking his head.
He wouldn’t leave me— he wouldn’t hurt me—he—he wouldn’t!
And that nasty voice which sneered from the back of his mind bared his teeth. You stupid fucking bastard. He probably thought the same about you.
What had he done? He’d only just gotten Jamie back . . . his life had felt right and . . . they were gonna fix everything, right? They were gonna get him to heaven. How could anyone possibly be foolish enough to destroy a second chance like this?
“Jamie . . . ”
He couldn’t lose him again; not like this.
The world was gray and empty once more, and with a clarity that almost startled him, Lucas knew what had to be done. His resolve hardening, his mouth dry, he picked up the pieces of his heart and took the first step toward absolution.
1914
Lucas got up a lot later than he normally did, feeling disgusting and hung over from the night before. He heard someone messing about in the kitchen and braced himself to face Jamie once more . . . damn it, he wasn’t ready for this. Lucas was still fucking angry with his flatmate, and as soon as he saw that stupid handsome smile, he knew everything was gonna be forgiven as usual. Lucas wasn’t ready not to be angry anymore, and it wasn’t fair that Jamie knew all his damn weak spots.
“Morning, prick,” he started, running a hand through his hair. He froze, however, when he realized that it wasn’t Jamie in the kitchen at all. His face turned bright red as he recognized Jamie’s father fumbling with the kettle. “Ack, Mr. Murray, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it was you.” He wondered if it was possible to die of embarrassment. “Sit, please. Let me make you some tea.”
John chuckled and waved his hand. “It’s fine, Lucas, you don’t need to make a fuss over me. I came over uninvited, after all.” He smiled and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Now where is that ‘prick’ son of mine, anyway?” he teased.
That gave Lucas pause. His heart started beating faster and he stopped filling the kettle. “I’ll check on him.”
He made his way to Jamie’s room and politely knocked on the door. Hearing no response, or even the semblance of a response, he knocked a little harder and tried to swallow his panic. “Jamie, you smarmy git, I’m gonna come in if you don’t stop me!”
He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to see fucking Maggie’s stupid tits out, but . . . he opened the door with a flourish and his stomach dropped as he realized the room was empty, the bed unslept in. It wasn’t like Jamie not to come home, he liked sleeping in his own bed when he could . . . The man was a creature of comfort and habit, after all.
Lucas’s adrenaline spiked; he imagined the worst. That goddamn woman was a serial killer, she preyed on stupid men like Jamie and ate their entrails for fun. He shouldn’t have left him, he should have stayed and made sure he got home okay.
John approached from behind and put a gentle hand on Lucas’s shoulder. His panic must have been apparent. “He’s a grown man, Lucas,” he said kindly. “Come have breakfast with me. He’ll make an appearance whenever he finds his way home.”
Lucas followed Jamie’s father back into the kitchen and tried to start making breakfast. All he could think of was headlines in the paper tomorrow—
Bright and handsome university student found murdered in back alley, apparently abandoned by flatmate. Maybe there’d be a photo spread of Jamie’s dismembered remains, with a normal picture of his face for contrast. Oh God, why hadn’t he just stayed with him? She was some slag in a pub, it wasn’t like she meant anything to Jamie anyway. Jesus. What if he—
He couldn’t keep his hands steady, and he swore as he burned himself on the stove. John smiled sadly at him, sitting him down at the table. “Allow me. I’ll make you my famous Irish breakfast à la John.”
Lucas nodded dumbly, his head in his hands as he imagined the worst. Their last night together . . . if only he’d known, he wouldn’t have wasted it being angry and jealous. Everyone he loved died, everyone he touched ended up bitter or gone.
“Lucas.” John’s steady voice pulled him out of the dark corner of his mind. “Why don’t I tell you about Jamie when he was younger? He’d always get into mischief, and I used to worry myself half to death about him.” He smiled. “The boy’s blessed, I tell you. He can charm himself out of any brand of trouble. He always comes out of things with a smile.”
Lucas looked up, his gaze traveling as it always did to the thin scar over John’s left eye. “What was he like?”
“Oh, where to start?” John put his cup of tea down in front of Lucas and offered him a warm smile. “Once, he wanted to get a birthday present for little Fiona . . . he must have been about twelve, then. He looked and he looked until he found the perfect gift—a feral cat.” John laughed and cracked some eggs into the frying pan. “The damned thing nearly scratched his eyes out, but you know Jamie . . . a little desperate violence was never going to put him off. I thought he’d been through a thorn bush when he came home, took me ages to clean all the cuts out . . . but he never cried, he never gave up. Fiona wanted a cat, and he was determined to get one for her. He fed the little monster every day for two weeks, being bitten and scratched all the while until it finally followed him home. You never met a more ornery beast in your life, Lucas.”
Lucas could imagine young Jamie trying to make friends with an angry cat . . . his little skinny arm dangling a precious bit of cod out toward her, his complete lack of awareness of the danger of a cat bite. Still, maybe John was right. Jamie was charmed, he could win anyone over, miserable beastie or not.
John pressed a sausage into the hot oil, and it sizzled; the whole flat was filling with a beautiful aroma. “That cat . . . she hated everyone except for Fiona in the end. Fi named her Cuddles and spoiled her rotten. She’s still alive, you know? Stopping Fiona from finding a boyfriend to this day. Maybe I should get that dreadful cat a can of fish one day, as thanks. Never have to worry about burglars when she’s on the prowl.”
Lucas idly wondered how different his life would have been if he’d had a man like John as his father. Someone loving, warm, attentive, someone who embraced him for who he was instead of . . .
“And you know what a terrible swot he is, right?” John continued, drawing Lucas back out of the spiraling negativity that so often consumed him when Jamie wasn’t around. “When he was about eleven, he got so engrossed in reading at the library that he didn’t realize they were closing, and he was locked in the whole night. He didn’t have many friends, and this sort of thing happened from time to time. His mother and I turned the village upside down looking for him but . . . the next morning, Anna was crying her eyes out over breakfast, he walked in like nothing happened, with an armful of books and a smile on his face. He’d had the time of his life, actually.”
Lucas chuckled, looking up at John. “He’s an idiot.”
“The point of the story, Lucas, is that he’ll always make you worry, and he’ll always break your heart a little, but . . . he gives you that damned smile of his and makes it all worth it, somehow. Jamie’s no fool. Hapless, yes. Careless to the point of negligence, perhaps, but he’s smart enough to know how to take care of himself. After all, if he wasn’t being so careless and ill-prepared back in the day, he never would have met you now, would he?”
