Page 40 of The Compass Series

KENNEDY

I stayed in the library for the next few days, telling Jax that I was too busy working on my novel to meet up with him.

Every time he asked me if I were okay, I lied and said everything was fine.

I still didn’t know how to face him after my interaction with Amanda, even though all I wanted was to be in his arms to receive his comfort again.

That Tuesday, I stayed in the library for so long that I hadn’t even noticed it’d started to rain while I was working. When Hunter came to kick me out of the library for the day, I was overwhelmed by the amount of rain that was falling around me.

My first thought was to call Jax, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Instead, I pulled out my cell phone and used the Cuber app Connor had told me to download weeks ago. I entered ‘diamond’ for the promo code, and I couldn’t help but smile when it worked.

Connor was young, but he was beyond intelligent. His app was brilliant.

I tried my best to not let the noise of the rain bother me as I waited for Connor’s car to pull up in front of the library. When it did, I hurried down the steps and hopped into the passenger seat. My heart was already beating quickly in my chest, but I tried to control the panic.

“Hi there, Kennedy! Welcome to Cuber, the next big thing in transportation. Can I offer you a water? Maybe some mints? I have some magazines if you’d like?—”

“I’m good, Connor. I’d just like to get home as soon as possible.”

“You got it. We at Cuber love to give the passengers exactly what they want, so I will have you home in no time. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”

Not very likely.

The rain hammered overhead as Connor drove us down the road. I hated the rain, hated how its cries beat down on the car with aggression.

My hands were clasped tightly as I closed my eyes and took in deep breaths. We’d be home soon, and I’d be back inside, and everything would be okay. I would be okay.

I’m okay.

Every time the thunder roared, my heartrate skyrocketed. I could hear the song blasting on the speakers from all those years ago. I could hear Mama singing in the seat beside me. I could’ve sworn Daisy and Dad were singing along with Mama in the back seat.

Connor’s phone dinged, and my eyes shot open.

“What was that?” I asked, panicking as my heart lodged firmly in my throat.

Connor smiled toward me and shrugged as he looked down to his console. “Just my phone. I bet my mom is wondering where I am.” He reached for his phone as the rain hammered the car.

“No! Stop!” I shouted. I put my hand over his cell phone, and he paused, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “Look at the road. It’s raining too hard, and you shouldn’t check your phone.”

“Don’t worry, Kennedy—I’m a professional at this,” he said, yanking his phone up as he began flipping through it.

My heart pounded aggressively against my rib cage, trying to claw its way out of my chest, and I shook my head. “Pull over,” I ordered.

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Pull over! Pull over! Pull over!” I shouted, pounding the dashboard with the heels of my hands. I couldn’t breathe. My mouth sat agape as a rush of panic swallowed me whole. “Please, Connor! Please pull over, pull over.”

“Okay, okay!” he said, pulling the car over to the side of the road. He put it into park, and I hopped out of the vehicle as fast as I could.

I headed toward the trees on the side of the road as the rain poured down, and I bent down, wrapped my arms around my legs, and rocked back and forth, paralyzed by fear. It was happening again. It was happening again. I was losing them. I was losing them all over again.

“She started freaking out, man, and I can’t get her back into the car,” Connor said to someone after another car pulled up.

I shivered in the chilly rain as thunder roared overhead.

I couldn’t move. I’d been trying to move for the past fifteen minutes, but I couldn’t.

My body was frozen in place as the rain pummeled my skin.

Each droplet ignited a flashback, and each flashback heightened the panic shredding my soul.

It had been so long since I’d experienced a panic attack to this degree. I was supposed to be getting better. I was supposed to be finding my way to a new beginning. I was writing again. I was happy. At least, I thought I was happy.

Yet, there I was, curled in a ball under an oak tree, unable to move due to the flashbacks of my horrors.

“Okay, I got her,” a deep voice said, calm as day. He walked over toward me and bent down in front of me. “Hey, Sun,” Jax said, giving me his half-grin. “What’s going on?”

“I-I-I…I ca—can’t bre-brea…” I took a deep breath in as I wrapped my arms around my body and rocked back and forth.

“Breathe,” he said, nodding in understanding. “You can breathe. You are breathing. It’s just a bit erratic. We should get you out of the rain.”

“I can’t…the car…I c-can’t get in a car right now.”

He didn’t arch an eyebrow or show any signs of judgment as he watched me in the midst of my panic attack.

He didn’t ask questions or tell me I could climb into the car and be just fine.

He didn’t undermine my feelings or fears, and he didn’t tell me to just push through it the same way my ex used to do.

He was the calmness in the middle of my hurricane.

“Then we won’t put you in a car, but you can’t stay out here in the rain, so come on.” He held his arms out toward me.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to carry you.”

My broken heart started beating again as I stared into the peace filling his gaze. As I was panicked, he stayed still. He was the calm of the sea as my mind swam through its own brutal waves of despair.

I shook my head. “No, Jax. We’re t-too far from my place. You can’t do it. Plus, I’m too heavy, and, and, and?—”

“Kennedy,” he cut in, still holding his hands out toward me. “I’m going to carry you now.”

I didn’t say another word, just nodded as he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me from beneath the tree. He began walking in the direction of our houses, which were blocks away.

“What are you doing?” Connor asked.

“I’m taking her home.”

“That’s over a mile, Jax.”

“It’s not a problem,” he said matter-of-factly even though I knew it was an insane task.

Connor combed his hands through his hair and sighed. “I’ll follow behind you, in case you decide you need a ride.”

He climbed into his car and drove slowly behind Jax. Connor was to Jax what Jax was to me—a true friend. Anyone who would carry you in the rain was someone worth having in your life, and anyone who would trail you to make sure you didn’t need a ride was also worthy of awards.

Havenbarrow had men who were made for romance novels.

I buried my head into Jax’s chest as he carried me, never seeming tired from the heaviness of my body in his arms. Each step he took felt controlled and deliberate. As my head lay against his chest and as I listened to his heart beating, my own heartbeats seemed to calm.

“Thank you, Moon,” I whispered, holding onto his soaked shirt tightly.

“Any time, Sun,” he replied.

As we arrived home, he went ahead and carried me up the steps of my front porch. Connor rushed to me with my purse and keys. He held them out to me, and I thanked him.

Before I knew it, Connor wrapped his arms around me and held on tight. “I’m so sorry, Kennedy. For anything I did, I’m sorry.”

I told him he hadn’t done anything wrong, but when he let me go, I saw the tears in his eyes as guilt swam in his stare. “I swear, Connor. I’m okay.”

He nodded once and straightened his baseball cap. “Get some rest, lady. Jax, keep an eye on her, will you?”

Jax brushed his hand across the back of his neck. “Will do.”

Connor headed back to his car and drove off, leaving a dripping-wet Jax standing on my porch. I felt a little silly now that I’d calmed down from my panic.

My hands brushed my cheeks as I gave him a pathetic smile. “You shouldn’t be standing in those wet clothes. I’m okay now, I swear. I’m going to change and head to bed and?—”

“You can talk about it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You can talk about what you’re feeling with me.”

I shook my head. My lips parted to speak, but I choked on my words, unable to express the emotions weighing heavily on my heart. “I don’t know how to talk about it. I thought I was better. I thought I was getting better.”

“You are getting better.”

“No, I’m not. I have panic attacks when I see kids. I have panic attacks when it rains. I can hardly get into a car without being overwhelmed. I can’t drive. Don’t you see? I’m not normal. Penn always said I was too much, and I am. Amanda was right.”

“Amanda?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. “What the hell does Amanda have to do with anything? What did she say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is she was right. You deserve someone who isn’t as broken as me.”

“You’re talking crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “You just had a panic attack—it’s not the end of the world.”

“Yes, it is. Don’t you see, Jax? I’m broken. I’m damaged goods, and you’ve already fixed yourself. You don’t deserve to have to deal with my broken pieces after you’ve been through so much on your own.”

“Tell me your truths, and I’ll stay,” he swore. “Whatever they are, Kennedy, I’m not afraid. I’m here.”

I lowered my head and wiped the tears that stubbornly kept falling. “Some days, I can hardly look at myself in the mirror without feeling the heaviness of my past mistakes.”

He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and narrowed his eyes as he studied every inch of me. “I know how that feels.”

“But you’re better off in your healing. You did the work to get better. I feel like I take one step forward and five backward.”

“There’s no straight path, Kennedy. Healing isn’t linear.

Healing comes with curves, bumps in the road, and potholes.

I still have days when I think about my mother and want to stay in bed forever.

I still have weeks when my body aches from the memories of the past, but I know those days are part of healing.

Eddie once told me that we can’t heal if we are too afraid to honor our shadows, too.

Even the sun gets covered by clouds some days.

That doesn’t take away from the light it gives off. ”

My lips parted, and I didn’t know what to say. My chest was still so tight, and my hands were shaky.

“Let me hold you,” he said, nodding my way. “Please?”

I nodded.

We headed into the house, and I changed out of my wet clothes. I gave Jax a pair of my oversized sweatpants, and he slipped into them, remaining shirtless.

We crawled into bed, and he wrapped his arms tightly around me as I allowed myself to break.

He didn’t tell me to hurry. He didn’t say there was a time limit on suffering.

He just allowed me to feel everything, all at once, and I realized how necessary that was for me.

I needed to fall apart, and he was there to catch my broken pieces.

“I have this fear,” I confessed, staring up at the ceiling of my bedroom.

I’d spent a good amount of time crying against Jax’s chest and was finally coming back down to Earth with my emotions.

“That I’m too hard for anyone to love. That my brokenness is a turn-off to the world.

That my trauma broke me into too many unlovable pieces. ”

Jax was quiet for a moment. It was as if he was trying to form the words in the perfect way to make me understand his thoughts. When he spoke, I was listening with every ounce of my being.

“I’ve never been in love,” he said. “I’ve never been in love, have never known how it works, but I’m trying to understand it more. I’m trying to learn all I can about it. What I’ve learned so far is when I think about love, I think about you.”

My lips parted as chills raced over my body. “Jax…”

“I love your broken pieces, because it shows that you’ve lived.

It shows that you are brave enough to give yourself to the world, no matter how hard it can be at times.

” He looked into my eyes. “I love you, Kennedy. I love you in a way that’s bigger than love.

I love your sun rays and your moon shadows, and I am going to keep loving you and your broken pieces until you feel my love so strongly you forget your heart has any damaged cracks. Then, I’m going to love you more.”

His words healed parts of me I hadn’t even known were broken. My lips danced across his, and I kissed him ever so lightly. “I love you, too.”

“One day, you’re going to get past this, Kennedy.

One day, you’re going to be able to walk outside and dance in the rain like you did when you were younger, and I’ll be dancing right there with you.

But you don’t have to rush it, okay? You are allowed to go slow.

There’s no timeline to healing. You walk at the pace that works for you, and I’ll carry you when your legs get tired.

You don’t have to walk this path alone.”

That night, the storm outside raged on, but for the first time in a long time, because I was in Jax’s arms, I was able to fall asleep.

When I woke up the next day, the sun was streaming through the windows. I rolled over in bed to see that Jax was gone. Sitting up quickly, I reached for my phone, and it was already past eleven in the morning. I had crashed a lot harder than I had thought.

I slipped on my robe and went searching the house for Jax.

Had he left without saying anything? Before I could wonder any more, I heard a loud buzzing sound coming from outside.

When I reached my front door, my heart almost leaped out of my chest as I saw thousands of bubbles being blown in my direction.

Dozens of bubble machines were sitting in my front yard, and right in the midst of it all, Jax stood with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his sweatpants, wearing a big smile on his face.

“What is this?” I laughed, shaking my head back and forth.

“You can’t be sad when blowing bubbles,” he told me, walking my way. He took my hands into his and squeezed them. “And I wanted you to feel a kiss from your daughter this morning. I wanted you to remember that, no matter what, she’s still here.”

Tears formed in my eyes. “You’re everything I wanted and everything I never knew I could have.”

“I’m yours,” he promised. “I think I always have been.” He took a step back, held his hand out toward me, and bowed slightly. “Now, will you do me the honor of dancing with me in the bubbles?” he asked.

I laughed, took his hand, and we danced.