Page 67 of Jonas

“What does that mean, surrendered him?”

“It means she walked him into a social worker’s office and handed him over, telling CPS she no longer wanted him.”

She didn’t want him?

Like Cash was a piece of furniture you donated to Goodwill?

What the hell!

“I know you wouldn’t joke about something like that, but are you fucking kidding me?”

“Wish for Cash’s sake I was. He was raised in the system until that became too much, then he ran away and lived on the streets. He calls himself a stray among other things.”

So that’s why he retreated.

It was one thing for Cash to call himself a stray, using humor to cover devastating pain but to hear a beautiful woman he was flirting with call him that would be like a hit to the gut.

“I can walk back to the cabin by myself if you need to go talk to him,” I offered.

“We’re not going to the cabin,” he told me, and hooked a sharp right, pulling me onto another dirt path, this one less obviously less traveled with the amount of growth protruding onto the trail.

“The power of nature,” I marveled. “I’ve always found it so interesting how quickly Mother Nature would reclaim the earth if we didn’t continuously fight to keep what we’ve claimed.”

Jonas glanced around at the overgrowth.

“You’re not wrong.”

The path had veered right and narrowed, not leaving much space between us, making it hard for me to ignore. But when the trees thinned in the distance, my focus went to the silver of clearing I could see.

“Is that a lake?” I asked, unable to hide my wonder.

I missed the water, missed sitting by the creek, missed everything about being alone in my thoughts.

“More like a pond.”

I quickened my steps to get to the natural pool of water. At this point, it could be nothing more than a puddle surrounded by briars and thistles and I’d be happy. Anything to quiet the noise for a few minutes. Something beautiful to focus on, something other than the uncertainty of the world.

I stopped at the edge and looked at the murky water. It was nothing like the crystal-clear creek of my youth but it was still tranquil. The yellow and white flowers dotting the far end of the bank added to its splendor.

“Did you know wild mustard and white Queen Anne’s Lace are considered weeds?” I blurted out.

“Is that what those flowers are called?” Jonas asked.

“Yeah. Back home they grew in the hay fields. It used to make me sad when I’d see him send someone out to spray, knowing they’d all be dead within a few days. But he was good at killing beauty.”

Shut up!

Any peacefulness that had seeped in at the sight of the glorified mudhole was quickly replaced with chaos. What the hell was it about Jonas that made it impossible for me to shut out the past? Why did the memories not only rattle around in my brain uncontained but also spill out of my mouth?

No. Those weren’t the questions that truly confused me, the actual questions were: why did I trust him with my past and why was he the only person I’d ever felt safe enough with to let a splinter of the real me come out?

“Where I grew up there was never any beauty to kill.” I tore my gaze away from the flowers and took in Jonas’s expression which matched his sad tone. “Even before my dad died, our yard wasn’t much bigger than a matchbox. The backyard didn’t even have room for a swing set. Then he died and everything seemed to die with him. There was a park a few blocks away from the house Adam and I used to go to. The grass was so green, the bushes neatly trimmed, the playground well taken care of. I hated that park. I hated how peaceful and pretty it was. How happy all the kids looked. How the moms pushed their kids on the swings. It was an ugly reminder of everything I didn’t have. But still, it was better than being home.”

I knew how that felt—the ‘better than being at home’ part. But unlike Jonas, I found solace among the trees and grass and wildflowers.

“Was there anywhere that brought you peace?”

“No.”