Arms Length

Chapter 13: Bury your Burden

**Jade**

I remember every detail about my mother's funeral, the flowers on her casket, the color of her casket, her burial outfit, every word the priest said, the way the church smelled, the way my Aunt Sherri held my hand the entire time and told me it was okay to cry.

It's been less than 2 hours since my father's funeral and I don't remember a single detail. The only detail I remember is Daphne handing Chase over to me and me walking out of the filled to capacity church with him to calm him down. Next thing I know we're all back at Daphne and Jason's house, everyone is either talking, laughing or trying to calm someone down because they "can't believe he's gone". I look at my watch and finish the last bit of now ambient temperature wine and walk outside and onto the oversized deck trying to shut out the noise of everyone.

When my mom died, I felt like part of my heart had been ripped out of my chest and I was left with a gaping wound. Now with my dad gone, I'm left feeling with a bag of mixed emotions. Mostly anger, I'm not angry enough to lash out at the first person I see, but angry enough to ugly cry in the shower tonight.

By 8pm the only people left in Jason and Daphne's house is my Aunt Sherri and Uncle Frank who offered to help with clean up so we aren't stuck with a huge mess of dishes, empty wine bottles and glasses all over the kitchen and dinning room in the morning. I can hear my aunt and Daphne talking in the kitchen while I sit on the floor keeping an eye on Chase as he babbles away, I nod my head agreeing with every word he says.

"Hey Jade, would you mind putting Chase down for me?" Daphne walks in drying a glass bowl the size of my head.

"Sure." I stand up and pick Chase up off the floor, resting the baby on my hip, kissing his cheeks over and over. "Let's go to bed, huh?"

"But the wild things cried 'Oh please don't go-we'll eat you up-we love you so!' And Max said 'No!'." I look down at Chase who is almost asleep on my chest I smile, and continue "The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye."

Jay and Uncle Frank are sitting out on the deck, probably talking about college sports, while Aunt Sherri and Daphne are sitting at the dinning room table laughing about something as I gently shut Chase's door and make my way into the dinning room setting the video monitor on the table.

"Thank you Jade, you're really good with him." Daphne says looking at the monitor and I take a sip of the wine she's drinking and sit next to her.

"How is your internship going honey?" Aunt Sherri asks getting up to grab an extra wine glass for me. I guess I'm getting wine drunk with my aunt and sister tonight.

"Uh... I'm supposed to be in London right now." I pour myself some of the wine and take a sip. Do I want to go into detail about it? Absolutely not. Will I? Probably... After 2 more glasses.

"You didn't tell me that." Daphne says with furrowed eyebrows.

"It's not a big deal, Daph. I'm where I need to be." But it's not where you want to be.

It's been over a week since Billie stormed out of my apartment, and it seems like years since that happened. But, I'm not sure I'm ready to talk to her yet. I sigh and finally listen to voicemails left by Danny, who isn't happy with me and expects me to call him back immediately. That was 4 days ago. I hold my breath and dial his number.

"Well, Miss Holland... what is your excuse for not joining us in London?" the amount of disdain dripping from his voice is enough to both make me cry and set me off.

"My father had emergency surgery Danny...." I can hear the eyeroll through the phone.

"Well Miss Holland might I remind you of your obligation to...."

"And he died 12 hours later." I can hear now hear him choke on his words.

"Oh.... I'm-I'm so sorry for your loss Miss Holland."

"Thanks. I'll be in touch." I simply end the call before he can say anything else to me, the last thing I need is him reminding me that I still have an obligation to this internship. I'm fully aware of my obligation, it's just the last thing I want to be reminded of.

I take another deep breath, swallow both my pride and fear and call Billie and pray it goes to voicemail. I sigh a deep breath of relief when it goes straight to voicemail. "Hi, I'm still alive... I don't know if you're still mad at me or if you even want to talk to me... and I know I have a lot of explaining to do. Call me when you can?" God, I hope that doesn't sound desperate or needy in some way.

**Billie**

"Just shut up." I say as I push her down into a laying position onto the couch and settle between her legs, and I press my lips to hers again roughly and gently rock my hips against hers causing her let out the prettiest moan I've ever heard. I slide my free hand up her shirt and palm her breast while tugging gently at her jeweled nipple. I feel her hands grip my hips under my shirt and dig her nails into my skin. I kiss down her chin, along her jawline, to her collarbone and to the exposed part of her chest. Her hands slide higher up shirt urging me to remove my shirt, I pull my shirt off and drop on the floor as she places a gentle open mouth kiss on my shoulder and rocks her hips in harsh circles against my own hips. I suck a cute heart shaped mark just above the crest of her right breast. Her warm nimble fingers unhook my bra and let the straps fall off my shoulders as she licks a delicate stripe from the of my neck to ear lobe before sucking gently, then whispering. "Are we going to fuck or not?"

I feel the back of her hand slide down my stomach slowly and into my shorts slowly while she looks me dead in the eye before I kiss her roughly again.

I sit up quickly and my head jerks to the right a couple times "Fuck." I look at the empty space in the hotel and half expect to see Jade's sleeping figure next to me. This is the second night in a row I've dreamt about the first time we had sex, the first night I woke up mid-orgasm. I grab my phone 3:56AM, I hate FaceTiming people, but maybe if I FaceTime her, it'll help me. I readjust my sitting position and t-shirt, I'm not wearing a bra but she's seen me naked, I'm not worried. I smooth my hair a bit and press the FaceTime icon on her contact info. Why am I nervous?

After 2 rings all I see is ceiling and hear a "Hang on!" butterflies immediately erupt in both my stomach and vagina. I shift again. Then Jade appears on the screen in nothing but a towel, her skin still slick and pink from a scalding hot shower. Jesus Christ she looks like sex.

"H-hey..." I just stare at the sight on the screen in front of me.

"Hey back." She sets the phone down giving me a perfect view of her towel covered boobs. Focus Billie, this isn't that kind of phone call.

"I was just calling to check you ou....to check on you. Danny told me about your dad. Are you okay?" Wow that was not a good save AT ALL.

She sighs, "I mean I guess?" she says pulling a t-shirt on over her towel, damn that's smooth.

"You guess?"

"Yeah... I mean it's hard to explain." She sighs pulling a pair of shorts on under the towel and then pulls the towel out from under the shirt as she picks up the phone making her way over to the bed. "I'm mostly just angry..."

"Talk to me"

"I'm angry at myself, Bil. My did died and I'm not sad. I'm angry at him. When my mom died he gave up. I'll never hear him say 'I'm sorry' or 'I'm sorry for never telling you I was proud of you.' How do forgive someone you loved, but they never loved you? I'm still confused about what went down between me and you and what we have or had...." She covers her eyes with her hand and I can see tears fall under her hand.

"Baby..." I just let her cry and be angry. She has a right to be angry at me.

After what seems hours she finally wipes her eyes, "I'm sorry..." she sighs

"I'm sorry too, I assumed the worst when I really had nothing to worry about.... Please forgive me?"

All she can do is nod her head and sigh. "I forgive you."