What The Heart Wants

Chapter 8

Paula refused to let Jackson get her spirits down like he did before. She refused for their separation to weigh her down and turn her into some weak inconsolable peon. She refused! She refused Jackson’s calls every day he tried. She blocked his emails and text messages so she wouldn’t have to see anything he wrote. She went on about her life unbothered by her loss of him for the second time. Their relationship was exhausting. It had too many ups and downs within such a short time span. It had taken its toll on the both of them.

Jackson made several attempts to connect with Paula only to face rejection. He couldn’t believe that with everything she’d gotten him through, she was ready to give up just like that. He decided to try one last time to get her to forgive him. He showed up to her office with flowers and candy like before only to be met by Rebecca standing firmly in his way.

“Please, Rebecca,” he pleaded with the one friend he knew could talk some sense into Paula.

“Don’t please me!” She rolled her eyes at Jackson. “I told her from the beginning this was a bad idea, and all you did was prove me right! I don’t like being the one to say I told you so in matters of the heart but I just knew you weren’t good enough for her! Now you need to leave. She doesn’t want to see you, Mr. Davis.”

“Rebecca, please,” Jackson begged the woman once more. “I just want to tell her I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to her and I shouldn’t have gone out with Nick in the first place. It took me a long time to recognize that he wasn’t my friend and I should have known better. I should have done better. I should have kept my word to her. I should have honored my end of our deal. I should have tried harder too. Please let me just speak to her.”

“Absolutely not!” Rebecca refused once again. She was under strict direction not to let him in and she wasn’t going to disobey that command no matter what. Jackson grew frustrated as he pleaded with her for several minutes to let him in. Once it settled in that she wasn’t moving, he began yelling and caused a scene right in front of her office.

“Paula, PLEASE!” Jackson yelled through the door. “Please! Just come out and listen to me!”

Paula finally emerged from the office, tired of the chaos her stubbornness was causing. She looked Jackson right in the eyes. “You need to leave from this office right now! I’ve called security and they will be up here to remove you if you do not do so on your own. Do not shout out what you should have done because you know what you should have done before you did what you did! You made a choice and now you have to accept the consequences of that choice. You need to leave now, Jackson. There’s nothing else left for me to say to you.”

With his head hung low, Jackson did what Paula asked him to do. He left. There was no destination in mind as he wandered the streets wondering what his next move was going to be. The feeling of smallness and rejection returned to him as he stared up at the high rise he’d stormed out of weeks ago. Maybe this time if he set his mind to finding a job, he would find one that he could stomach. All he had to do was make an attempt. So, that’s what Jackson did. He set out to upholding his end of a deal that no longer mattered to Paula. He was determined to find a regular job regardless of how long it would take him. He was going to find it.

Jackson had hit every high rise and shop he could see in the downtown area. No one would hire him. He started to work his way outward closer to the more suburban neighborhoods hoping to catch some better luck out there. He hadn’t been walking long when he heard a commotion carrying on.

There was a woman standing in front of her car yelling at a man covered in filthy overalls. He assumed he was the mechanic bearing the brunt of this tiny woman’s rage. Jackson watched in awe as the woman belittled and berated the man from head to toe over whatever he did to her car. He approached the two as he tried to get an assessment of what was wrong.

“You broke my fu*king steering column, you jackass!” the woman shouted. “There was no way I brought my car into you with the horn working and now it doesn’t!  You’ve got to be fu*king kidding me if you think I’m going to spend one more lousy dime at your god forsaken garage.”

“Well, Mrs. Tibby, if you’d please calm down and let me explain what went wrong here. Your steering column was already in need of repair, that’s why I replaced the power steering fluid and that gunk must have clogged something up because now the horn doesn’t work. But if you let me take if for another day, I can have it as good as new to you. I promise.” The dirty mechanic held up two fingers across his chest.

Jackson wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or yell at the guy for not knowing what the hell he was doing to that poor lady’s car. He stepped in between them. “Good afternoon guys, my name is Jackson Davis and I happen to be an out-of-work auto mechanic. I couldn’t help but overhear a piece of your disagreement and was wondering if I could be of some assistance.”

“Oh well, I don’t know about that, sir,” the mechanic shook his head. “I’m not sure Mrs. Tibby wants anyone else less experienced than myself looking at her car.”

Mrs. Tibby defiantly disagreed with him. “You know what? Anyone is better than you at this point, Michael! You ain’t good for sh*t! And if this guy says he can fix it then let him fu*king fix it!”

The woman was at her wits end and it reminded Jackson of Paula. He would get himself together for her. So, he went to work in the stranger’s car undoing all of the nonsense the mechanic had done. By the time Jackson was finished, her car started like brand new and the horn worked just fine.

“You ought to be thanking your lucky stars this guy came to rescue you out of this sh*t, Michael. No, scratch that! Don’t thank him! He said he was an out-of-work mechanic, give him a freaking job,” she yelled as she pulled out of the driveway and into the street.

“Are you guys hiring?” Jackson asked curiously. And just like that, he’d gotten himself a job working at an auto body shop. He could work on cars all day and not do a single day behind bars because of it. Paula was right when she told him to go straight. This is what he’d been searching for. It was his passion without the risk. He knew he had to make it up to her somehow, but she wasn’t letting him past the front desk now. An idea struck him as he finished up at the shop that night. He knew exactly what needed to be done.

A few weeks had passed by without Jackson even thinking to call Paula. Time and space was all he wanted to give her until he was ready to show her everything he’d been working on. When the time came, he waited for her outside of Clementine & Percy Legal Associates.

Paula wasn’t upset when she saw Jackson standing there waiting for her. She was exhausted and didn’t want to fight, but she wasn’t upset either. He sensed her willingness to let him approach her and speak to her whereas last time he was met with her office mate and then security.

“I would like to treat you to dinner tonight if you’d let me,” Jackson offered with his hand extended out to hers. Paula wasn’t sure of what to expect, but she was hungry so she went with him. She wasn’t hurt or mad anymore. Only disappointment lingered in her thoughts of him. She had such high hopes of the kind of man he could be when he wasn’t running from the law, and oh how Jackson disappointed her so. But on this night, where he showed up to her job, dressed like he’d just landed a job at a Fortune 500 company, she didn’t let their past judge his actions. She allowed him the opportunity to redeem himself.