Page 105 of Jackass

“We’re working on the premise that it’s Charlie she’s obsessed with. Otherwise, when you got close to the girls, she would have wanted to move on. Plus, it wasn’t until I found out Charlie was mine that the notes started up again.”

“The notes? The notes were from Derek,” I reminded him.

“Baby, did you ever see any of the notes?”

I stared at him, confused.

Of course I had, I…wait, hadn’t I?

I thought about all the places we had been the last four years since leaving Arkansas. Carrie told me about the notes, but she never actually showed them to me.

“No,” I whispered.

“In the recording from the coffee shop, Carrie told you that Derek had been in Nebraska for weeks. That was a lie. Nav has been keeping track of him and he hasn’t missed a day of work. He isn’t here.”

I understood the words he was saying, but they didn’t make sense.

“Carrie has been manipulating you,” he continued. “Any time she felt like Charlie would be taken from her, she told you a note came and you moved.”

“I never questioned her. I thought she was my friend. That she cared about me.” My words were for me. I spoke them out loud, but I wasn’t talking to Jack. Sometimes you had to hear the words out loud for them to register in your brain. “I was so stupid. I just blindly trusted her. Oh God, she could have hurt Charlie; she could have hurt me to get Charlie.”

“Sammy.”

Jack’s voice was as thin as a whisper. My focus wasn’t on him. I was stuck in my head with my guilt. I felt like guilt was the only emotion I had been feeling for the past five years. I knew what I did with Jack was wrong. I did it anyway.

“He was right. I was selfish. I only thought about myself and my feelings. Not how my actions would affect others,” I muttered.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Who said you were selfish?”

The sudden anger in Jack’s voice pulled me from my self-deprecation. I turned back toward Jack.

“What?” I asked.

“Who said you were selfish?”

“Jack, no, you can’t be mad at him. He was right.”

“He doesn’t get to talk to an old lady like that.” He growled.

“Jack.” I placed my hand on his cheek. “I’m not an old lady.”

“I don’t fucking care. He doesn’t get to talk to you like that.”

“Let it be. Promise me you won’t make an issue out of it.”

“Sammy—”

“Promise me, Jack.”

He took a deep breath and looked at the sky. I could see the battle he was fighting. He wanted to give me what I asked for, but he also wanted to punish his brother. He couldn’t have both.

“Jack.”

With his eyes focused on mine, he sat there, just looking at me. Saying nothing. After a minute, he finally spoke.

“You know I don’t want to tell you no, but I can’t promise that, Sammy. There are rules.”

“I didn’t mean to tell you,” I mumbled.