Page 154 of Into the Dark
“You’re sorry.”
“Yes, I am.” I lift my head to look at him again, my heart aching at the sight. “But I did it for you. I was doing it for you.”
He laughs coldly. “Yeah, well, that’s bullshit for a start.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not. It’s the truth. I did it for you.”
“Okay, okay, baby. Explain that to me then. Explain how despite what I said that day, despite what I said after, despite knowing I wanted fuck all to do with that woman, you going to see her was for me.” He cocks his head to the side, a puzzled look on his face. “Explain to me how you got there—I want to hear your thought process.”
He’s leading me, his net, poised just above my head, waiting for me to step right under it.
I swallow hard. “Because you were so angry and you wouldn’t even talk to me about it. So if I spoke to her, found out why she was here, what she wanted…that…it would help you.”
I’ve said the wrong thing. Of course I have. The net drops.
“Because you know better than I do? Because you’re smarter than I am and more caring than I am, and because you’re a better person than me. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the real reason you went to see her. ’Cause I couldn’t have possibly been right about this.”
I shake my head again. “No, that’s not it.” I shift forward on the couch, desperate to be close to him again. “Not that, not at all. You were just so angry, Jake…and I was scared you weren’t thinking straight and you’d come to regret it after, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t want you to regret not trying to fix things with her. So I wanted to try for you—to help you. I knew how difficult it must have been seeing her like that, so unex—”
“Difficult?” he roars, incredulous. “Baby, no, you know what’s difficult? Finding out that the woman I love went behind my fucking back. Finding out that the woman I love is a liar. Finding out that despite what she says and what she promises, she doesn’t trust me at all. Because when it comes down to it, she does whatever the fuck she thinks is best for us, regardless of what I want. That’s the only thing that’s fucking difficult, Alex.”
The tears flow hot down my cheeks, but Jake turns his head away from them and squeezes his eyes shut with his fingers instead. Like he can’t even look at me.
“That’s not fair. My reasons for doing that were for you, to protect you, to help you.” My voice is a half-whispered sob.
When he turns back to me, his voice and face are softer, and it floods my body with hope. “All the same reasons I told myself too, Alex. It still almost destroyed us. I still lost you.”
The hope slips away. I won’t lose him over this. I won’t let this destroy us again. I stand to go to him, but he shakes his head, and I freeze.
“Please, Jake…I’m so sorry.”
He looks at me with a mix of hurt and betrayal and sadness. “You knew this was only going to go one way. You knew that. Deep down you must have known that. But you did it anyway. For what?”
“Because you shut me out!” I shout with an energy I didn’t have a second ago. I’m not even sure where it comes from, the accusation. It’s as if it’s been hidden deep down in my subconscious somewhere. “You just shut the whole topic down and refused to talk to me about it. What was I supposed to do?”
“I told you to leave it the fuck alone,” he growls.
“Is that what all the women before me would have done, Jake? Exactly as you told them to do? Well, I’m not them!” It’s such a stupid, mindless thing to throw at him, and he knows it because he gives me a look that says he isn’t even going to dignify it with an answer.
“What was it you thought was going to happen here, Alex?” he asks after a few long, torturous seconds. “What was the reaction you wanted, exactly? How did it all play out in your head? I’m curious.”
“I didn’t… I’m not…” I don’t think I even thought beyond my telling him what I’d done. “I don’t know.”
“Did you think me and her would have a good old cry and a cuddle and that would be it sorted? Then I’d thank you for making all that childhood misery disappear and we’d all live happily ever after. Sunday dinners round your mum’s one weekend, and mine the next? Is that what you saw happening here? Seriously?”
I watch as he paces over to the living room window and then back to the fireplace, leaning into it with his head down. I glance at the TV. The football show is over, and it’s now some late-night comedy chat show full of hilarity and crude jokes. It makes my next words seem even more obscene.
“She’s dying,” I say quietly, though the words still sound deafening. I see him stiffen. “She has cancer. It’s progressive. The prognosis…isn’t great, and she wants to sort things with you before she…can’t anymore.”
He says nothing for a long time, breathing slow and even and his body stiff. It seems I may as well get it all out now.
“She’s spoken with your brother. He wants to see you. She said he tried looking for you a little but couldn’t find you, that his letters were returned.”
He turns then, and there’s some small light in his eyes that makes me keep going.
“He lives in Florida with his wife. And two little boys.”
He’s so quiet and still for so long that I almost forget what he looks like when he’s moving and talking. He looks so beautiful and so desperately lost it’s painful to look at. When he moves toward the armchair and sits down again, his shoulders drop and his face softens, and very slowly he brings his hands up to cover his mouth with them, letting out a long, deep breath as he sits back in the chair.