“Because I’m still upset,” I say and frustration comes out in my tone. “What would you have me do, Jase?” The exasperated question escapes easily from my lips. “I don’t know if you’ve lied about something else… or if you will.”
“There are no other lies.” Anger colors his statement and reflects in his gaze.
“I don’t believe you.” There’s no emotion in my words, only facts. “There are only so many times you can lie to a person. Only so many. But what am I really going to do? That’s why I’m hurt. I don’t want to leave you.” Fuck, saying the words makes me feel weak, down to my core. I don’t want to leave him. Not just for my sister’s sake, either. “I feel pathetic.” I practically spit the word out.
“Do you forgive me?”
“You said you were sorry.” That’s all I can say.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him.
“It does.”
“I forgave you without you even apologizing. It’s about trusting you and trusting myself after falling for you. The trust isn’t there anymore,” I admit.
“I can give you reasons to trust me–”
“Time will,” I cut him off. “Even when I hate you, you’re still what I need. You don’t understand how much I feel that I need you.”
“I do. I know what that’s like,” he confides in me and I feel like it’s the truth. Why else would he want me here? Why else would a man like him deal with me, in this state, right now?
When I don’t respond, he asks me, “How can I make it right?”
“You can start with finding Jenny and bringing her home.”
“I can’t guarantee–” he starts to say, but I don’t want to hear it.
“I finally let go… I let go and she was still out there.” My voice cracks. If I had kept looking, if I’d kept asking around and demanding answers… Maybe she would be home now.
“I can’t make that promise to you, Bethany.”
Letting go of the regret, I focus on what we can do now when I tell him, “I know you can’t promise, but I wish you could.”
Instead of lying down like I think he’s going to do, he sits up and walks his way around the bed to stand in front of me. “I have to go,” he tells me and I nod into the pillow, keeping my hands down on the bed, although I question if I should reach up and wrap them around his neck to pull him down for a kiss. Is it so bad that I want to be kissed when I’m hurting? Even if it’s by the one who caused the pain?
“Where are you going?” I ask him, not hiding the surprise or the slight worry in my cadence as I glance at the clock. “It’s late.” I say the excuse as I sit up and wrap my arms around myself.
I expect him to hesitate, to lie or to give some vague response. “I’m going to kill the man who murdered my brother,” he answers and my heart lurches inside of me. All the pain I’ve been going through and turmoil, he may have had a hand in it, but I forgot he suffers through it too.
“Jase, are you okay?” I don’t think I’ve ever pushed myself up quicker in bed as I get onto my knees and move toward him.
“I’m fine, anxious though,” he answers me as I sit in front of him, neither of us touching each other in the dark night. It’s all shadows and cool gusts of air between us and I wish it would go away; I wish I could change everything.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and do exactly what I wanted to do a moment ago for myself, but right now it’s for him. Sitting up taller, I press my lips to his for a tender kiss, my fingers brushing against his stubble and then laying across the back of his neck. Jase tilts his head down and cupping the back of my head, keeps me there for a second longer. Just one more beat.
“Are you going to be all right?” I ask him in a whisper, my lips close to his, not wanting to let go.
“I’ll be fine,” he answers me and I don’t think he’s lying. I think that he thinks he really will be fine, in a situation where nothing at all is fine.
“Do you care that I’m going to kill him?” He doesn’t let me go as he asks the question.
“Only in the sense that I care about what it does to you.” The answer is immediate and true to the core. Maybe it’s wrong, but there’s so much that’s not right that I simply don’t care about being wrong anymore.
“I want you with me. You can know, or you can guess, you can ignore it all. I don’t care so long as you’re with me.”