Jem’s despair washes over me, sweeping away the wall, and dragging my heart back to him on the tide. I’m on the verge of breaking down with Jem because this is something that would kill me too. Jem faces a resurrection of the past, heart ripped open for one last time by the person who failed him. My mum left once and forever. Jem’s walked away multiple times, mending the wound then tearing it further open each time she left again. I had Quinn. Jem was alone.
Jem’s alone now, struggling to swim against the tide of the memories he’d fought to keep away. In front of me, the devastation drowns him, and he’s fighting his pull to relapsing. He reached out – for me.
I have no words. I grab Jem’s stiff figure and bury my face into his chest, holding as tightly as I can. I want to give Jem some of my strength; help him cope.
Jem remains stiff. “Yeah. So that.”
“I didn’t know she’d been in touch with you.”
“No. Only Dylan knows.” He disentangles himself and rests against the wall, arms tightly crossed as if he never wants to let anybody in again.
A bolt of realisation hits. “Is she Marie? Was that who I was accusing you of cheating on me with?”
“Yeah.”
My stomach turns over. “Jem. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Couldn’t.”
“Why? I would’ve helped—been there for you. I care about you more than you realise. I can’t stand to think you were going through that alone.”
He peers up at me from beneath his fringe. “Everything hurt. I didn’t want to go back there.”
“Back where?”
“To the guy who let someone in, and then got screwed over again,” he says, barely audible.
Every word he says adds more sense to the last few weeks but this isn’t the time to dig in there. “If you’ve finished destroying your house, will you sit and talk to me?” I ask gently.
For a moment, I think he’s closed down and he’ll tell me to leave again. “Jem, you asked me to come. There must be a reason.”
He nods and heads to the sofa, picking up the leather cushion and pushing it back onto the seat so he can sit. I turn the coffee table the right way up and perch on the edge.
In stilted terms, Jem gives me a bare minimum explanation about his mum’s illness and his decision to see her. Jem’s breath grows shorter as he continues and I place a hand on his. “Don’t say more if you don’t want to talk. I understand now.”
“Do you? I don’t.”
“I understand that you’re stronger than you think. The broken bottle in the kitchen tells me that,” I say and squeeze his fingers.
His eyes darken. “Yeah. That was you.”
“No. The bottle was broken when I got here, Jem.”
In a shift in mood that takes me by surprise, Jem grabs the side of my face, digging his fingers into my hair. “You stopped me. I had a choice—lose myself in that shit or lose myself to you. That’s why I called. I remember now.”
His grip hurts and I tug at his fingers. “That was a big ask after how you treated me.”
“But you came. I hurt you and you came. Why?”
I moisten my lips. Why? “I honestly don’t know. Because I pictured this—you needing help and reaching out.”
Jem stares ahead. “I fuck everything up.”
“No, you don’t, only the things you choose to.”
“I fucked us up. I didn’t want the pain.” He grips my hand. “That didn’t work because the pain came anyway. Now when I need the good to deal with the bad, it’s not here. You’re not here.”
I shouldn’t be here. This goes against everything I promised myself, but the distress on this man’s face, the destroyed look I see in his eyes, is why I came. “I am here, Jem.”