I smile. “You’re strong. I like that about you. That’s another thing that saved your life.”
“Maybe I’m alive because you couldn’t bring yourself to kill me.”
“I already told you: I do my own killing.”
“How comforting.”
I crack my knuckles and my neck. “Is comfort what you’re looking for?”
She hesitates. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
This woman… She impresses me with her bold strength one moment and then disarms me with her naked honesty the next. I used to think it wasn’t possible for a woman to be both confident and vulnerable at the same time. That was before I met Jessa.
“You’re not the comforting type, though, are you?” she asks.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never tried.”
She gawks at me as though I’ve just been beamed down from another planet. I suppose in some respects, that’s how vast the differences between us are.
“What was your childhood like?” she asks suddenly.
I raise my eyebrows, but she doesn’t back down. “You know a lot about me,” she points out. “It’s only fair that I know something about you in return.”
“For what purpose?”
“For the purpose of reciprocity.”
I smirk. “My childhood was… different.”
“That much I figured. I was looking for something more specific.”
“In order to understand me?”
She frowns. “Maybe.”
“It will be harder to hate me if you understand me,” I warn. “You taught me that lesson, remember?”
Jessa shrugs, but it looks too practiced to be authentic. “I’ve considered that, but I’m curious, anyway. And I already don’t hate you. Not like I should.”
“No? Even though I stole from you a job that you loved?”
“Don’t you dare apologize to me or I’ll dislike you even less.”
I shake my head. “I gave you enough warning and enough chances. Those are luxuries I don’t afford anyone else. You should have been smarter.”
She sighs. “That’s better. Now, I’m back to disliking you the right amount. Asshole.”
I smile, holding her gaze. “And all was right with the world.”
She laughs, then the silence swallows it back up. “Hate is a useless emotion, you know,” she says after a while. “It serves no purpose other than to turn you bitter and angry all the time. It hurts you way more than the person you hate. Pure poison.”
“That’s a convincing theory.”
“Who have you hated in your life?” she asks softly.
I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she can smell it on me. “My father, at times when I was a child. And also the woman I ended up marrying.”
I expect her to ask about Marina, but she chooses to focus on my father first. “Why did you hate your dad?”