Whatever it is, the emotion is negative. That much I’m certain of. It makes me doubly regretful for asking.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “It’s none of my business.”
He shrugs. “I know it’s easy to assume things about me, but not every assumption is true.”
I nod and drop the subject. When the silence stretches on, I start to feel like somehow I’m intruding on his space. Like the invitation he extended to me has now been rescinded.
“Should I go?”
“I don’t see why you would.”
I’m surprised by how relieved I feel when he says that. I lean back against my lounge chair and stare up at the stars. The wind off the water is biting, and I want to go retrieve my uniform. But I don’t want to disturb the fragile sense of comfort that sits between us now.
“They’ll be wondering where I am,” I blurt out. “Everyone at the wedding, I mean.”
“Probably,” Anton says with a nod.
“I don’t know how to deal with… everything.”
“Then don’t.”
I turn to him. “What do you mean?”
“Why do you owe them anything?” he asks. “You’re the hurt party in this. You don’t owe anyone any explanations.”
“Maybe not Dane and Salma. But what about everyone else?”
“Fuck everyone else.”
I nod like that’s something I could believe in, but in all honesty, it feels impossible. I try to imagine what my life would look like if I could think that way. If I could worry about myself and no one else. More and more, it seems like the right way to move through the world.
“Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone before?”
He nods solemnly.
“My father cheated on my mother,” I say. “When I was fifteen. She stayed with him.”
He just looks at me, not judging, simply observing.
“I don’t know why I just told you that.”
“Maybe you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t want to be like your mother,” he suggests.
“I don’t,” I agree. “I just… I don’t want to make the same mistakes she did.”
“You didn’t make the mistake, Jessa,” he says confidently. “He did.”
“What about you?” I ask. “Do you make mistakes?”
Anton laughs. “Do I look like I ever do anything I don’t intend to do, Jessa?”
I blush. “No,” I say. “I guess not.”
There’s something about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. He’s confident and brash, though I can see the broodiness Molly mentioned, too. But up close, it’s clear that it goes deeper than that.
Anton isn’t just broody in, like, a James Dean or Adam Driver kind of way. It’s more. There’s a darkness inside him, vast and untouchable.
That terrifies me.