Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
I changed into an oversized t-shirt and boy shorts once I was alone, climbing into the bed that still smelled like Tyler with my laptop and a giant knot in my stomach. Again, I knew I was doing the right thing — but just because it was right didn’t make it any easier.
I was going to break Jacob’s heart, which was worse than breaking my own.
There was nothing left to wait for, nothing I could prepare to say or do to make the fall any easier for either one of us. I just had to accept responsibility for my actions, and the consequences that came with them.
Jacob’s face filled the screen of my laptop, and when he saw me, he flashed me the biggest smile. That smile hit me like a drop from a twenty-story building, my stomach hurdling with the fall, but I managed a tilt of my own lips in return.
“Hey there, gorgeous,” he greeted, settling back in his chair and adjusting his screen. He was outside on his balcony, the last bit of sunlight casting a golden glow on his face. “How’s my girl tonight?”
I closed my eyes at the words, and though I’d sworn there were no tears left in me to cry, I felt them stinging at my nose. I shook my head against them, but already, my lips were warping with the resistance, my heart aching and burning and begging for me to let the emotion out.
“Jasmine?”
I let out a long, slow exhale before I opened my eyes, which were blurred by tears I couldn’t fight back no matter how I tried. And Jacob leaned forward, his brows tugging together hard as he searched my face.
“What happened, baby? What’s wrong?”
Where do I start?
I didn’t know how to tell him everything I needed to, what to say first, how to get him to possibly understand what I had experienced since I’d been back in New England. No one could fully comprehend it, because not even I could — and it was me it was happening to.
There was only one way to do this, I decided, and that was to rip off the Band-Aid.
So, I sucked in one last shaky breath, and then I prepared myself for the burn.
“Jacob… I’m sorry…” I whispered the words, shaking my head as I watched his face morph from concerned to confused to a distant and horrible understanding in one breath.
I knew just from the way he was watching me that I didn’t have to say the words.
He already knew.
Jacob inhaled a long, deep breath, running his fingers through his hair before he sat back in his chair on a huff. His eyes were cast somewhere in the distance, and he was silent for a long while before he looked at the screen again. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
That was all it took for me to break.
I whimpered against the sob threatening to tear free from my chest, covering my mouth with both hands and squeezing my eyes shut, but not before more hot tears slid down my cheeks. I shook my head, over and over, wishing none of it was true, wishing this moment wasn’t real, wishing I could go back in time to two weeks ago and never get on the plane that brought me back to the place I’d been running from.
But I knew that even if I went back, I’d choose this — over and over, time and time again.
As much as it hurt, as much as I wanted to wake from this dream, I’d have done anything to have the night I had with Tyler last night.
Even if it was all we’d ever have.
“Jasmine, open your eyes and talk to me,” Jacob commanded, his voice harsh. “You at least owe me that.”
I sucked in a breath, shoving it out forcefully as I swiped at my cheeks and nodded. “I know,” I said, finding his eyes on the screen. “I know. You deserve an explanation. You deserve so much, Jacob… and I’m just so sorry that I can’t be the one to give it to you.”
“You could be,” he argued.
“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “No, I couldn’t. I’ve been running from this place, from what happened here, for my entire life. I never faced it head on. I never dealt with my feelings… with any of it.”
The words I thought I didn’t have poured out of me, as if I was realizing everything in real time.
“My mother left me in Bridgechester. First, for rehab, and then, for a boyfriend and a cross-country move to a new life. My father was a monster, a rapist, a dark shadow that has followed me my entire life. And I’ve let him, because the alternative was too hard. The alternative was to turn around and face him, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t face him, or her, or everything that I left behind here.”