Chapter 42
CHAPTER 42
Jackson got off the bed and pulled on a pair of sweats. Feeling suddenly vulnerable in my nakedness, I clambered to put on my robe. We both stood there, in the middle of our bedroom.
I licked my lips, while my heart pounded a million miles a minute. “I can explain.”
He looked so pissed, so hurt, I wanted to burst into tears.
“No.”
“Jackson, please,” I begged. “I was unpacking. And it was there. I didn’t even know what it was until I started reading it and then…without even realizing it, I was halfway through it.”
He was breathing hard. “So what, you read half of that journal?”
I shook my head sadly. “I went and found it afterward and I finished reading the entire thing.”
His eyes were wide. He strode away from me and then spun around. “So, knowing that it was private by the very fact that I had hidden it in the attic, you knew that I didn’t want you to read that.”
“I know.”
“It’s not like I left it on the coffee table, Emily. I fucking hid that behind a rafter in our attic. I put it in the one place that you would never find it. How long did it take you to find it?”
“A while.”
“So, you understood that I definitely did not want your eyes to see that book, but you knowingly went looking for it and read it anyways.”
I openly cried. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” he looked at me with incredulity. “You broke my trust.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Intentions mean shit, Em. Actions tell me everything about you.”
He looked so pissed that it scared me. Not that he would hurt me, but that he would leave me.
“I wanted to understand you better,” I blubbered. “You were so closed off, and I didn’t understand you. I thought if I knew where you came from, I could figure you out.”
I looked up at this beautiful man who in his way was so strong despite having been broken so badly when he was little. Physically and emotionally. Somehow he had managed to put himself back together to become one of the most amazing human beings I had ever met in my life.
His voice was emotionless, borderline cold. “I never wanted you to know where I came from.”
I openly wept. “Why didn’t you want to share that with me?”
He looked incredulous. “Why didn’t I want to tell you about the worst years of my life?”
I took a deep breath. He was scaring me. He felt so distant, and his walls were so high right now. “Yeah.”
“You want to hear about how I was hated? How Irene told me every single day that I was bad, that I was garbage, that I wasn’t worthy? I hated it in that house. I hated every single fucking moment.”
I wept.
He wasn’t finished. “Or maybe you want to hear about Ted? About how he was the only one who remotely cared about me and I would've done anything for him. I took care of him as much as he took care of me. It didn’t matter how filthy that place was, how drunk he got, how fucked up he was, and he's the only one who loved me.”
My hands covered my mouth. I shook my head. Tears streamed down my face.
Jackson’s eyes were red. “Maybe you're interested in knowing that despite Ted’s love when he got drunk, he wanted to cause pain. God. Nothing hurt more than that first hit. Most of the time, I never saw it coming. He was a 200-pound man, and I was a 45-pound little kid, and he was a vicious son of a bitch. But if you are so interested, you should know that when he sobered up, he used to hold me and cry like a baby. Begging me to forgive him. And I was so pathetic, that I craved those moments. I lived for those moments. Sometimes I think I even provoked him because I knew it would lead to that place where he cried and told me he loved me.”
“Jackson,” I sobbed.
“You want to hear about how Ted walked me to school, sat with me when we watched cartoons, wanted to know about my day and then would wake me up in the middle of the night because he needed a punching bag? Or did you want to hear that I was so broken and fucked up as a kid that I preferred to live with Ted for the small scraps of love he could feed me over the hatred I received from Harry and Irene.”
I shook my head. Tears streaming.
Jackson breathed hard, and one lone tear traced down his face. “They were worse than Ted. Do you want to know why? Because they enjoyed hurting me. They relished it. They wanted to cause me pain, and unlike Ted, they never said they were sorry.”
I was pretty sure my heart was breaking.
“That journal doesn’t cover half of what Irene did to me. How she locked me up in the closet for hours at a time. Or how every single time I walked by her, she either pinched or slapped me. But her words, they were the real mind fuck. Telling me what a piece of garbage I was. Telling me that I was a bastard and unworthy. Telling me that no one would love me. That I didn’t deserve happiness. That I wasn’t a nice boy. That no matter what I did or who I became, no one would ever be able to love me. She was relentless, and I believed every single fucking word she told me.”
“Jackson. No. That’s not the truth.”
“If it’s not the truth, then why do I still believe it?” he yelled. He turned away. His hands pushed in his hair.
I could not stop crying. “I love you.”
“Just stop. I do not want to hear it. Just stop.”
He looked back at me. His face was so broken. “Anything else you want to know?”
Tears streaked down my face. “Why didn’t you tell Ted what Irene was doing to you?”
“Because Harry and Irene were his dream for me.”
“What?”
He gave a big, sad shrug. “Ted told me that Harry was my father when I was seven.”
“What?” Shock. “How?”
“Ted was friends with my mom. She had told him enough to put two and two together that when an older cop started paying a lot of attention to us, he figured it out. I didn’t want to stay with Harry and Irene. I fought going there. But Ted had some fucked up dream for me, that if I just got in with some all American family, I would break out of the bonds of poverty and alcoholism. So he told me that Harry was my Dad when I was seven.”
“You knew? All that time?”
“Ted had a big plan devised. He told me that if I was really good, if I was the best kid possible, that if I impressed them, then Harry would have no choice but to acknowledge me as his and I could become part of a real family.”
I felt my heart crack. I brought my hand up to my mouth. “So you excelled at everything.”
“It didn’t do much good. Ted and I did everything we could think of. Best grades. Best at sports. Do all my chores. Never talk back. Never get in trouble. Be quiet. Don’t act out. Ted wanted me to be part of that family more than I did. I hated them. I hated going there, but I did it for Ted.”
I couldn’t speak for a moment as I tried to fight my tears. “And Harry never admitted to you that he was your father.”
“That completely broke Ted’s heart.” He looked disgusted. “But after Harry murdered Ted, he acknowledged me as his son in his suicide note.” Jackson’s voice was matter-of-fact. Flat.
I wept. “You didn’t deserve that.”
He stood there breathing hard. “You know what I deserve? I deserved a wife that I could trust. I thought you were different. I thought I could trust you.”
“You can!”
He shook his head. “You’re just like everyone else.”
“No, Jackson.”
“You can’t tell me that knowing this about me doesn’t disgust you.”
“It makes me love you more.”
He stared at the wall for a long moment and then he spoke. Monotone. “I leave on a mission tomorrow. I'll be gone for two weeks. When I get back, I think you should be gone.”
“What?” I was so shocked. I couldn’t even breathe.
He pulled on a shirt, not giving me a second glance. “It’s over, Emily. I thought you were different, but you’re just like all the rest of them.”
“No,” I ran to him and dropped to my knees in front of him. “Please. Please don’t do this. Please. Give us another chance.”
His eyes were a tumultuous green. Pain and anger reflected back at me. “It’s over. Don’t be here when I get back.”
I sat on the floor and wept while he retrieved a bag of clothes and his work stuff. He looked over his shoulder at me one last time and then he walked out.