35. Jason
35
M y heart tumbles when her guilty eyes disappear behind her lids. It’s just for a second, but too long for a blink, and when the whiskey brown in her gaze collides with mine, it’s like a dagger to the heart.
Big eyes stare back at me. “What? What are you talking about?”
Is she gonna lie about it?
Really?
I thought we had passed this stage. We are in a better place. We both didn’t wanna fuck it up again, so why is history repeating itself?
I rub the bridge of my nose with sheer disappointment.
“It’s not a difficult question, babe.” I cut her a glare. “Were you with him?”
“It’s a complicated answer.”
“Answer me!” I snap, taking a step forward that makes her wince.
It’s not a complicated answer. If you ask me, it’s as simple as it gets. What’s making it complicated is the fact that she feels the need to lie about it. We should be a team.
Clearly, we aren’t.
If the answer is yes, I’m done. I can’t do this again. I don’t want to do this again. She’s either with me or she’s with him, but I’m not warming up any more seats.
“Julie.” I lift my eyebrows, pushing her to answer.
She sucks oxygen through her nose, her eyes welling up. “Yes.”
Remember that heart of mine that tumbled to the ground and got pierced by a dagger? It’s bulldozed over with precision. Big tires painfully crush each inch of it, until I can barely breathe.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter under my breath and spin on my heels.
Nothing is ever gonna change.
“No, Jason. Don’t do this. Not again.”
“Why?” I turn to face her. “Why the fuck am I still competing with him?”
“You’re not!” She reaches out, but I step away, hurt crossing her expression. “I don’t want Jacob.”
“Then why does his name keep popping up? Why does my girlfriend disappear on me to go see her ex-boyfriend? My brother ?” I can’t even say his name; this whole thing tastes like acid on my tongue.
I don’t care that she isn’t ready to tell me everything that has happened between her and Jacob. I don’t care if she still has some things she needs to say to him because, deep down, I know she doesn’t love him.
Not like I think she loves me.
But it’s the lying I can’t get over.
The fact that she doesn’t trust me, and it just proves to me I can’t trust her. Isn’t that the foundation of a relationship? If we don’t have that, what do we have?
“He asked for help with a showing,” she confesses, which just makes me scoff.
If that was true, she wouldn’t have lied about it. There’s something she’s not telling me, but then again, the story of my life, right?
“You’re not a realtor anymore, Julie! In fact, why aren’t you a realtor anymore?”
She shrinks below my eyes, what's left over from my heart shrinking with it. “I needed a change.”
“Bullshit. You loved your job. You would never drop your dad the way you did.”
“You don’t know shit about my dad!” she cries.
Her frown is deep, a mix between anger, frustration, and sadness, but I can’t bring myself to go soft on her now. My anger has grown to be too overwhelming.
Like all those butterflies turned into little devils dying to lash out with their pitchforks.
“I know he’s avoiding talking about you,” I counter cynically. “I know he’s devastated that you moved to LA. I also know you haven’t spoken to him in months!”
Months! The girl, who adored her father more than anything, now won’t talk to him. I glance into the house. She’s staying with her best friend even though she hasn’t seen her folks in months. She’s so full of shit.
“It’s complicated.”
“Then explain it to me!”
“I can’t!” Her tone is laced with regret, but it doesn’t penetrate the wall I just put up. “But I can tell you I’m not with Jacob. I will never ever be with Jacob ever again.”
I stare at her, study her.
Her cheeks are stained with red spots, tears glistening them even more, desperation dripping down with them. I want to believe her, I really do. Because nothing hurts more than loving someone who doesn’t love you back. I shake my head. I’m gonna need more than that.
“Trust me,” she pleads, folding her hands together as if she can read my mind. “If I could tell you more, I would.”
But it’s sentences like that that make me realize I’m just not enough for her. She’s asking me to trust her, yet she won’t do the same for me.
That’s not the kind of relationship I want.
I want to build something on love and trust. I want to be on a team with the woman I love. Go through the good and bad, hand in hand. I want to be her protector, and I want her to let me.
With Julie, it will always be a question of where her head is. She will never trust me.
I cast my gaze down, lips in a firm line. “No, you wouldn’t. You’ve been playing me for years. I guess this is no exception.”
I’m done.
I turn to cross the yard, back to my car.
“No! Don’t you dare walk out on me again, Jason. Don’t you pretend I’m the villain.”
The villain? Is she kidding right now?
I’m off the steps before I whip around to face her with a finger pointing at her glare as she carries her bare feet to the edge of the porch.
“I’m only the villain because you’re such a fucking coward!”
She gasps, and her expression hurts enough to suck the air out of my lungs.
“I’m not a coward,” she whispers.
“Yes, you are!”
Her eyes crinkle. “Protecting the ones I love makes me a coward?”
“No, hiding behind that answer makes you one. You can’t keep saying shit like that without opening up to any of us and expecting us not to ask questions. You can’t expect me to not ask questions when something is still going on between you and Jacob, and you won’t tell me what it is.” I meet her gaze, and she wipes some of her tears away. “I don’t want to play second fiddle anymore.”
“You never were!” she yelps. “Don’t you see? It’s always been you!”
I’m sure that sounds good in books, movies, and all that shit. Hell, I even think I’ve heard my best friend tell me the same about Charlotte once or twice, but it doesn’t do shit for me.
Not after all the shit we’ve been through.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Julie.”
“ME!” Wild eyes bore through mine, her rage palpable.
Oh, she’s mad now? I’m the one who’s being lied to constantly, and she has the balls to get mad at me?
I scoff. “How can I believe you when you won’t tell me the truth?”
Come on, baby.
I’m pleading with my eyes, ignoring the urge to drag her against my chest as I connect them with her sad expression. My shoulders tense because I hate to see her like this.
But I can’t force her to trust me.
It won’t end well.
I need her to want to trust me, all on her own. Come on, baby. Open up to me. Trust me.
The moments that pass feel long, each passing beat giving me more hope until she softly wags her head.
“I wouldn’t keep anything from you if it wasn’t for the best.” Tears hang onto her jaw.
It’s taking everything I have to not swipe them from her skin, and comfort her with my arms around her body. Smelling her vanilla-scented hair. Hold her like she’s mine .
But I know better.
“Yeah, that’s not enough.”
She huffs, screaming, “It would be enough for me! I trust you with my life! And wouldn’t ask questions, because I know you will always do what’s best for me. Why can’t you give me the same trust?”
I hold her gaze, vaguely registering the sound of another car driving up the driveway.
“Because experience doesn’t play in your favor,” I say with a thick throat.
“So, that’s it? You’re just going to pretend you can’t look into my eyes right now and know I would never hurt you.”
Challenging brown eyes search mine, but I can’t give her what she’s looking for. “I can’t. Because you hurt me already. Multiple times. And without a second thought, you’d walk away again. That’s what you do.”
She winces as if I slapped her across the face, and my chest cracks open.
“Wow,” she chuckles, no humor to be found. “If you can’t see the truth, I need you to leave.”
I swallow, taking in her beautiful face for the last time, then twist to do exactly that. Leave.
Hunter walks from his car to the porch, Charlotte following behind him, his smile dissolving when he sees the thundercloud that’s trailing behind me.
“Hey, man! You okay?”
“Nope.” I storm past him.
“Jason?” Hunter calls out.
“Julie? What’s wrong?” Charlotte jogs to her friend, and right before I reach my car, I find Julie’s gaze still fixated on me.
“Everything,” she says before I get in and speed the hell out of there.