Chapter 22 #2
“Look, you’re not the first to want me out of your life, and you won’t be the last, but if you’ve called me over here just to kick me while I’m down, then I have to leave.
I can’t deal with it right now.” Amelia shoved her shaking hands into her pockets, blinking a single tear away.
“I deserve whatever you want to throw at me, and I will stand here and take the full force of it…but please, not tonight. If I have to beg you not to do this tonight, I will.”
Something in Amelia’s voice was beginning to worry Jo. This wasn’t the woman she knew. It wasn’t the woman who had always had such striking confidence. It certainly wasn’t the woman who had pretended to be Lia. “I…just wanted to talk.”
Amelia nodded and pressed her lips together. “Okay.”
“Could we do that? Talk without sniping or fighting?”
“I didn’t set out to deceive you, Jo. I need you to know that.
” Amelia took a careful step forward. “The first night in the dark room, when I realised who you were, I should have walked away. I should have turned the light on and ended it before it could start. But I didn’t.
I—” Amelia’s voice broke again, and Jo saw the glint of fresh tears in her eyes.
“I was selfish,” she whispered. “Because for the first time in years, someone made me feel alive. You made me feel alive. I didn’t want to let go of that, even if it meant doing something I knew I’d regret.
I couldn’t let go of something that had brought me joy for the first time in… what? Over twenty-five years.”
Jo listened, her arms crossed tight against her chest, her guard firmly up.
“Would it be okay if I sat down?” Amelia exhaled a shaky breath, not moving an inch until Jo nodded and followed her to the couch. “Thank you.”
“Is everything okay, Amelia? You seem…terrified.”
Amelia stared straight ahead, focusing on the blank TV mounted to the wall.
“I told myself it was just sex, and that the anonymity made it okay. I told myself that you were getting what you needed, and so was I. But then you started talking and telling me things, and I just kept pretending, because I was too much of a coward to tell you the truth.”
“So, why are you okay with offering me the truth now?”
“Because I’ve lost you anyway,” Amelia whispered. “I’ve lost everything, including myself. Who I was building myself to be. The life I had. The happiness I’d taken so long to find. I’ve lost it all…because I couldn’t bring myself to show you who I am outside of a dark room.”
“Why couldn’t you?” Jo shifted a little closer. “You knew I was attracted to you.”
Amelia side-glanced at Jo. “We’d talked about it, but from where I was sitting, there was always a reason or an excuse.
You’d flirt…and then you’d backtrack. You’d say things in one breath, and then something different in the next.
To me, because of my past, I took that to mean one thing.
You didn’t want all of me. You just wanted…
I don’t know. A fling, some fun, whatever you want to call it.
Even when I used Callum as a reason for us not to be together, that was nothing more than an excuse. ”
“Your past? I don’t understand…”
Amelia lowered her chin to her chest and sighed. “Please, don’t make me go over it tonight. My own son has just told me what he thinks of me, and I just…I can’t go back there right now. It’s taken me so long to find myself, and I fear that I’m already losing my grip on who I’ve become.”
“None of this makes any sense.” Jo’s brows drew together as she rested her hands in her lap. “You keep talking about who you’ve become and whatnot, but I only know this. You. Who you’ve been since we met.”
“And it’s taken me a long time to be that person, Jo.”
“Then can I at least give you my thoughts on it all?” Jo asked, dipping her head to meet Amelia’s eyes. “If you don’t want to go back to your past, will you listen to my present? My…reality?”
Amelia chewed her bottom lip as she nodded.
“I hated you for what you did,” she admitted. “I still do in some way.”
Amelia’s shoulders folded in on themselves. “I know. I don’t blame you.”
“But I also hate how much I miss you.” Jo slowly placed a hand on Amelia’s knee. “What you did hurt me. It felt like you’d made a fool of me, and you’d played me for your own amusement.”
“It wasn’t like that.” The pain in Amelia’s voice took Jo by surprise. “Jo, I was falling for you. I have fallen for you. And that terrified me more than anything. Because if you knew it was me…if you knew I was the woman behind the curtain, you would have run.”
“I…don’t know if that’s true.” Jo hadn’t wanted to say that out loud, it made her extremely vulnerable, but she had to.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t hurt Amelia for what she’d done, and she’d meant it.
“I think that maybe if you’d told me from the start, then we’d still be here, just without all the heartbreak.
” Jo looked down, rubbing at her wrist. “But then again, maybe I needed Lia to be able to fall for you. Maybe I needed to learn how to feel safe again in the dark before I could even comprehend someone in the light.”
A single tear slipped down Amelia’s cheek.
Jo exhaled slowly and shifted closer again, close enough to hold Amelia if she wanted to. “I’m still angry and confused, and I’m not promising anything.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Amelia whispered. “I don’t expect anything from you other than to be kicked out of here once you’ve said what you need to say.”
Well, Amelia was about to get a shock. As was Jo when she put this out there. “But I’m not ready to lose you either.”
Amelia’s bottom lip quivered as more tears fell. “W-what?”
Jo gave a small nod, her vulnerability on the line here.
While she didn’t quite trust Amelia fully now, she knew most of their time together had been genuine.
And Ada had been right. Jo had consented to being at the club, regardless of who was in that dark room.
She couldn’t let Amelia take the fall for everything, but the lies… she could potentially let go of.
Jo tentatively reached out and rested her fingers against Amelia’s wrist. The contact was brief, fleeting, but it shattered something in both of them. Amelia’s hand turned instinctively, palm up, seeking more.
“I want to try and understand you, Amelia. I want to understand why you did what you did, and why it feels so fucking hard to hate you when I should.”
Jo looked into her eyes, and for the first time in days, she saw something familiar. Not Lia. Not the stranger in the dark. Just Amelia. Broken and flawed, but real.
“I’ll tell you everything. No more lies. No more hiding. Just give me the chance, please.”
Jo’s fingers lingered at Amelia’s wrist, not quite holding her hand but not pulling away either.
She felt the warmth of Amelia’s skin and the faint tremble beneath it, and something inside her softened.
Amelia had lied, she’d played a part, but beneath the mask—behind every touch, every whisper, and every moan—she had been herself.
Jo could see that now. And even though the hurt hadn’t vanished, it no longer felt like it was the only thing in the room.
In that moment, it felt as though there was hope.
“You look exhausted.” Jo grazed her thumb over the back of Amelia’s hand. “When was the last time you slept?”
“Does it count if you were crying while doing it?”
Jo’s heart broke at that. She leaned in closer, close enough to feel Amelia’s breath on her skin. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
“I don’t want to be.”
Without thinking, Jo reached out and cupped Amelia’s cheek. Her skin was warm, flushed from the rush of emotion, and as Jo’s thumb moved instinctively, tracing the tear-stained path beneath her eye, Amelia leaned into her touch and closed her eyes.
“Can I…?” Jo didn’t even know how to finish that question. It wasn’t one she’d thought she could ever ask before this moment. But she didn’t need to finish it, because Amelia was already nodding, her breath catching as she opened her eyes and focused on Jo’s lips.
Jo drew her in and kissed her. Not hard, not fast, and nothing like the frantic desperation of the dark room.
This kiss was slow, unmistakable, and as Jo’s hand moved to the back of Amelia’s neck, her fingers sliding into the loose strands of her hair as her lips pressed softly, she felt as though life was being breathed back into her.
Amelia’s hand rested on Jo’s thigh, her touch tentative at first, as though she was afraid too much pressure would ruin the moment.
But then their bodies found each other. Jo opened to Amelia slowly, tasting the faint salt of her tears, but something far sweeter beneath it.
Amelia…the real, unmasked Amelia. It was the kind of kiss that could only happen when nothing else in the world mattered.
When words had run out, and touch was all that remained.
Jo deepened the kiss, her other hand now resting high up Amelia’s thigh. She felt her body give in, not lustfully and not in a way that begged for more, but in a way that simply said, ‘thank God you’re here.’
When they finally pulled apart, Jo touched her forehead to Amelia’s.
“God, I didn’t think that would ever happen,” Amelia whispered, her voice a mixture of wonder and pain.
“I didn’t think I’d ever want it to after the last few days.” Jo stroked her thumb against Amelia’s jaw.
“What does it mean?”
Jo looked into her eyes, those same eyes she’d fallen for long before Callum had even left her. “I don’t know yet, but I think I want to find out.”
Amelia’s eyes closed as she exhaled a deep breath. The weight of everything was beginning to settle, and as Jo sat here, Amelia had never looked so beautiful.
“Stay here with me tonight.” Jo took a firm grip of Amelia’s hand and rested back against the couch. “Just…be here with me. Please?”
Amelia removed her coat and curled up beside her. “I can’t go back home. Not if he’s still there.”
Jo knew there was a conversation to be had in the morning, but right now, she wanted to just be.
She wanted to rest, relax, and hold Amelia until their eyes closed and the last few days faded away.
She wrapped a blanket around them, pulled Amelia closer, and listened to the sound of her breathing even out beside her.
Things may not be perfect, but they were real, and that was more than either of them had expected to find.