Chapter Twenty
After Lissa left him, papers tucked under her arm, he turned out the room lights and stood in the darkness, feeling every inch of his skin dance with the need for nicotine. Geth hadn’t told Skye anything. That much was obvious from the way she was still speaking to him, still willing to be anywhere near him. His tongue prickled and the roof of his mouth was dry as the craving swept across his nerve endings; masochistically he refused to let his fingers wander towards the pack on the bedside table. Used the unfulfilled need to punish himself for all of it, the sharp needles of want niggling his nerve endings, like a dentist’s drill. He should give up smoking, he knew it. Quitting the alcohol had taught him that the pain came early and left late but it still left, eventually, and it left a better, cleaner, more responsible life behind it. Giving up was easy , whatever he’d told Skye.
It was what the giving up meant that was difficult.
You didn’t just give up the substance; you gave up everything that went with it, the lifestyle, the friends, the feelings . And he was very much afraid that he couldn’t lose any more of those and still function as a human being.
Okay. So, he was safe a while longer. Just let it be a while longer, let him talk to Skye, tell her in his own words, let her make up her own mind what to think about him.
Jack ran a hand through his hair as he stood at the window watching the neon motel lights send their shimmering messages out into the waiting desert. The bright lights that meant nothing, shining into the empty dark. He’d always thought of himself as a bit like that empty darkness, a hollow, infinite space that would never fill with light. But now ?. . . now Skye was starting to make him see that he didn’t have to be like this. That he didn’t want to be like this, not any more. He wanted to throw himself open to her, let her in, let her brightness illuminate all those dark corners that had festered over the years.
But is wanting it enough? He wanted a new life, but that was easy. Enough money thrown at the situation and it would resolve itself. Back to Britain, back to the little farm on the edge of the moors, back to writing the books and protecting himself from the outside world, that would do it. Just feeling? . . . now that was harder. After all, with feeling the good stuff — and with Skye he rather thought there’d be a lot of good stuff — would come the memories of the bad stuff. Memories he lived with by never giving them room to turn round, like caging a savage bull. Keeping them so carefully guarded that he remembered them under controlled conditions. Letting her in would mean letting them out .
He took half a step towards the dressing table, then stopped, the pain of denial blocking everything else. Would letting everything out be so bad, really? Wouldn’t it be better to wipe the slate clean, bring all that darkness from inside himself into the light, where it might lose its power to hag-ride him every night through his dreams?
The urgent desperate need died back as he relaxed. Skye. Yes. Not despite her scars but because of them. Because she would understand.