26. Jason
26
JASON
L aura fell asleep after I made love to her. It was different from the beginning. When she showed up at my room, I knew this was it.
William took off because he didn’t think he had any other chance at a solid future. He thought he had no one. It pushed me to realize how much I cared about having Laura in my life. Up until now, I understood that it was temporary. That when she found out why I chose her to target for bullying, she would want nothing to do with me.
There was always an expiration date hovering between us.
And in the wake of losing my brother, I recognized that I couldn’t keep the truth from her any longer.
I struggled for so long to know how to compromise between wanting and hating her. I had my answer now. And it was so simple. I didn’t hate her.
It was Dean Chen whom I loathed. It was her father that I had an issue with. He was the catalyst of the ruin. Only he was the one who started this downward spiral of my brother coming to the decision to fall deeper under the spell of using drugs and becoming a drifter to sell them.
Like that doctor reminded me, those were William’s choices, regardless of how much I wished I could be his hero and save him.
I never hated Laura. I’d just taken advantage of her association with her father to justify venting my anger on her. In hindsight, with William gone, I realized that releasing all my anger and frustration hadn’t helped anyone at all.
Maybe it wasn’t wrong for me to be mad in the first place. But it was really fucking stupid to let it control me and tempt me into making it my whole purpose.
I cleaned up Laura with a cloth from my bathroom, then I lay beside her as she napped. With how hard she’d come for me, I wasn’t worried that she was sluggish and lax now.
As soon as she woke up, though…
I have to tell her.
I couldn’t live with myself to keep the truth from her any longer. I refused to hear her ask me why it had to be her whom I wanted to bully.
It was time to tell her the truth. Even though it could destroy what we were building, I owed her the truth so she could decide whether she wanted to walk back her claims of trusting me, of caring about me.
Another deep sigh left my lips, and I turned to watch her peaceful face as she dozed.
This just might be the last time I’d ever have the opportunity to be this close to her, but I had to take the step toward being honest.
Perhaps if I’d been honest with myself in the beginning, I wouldn’t have let my anger get to me like this.
When Willaim was expelled, I was furious, particularly when Dean Chen didn’t listen to my insistence that he allow an investigation to happen. But William could’ve used his own anger to fight for that investigation too.
Instead, he’d given up and adapted to an “easier” life of doing and dealing drugs.
When I started to make my prolonged stay in college become a game of trying to make Dean Chen’s life hell, I let my anger and rage dictate me. But I could’ve wizened up to see that graduating sooner than later would’ve been more help to my brother in terms of financial security.
And if I paused to consider the weakness of my plan to graduate and help him, I would’ve confronted the stupidity of what I was trying to pull off.
What would I be doing by graduating and working to fund his life? It wouldn’t erase the fact that he’d been kicked out of college. It wouldn’t rewind the incidents that got him expelled. And it wouldn’t motivate him to return to school and decide to have a stable life with a normal job.
William made his choices with the cards he’d been dealt. It wasn’t wise of me to try to change his cards or pretend they could be any different.
Fuck, have I screwed this all up.
I rubbed my face, exhausted by how I’d been so blind for so long. How I’d let my anger take over everything that I could do. I let it funnel me into being a troublemaker and only partying, which affected my grades. I let it trick me into punishing Laura when her father was the one I wanted to hurt.
And it had to end now.
I sighed again, but this deep exhale made her stir.
She stretched, waking up from her nap. Then as she slid up against me, yawning, she opened her eyes and smiled at me.
I blinked, stunned by her beauty. By her sweet trust.
I’d never see it again like this, not for me.
“Hey.” She smiled up at me, making it even harder to speak up at all.
I hated myself for ever treating her like I had.
“Hey.”
“What’s up?” Her brow furrowed, and I wanted to groan at that. She was this attuned to me, this aware of when something was up because she could read me so well. And she cared.
“You asked me why.” I cleared my throat, determined to get through this no matter what.
She sat up, frowning fully as she watched me. “What?”
“You asked why it was you. Why I bullied you.” I wouldn’t look away no matter how much this direct eye contact was like a brand on my soul, searing me with the heat of flames from hell to destroy me.
“Jason, I…” She shook her head slowly, sitting up more. Alarmed.
“No. Please listen.”
She grabbed her T-shirt and tugged it on instead of holding my sheet up to cover her breasts.
“I had to bully you because it was my goal to make you miserable. I had to target you with all that stupid shit because I was too far down the path of wanting to ruin your life.”
She scooted back, still cautious and realizing distance from me would be smart.
“I told you that you shouldn’t trust me,” I reminded her.
“Jason, I don’t understand.”
I wanted to roar at the despair in her reply.
“I wanted to punish you and ruin you because it would be one part of seeking revenge. I couldn’t stop bullying you because it was a way to hit back at the one I wanted to see miserable.”
She shook her head, reaching for her shorts and tugging them on, as if being exposed at all would weaken her further under the delivery of my honesty.
“Revenge? Revenge for what? I’ve never done anything to?—”
“Your father.” Even saying that tasted acidic, like the mere thought of him would always be rotten from deep inside me. “I hate your family, Laura.”
But not you. Never you.
“Because of your father, I have wanted to ruin and hurt and destroy your family just like he did to mine. Your father was the person responsible for my brother’s expulsion over a year ago. Your father kicked out William without mercy, and because of that change and direct halt to his future, he’s gone down a path that he can’t easily return from.”
I stood as she did. I wouldn’t chase after her. I wouldn’t try to reach for her or coddle her. But I couldn’t just sit here and tell her this hard truth. This confession had me wishing I could move and pace.
“William was innocent, but that didn’t matter to your father. And ever since then, I’ve let this deep-seated anger fester and rot inside me, pushing me to want to hit back at him however I could.”
She backed up toward the door, like a scared but angry animal who had to run.
“When you showed up as my tutor, it seemed like the perfect way to hit him. You were there, forced to be with me, and I couldn’t think of anything but inflicting as much pain on you as I could. You were collateral damage, Laura. You were supposed to be the means for me to hit back at him.”
“I wasn’t.” She was seething, getting the furious words out through clenched teeth. “I wasn’t collateral damage. I never could be, you fucking idiot.”
I shook my head, counting on her reaction, but I didn’t comprehend what she meant.
“You—” She stepped back faster, slamming into the door until she realized where she was to grab the doorknob. “You… Why did you have to tell me this?”
“Because,” I argued. “Because you deserve to know the truth.”
“No!” She wrenched the door open. Her eyes glossed over with unshed tears. “No, Jason. Why couldn’t you have just let my ignorance be bliss? Why did you have to ever tell such a fucked-up— Why?” She screeched the last word, retreating out the door.
“I—”
“No.” She shook her head harder, frantic and jerky like she couldn’t think fast enough to power her actions. “No. Don’t say another word. Don’t speak to me. Ever. I’m done with you. I’m through with this manipulation and?—”
I stepped forward, but she thrust her hand up. Even though I wasn’t near her to touch her, she pushed her hand up as if she had to ward me off.
“No. I’m done with this… whatever this was supposed to be. I’m done with you, Jason.” As she held on to the edge of the door, she shot me one more scathing glare. “Don’t ever talk to me again.”
She slammed the door shut with a loud bang. The thud of the wood hitting the frame sounded with a depressing finality.
As the sounds of her fast footsteps sounded on the stairs, I closed my eyes and hung my head.