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“Then I have nothing more to say to you.”
“I love him!” I cried. “Why would you make me choose? I shouldn’t have to choose between the two most important people to me.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have had to lie awake last night, unable to get the image of you and my father from my mind. Are you for real, Scott? What was it that made you do it? The thrill of fucking around with a convict? Wasn’t David enough for you? God, that’s right.” Jay laughed so hard tears streamed down his face. “I just realized. You were writing to my father when you were with David, weren’t you? Is that what made him jealous and started treating you like shit? He learned you were fantasizing about a fucking prisoner when you were together?”
“Now wait a damn minute.” I placed a hand over my chest. My heart thumped painfully, and my knees buckled. He was right. I had had those filthy back-and-forths with Griff when he was in prison. Why had I done it? David had never learned the content of my letters, but he’d known I was in contact with Griff. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“Well, you failed epically. I gave you one instruction, Scott. One. Don’t read the fucking letters, but you didn’t listen, and this is the result. You’ve lost the one person who’s always looked out for you.”
No. I refused to believe that. I couldn’t lose Jay. He was just angry. He would get over it.
My chest tightened, and the breath I drew into my lungs turned into a wheeze. The air grew thin, and each breath became more labored than the last. My chest constricted as if an invisible band tightened around it, squeezing with relentless pressure. Panic set in, feeding the growing sense of suffocation.
“Scott, are you okay?”
“Jay,” I choked out, my voice barely a whisper, “I can’t—breathe.”
Jay’s anger melted into concern as he turned to face me. His eyes widened in alarm. “Where’s your inhaler?”
“The—car.” I closed my eyes and tried to inhale as much air as possible. “Griff—has car.”
“Shit. It looks like a bad one.” He placed a supportive arm around me and brought me to a chair. “Deep, long breaths. Come on, we’ve done this before. You’re going to be fine.”
“Jay, please—forgive me.”
“Now isn’t the time, Scott. Focus on your breathing. I’ll get your phone.”
He ran from the kitchen and returned quickly with my phone.
“Find his number. I’ll ask him to bring your car.”
Tears blurred my eyes, making it difficult to see as I took the phone from him. Jay still cared and was concerned enough to look past his hatred for his father to help me. I found Griff’s number and handed the phone to Jay.
Jay’s face was impossible to read as he dialed Griff’s number. The room was quiet except for my labored breathing and the hum of the refrigerator. Frowning, Jay ended the call and redialed the number a few times.
“He’s not answering.” He put the phone down on the counter. “Not surprising. He’s never been reliable. Why should he come through this time?”
I held my hands over my ears as if I could block out the malice of his words. Griff wouldn’t ignore me had he seen the call. Jay prepared a steamy bowl of water with drops of eucalyptus oil and helped me to lean over it, a towel draped over my head to trap the soothing vapors. Slowly the tightness in my chest eased, and each inhalation was no longer a desperate struggle for air.
When Jay took the bowl away, I rang Griff’s phone a few more times but only got his voice mail. Where was he? He’d said he would bring my car around first thing in the morning.
“Something must be wrong.” I climbed to my feet. “I should go by his apartment and make sure he’s okay.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Jay blocked my way. “You’re still recovering, and after all my hard work, I’m not sending you out to aggravate the situation.”
“I’m sorry.” I returned to my seat, my legs trembling beneath me. He was right, but I couldn’t shake my worry about Griff.
“I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”
A flicker of hope passed through my heart. “You’re forgiving me?”
“No, but what’s the sense of fighting with you? You violated my personal space and my trust in you, Scott. I can never trust you again.”
“Don’t you at least want to know why I did it?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He jabbed his finger into the ceramic of the island. “You had no right to read my personal letters.”
“I only read one. I let my curiosity get the better of me, and when I read the content, I felt sorry for him. All I wanted was to bring you two together.”
