Okay, here goes. “It was my father.” That statement seems to catch his attention. He doesn't look at me, but his eyes do shift sideways as if he's waiting for me to continue. A slight curiosity fills his face now instead of the total blank look from earlier. It's a start, so I continue. “He hired someone to follow me around and then to fake an attackon me and have you framed for it. That way, you'd return to prison, and I'd return home. Their home.”
Those blue-gray eyes now swing over to me, a heavy crease forming between his brows as he appears to think this over. There seems to be no sign of the emptiness that I saw before. Instead, a mixture of thoughts and emotions cross his face, filling in all of the voids.
Now, there's a little bit of life in his eyes, a spark.
He drops his gaze down for a second, and then he reaches for the notepad, writing something down. When he's done, I look at the paper.
“You didn't tell them I did it?”
“What? No!” I practically yell. “Did you honestly think that?”
His behavior now makes so much sense to me if he was actually thinking that.
“They told me you did.”
I'm already shaking my head before I finish reading it. “No way. Jacob, I would never. It kills me enough to know you went through it once already when you were innocent. I can't believe this whole time . . . you were thinking I betrayed you like that.”
It hurts my heart to think that. He spent a week in prison, the whole time assuming that I'd put him there.
Now it's guilt that I see reflected on his face. Maybe because he had let himself believe it when he should have known better, should have known me better.
I don't want him to feel that way, though. We've both been through enough as it is, him especially.
He writes again.
“You said he faked an attack on you? But what I saw wasn't fake.”
This time when he looks at me, there's pain there, and it makes me wonder what he saw that night. I wonder what he experienced. I know that I had a reaction to what was used on me, but they didn't go into detail.
“He drugged me,” I say, shifting in my seat. “He was supposed to make it look like attempted rape. But I had a reaction to the drugs, and there was apparently a little too much used. I was in the hospital for a week.”
Both of Jacob's fists clench tight along with his eyes. His nostrils flare while his mouth flattens into a thin line. The anger radiating off of him is as clear as day, a complete contrast to what he was like earlier.
Then he writes again.
“Are you okay?”
I let out a short chuckle becausethisis the guy I've come to know. He's back.
“Am I okay? You're the one laying in a hospital bed with three stab wounds.” I move up to sit on the edge of the bed and softly trace around his wounds. “What happened?” I ask softly.
“You answer first.”
I let out a sigh.
I know I wasn't actually raped by Grant, but knowing that he could have and that I'd have had no way to stop it and no memory of it, doesn't sit well in my stomach at all.
But sitting here next to Jacob, well, that makes things better. I lift one of his hands to my lips, kiss his split knuckles, and then smile. “I'm okay now.”
Using the same hand that I'm still holding, he pulls me in close to hug the side of him not hurt.Finally, I think, closing my eyes and snuggling in close.
God, it feels good. I missed him. I missed his touch. I missed his warmth.
He exhales a heavy breath that makes me think he's feeling the same way, too.
“Your turn,” I mumble into him.
I stay close but angle my head so that I can still see the notepad when he starts to write again.
