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"You have to let me explain, Jonas."
I nod, because I can't make my feet move. I can't leave her in pain, but I don't think anything she can say will fix the hole she just blew in my chest.
"You don't know me. Not really. I know you think you do. But we don't match Jonas. This isn't going to work."
28
JANEY
I've never seen him look this guarded. Or this shattered. Like one blow from me will break him. "Look at us," I whisper, holding myself tighter. "How can this ever work? We're constantly dancing around the very basic fact, that we don't know each other. We're constantly misunderstanding each other."
"I am not concerned about the misunderstandings, Janey. I was expecting that. I was not expecting you to hate my touch. That I don't think we can get over."
"I don't hate your touch, Jonas." Being close to him. His casual ease with my touch, when I know he avoids it from others, makes me feel special. But that's the problem. I'm not.
The corner of his lip curls into a sneer, but he quickly covers it up. He's holding himself so stiffly. He can barely look at me. "All evidence to the contrary, Janey."
Exhaustion mixed with sadness weighs me down. "I don't want to hurt you anymore. And I really don't want to be hurt. I think we made a mistake, Jonas. A big one. But it's not too late to fix it."
"Fix it?" he asks, staring at my collarbone.
"An annulment. It'll be like it never happened."
"Never happened," he says flatly. "You want it to have never happened. But...you said yes."
"I shouldn't have. It was incredibly selfish of me."
Finally, a spark of something other than anger lights his face. "Marrying me was selfish? Explain."
I step up to the railing next to him, letting his body block some of the wind. I can't look at him for this. "You offered me everything I ever wanted on a silver platter. I thought that I could do it. I convinced myself that I could be a good wife to you. That I could make you happy." I stare off across the water shimmering in the moonlight. "But I think if we do this, we'll end up destroying each other. And that's the last thing I want for you. You are so good, Jonas. You deserve everything."
"You mean I deserve everything except you." He stares off into the distance, and his voice is quiet, but his next words hit me like bullets. "What do you deserve Janey?"
"I don't know," I whisper.
Jonas turns to me, face grim. "Yes, you do. If you know what I deserve, then you have to know what you do." His logic is irrefutable.
"People like me don't get happy endings, Jonas. We just don't."
"People like you," he says, frowning at me. "What do people like you get instead?"
"Usually? A life of scraping by. A mountain of debt. And a husband that doesn't come home at night. Those are the lives the people from my neighborhood live. It sounds bad, but it's not. Not completely, anyway. There's happiness there."
He locks his hands on the top of his head and glares at my forehead. "You make no sense. None. You're asking for an annulment so you can go back to your crappy neighborhood and marry some guy who doesn't love you as much as I do? What the fuck, Janey? It sounds like an excuse. Why don't you just say it? Whatever you're dancing around, just tell me the truth."
I startle a little at the swear, and taking a cue from his playbook, stare at his chin. "I am not a smart woman. Not like you. And if we stay married, you're going to see that. You're going to see who I really am, and wish that you'd never proposed. You'll divorce me, and I'll be left brokenhearted. I thought I would be okay with that. I thought I would survive it, ut I won't."
"Why?" he asks softly, eyes flicking around my face.
"Because I'm already falling for you. What Keith did hurt. I thought he was mostly an okay guy, and it was devastating when I learned who he was. But you? Watching you change...seeing the disappointment on your face when you look at me? I don't think I can handle that."
He blows out a big breath, and shifts his gaze to the dark water of the lake. The moon's hidden behind the clouds making the surface of the lake look like a dark pit.
"Do you think you're stupid, Janey?"
His voice is remote, distant sounding, but that word, stupid, sends a shock through me. I used to rage against that word. I used to convince myself they were wrong and that it wasn't true. When did that stop? "Sometimes."
"When?" he asks harshly. "When do you think you're stupid? We've already established that you're gifted when it comes to dealing with people, so —“
