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There’s so much in his words—sadness, bitterness, anger. I nod.
“Jodie’s okay?” he asks, and that makes me look up in surprise.
I’ve lied to him all these years, and his first reaction is to ask after Jodie?
“Yes. That was true.”Omission is still a lie,the sly voice in my head whispers. Guilt is eating away at me. I rub my shoulder, shivering.
“What happened?”
There’s no question I need to put it all on the table now. And maybe it’s better this way. Jenson wants to know what he really got into by forcing me into this arrangement? Fine. He asked for it—literally.
I turn and walk into the living area, dropping onto the couch.
“She got sick.”
“When?”
The memory burns up my throat, bringing back old tears. I fight them down and remind myself,she’s safe now, she’s fine.
She’s not, really, but that’s something to worry about another time. Not tonight, with Jenson towering over me, his steel eyes burning.
“Our senior year. The day after graduation. She had a heart attack and I found her—”
I choke on the words. Reset myself.
“I found her in the kitchen. She’d hit her head and I didn’t know what had happened. I called 911. They said if I hadn’t come home right then…”
I almost lost her.
Jenson slowly sits down across from me. His eyes are wide, haunted, his face blank. Without prompting, I continue, the past spilling out of me.
“She needed surgery. It was all so quick, a week maybe, but then she got an infection after and her doctor was going to New York.”
“A week. You told me Jodie took you to the coast.”
“I didn’t know what else to say.” Tears start welling up, threatening to spill down my cheeks. I haven’t cried about Jodie’s situation—my situation—in front of anyone. Ever. “It was such a quick decision. We couldn’t stay in Harwinton.”
“You could’ve told me, Mel.”
He stands, fists clenched.
“How?” My voice breaks. “We didn’t have a choice. It only got worse, Jenson, and I was a mess—”
“I could’ve helped you.” He sounds so frustrated, and it makes me frustrated as well.
“How, Jenson? What could you have done? We were eighteen—”
“Exactly! You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone, Mel.”
“I wasn’t alone. Dr. Salazar made space for Jodie at the new hospital immediately. After the infection, it only got more complicated, Jenson. She got much worse before she got better. I wasn’t sure she was going to make it.”
He’s pacing the room, a habit of his that has apparently transitioned to his adult self. “I could have…I could have come to New York…”
“And what? Missed out on going to college? Jenson, you don’t understand. I was spoon-feeding her for a while. We wouldn’t have been hanging out in your bedroom, laughing, fooling around. It wasn’t—”
I stop, the words caught in my throat. What was I going to say?It wasn’t the kind of life conducive to falling in love; you would have fallen out of love with me if you’d seen how bad it was, how I fell apart; it would have broken us.
These are all things I knew then, things I know now. I look up through my wet lashes at Jenson and see the man he’s become. If he’d followed me to New York, if he’d gotten caught up in this mess, he wouldn’t have any of this. He wouldn’t be the man I’m falling for all over again.
