Jack trembled. “I just felt like I had to protect you, just like I had to protect him. I tried so hard to get control this time, but I lost it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “But you hired someone to lead you to Bryce. Went out of your way to get to him.”
“I just wanted to rough him up. I wanted him to start being better for you guys. I wanted him to stop disappointing Aspen. Disappointing you. And I’ve been so paranoid since it happened and I’m afraid he’s going to have me arrested and that would ruin everything, so we need to move.”
The man sitting before me was small, a shrunken version of himself: slumped posture, hollow eyes, quivering lip.
“And you did that . . . for Aspen?”
Jack nodded. “And you, Mara. I love you and I can’t stand to see you hurt. And all I’ve ever known him to do was hurt you. I just wanted to threaten him, scare him a little bit, and it got out of hand, but it also kinda felt good to make him pay for what he did to you.”
I watched him, not sure what I felt was the right thing to feel. “You did that for me and my son?”
Jack’s eyes worked over my face. “I’d do anything for you, Mara.”
I lunged myself at him, knocking him backward. “I love you, Jack.”
“I love you, too,” he whimpered. “I wouldn’t stab someone for anybody else.”
“Well,” I laughed. “Maybe next time don’t stab people who wronged me.”
“Are you mad?”
I sucked in a deep breath, his naked body beneath me, bared to me in every way. “I wish you had talked to me about it before making such a big decision and I don’t like that we have to move?—”
“I know, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. But also, he’s a shit and he needed to suffer.”
“I’d probably have gotten a call if he died, right?”
Jack shrugged. “Probably.”
“I can’t believe he’s . . . been here, and never once tried to really see the kids, to participate in their lives.”
“Yeah, it’s fucked up,” Jack agreed.
“And what you did was fucked up. You should have talked to me the second you knew Bryce was here.”
Jack chewed his lip. “I didn’t want to stress you out. I thought I could handle it on my own.”
“We could have taken him to court, Jack,” I said, rubbing my temple.
“Mar, he’s working under a fake ID. It took my PI a minute to find him because he wasn’t using his real name.”
I sat with it. All of it.
Jack did something really extreme. He did something extreme to protect our family. He did something extreme to try to bring me peace.
“You have to stop trying to do things on your own, Jack. We’re a team. The honesty, you broke it. You made it seem like you don’t have faith in me to handle my own shit.”
“I know,” he said, his gaze moving over my body. “He wasn’t taking you seriously. I knew he’d take my fist seriously.”
“It’s not your job to fix everything,” I said, my voice tear-filled again. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“I know. I want to do better. But I understand if this changes things for you.”
No one had ever chosen Jack for Jack. And even if it was misguided, he did so much out of love. We’d have to work on communicating better.
“No more secrets.”
