“Kevin, it was an accident. It’s not your—”
He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you dare say it.”
Dan:It looks like he saved the best for the finale, folks. Have you ever seen a person fly completely off the rails?We guarantee this is going to be a show you’ll never forget.
“It is my fault. There’s no one else to blame. They trusted me with their lives and I fucked up!”
“You can’t go on like this.” Her eyes softened and the tenderness in her voice told him that even if she didn’t understand, she felt the hurt for him, with him. “You can’t keep shutting everyone out just to live with this pain alone. You consciously force yourself not to be happy because you think you deserve it. You don’t. You’re a good person, Kevin…and it was an accident.”
“I don’t wanna hear whatever bullshit you’re gonna concoct to make me feel better.” He was angry now, not because he hated hearing the truth, but because he so desperately wanted to believe her. “What I want is for you to leave.”
Bob:He’s really trying to let her down easy.
Dan:Yeah, but she never could take a hint, Bob.
“You’re doing it again. Every time I get too close, you push me away. You don’t have to. I want to be there for you, the same way you were there for me…if you would just let me. I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through, but—”
He could already see where this was going and he needed to shut it down fast. “You’re right. You can’t imagine it because the worst thing that has ever happened to you in your entire sheltered existence was finding out that a woman you don’t even know doesn’t love you.”
Her face dropped and she slowly shook her head. “That’s not fair.”
Bob:See? This is the problem with keeping everything bottled up inside. It builds and builds until eventually the pressure gets too much.
Dan:Can you feel it? It’s coming…The moment we’ve all been waiting for. Ladies and gentlemen, Kevin Shepard is about to implode.
“Lifeisn’t fair, Jazz! You want proof of that? Just ask Perry and Shandré.”
Dan:And three…
“Oh, you can’t. They’re dead!”
“Kevin, stop it.”
“And that’s because of me!” He slammed his fist against his chest. “This coward. Is that the type of man you think you need?” He reached for his bags, finally ready to end this. “You know what? Don’t answer that. Go marry your doctor, Jazz. This doesn’t matter to me anyway.”
Dan:Two…
She lifted her hand to his face, but he turned the other way before she made contact. He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. She looked at him like he still meant something to her. How could she know everything and not see him as the scum of the earth? She obviously wasn’t as smart as he thought she was.
Dan:One…
There was a flicker of apprehension, but she voiced her thoughts regardless. “It does matter to you. You wouldn’t be acting this way if it didn’t.”
She took a step towards him and he snapped.
Dan:Detonate.
He laughed—low, acerbic, and dripping with bitter sarcasm. “You see, in that fucked up little dream world you live in, somehow—for the second time—you deluded yourself into thinking I care. I don’t. I don’t give a fuck about you. Let’s not get this twisted, Jasmin. We’re not gonna sit and cuddle and talk about our feelings until you find a way tohealme. It’s not gonna happen. The only thing I want…is for you to leave.”
A tiny brain-drain twitch, but she was too worried about him to focus on her own feelings. Because that was Jasmin. Sweet, kind, thoughtful Jasmin. She was so fucking perfect it sickened him. It sickened him to know that he’d had her, all of her. He just had to put it down as a poor lapse in judgment, that moment when he’d convinced himself that he might actually be worthy of her.
She let out a deep sigh and her voice trembled a little when she spoke. “If that’s what you want, I’ll do it…but at least let me take you someplace where I know you’ll be safe.”
It was a trap. Unintentional, but still a trap. They’d been saying goodbye to each other for over a week and if he got into the car with her, he knew it would end up being like every otherlast daythey’d spent together. Somehow she’d creep back in and he’d lose his resolve to end it.
“Fuck, Jazz! I keep asking you to leave, but you just don’t get it, so let me spell it out for you. I don’t want you.”
Dan:(Whispers) Notice the wording there, Bob? Tactful. He could own up to his feelings and be a man right now. He could have said: I don’t want to be with you because I’m a worthless piece of shit and you deserve better. But instead, this coward would rather say the one thing that rips her open and lays out all her abandonment issues.
