“You don’t-” I try to speak, but my words are muted by the lump in my throat. “I’m hurt because I feel as though I don’t matter to you.” I tell him the truth, the raw honesty cutting me deeply. He doesn’t even remember me. My eyes water at the thought, and I wish I were stronger. I take in a steadying breath and focus on him. How much he needs me.
“Do you like me, John?” I ask him. “Do you think if things were different, that you would like me?” The question carries a heavy weight to it. He has the ability to break me and crush me into a million pieces. I need him as much as I need Jay.
“Of course I do,” John answers although he doesn’t hold my gaze. I close my eyes, feeling my body turn cold and nausea stir in the pit of my stomach. The way his voice is tense, the ‘it’s-not-me-it’s-you’ tone is there. It feels like a breakup. I struggle to breathe for a moment while he speaks, but this is all my fault. I know better than this. It’s Jay who makes me weak and stupid, who left me feeling like this. But I knew it would end like this. I’m the one who pushed.
“Yesterday, when I left-” he stops to rub the back of his neck and lets out an uneasy sigh. “I don’t know how to handle this, Robin. You’re fragile, and this situation-”
I cut him off and say, “It’s intense, but I-” I ball up my hands in frustration and scoot away from his touch. “I need you to know that what you think of me is very important to me.” I swallow thickly and gauge his reaction.
“What I think doesn’t matter,” John answers, shaking his head slightly.
“It does, John.” I reach out slowly and risk placing my fingers in his hand, and that small touch is what breaks down his walls.
He wraps his strong hand around mine and sits closer to me on the bed, scooting back and licking his lips before looking up at me.
I can feel my eyes widen as I wait with bated breath for the truth. I can tell that’s what he’s going to say. “I feel for you,” he says, and my heart thumps. “I feel a very strong urge to protect you, and to…” He trails off and waves a hand in the air as if he’s looking for the right word.
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it, John,” I tell him as I keep my composure.
He looks back at me with an intensity that shocks me.
“This is fucked up,” he tells me in a lowered voice, his eyes lightening as he says, “What I want to do to you is even worse.”
I have to break his gaze and I stare at my fingers as I pull my hand away from his and grip the sheet on the mattress. I take a chance and peek at him. “What do you want to do to me?” I ask him.
“I want to take you away and keep you,” he says, and a warmth flows through my body. He leans forward and I think he’s going to kiss me, but he doesn’t. Instead he puts his lips close to my ear and whispers, “I want to fuck you until you forget. Until you’re only mine.”
I close my eyes at his admission.
He backs away, and the chill from the basement air breaks the moment we had.
“But you’re in love with Jay, and there’s something between you two. I don’t have a place interfering.”
He’s so wrong. So, fucking wrong. I part my lips to tell him just that, but as he sits back on the bed, straightening his shoulders, I see the blinking light.
Always watching.
I have to be careful. I have to tell John, but it would be so much easier if he could just remember.
Chapter 20
John
Days pass easily, each one bleeding into the next. She’s addictive. The sound of her soft voice and the even cadence when she tells me stories charm me.
But they’re about her and Jay. What her life was like before and after.
About missing him and how she could never forget what they went through.
What shreds me is her guilt, the way she describes moving on with her life as though it’s a confession. It shouldn’t be that way, but it doesn’t matter how many times I tell her. That pained look in her eyes only gets worse.
The fluorescent light above my head flickers, and I look up to watch it. These sessions aren’t moving things forward, and doing them in the basement is only aggravating me more and more.
“Is everything okay?” Robin’s soft voice calls to me from across the room. She’s on the bed as usual, her heels propped up as she hugs her legs, leaning back against a pillow with her head against the wall.
I clear my throat and glance at the camera, the red light blinking and wonder if Jay even watches. He doesn’t ask about them in the least.
“What do you want to gain from this, Robin?” I ask her, my heart rate climbing. It’s obvious she has no intention of leaving. What’s happened between her and Jay has touched them both deeply, but I’m a conflicting factor. Every day it gets harder to leave. Every day I grow jealous. I get angrier.
