“Am I evil?” Jackson murmurs. “Am I a fucking monster?”
“What?” I ask, startled. “No.”
“But I hate my own father,” he says miserably. “I’m glad that he’s dead. That has to make me some kind of asshole.”
I consider the comment and think back to my shock after the Guardian’s death. I was ravaged by guilt, the guilt of taking someone else’s life. And then there was Garrett, how awful he’d been, but how sorry I was about what happened to him anyway. Jackson didn’t kill anyone. I don’t think he ever could.
“You’re not evil,” I tell him. “After everything you’ve been through, after this kind of loss, your complicated feelings just prove that you’re… human.”
He pulls back then, sniffling and wiping his hands over his cheeks to clear the tears. He stares down at me, his body half on mine already. I nearly sway with my own complicated feelings in this situation.
His dark eyes meet mine. “I love you, Mena,” he says. “I’minlove with you. Is that okay?”
It was only a few nights ago when Jackson explained that he didn’t know how to feel about me, that he felt conflicted. But now he’s here, his heart laid bare. I nod.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” I say, smiling softly. My heart swells. We’ve been through so much together. Start to finish, Jackson has shown up—several of those times to his own peril. We’re committed to each other, spoken aloud or not. We’re partners.
“I love you too,” I whisper back.
He wipes his hand across his forehead and blows out a relieved breath, as if he’d been sweating my answer. Then he smiles andlies back down next to me, snuggling closer, more confident in how he touches me.
“Good night, Mena,” he murmurs.
“Night,” I say, resting my cheek against the top of his head.
I listen to him quietly breathe, my eyelids getting heavier with each blink. And when Jackson finally drifts off, I move back to my own bed and get some sleep.
11
Iwake up to the sound of the shower running. It takes a moment for me to get my bearings, looking around the unfamiliar hotel room. A fan is running, the metal clanging noisily from a vent near the window. I blink to clear my eyes and sit up. I have a headache, and it reminds of the one I had after an Innovations open house when Winston Weeks snuck me a few glasses of wine. I’m unsorted, a bit unsteady, but when I touch my jaw and feel the lump there, I decide the headache is a combination of emotional trauma and taking a punch to the face two days earlier.
I climb out of bed and stretch. With the shower running behind the bathroom door, I walk over to the sink at the vanity and brush my teeth. I gather together an outfit, sipping a bottle of water that was left next to the coffee machine.
My headache has subsided a bit now that I’m moving around again. I rest against the dresser and wait for Jackson, but it’s still another ten minutes before the door opens. Steam billows outdramatically from the bathroom, and Jackson exits with a towel wrapped around his waist, rubbing another towel over his hair. His eyes widen when he sees me.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Were you waiting?”
“No, I just woke up.”
“Oh, thank God,” he says. “I’ve been in there for a solid thirty minutes, I think. You have to get creative with a shower when you can’t get your leg wet. The floor is soaked, FYI.”
“I better not slip and fall,” I tell him, “or you’ll have to share your crutches.”
“If you slip and fall,” he says, “I will feel like the biggest piece of shit to ever exist. Let me clean it before you go in there.”
I laugh and catch his arm before he does. “I’ve got it,” I say. He turns to me, heat emanating off his freshly scrubbed skin. He stares into my eyes, searching them. He licks his bottom lip. My stomach flutters, but then I take my hand off his elbow. “Did you leave any shampoo?” I ask, flashing him a smile.
It takes him a moment to come back to himself, his breathing quickened. “Should be,” he says. “Some lotion, too, but it smells like my grandma so I didn’t use any of it.”
“Then I probably won’t either,” I say. I grab the towel he was using on his hair and flash him one last smile before walking into the bathroom and closing the door. My feet are immediately drenched.
I set my clean clothes on the counter and use the extra towel to dry off the floor. The mirror is completely fogged over, and I use the towel to wipe a streak through it. I look the same as last night,only the bump on my jaw has gotten smaller and bluer. Great.
Quickly, I strip off my pajamas and take a fast shower, the water running tepid. When I’m done, I dry off and get dressed. I lean against the counter, thinking. I have no idea how I’m going to explain to the girls about Jackson’s father. They’ll be relieved, if not concerned, to hear about Valentine. But I know they’ll have to scrutinize Jackson based on his father’s actions, asking if he knew about it. I don’t blame them; I did the same. So did Annalise. But I also want to protect him.
I remind myself that questioning things is actually healthy. Look at Innovations Academy. Had we not questioned what was happening, we might all still be there. Sometimes protecting someone is letting them figure things out for themselves, even if you don’t like to see them feel uncomfortable.
I put the towel in a pile next to the tub, and then I walk out of the bathroom. Jackson is at the sink, brushing his hair, dressed in a pair of khakis with the hems rolled up and a white T-shirt. He watches me in the mirror as I grab my own brush to drag though my long, dark strands. My hair is unruly, irked by the hotel brand conditioner. Even as I smooth it, pieces of it flip up, the ends knotted with tiny balls of tangled hair.
