“I’m not upset, Elle. Just…” Her voice softened. “Be careful, okay? Addicts can be…unpredictable.”
“Iwill.”
I didn’t know for sure if I could believe her, that she was one hundred percent okay with me talking to Seth. But whatever problem she might’ve had with it, she clearly wasn’t going to try to put it onme.
And at least now I knew, for sure, that the man in the cottage outside wasn’t a sex offender. So that wassomething.
A rather largesomething.
“Brody says he’ll call you later,” Jessa said. “Take care,Elle.”
“Take care of yourself, and thatbaby.”
When she’d hung up, I flopped back on the bed,relieved.
Andyet…
Even though Jessa herself had just adamantly stated, right in front of Brody, that Seth had never abused her like Brody seemed to think he did… I did not see everyone just doing a massive one-eighty and welcoming him back to the band tomorrow with openarms.
I tossed my phone aside and groanedaloud.
What a fuckingmess.
I still couldn’t blame Brody, though. He was, as usual, trying to protect the band. He was trying to protect me. And of course, he was trying to protect Jessa and theirbaby.
He’d gotten her pregnant, accidentally, sometime after Jesse’s wedding. Basically, as soon as they started sleeping together, as far as I knew. But despite what had happened today, I had never seen Brody happier. Jessa and that baby were everything tohim.
She was almost seven months along, and given that she was a slim girl to begin with, she’d gained a lot of baby weight. It was a big stress on her body and she’d confided in me that she was having a lot of joint pain and discomfort. Nothing terribly unusual, according to her doctor, but I’d be disappointed in Brody if hewasn’tworried abouther.
I didn’t love adding stress to his plate with all that he was already dealing with, and I knew, no matter how devoted he was to Dirty, his family—Jessa and that baby—would always comefirst.
But as I shrugged off my robe and slipped in under the covers, and I thought about how this day had ended, I knew it in my heart: I wouldn’t change athing.
There was something compelling me to talk things through with Seth. To try to get to the heart of thematter.
Maybe because I’d never been able to believe, no matter what had gone down between Seth and Jessa, that he could’ve done any such thing as force himself on her, either physically or by manipulatingher.
And if Brody’s accusation really was unfounded, as Jessa herself had just told me, then the band had no reason to condemn Seth for preying on Jessa. She was young when they got together—they both were. But could he really be blamed, a nineteen-year-old young man, for screwing around with a sixteen-year-oldgirl?
Not in myworld.
When I was sixteen, I’d dated a twenty-two year old, and none of my friends had bat an eye. Even my parents had been fine with it, once they methim.
All that left, really—if Brody and Jesse could put aside their bloated male egos and forgive Seth for having a relationship with Jessa at all—was the fact that Seth had done drugs with Jessa behind ourbacks.
Maybe that was a much more difficult trespass toforgive.
Because in the end, maybe that drug use had driven her away fromus.
Away fromBrody.
And as I considered that, I knew… Brody would have a hell of a hard time ever forgivingthat.
As I lay here, alone, unable to sleep, my thoughts turned to Seth, alone in his cottage. In my thoughts of him over the years, he was always alone. I could never picture him any other way. A lone wolf; that’s how I’d always thought ofSeth.
But there was something about him tonight… something I’d sensed while we spoke. Something I recognized in myself: adiscontent.
Not that he seemed unhappy, exactly. Maybe, now that he was clean, he was content with everything about his life, except for that one essential thing that was missing:Dirty.
