Safe and Sound(40)

“Don’t ever think you did anything to deserve what happened to you. And you can’t make your mom what you need and want. She should be ashamed; not you. Never you.”

“What about you, Jack?” Lola wiped her eyes with her fingers.

He went still. “What about me?”

Lola moved back far enough to see his face. Jack’s face was grim as he waited. “Do you realize that about you and your sister too?” His face closed. “It’s not your fault, Jack.”

“We’re not talking about me,” was his clipped answer.

She put her hands on his face and forced him to look in her eyes. “It’s not your fault either. You’re a good person, Jack.”

Jack’s lips went into a thin line and he looked down. “That’s me. Good Samaritan through and through.”

“You are. You’ve helped me so much, Jack. I…I wanted to die at times. I thought it would be better. It would be easier.” He gave her a sharp look. Lola felt ashamed to admit such a thing, but she had to say it. Jack had to know.

Lola grabbed his hands and held them between them. “I felt like I died the moment the abuse started. I lost myself. I lost everyone. And then you called me Goody Two Shoes and brought some fire back into me, some life back into me.”

She smiled sadly. “I didn’t start living again until you showed up, Jack. It was like…I was…reborn. In your eyes, in the way you looked at me, the things you said to me, the things you didn’t say.”

“But I didn’t do anything good, Lola!” Jack tugged his hands away and stood. He paced the length of the bed.

He was agitated; he repeatedly ran a hand through his shaggy hair, tousling it. “How can you not remember me? I wasn’t nice to you, Lola. I was cruel. I was wrong.”

Lola fell back against the pillow. “I don’t understand.” Her heartbeat picked up. She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear anything that might change her feelings for Jack. He was the one constant; the one person she knew would be there.

“What are you talking about?”

Don’t tell me. Tell me it doesn’t matter. Tell me to forget about it. Don’t tell me.

He stared at her, frustrated. Jack shook his head, looked away. “Last summer. You came to the rock.” Jack sighed and faced her. “You really don’t remember?”

“No. I wouldn’t say I didn’t remember if I did. What happened, Jack?” Why was I there, of all places? No wonder the place seemed familiar. And why did I block it out of my mind?

He hesitated. “It’s not a good time. Not now. Maybe I should go. You’ve been through a lot. You need to rest.”

Lola fought down panic. “I don’t want to be alone, Jack,” she said in an unsteady voice.

Jack had obligations at home, someone who needed and depended on him. “Your sister? Will she be okay?”

“Yeah. She knows I’m here. Isabelle is fine. My dad will go straight to bed when he gets home from work. He always does.”

“So…stay. Please?”

He grimaced. “You may not want me to after I tell you, Lola.”

“It can’t be that bad.” Can it? Lola straightened her spine and gave him a level look. “I’ve had a horrible day. It can’t get much worse. Just tell me and get it over with.”

Jack laughed gruffly and ran a hand over his face. “I was at the rock. You showed up.” Lola motioned for him to get on with it. He was hedging. “You were crying.” Jack’s voice softened, took on a bleak quality.

He expelled a noisy breath. “My dad, he…my dad knocked me around good that day. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the finest mood.”

Lola waited with baited breath, captivated by the inflections in his voice; the altering expressions on his finely chiseled face.

“You didn’t see me at first.” Jack had a faraway look on his face. “I watched you for a while. You were so sad, so beautiful and tragic.”

Lola’s breath caught. Jack thought her beautiful?

He closed his eyes, inhaled slowly. “I didn’t like how you made me feel. I know it was immature. I was feeling sorry for myself, you showed up crying. I felt…I don’t know what I felt.”

Jack sat down in the lone recliner in the room, partly in shadows. “I felt something when I saw you looking like that, something I had never felt before, something that scared me.”

Lola’s pulse was in chaos. She listened intently to each word, not wanting to miss something or hear anything wrong.

“Then I told myself you were probably upset because you broke a nail or some equally trivial reason. You didn’t know what real pain and suffering was; what it felt like to be knocked around.” Jack made a sound of self-deprecation. “God, I was an idiot.”