Jake picked up the photo of the two of them that still rested on the bed. “You need proof that we were together. Here it is.”
“That woman’s hair is lighter.”
“You had blond hair when I knew you.” His eyes narrowed. “Come on, Sarah; you can’t deny this woman is you.”
She couldn’t deny it. Despite the different hair color, and the cuts and bruises she now wore, the face was the same one she’d seen in the mirror. “Even if it is me, I don’t remember having the picture taken. I don’t remember being with you at all.”
He shook his head in anger and frustration. “Fine, you don’t remember. So I’ll tell you the way it was. We had an intense, passionate relationship. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We were together for two years, and I thought I knew you inside and out. Then I came home one day to an apartment I didn’t recognize, a home stripped bare of everything and everyone. At first I thought something terrible must have happened, a stranger had come into our home and hurt you or kidnapped you and Caitlyn. But that didn’t jive with the way you’d left the house so neat and tidy and utterly empty. I haunted the police station for weeks. I hung up posters all over the city. I pleaded on television for someone to come forward and tell me where you were.”
“I don’t know what to say.” She felt damnation in each horrible word he uttered.
“Then just listen. Our friends, my coworkers, even one of the cops, suggested you might have had postpartum depression. No one came right out and said it, but I knew they were wondering if you’d harmed yourself and Caitlyn, too. But I kept telling them that you’d never hurt our child. You couldn’t do such a thing.”
“I don’t believe that I did,” she said quickly. “Officer Manning told me he found fresh milk in a bottle in the backseat of my car. Caitlyn has to be okay. She’s just somewhere I can’t remember.”
“I hope to God that’s true, Sarah.”
“It has to be true,” she said, hearing desperation in her own voice.
“Then maybe you left me for another reason. I don’t care anymore what that reason was. What you did to me was unforgivable. And seeing you now alive and well only makes me remember how many hours I wasted worrying about you. The days kept passing, and I couldn’t get any answers. The police gave up. No evidence of a crime, just a runaway girlfriend—that’s what they called you. So I hired private investigators, one after another. They all came up empty. They told me to accept the fact that you’d left of your own volition, and you’d probably had help, because there was no trail whatsoever. Even my friends encouraged me to move on, forget the last two years of my life, as if I could do that. We’d made a family, you, me, Caitlyn. And you ripped it apart. You destroyed everything.”
If Jake was faking the raw, bitter pain in his voice, the agony in his eyes, he was an incredible actor. But if he was telling the truth, it sounded like she was a terrible person, cold and so cruel. Sarah didn’t know which scenario she preferred.
“I don’t understand,” she said helplessly.
“That makes two of us,” he continued. “Because when I went looking for you, I discovered that everything you’d told me about your past was a lie. I ran down your supposed relatives on the East Coast. You said your parents died when you were young, and that you’d gone to live with a grandmother in Boston, but that person didn’t exist. You told me you went to Boston College, but they never heard of you. You came into my life out of nowhere, and you vanished exactly the same way. I almost started to think I’d imagined you, made you up. I thought I was going crazy,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“You’re saying that I lied to you from the beginning?” she asked in surprise.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
She put a hand to her temple as her headache deepened in intensity. Her senses began to spin, and her legs felt so weak she sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. Jake’s face began to blur, and she twisted her fingers in the blanket and sheet so she wouldn’t fall over.
“Are you all right?” Jake put his hand on her shoulder to steady her, and then yanked it away, as if he couldn’t bear to touch her. His forehead drew into tight lines as he frowned. “Or is this another play in your game? Get me to feel sorry for you? Get me to go find the nurse or the doctor so you can leave?”
“I . . . I just need to catch my breath.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You’re white as a ghost. You look like you’re going to pass out. This had better not be an act, Sarah. I can’t take any more lies from you.”