“Then I remembered your family, how spending my evenings at your house were some of the happiest times of my life. So I got curious and looked you guys up. What I discovered was a newspaper article about the break-in, detailing how your mom was shot, and you and your dad beaten and injured. I pictured you as this little nine-year-old girl being attacked by a grown man, and it made me so angry I could kill someone. I investigated further and saw that your house had been sold to Brian’s company, and I knew he was behind the break-in. So then my plan grew. I wasn’t just getting revenge for myself anymore — I was getting it for you and your dad, too.”
He’s still rubbing my scar. “Dad knows, doesn’t he? That’s what you both were arguing about the other night.”
Jay sighs. “Yeah. I had to tell him. It had gotten to the point where half the evidence I had wasn’t making sense to him anymore, so he had to know.”
“You should have told me.”
“You know I couldn’t. This needed to run smoothly. I couldn’t risk it.”
I pull away from him. “That’s bullshit. I wouldn’t have told anyone. I would have kept your secret.”
He ignores my anger and instead continues talking.
“The first time I saw you since you were a kid was about two years ago, on the street outside your dad’s offices. You were carrying a bunch of takeaway coffees, struggling to keep a hold of all of them. God, you were so fucking beautiful. I wanted to go and help you, introduce myself, but I had to wait. I watched you a lot after that, finding reasons in my head to go and check up on you. You never saw me, not until the day I came for my appointment. I found my feelings for you growing. In the beginning, I thought I cared for you like a sister, but then I saw you as a woman, and I was done for. You were beautiful…and I was drowning.”
“You…you followed me without my knowledge?”
He clears his throat. “I’m not saying it was a logical or good thing to do. But I had to see you, even if it was from afar. I became addicted. And then I really knew I couldn’t tell you about my plan until it was all over. I couldn’t take the chance. I needed you to fall in love with me, because I was already so deeply in love with you.”
My heart stops, just literally stops beating. “What?” I whisper.
“I was in love with you,” Jay repeats. “I am in love with you. I think I’ve loved you since I was a kid.”
Staring into his eyes, I see the sincerity of his words.
Epic love.
All of a sudden, it comes to me. The epic love I’ve always wanted was with me all along, and it’s nothing like what I imagined. It’s better, because it’s real. It’s not perfect or pretty. It’s full of mistakes and sacrifices, and sometimes even ugliness. All of a sudden, I know that none of the bad things Jay has done in the past matter. My feelings for him are what matter, and there’s nothing on this earth that could change them. Words fail me again, and I’m shaking.
Jay rambles on, “If I told you who I was and what I was doing straight off the bat, you might not have wanted anything to do with me. So, I became your housemate. I became your friend. We got to know each other. And even though you won’t admit it to yourself, I know you love me, darlin’. I can see it right there in those gorgeous baby blues.”
He takes my face in his hands now, his thumbs stroking just under the line of my jaw, his voice hushed. I tremble.
“After my family died in that fire, I came to stay at your house. You probably don’t remember this, but I was crying into my pillow. You came into the room, crawled into bed beside me, and held me the entire night. I’ll never forget it. We were just kids, but I think you stole a piece of my heart that very night.”
Tears start to fall down my cheeks, but he wipes them away. “I do remember. I could hear you crying. I thought you were having a nightmare, so I went inside to check on you.”
“I never have nightmares when you’re with me, Matilda,” he says.
“I….” My throat catches. “I have so many questions.”
His eyes go sad, and for a second I feel like I’ve said the wrong thing. The sadness vanishes quickly, though, and he tugs me farther onto the couch to sit on his lap.
“Ask me, then.”
We stay there for hours, and he tells me everything. How it took him years to conceive of his plan. How in the beginning he never actually thought he’d go through with it, but just the idea of revenge, of relief, was soothing to him. The possibility that he would one day make things right. He’d pace each night before bed, reciting his plan, sometimes adding on new bits, and it helped him to sleep.