True for You(35)

He raises a brow. “Who said it has to be over?”

“Eventually, you’ll have to face the music, Jackson.” I exhale. “You can’t hide away here with me, forever, no matter how much I’d love it. You still have contracts, recordings, interviews, and other stuff.”

Rolling to his side, he dislodges my fingers and props his head up with one of his hands. He draws something on my stomach, and I shiver. “I’m not hiding, really. I just wanted some time.”

“To get over Violet?”

He gives me this look, but I don’t care. He wants a non-quiet Bliss, then this is what he gets. “To get over a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“My life for the past year and a half.” Blowing out a breath, he rolls all the way to his back. I scoot closer to him, placing my chin on his chest. “Earlier today, when you asked me about my tattoo? I…” His words trail away, and I’m not sure if he’ll actually tell me anything.

“Go on.”

“The one on my heart—it’s for the baby Violet and I lost. She has one just like it on her hip. Hell, all my tattoos are for what we went through.” He runs a hand across his face, staring up at the ceiling. “You can’t go through what we did and not have it stay with you forever.”

“Did you want to have… were y’all trying to have one?” I’m stupid for asking this, for asking something that I know will pierce my heart.

He shrugs. “We weren’t careful, so we didn’t care if it happened or not. It wasn’t like either of us couldn’t afford one, and I thought I was going to marry her.”

And just like that, I know he’ll never be mine.

No matter how many times he wants me to say it during sex. There will always be a part of him that belongs to Violet. But I can’t be completely mad at him. Not over losing a baby. Certainly not over being in love with a person I think is kind and good, and treated me with respect with her peers wouldn’t.

Still, my heart is shredded and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to mend it back together.



Chapter Sixteen



Jackson

I feel Bliss withdraw from me, before she actually scoots away. However, I don’t stop her from leaving our bed.

Instead, I stare at the ceiling and listen to the water running. The shower comes on and ordinarily, after making love like that to a woman—okay to Bliss, because I’ve never had sex like that before—this would be a perfect time for after-sex shower sex.

Then I hear it—muffled sobs. I shake my head. There’s no way she’s crying. Bliss never cries. Even the time I thought I heard her cry, she never did.

The water stops and so do the sobs. Maybe I’d imagined them after all.

Bliss walks in the room, and I turn to look at her. She’s wearing one of my t-shirts and a towel wrapped around her hair. Her glasses are foggy, hiding her pretty eyes from me.

“I’m not sleepy. I think I’ll go watch a movie in the living room,” she announces, but she doesn’t move from the spot beside me.

This is our defining moment. This is where I convince her that what I said has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with my personal feelings on what an ass I’d been to everyone. My feelings about my life up until now. Just everything.

But unlike in my songs, I can’t explain myself very well.

And this is also where I can let her go, pretend that nothing ever happened between us, and find a way for her stay in school, get a job, and an apartment.

I gaze at her, my mind made up. “Take off your glasses, baby doll.”

Hand trembling, she does, and I’m not shocked to find that her eyes are rimmed in red. Tears spills over one, and then another. She makes no move to wipe them away, but I do.

I jump up from bed and cup her sweet face in my hands. “I’m not in love with her anymore. I’ve barely thought of her, until you bring it up, and I’m not blaming you, just telling you what’s in my head.”

Another tear falls, and I kiss it.

“I haven’t cried in four years, Jackson,” she whispers. “The last time I cried, it was because Brian Corey beat me so bad that I could hardly move. I refused to cry after that, to give anyone the power to see me cry over them, and what they do to me.”

Acid pours in my gut, eating at me. I wish it would consume all of me, until nothing is left. The hell this girl went through is nothing compared to mine. Or in my mind it isn’t. “Then why are you crying now?”

“Because I gave you that power, and look at where it got me,” she sobs. “I can’t even compare to—to—Violet, and it doesn’t matter that you don’t love her, because she’ll always have a piece of you that I won’t.” She smashes her lips together and looks away.