Copnapped

30

"Quick come here!" Erin waved Jay over as soon as he opened the door of his apartment. He dumped his keys into the bowl by the door and shuffled himself out of his boots. She was still waving him down to the sofa she was comfortably sat on. He lowered himself down beside her and looked towards the screen she was engrossed in.

"What are we watching?" He asked, kissing her temple gently. She tangled her fingers in between his, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"This is the sixth time someone has auditioned with this song tonight, every performance worse than the last." She laughed, Jay could feel her whole body shaking, he hadn't heard her laugh like that, not for a very long time.

"Have you eaten yet?" He asked her but she was still too focused on the 200 pound man who was belting out the lyrics to an old Shania Twain song. Erin shook her head, but Jay noticed the bag of marshmallows hidden between Erin and the arm of the sofa.

"I'm going to go make you something." Jay told her after she whined that he was leaving her alone. She pouted, which made him smile but he eventually made his way to the kitchen. He didn't know how he was going to tell her the truth, not now after seeing her so happy. He almost made an excuse to leave but that wasn't him. He wasn't going to be that guy. He had never been a coward and he wasn't about to start now.

"Can you bring me a soda?" Erin called out from the other room, Jay reached into the fridge and grabbed one off the shelf for her. It was least he could do since he was about to tell her something she probably wouldn't want to hear.

After the conclusion of the episode of Pop Stars Erin had been watching, Jay decided it was now or never. He slid his plate of leftover nachos onto the floor beside the sofa, and watched Erin nibble at her own. The TV was switched to mute which made Erin feel nervous. "What's going on?"

"I haven't been completely honest with you, and I know it's douchey of me to say this now and for these reasons but I have no choice."

Erin's face went from relaxed to mildly concerned within a matter of seconds, she ran her fingers through her hair. Her eyes never glanced higher than the coffee table in front of her. She couldn't even bring herself to look at Jay.

"I met Stacy Graham a while back, she was the kind of girl who liked to get things done. She was a cop and she wanted to take down this terrorist organisation called The Goodman Project. They were Americans who were convinced that the only way this country would survive would be to take out all the government leaders and run the country themselves. They'd already taken out entire political parties before they even had a chance to run, they were working their way up from the bottom. Stacy wanted in she thought that if she got on their good side and worked the system that she could overcome them all. Back then she didn't do anything half assed, so we went undercover. I was her boyfriend someone she grew up with or at least that's what our cover story was. The mission was to bring it down the same way they planned to take over the country, from the bottom. It was all going well until someone found out that we weren't who we said we were. Stacy and I were tortured, they wanted to send a message to the feds, they wanted them to know they couldn't be beaten. But they were wrong."

Erin looked at him with wide eyes, she could hear it in his voice how hard it was for him to open up like this. She'd known him for quite some time but he'd never opened up to her like this. Sometimes he didn't open up to her at all even now that she was his girlfriend.

"So when you told me she was your girlfriend..."

"She was never my real girlfriend, it was just a cover. I didn't want to say anything different to you because I didn't think you needed to get involved."

"But what happened? You said she died." Erin was confused, none of this was making any sense to her. She needed time to process it all before her head exploded.

"There was an explosion, the feds were going to desperate measures to get us out of there. Stacy was hurt pretty badly, and everyone who was in the building at the time got arrested. Stacy knew that she couldn't leave that hospital alive. Not with everyone knowing what she had on them. I was just her boyfriend, I wasn't working with them all like she was. They sent her away, claiming she'd died. I haven't seen her since."

"What about the letters? You weren't living in Chicago, so why are they sending you things addressed to her?" Erin asked with tears forming. She tried her hardest to keep them back but she was struggling in a battle she had no chance of winning.

"I don't know, I've never opened them." He admitted, "I thought if I didn't let them get to me that they might as well not exist."

"Jay, you can't do that!" She cried out, moving away as he tried to comfort her. The tears streamed down her face, she wiped them away with the sleeves of her sweater but it wasn't enough. "I am your girlfriend, everything you do affects me. If some terrorists are out to get you then we need to do something about it now. You can't just hide things from me! Do you not remember when we were kidnapped? When we were beaten and tossed out of cars? Or does that not ring any importance to you? I'm not going through that again. Do you understand?"

He nodded. This was more than just him now. "I'm sorry."

She nodded, walking towards the front door.

"Where are you going?" He asked her, following her towards the entryway of his apartment.

"I can't be with you right now."