Solace In The Silence ✓✓

chapter 5

"I honestly don't know why Sera's here." Jake's fingers uncurled from my wrist, sensing that I no longer wanted to cut and run.
"And I didn't know she was coming tonight, either."
"You didn't?" I tried my best to sound casual as all get out, to not look too visibly relieved.
"Of course not."

I let that sink in. "I still can't get over the fact that she's here, again,
" I said with a nervous, whispery laugh.
"Like the first time wasn't hard enough."
"What?" Jake's gaze remained latched onto mine, his brows threading together.
"What are you talking about?"

The next breath hitched in my throat.
Holy hell. We were finally doing this.
"Why do you think I left so quickly that night?" I choked out.
Raw emotion ripped through my chest as I recalled the humiliation I'd felt. The hurt.
"Sera showed up at your house. I saw her upstairs, waiting for you. You'd only just broken up, so I figured that you were, I don't know, getting back together. And there I was, totally railroading you in the bathroom, telling you stuff I never..."

Exhaling loudly, I hung my head. "Look, I really don't want to hash things out. Not now. I just want you to know that I didn't contact you because I was under the impression you two were an item again, and by the time I found out that you weren't, it would've been too —"
"Awkward?" Jake interjected, and his eyes blazed.
"I would've preferred that if it meant we could have avoided this. I assumed you were dodging me because of something I said —or I guess, didn't say— before you ran out."

There was a pause, a controlled exhale. "damn, we haven't spoken for a year, and you're telling me it was because you happened to see Sera at my house that night? It was a party, Bess. I didn't invite her. I didn't even know she was there until after you'd left."

The knots spun tighter in my stomach, and the realization that I had been the one to royally screw this up came crumbling down around me. "You didn't? But I thought —"
"I know what you must've thought, but after you left, I asked her to leave and then I crashed in my room. I was out cold until the next morning," he said, meeting my stare. "Nothing happened."
"I'm such an idiot," I murmured.

He let out a sigh that was almost a growl. "I just wish you would've talked to me. We used to be friends, Bess. You shouldn't have felt the need to pull your little disappearing act."
Jake's accusation stung, but what really bugged me was the double standard. He was a hypocrite of the highest order.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did you try to contact me once this past year?" I snapped. "I must have been unconscious for that exchange."

Oh God. My mouth had no filter when I was tipsy enough to feel confident and sure. It gave me the safety net to say things I would never have the courage to voice normally.
Jake pursed his full lips and said nothing. He knew I'd caught him there. I figured if he couldn't take it, he shouldn't dish it out.

I went on, "We were never close up until that summer, Jake, and let's face it, you were never a big sharer. I tried to be there for you on multiple occasions, but you were so determined to shut me out. You kept me in the dark about Sera. I still don't even know why you broke up with —"

"Are you serious?" Jake had the nerve to shout. "I would've thought it was pretty damn obvious."
It wasn't even midnight yet and my temples ached. My brain whirred in overdrive, trying hopelessly to untangle what he was saying.
I could see the vulnerability in Jake's expression, the emotion coming to the surface and then retreating. I suspected that whatever he was feeling, he was trying to contain it behind multiple layers of reinforced steel, and whether that was for my protection or his, I wasn't so sure.
But if he was hinting at what I thought —to even consider the possibility that he returned my feelings yet behaved in the way that he did— that fed my anger.

"Why do you sleep around, then?"
The words spilled out before I could stop them. Damn. What had I done?
At that, Jake's mouth compressed and a muscle twitched in his neck.
Immediately, I wanted to apologize. Even though it was a question I often wondered, I really needed to drop a little of this uncurbed attitude. But it was too late to take it back, and as the reality of what I'd said digested, it lodged like a heavy stone in my stomach.