Solace In The Silence ✓✓

chapter 40

For a minute, Jake just stood there, his expression unchanging. A twinge of unease formed as he looked at me, as his hands fisted in his pockets. "Gery told you, didn't he? He's the only person who knows."
There was a heavy silence, and the air charged up around us, laden with everything left unsaid. There was so much that needed to be said.
"Don't be mad at him. He thought I knew. Assumed you'd feel inclined to tell me something like that," I said, my heart in my throat. "Why didn't you? Why would you keep that to yourself for so long? I mean, were you ever planning on telling me?" I winced at my lame questions.

One arm went up and he raked his fingers through his damp hair. "Of course I was going to tell you. I just wanted to give you some space. Like I said that night in the hospital, you've been through the fucking wringer, and the last thing you need is me complicating shit. You said you didn't want to talk about our relationship, and I wanted to respect that, to give you time."
Ever the reluctant hero. Endearing, and totally selfless, don't get me wrong, but I'd had enough.

"Jake," his name came out as barely a whisper. I sank down on the mattress, tucking my legs beneath me, still holding on to the tightly-wrapped towel. "When we were having that conversation in the hospital, I thought you'd walked away from me of your own free will. Now that I know you didn't, that you went to such great lengths to protect me, to protect Angie, it changes things. It changes
everything ."
For a beat, maybe two, he didn't react, didn't say anything.
"I always said I'd protect you, babe, no matter the cost," he said eventually, voice rough as gravel. With the word babe, my insides tightened. "Even if that meant letting you go, letting you think I didn't want to be with you anymore."

At that moment, it took everything in my power to remember how to breathe. With him staring at me like that, with him uttering the words that had the power to change everything, again, it practically sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.
"I don't need space or time," I whispered. "Stop holding in your feelings, Jake. Can you just, for once, talk to me."
At this point, I had nothing to lose. All I could do was hope that my words might unlock something in him, whatever was holding him back, causing him to put this new distance between us. I needed him to fight for
me, otherwise this time would be no different. We would never make it.
Jake's eyes blazed in the dim light, and the heat radiating behind them was like an inferno. The tiny spark of hope in my chest ignited into a ball of fire, and I watched as his guard crumbled around him, the mask slipping from his face.

Before I had a chance to process what he was doing, Jake stalked across the room, dwarfing the space I'd tried to maintain between us. He reached me in two long, purposeful strides, and his hands flattened on the bed, on either side of my legs. A sliver of surprise flitted through me as he leaned in, his gaze sliding down to my mouth before lifting back to my eyes.

"You know I never wanted this, Bess. I was just trying to do the right thing," he rasped, and my heart clenched. "I didn't know what else to do... I still don't know what I'm doing. All I know is that you're what I want, what I've always wanted. And now we're here, in this motel, and you're wearing that "—his white-washed knuckles gripped the comforter tighter—"and I can't fucking think straight."
I inhaled, temporarily paralyzed as I tried to fight the strange butterfly sensation in the pit of my stomach, almost like a thousand tiny wings were fluttering in my chest.
He'd crouched down, his mouth only millimeters away now, and the urge to close the distance was overwhelming. To wave the white flag in surrender—or, in this case, the towel. Fevered anticipation eddied through me, but so did trepidation. The sexual tension between Jake and me was a physical, pulsing thing.

I knew, as much as I wished it were true, that I couldn't control who I'd fallen in love with all those years ago. There was no real choice when it came to things like who took a piece of your heart, because most of the time, it was without your permission. I was his—had always been his—until he'd pushed me away, again. My anger had burned itself out at long last, but that didn't mean I was just going to ignore the way he'd reacted. He was so good at finding ways to shut me out, still, and that needed to stop.
"You shouldn't have broken up with me, Jake, or pretended like it was what you wanted. You should have told me everything. I would've understood," I said. "This silent communication thing isn't going to work long-term. You need to be honest with me."