Love & Lies

Chapter Twenty-nine

The moment tears ultimately slid down Jessie's cheeks, Jordan still stared down at her but didn't say another word.

Good God, I'm really in more trouble than I ever could have imagined, she thought through her tears.  Again I neglected to listen to Jenny about Steven and look where I am now.  It doesn't even matter that Jordan's the one that's a pathological liar anymore.

"Please don't hurt me, Jordan," she sobbed, tears her only defense in the empty hallway by her door.

Jordan's expression became bewildered until he realized the position of his hands.  He took one step forward with the intention to console Jessie, but stopped as she slowly cowered backwards.  "Jess, I'm not going to hurt you," he swore, throwing both his hands up in a surrendering motion.  "We just really need to have a serious conversation about us."

Still fearful, Jessie took an extra step backward knowing that if he was lying, he could take her down no matter how many steps back she took.  However, Jordan remained where he was.  "Yes, I lied about the meeting in the city but I only did it in hopes you would just come clean if I bugged you a bit," he continued with his hands still up in the air.  "After Thanksgiving, I realized I owed you a lot of explaining and when you mentioned going to your friend's I saw that as the perfect opportunity to think more on how to present myself when you returned.  But then I caught you getting your mail the other day and then saw you returning to the building from my own window just now."

She remained silent not sure of what to believe.  Of course part of her felt bad for lying, but the rest of her was screaming, This is exactly why you lied in the first place!

"I'm not going to hurt you or even yell at you as we both have some fessing up to do," Jordan said.  "And just to prove to you that you're safe, we're going to have this discussion on neutral ground in the foyer downstairs where Phil is close by and our neighbors enter and exit by the security cameras.  What do you say?"

This was eerily like one of their talks in the past, but Jessie wasn't even thinking of that right now.  While she liked the concept of going to a public place, there was the elevator ride down with him she would have to worry about.  "I will let you go down first and wait right here to give you a head start since you obviously are still very uncomfortable," he assured her as if to read her mind.

Without another word, Jessie slowly headed to the elevator backwards watching for any stealthy movement from the hallway.  As the elevator doors closed, her floor remained dead as promised allowing her to be the first to settle into a chair in the foyer closest to the entrance doors.  Five minutes later, Jordan was getting off the elevator himself but was very careful as he took the seat not far from Jessie, who seemed to be looking over him rather than at him.

"Without dilly-dallying, I think we can both agree our relationship cannot go any further," Jordan began.

For the first time, Jessie's eyes met his directly.  Although these were the words she thought she would never hear from him to make her life easier, she had been down this road before practically twice and both times they ended up together.  This is complete déjà vu, she thought.  

"Jordan, how many times are we going to do this dance?" she spilled, though still being sure to walk on eggshells.  "I am completely fine with not being together so rather than each of us taking turns discussing why this isn't working and then having you beg at my door to get back together, let's amicably walk away."

Jordan shook his head.  "I know I was a complete ass in the past, but that's because I haven't been honest," he explained.

Tell me something I don't know apparently, she answered for him in her head.