Page 74 of XO

In the dark, I feel my cheeks heat with embarrassment, his crass talk doing things to my body.

“So no, you weren’t a lousy fuck. And no, that’s not why I left town.”

“Then why? Why did you leave?”

He turns away from me shaking his head and gripping the cell bars tightly. “I told you, we need to discuss all that when the time is right, not while I’m in the Mad Scientist escape room.”

“Why wait? I don’t understand your hesitance. We can get this all over and done with now and perhaps we can enjoy the next two weeks.”

“Because that’s not how it’s going to play out,” Jacob says in an unusually quiet tone, riddled with pain and regret. “What I have to say, it’s—”

“What?”

“It’s beyond awful.”

“I’ve seen and experienced beyond awful, so I highly doubt what you have to say will shake me.”

“You think you saw the worst of it, but you didn’t.”

“See the worst of what?”

He shakes his head. “Just search for the key, Rosie.”

“I don’t have thefuckingkey, Jacob! How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t have the goddamn key?”

“Well, it has to be here somewhere.”

“Well,perhaps you might find it hiding out with your balls.”

“You think me not talking to you is gutless?”

“You said it. Running away from the problem just like you did ten years ago.”

“You may think I’m gutless, Rosie, but I only ever did what I did because of you.” His tone is gentle but layered with a suffocating remorse.

Why is he being like this?

Why isn’t he yelling back?

Why won’t he fight me?

“I suppose that’s what all men say in order to soften the blow.I did it for you, sweetie.”

“Except, it was all for you. Everything was always ever only for you.”

“Then it should be easy for you tell me.”

“I can’t. Not yet.”

“Why? Isn’t the truth supposed to set you free or some shit.”

“Perhaps. But in this case, it was the lies that saved us because the truth would have easily destroyed us all.”

“That’s a big statement.”

“It’s a heavy truth.”

Silence falls between us. Me leaning my back against the wall, Jacob with his head against the jail bars. “Do you know you broke my heart the very same day my father died?”

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