Page 99 of Free to Believe
“He’s defended them from even us,” Keene warns.
“And he sides with them over us to this day,” Caleb adds. Flipping open his own copy of his file, he scans the page. “For the record, before we get started, I want to say you’ve done a hell of a job raising Jenna. She’s a remarkable young woman. I know you did that mostly on your own.” For a moment, I see a softness in Caleb’s dark eyes. Then his eyes turn almost black. “What I cannot reconcile is how a man who raised such a strong woman could hurt another so easily? You never even gave her a chance to defend herself.”
“Amen, brother,” Colby mutters, flipping open his own file.
Jason just keeps his focus on me.
“So, Jacob. Since we’re now all nice and acquainted. Would you like to start by telling us your version of what happened? Or would you like us all to lay out the reasons why we’re inclined to never let you get close to Emily ever again?” Keene’s face takes on a menacing cast.
Swallowing hard, I push myself to my feet. And I begin to tell men who are all but strangers essentially everything that happened between me and Em leading up to that final night.
* * *
It’s been hours.I’ve been questioned, requestioned, cross-examined, and yelled at for the better part of the day with no break. I’ve been asked about everything from the moment I met Em, to what I’d been told about the accident, to conversations I’ve had with my daughter. I’ve been asked the same question time and time again in different ways with different slants. I’ve retold these men everything—including the fact I’m in love with Em.
And they still haven’t budged.
Colby Hunt says something which slashes at me. “Even through all the challenges we all faced when falling in love, it was never our love that was in question.” And suddenly I go a little insane.
“My daughter was in a coma. The minute, the very minute she was awake, I went after Emily. Some of you have children—what would you have done? You would have lost your minds. All I wanted was for my little girl to wake up. I’m her father. My job is to protect her and I failed.”
“Fine. I’ll accept that,” Caleb says cuttingly. The other men in the room nod. I let out a breath. It may have been too soon when he tacks on, “Now, explain why our Em is sliced so deep with wounds that may never close.” He stands and slaps his hands on the table. “Why should we let you near her when she might never recover from the next blow?
I sink slowly back down. “I’ve been working on that,” I whisper.
Jason Ross—Phil’s husband—speaks for the first time. “Have you?” He pushes to his feet and stands. Walking toward me with purposeful strides, he gets close enough so I have to tip my head back and stare at him. “Can you tell me right now it’s never going to happen again? Because minutes after she opened the door to us, she collapsed crying on the kitchen floor of that apartment. She didn’t stop sobbing even as Keene and Caleb packed up her stuff. She didn’t stop crying when the Uber got there taking them to the airport and her sister, Holly, Em, and me to the ferry because I refused to let her get on an airplane with a concussion. Which she obviously had.” I feel ready to throw up hearing how wrecked Emily truly was.
Nothing I imagined was this bad.
Unfortunately, Jason doesn’t stop talking. “For me, I’ve been watching Jenna all week. This isn’t a girl who doesn’t have love. She’s open about the fact she’s been in counseling. My problem is without knowing if you’re going to do it again, we can’t just let you near her. What you did almost destroyed Em. What they’re not telling you, but I will, is she came back unable to draw. Unable to create.” Feeling the blood drain from my face, he brutally continues. “This week almost didn’t happen for her until one of her sisters managed to get through to her. We’re not trying to be assholes…”
“Some of us are,” Keene mutters.
“But Em needs to have this moment of glory on her own because she earned it with every ounce of pain and every tear she shed. If we allow you to see her before she receives every accolade she earned by fighting through that, how are we helping her?” Leaving me gaping like a fish, Jason goes to sit back down.
Charlie Henderson clears his throat. “I need to know who you told about Emily’s past, Madison.”
I bristle. “No one.”
“Not even your daughter? Not your psychologist?”
I shake my head. It was far too devastating. “It’s Em’s story to share.”
“Anything about her brother, her sisters, anything?” he persists.
“Nothing. She only told me her part of the story a few days before things went to hell. She said their stories were for them to share.”
“And another piece falls into place,” Caleb mutters.
I tilt my head. “What do you mean?”
“She’s entrusted no one with her past—including that dipshit fiancé she was engaged to for months. No wonder why she looks like she’s bleeding to death slowly inside. You didn’t just reject the woman; you rejected the child she was. She finally chose the person to give all of that to and she was turned away,” Jason says simply.
All the blood leaves my face. “No, it wasn’t like that,” I whisper. I crush the heels of my hands into my eye socket.
No one says a word around the table.
The sound of the door opening behind me doesn’t cause me to lift my head until I hear a new male voice say, “Actually, Mr. Madison. What you did to my sister was exactly like that. So, let’s wrap this up so we get back to healing the heart of a woman who may never be the same ever again?”
