Page 80 of Call It What You Want
I blink up at him, emotions a tangled mess in my chest. Where do I even start? “I needed to know what happened that morning in Missouri, so…” I swallow. “...I asked Eve to hypnotize me.”
Jackson’s face shifts in an instant, from mild concern to full-blown alarm. “Ava?—”
Honestly, that’s all the confirmation I need. It’s all true.
“Why’d you let everyone think it was you… all this time?”
Jackson’s eyes flicker—something between guilt and anger, but he doesn’t move to close the distance. “Ava, the mind can invent things?—”
“Don’t!” I snap, white-hot anger breaking past the shame and guilt. “Don’t lie to me. Foronce,Jackson, tell me the fucking truth.”
“You think I’d just, what, randomly admit to killing someone I haven’t killed?” he asks.
“I don’t know what to think anymore!” I scream, my voice cracking. “I… I killed someone, Jackson.I killed him!And you…you let me believe I was the victim!”
He steps closer to me, slow and deliberate, and I see the moment he decides to tell the truth. He pushes out a breath. “I lied to protect you. I knew if I took responsibility, then the Burning Crown would be forced to make it go away.”
“Who else knows?” I ask.
“Only one other person, doesn’t matter who,” he answers. “But no one in the Burning Crown knows, not even the other Sacred Sons.”
Tears burn down my cheeks. “But why did you lie tome,Jackson?”
His jaw tightens. “To protect you from this.” He gestures at me, at my tears. “From the fucking trauma of knowing—” He cuts himself off. He can’t even say it.
“You think you saved me?” I shake my head. “You destroyed me. I spent three years thinking I watched the man I loved become a monster. Do you have any idea what that did to me?” I shout, my voice breaking.
He’s quiet now, and I can feel the tension coiling between us. Finally, he speaks, but his voice is so quiet, I can barely hear it. “I couldn’t let you?—”
“What?” I cut him off. “You couldn’t let me see the truth? Couldn’t trust me to handle it? Couldn’t trust me to survive it?”
“I did what I had to do, even if it meant you’d hate me,” he says. “I had to protect you.”
“See, that’s it, right there—you’ll always choose whatyouthink is best, not what I actually need,” I say.
“Baby—” He reaches for me, but I shake my head and pull away. The air between us vibrates, and his hand flexes at hisside. I can see him fighting the urge to grab me, to pull me close, and take control.
Watching him hold himself back—when he never does—drains the fight right out of me. The air leaves my lungs in a shaky breath, my shoulders sagging under the weight of it all.
“I can’t do this, Jackson,” I whisper. “I can’t go back to the way things were.”
He looks gutted, like I’ve reached into his chest and torn his heart out with my bare hand. “What are you saying?”
“I need to leave,” I say, my chest tight, my heart splitting in two. “I need to go home to my family.”
He just stands there, eyes full of pain. “You’re my wife, Ava.I’myour family.”
I shake my head and take a step back, retreating. On some level, I know it’s not fair. I know he took the fall for something I did, and I should be grateful. Iamgrateful. But everything between us is so fucked up—what we were, what wecould be,is now shattered into a million tiny pieces.
And to make matters worse, I’m still hiding something from him. Something that felt justified at the time. Necessary, even. But now, knowing what I know, it’s just another layer of cruelty stacked onto an already towering mountain of it. Another wound I’ve carved into someone who’s already bled for me.
“But before I go,” I say, my voice shaking. “There’s something I need to tell you?—”
He takes another step forward and grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. “You don’t need to say anything.”
Fat tears cling to my eyelashes, and I blink. “Yes. I do.”
“Whatever it is,” he says, his gaze searching my face. “We’ll figure it out.”
