Page 80 of Forever After All

“Good. Tell me something else about you.”

A long string of silent seconds told her he’d turn her down again. Jess hadn’t ever been an open book, and she only gave what was honest, but she wanted to collect little pieces of Linc like people collected thimbles or snow globes.

She bit back the urge to ask him again. If he didn’t want to tell her, she couldn’t force it out of him.

He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “There isn’t anything good about me, Jess. Sorry to disappoint you, but my life isn’t exactly a bedtime story. In fact, you’d probably hate me if you knew half the truth.”

Heat crept up her neck and face. The warmth was vaguely familiar as the precursor to her anger, but she wasn’t mad. What was it? Defiance?

“I want to know.”

“I don’t want you to know,” he retorted quickly.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You really think I’d do that? Just stop talking to you and forget about you because of something that already happened and no one can change?”

“Yes.”

Jess scoffed. “The only thing I hate is how little you think of me.”

“Jess–”

“And above all things, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins,” Jess quoted.

“What is that?”

“1 Peter 4:8. Do you want me to repeat it?”

“No. I don’t know the Bible that well, so forgive me if I don’t recognize the scriptures.”

There was a bite in his tone she wanted to bristle against. “I don’t know a lot, but I know what it means. God wants to save you. Let Him!”

Linc rested back against the pillow. “I’m sorry. I–”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But know that if you did, I could handle it.”

She rolled over and pulled the blanket under her chin. He really didn’t have to tell her, but she needed him to know she wasn’t the kind of person who didn’t forgive wrongs. Sure, she’d given Thea a hard time, but she was moving past it, and Thea had been patient.

Linc sighed. “Jess, I’m sorry. That’s not what I was trying to say.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’ve earned my reputation. There’s a reason everybody thinks I’m heartless.”

“I don’t think you’re heartless.”

Jess flopped onto her back. “But I am. I don’t always understand why people say the things they say or react the way they do. And when I look confused, people think it’s because I don’t care or I’m judging them.”

Linc’s breaths were audible, hanging in the air between them like a roaring wave crashing against a rocky shore. He swallowed hard before speaking.

“I burned things.”

Jess’s brows furrowed, but thankfully, Linc couldn’t see her confusion in the dark. “What?”

“I burned things. When I was young. Well, it started when I was really young, and things got worse when I was in high school, which I didn’t finish, by the way.”

Fire. Burning. Destruction. She wasn’t afraid of fire, but she’d always had a healthy fear of its capabilities.

Fire was devastating, and there wasn’t anything that could erase that destruction.

“What?”

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