Page 75 of Old Fashioned
“Youknowwhy,” I told him. “You know how he is, how he’s controlled me, the hell he’s put me through evenafterour divorce.”
“He doesn’t own you.”
“He might as well!” I argued back, fear crippling me in a completely new way now. “Look, I told you what I told you so you can have reassurance, so you and your family can hold onto that and… and… I don’t know, work with a lawyer to find out more. But, I can’t testify.”
“But, it’s the right thing to do. You have to!”
“Ican’t!” We both looked around, lowering our voices again. “What about Paige, huh? Youknowshe comes first in my life. How could you even ask me to do this?” I shook my head. “He is a white male in a position of power, Jordan. The goddamnChief of Police,” I reminded him. “Do you not see how at his mercy I am? How he could turn this story around on me in a snap, make it look like I’m crazy, like I’m an unfit mother and take my daughter from me forever?”
Jordan opened his mouth to argue but I stopped him.
“And evenifit somehow works, we go to court and I testify and the judge rules in our favor. Then what? Randy goes to jail for life, and Paige has no father?”
Jordan’s mouth closed again at that.
“Don’t you see how complicated this is?”
“If he goes to jail, it’s because he deserves to. And Paige is strong enough to understand what’s right and what’s wrong.”
I scoff. “That’s a very naïvely simple way to put this situation.”
He gawked at me incredulously. “Itissimple — right or wrong. There is no in-between.”
My bottom lip trembled as I tore my gaze from him, crossing my arms over my racing heart. He didn’t understand. He didn’t feel every motherly warning going off in my body, every cell of my existence flying into self-preservation and survival mode at the thought of confronting Randy with this.
“You know, I don’t know why I’m surprised,” Jordan said, standing and turning his back to me. “If there’s any risk involved, you’re out, right? Just like with us. We can be a team in secret, fuck in secret,lovein secret, but when I need you to be my teammate for real, it’s too much, isn’t it?”
He turned on me then, and I shrank under his hard gaze.
“It’s okay for me to sacrifice, for me to give, formeto put my values on hold in order to be what you need. But whenIneed you, andyouhave something to lose, suddenly, you don’t want to play?”
My nose stung, and tears blurred the details of his face. “That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not, but it’s the truth.”
I shook my head, and Jordan dropped back to the bench, grabbing both of my hands in his and pulling me forward desperately — into him, into us.
“Ineedyou right now, Sydney.” His eyes flicked back and forth between mine as a tear slipped free and rolled down my hot cheek. “Please.”
Moments before, I’d been ready to look into those eyes watching me and tell this man I loved him. It was all I could think about all day long.
Now, my body warned me of a threat, of danger for myself and my daughter, too.
And those two emotions went to battle inside me, breaking down everything in their path to fight for who would win out.
It was too much — the discovery Jordan had made, the confession I’d told him thinking he would understand, the demand he was making of me, the guilt I felt that I couldn’t give it to him, the island I was stranded on as the only one between us who understood my choices, who knew what it was like to giveeverythingto protect Paige.
I couldn’t make the decision in this state — not now, not tonight.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, and I pulled my hands from his, covering my mouth as my eyes squeezed shut and released another flood of tears. I was already up and off the bench, flying through the garden and across the lawn to where I’d parked my car, and I didn’t look back to see if Jordan was following me.
Maybe because I knew he wouldn’t.
I’d gone into that evening with the intention to hold his heart in my hands, to promise to keep it safe, to tell him I wanted him —allof him — and I wanted him to take all of me, too.
I was supposed to tell him I loved him.
I was supposed to claim his heart as my own.
