Page 64 of Call It What You Want
I can see indecision flicker across his face before he finally says, “Fine. What do you remember about that morning?”
I wave him off. “I’m not talking about that night. What’s done is done. Neither of us can take it back.”
He studies me for a moment. “You just said you wanted to know...”
I sigh, sinking onto the bed. “I don’t even know why I brought it up. But I guess we’ve never really talked about that morning.”
Jackson sits beside me, cautious. “So talk.”
“You already know what happened,” I mutter.
Maybe I’m a coward, but thinking about that night only reminds me of what I saw in Jackson, and what I saw terrified me. It wasn’t human. If I believed in the supernatural, I’d say he’d transformed that night. He shed the guy I knew and revealed something darker, something that doesn’t belong in this world.
“I want to hear it from you,” he says.
My fingers twist in the hem of my T-shirt, and I shrug. I’ve only ever told my dad what I saw that morning—once,right after it happened—and that was it. The police never questioned me, and by the next day, Senator Davis’s death had been ruled a suicide. Case closed.
And I ended things with Jackson before we ever really talked about it. All I told him was that I knew what he’d done…
“Honestly, that morning is mostly a blur,” I say quietly. “I just remember pieces. You were there. The rest…I try not to think about.”
I was downstairs, in the kitchen. It was early. Senator Davis walked, and…my mind deleted everything after that, even the fear. But logic filled in the rest. At some point, Jackson had clearly walked in, saw the Senator and me, and...did what he did…
He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “That’s for the best.”
That tone—flat, final—makes my chest tighten. “There’s just one thing I never understood,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“What were you doing downstairs so early in the morning?”
The house was huge, and Jackson’s bedroom was at the farthest point from the kitchen. I don’t remember screaming,but even if I had, there’s no way he would have heard it. How did he just happen to be there?
He twists his head to look at me, and his gaze flickers, but he recovers fast. “I was smoking out on the patio when I heard a commotion in the kitchen. I went in to check it out.”
I tilt my head to the side. No, that’s not right. He smoked blunts in his room all the time. His mom complained about it constantly, but it never stopped him. That’s the thing about Jackson, he does whatever the fuck he wants, whenever he wants, and no one is going to tell him otherwise. Even back then.
“You never smoked on the patio,” I point out.
What isn’t he telling me?
He gives a faint shrug. “Guess I did that morning.”
It’s so casual it almost sounds believable.Almost.
I open my mouth to push, then stop myself. I’msocurious, but maybe it’s safer not to know.
He reaches out and brushes his thumb under my chin. “Let it go, Ava.”
Honestly, I wish I could.
His eyes meet mine, and there’s a softness there that absolutely guts me. “All you need to know is that I’d do anything to protect you, Ava. I’d claw out my own fucking heart if it spared you even a second of pain.”
Emotion lodges in my throat because I know, despite everything that’s happened, he truly believes that. Killing a man. Stalking Me. Kidnapping me. Forcing me to marry him. I’m sure, in his twisted mind, it was all for my benefit.
“I’ve felt more pain in the last three years than you’ll ever know,” I admit.
Not just for what happened, but for everything that came after—the secrets, the lies, the cover-ups. Mostly for the person I was forced to become.
