Page 83 of Carry Me Home
“I do believe you. That’s the problem.” I smiled sadly as a tear spilled over my lash line. I dashed it away impatiently. “People have been making decisions for me my whole life. Always for my own good, like I can’t be trusted to do it myself. I fucking hate it, Jack. That job…it’s the only thing that was completely under my control. Or so I thought. But you took that from me.”
His lips pressed together and he shook his head. “I didn’t take it from you. You gave it to me.”
I jerked back. “What?”
“You have every right to be mad at me. I shouldn’t have gone behind your back. We should have talked it out together. But you didn’t have to take the management position. You could have told Brax no. Why didn’t you?”
I blinked rapidly. Why hadn’t I? I ran it back through my mind. It hadn’t felt like I’d had a choice in the moment, but that wasn’t really true, was it? Of course I had a choice. “I did what was best for Maya.”
“If you really believed that, you would have done it a lot sooner.” He shook his head. “You use Maya as an excuse. You say you’re making decisions based on Maya, but the truth is, you’re not making any decisions at all. You’re frozen, just letting things happen to you instead ofmakingthem happen. And now I know why. You’re terrified because eight years ago, you trusted someone who didn’t deserve it. You never let go of that. Never stopped beating yourself up over a mistake you made eight fucking years ago. And now the person you don’t trust is yourself.”
My chest heaved. “Fuck. You.”
We stared at each other.
“Janie.” His thumbs traced gentle circles on the side of my neck.
Because he was still holding me. Because he had been holding me this whole time. Through all that. Every harsh word, every painful truth. He’d held on. That was who he was.
But I couldn’t.
I pushed him back. “I can’t fight with you right now. Maya needs you here and I can’t risk it. I need to think so I don’t say something I can’t take back.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Janie. I wouldn’t do that to you or Maya.”
“I know.” Did I? Maybe. Fuck, I was so confused. “But this thing between us? It feels broken, and I don’t think you can fix it, Jack.”
He studied me seriously, his blue eyes moving over my face like he was trying to memorize every freckle, and then one side of his mouth lifted slightly. “Then I guess it’s up to you, Ace.”
I staredat the ceiling long past when I should have been asleep. Tomorrow was going to be rough.
Allthe tomorrows were going to be rough.
How was I supposed to live with him and not touch him? How was I supposed to watch him be so wonderful with Maya and not melt? How could I have been so stupid?
I had known getting involved with Jack while he was Maya’s manny was a terrible idea. Even Claire had warned me—sheowed me anI told you so, which she would never say out loud because Claire was perfect and never petty. But I would hear it in my mind every time she looked at me.
A mistake. That’s what this was. Another fucking mistake.
Not like Rupert. I knew that. Jack was good and honorable. He hadn’t deceived me for his own selfish purposes. He’d done it for my own good.
And that felt…
Like absolute garbage.
I didn’t need Jack to make my decisions for me. I could do that myself.
So why hadn’t I?
He wasn’t wrong, as painful as it was to admit. I had been in limbo for years, too terrified to make a move that would prove once and for all that I was a bad mother. Everything I did was a reaction to a mistake I had made years ago. Jack was right. I was still punishing myself. And for what? Someone else’s lie? How was that my fault?
Fuck that.
Rupert, my parents—they had stolen my choices. But I had allowed it.
If I didn’t want someone pulling my strings, then those strings would have to be cut.
“What do you think?”I asked.
