A Little Bit of Truth (Little Bits) (52 page)

“That was your brother, he left his key inside,” he grins, totally ignoring the rest of what I said. “I told him it was a bad idea. He said if he knocked you’d probably smell me on him. He didn’t want to risk that.”

“That’s Mason talk for… I wanted to break shit so here’s my excuse,” I laugh a little, it feels good; then I sigh, “Look Jacob, this has to stop…”

His thumb covers my lips, “Let’s not talk now. Talk later when I’ve fucked you so hard you can’t respond.”

I gawp at him, he’s kidding right? “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing, I’m fixing our relationship.”

Laughter bubbles up from my chest, it’s not laughter of hilarity, it’s laughter of disbelief, “Oh my god. This is all beginning to make sense.”

“What is?”

“When I first got the
singagram I panicked because I genuinely thought it was James!”

He winces, physically his entire body tenses.

“Now I get it. The gifts all week were James’ idea and this right now has Lucas written all over it,” I snap and struggle against my cuffs. “Christ Jacob, do you ever have an original thought?”

He blinks in shock, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You think I’m stupid. The reason you broke up with me is because your agent told you to. You thought I’d cheated on you because she, your publicist and your fans told you I did. You tried to get me back because I sent you that email which in a way is like telling you to try and get me back. Have your own fucking thoughts!” Now I’m shouting. “To get me back instead of just showing up at my door and apologizing you call James and Lucas and you follow every fucking thing they say down to the T. Tell me which one of those ideas was yours, I’d love to know.”

He continues gaping at me for a moment, then his face shuts down. I watch him cross his arms over his chest and look out of the window. “I was just trying…”

“To be nice.” I finish for him. “That’s the problem Jacob, you don’t know how to be nice all on your own. I remember once you said to me, I’ve never had you have I? Now I’m saying the same to you. I’ve never truly had you. Someone tells you to do something it’s so ingrained in your system to do it that you just fucking do it. The moving in together, the talking about marriage, even the camera you got me for Christmas. Everything in your head is guided by others. You even had a fake relationship because they told you to. Your physical trainer told you to drink those horrid detox shakes every day and I guarantee there hasn’t been a day in your life since he told you to do that, that you haven’t fucking done it.”

His lips thin to a white line, I’m hurting him and that’s not my intention.
Or maybe it is.

Right now I’m too pissed to tap into my conscience and find out.

So I keep going.

“You honestly want to know the reason I didn’t fight for you, the reason I didn’t chase you or prove my innocence or the reason I’m not going to take you back now?” I don’t wait for an answer, I strike down with the killing blow. “It’s because I have no fucking idea who I’m fighting for, who I’m chasing or
who the fuck I’m taking back. I don’t know who you are and to be honest, I can’t give my trust and heart to a man who easily throws me away without even looking into the reasons why first. You told me I needed to talk to somebody about my dreams. Now I’m telling you that you need to talk to somebody about finding out who the fuck you are.”

He motions for the driver to pull over, his fists clenched on his thighs.

“Who are you?” I ask softly this time, my heart clenching when I see a tear slide from his left eye and leave a shiny trail down his cheek. Bitch, bitch, bitch, flashes in my head but he needs to hear this, I need to say it. He can’t keep living his life this way and I can’t sit around to watch him. “Are you your agent? Lucas? James? Maya?” Deep breath. “Are you me? Or are you Jacob? Do you even want me or do you just want me because everyone told you we should be together?”

He scoffs, his irritation clear to see. “Coming from you. Miss ‘I don’t share a thing’. You don’t deal with anything. You have no right to say that shit to me.”

Ouch.

“Yeah, okay, sometimes I forget that I’m my own person but you… sometimes you forget you’re a person at all. It’s okay to have feelings Marie. Talk about it. Tell me what’s bothering you. Tell someone.”

“What do you want to know?” I snap my own irritation rising. “Whatever it is it won’t change a thing.”

“No but it might help me understand you more!”

“Fine. Ask me anything. Go on. Ask and I’ll tell.”

He contemplates this for a moment. Then he finally asks, “What’s the deal with your parents?”

“Mom’s dead.”

“
I already know that, now tell me the rest” he quips and I fight back the urge to pull his hair.

“You want to know the story I’ll tell you. I really wanted to go to college, like totally bad but I didn’t get a scholarship anywhere. I was in a class with eleven other students and although I got good grades I didn’t excel at anything other than photography. From the time I got my first camera when I was five I wanted to take pictures for a living.” I clear my throat and
continue, “We couldn’t afford college. I knew I couldn’t afford it and I was too scared to leave town on my own and to make my own way. My dad wanted to give that to me so he started gambling his wages every month, trying to get a big win. Problem is, he lost… every fucking time. Then he started to con people. Stealing gas from their cars and selling it back to them.” His brows shoot up. “Yeah, he wasn’t too smart but he did whatever he could. He’d steal shit from their houses and sell it online. He worked on a dairy farm and started stealing their products. He fucking stole everything that wasn’t nailed to the ground. Then he got caught but got bail until the trial and naturally, being a small county where we lived, everyone knew. We couldn’t go to church, we couldn’t go to school for fear of having the shit kicked out of us. I didn’t grow up naturally a good fighter, I got good because I got laid out so many times a fucking week. I had black eyes from the age of seventeen to the age of eighteen.” Jacob’s hand goes over mine. “Mason decided he was going to join the army. Anything to get out of there, I decided to go with him but then the sneaky cunt sent Maya an email behind my back. Begging her to give me the scholarship which should have originally been for a Science buff. She did. She came and got me personally in a fucking helicopter and got me the hell out of there.”

“Babe,” he whispers. “Your mom?”

“Right,” I lost track a bit. “When we left she got depressed, my dad was in jail and the entire town ostracized her. I went back to try and convince her to come to the city, build a new life. The next night she killed herself.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. It’s tragic but it’s selfish too. Things would have gotten better. It’s not like she was alone, she had two sisters and my dad had brothers. They’re a close knit family and they stuck by each other. My mom couldn’t handle it, my dad got twelve years but as you can see he got let out after five for good behavior although he’s on a tag now for the remainder of his sentence.”

“Shit babe. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I turn my cold eyes onto him. “Anything else?”

“How did she kill herself?” What a question.

“Exhaust fumes in the garage trick. Died slowly but painlessly according to the autopsy.”

“Shit.”

“Can I stop talking now?”

He nods and reaches for me, “Yeah.”

I bat him away and shift closer to the window, “Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?” I don’t need to look to know there’s a confused expression on his face.

“Who the fuck are you and who the fuck do you want to be Jacob?”

He pulls away, much like I have, “I know who I am.”

“Babe, you think you know who you are but you don’t know yourself any better than I know the Queen of England. Stop lying to yourself.”

“I’m not…”

“Still lying.”

“Marie…”

“Nope. Still hearing a lie.”

“Stop being a fucking bitch,” he snarls, his knee bouncing. “I know who I am.”

“Get real.”

“Fuck you.”

“Right now I’m not in the mood but thanks for the offer.”

He growls and rubs his face with his hands, “Are you purposely trying to be a bitch? What did I do?”

“Are you purposely trying to be an idiot? Look at your life Jacob, look at the way you respond to things, the way you act,” he cringes but it doesn’t stop me from continuing. “Can you honestly tell me you’re not any of the things I’ve said?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re more deluded than I thought.”

He leans over, undoes the cuffs from around my wrists with trembling hands, opens his door, climbs out and walks around to my side. Then he opens the door, lifts me out, climbs back in the car, slams the door and moments later the car pulls away.

And moments
after that, I call Mason to come and get me and then I go home and fortunately I don’t cry. Unfortunately what I said seemed to strike myself in places I didn’t know existed. So the first thing I do when I get to my room is call Maya and set up an appointment with a shrink.

Time to find the source of all
of this numb and dig my way through it.

Ugh.

It had
to be done. It had to be said.

Because when you truly love somebody, there can be no lies or secrets. The problem is, our relationship was one huge lie
and it started out as one huge secret. How can it continue? How can I just give in?

I want to. Truly I do but I can’t because in a few da
ys, weeks, months, however long, the same will happen again and honestly I’m too fragile to handle that right now and fragile isn’t something I’ve ever been.

No. That’s a lie.

Fragile is something I’ve always been.

I just never wanted to admit it.

I just wish I hadn’t defeated Jacob in the process, because even if I don’t truly know if he loves me. Every pa
rt of me knows that I truly I love him.

The mirror casts my reflection back at me, my eyes swollen from exhaustion, my hair a ruffled mess from tossing and turning all night and my chest rising and falling dramatically with each breath.
Last night I didn’t sleep much. It sucked.

Now I can’t get my mind unstuck from yesterday. It keeps replaying the events over and over and each time it replays it a new wave of pain and anguish slices through my core.

You honestly want to know the reason I didn’t fight for you, the reason I didn’t chase you or prove my innocence or the reason I’m not going to take you back now
?

Words keep turning and turning through my mind. Her voice carrying them, each word stabs me deeper and deeper.

It’s because I have no fucking idea who I’m fighting for, who I’m chasing or who the fuck I’m taking back.

Ouch.

That’s the problem Jacob, you don’t know how to be nice all on your own.

Get out of my damn head.

Someone tells you to do something it’s so ingrained in your system to do it that you just fucking do it.

It’s not true. I don’t do that.

Do I?

But then it all comes down to one thing.

Are you your agent? Lucas? James? Maya? Are you me? Or are you Jacob.

Who the fuck am I?

Do
I
even know?

Who do I want to be?

I’ve been doing this for so long, so fucking long. Do I even enjoy it?

I love my job.

Don’t I?

My hand flies out into the air, my fist connecting with the wall beside the mirror. I watch the plaster crumble around my knuckles, the pain radiates up my arm but I welcome it like I welcome oxygen into my lungs. I need it like I need water.

It helps. It clears my mind.

Just not for long because moments later I hear this.

Do you even want me or do you just want me because everyone told you we should be together?

For peace of mind I stumble out into the hall and stare at the photos Marie gave me for Christmas. They were the first thing I put up in our apartment. Best present ever.

Then I do something I’ve never done. I watch my movies, one after the other, after the other. Cringing a
t the sight of myself on screen, as each movie goes by I sort through my memories.

Someone tells you to do something it’s so ingrained in your system to do it that you just fucking do it.