Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
I tensed up too, but mostly because I had a feeling what was running through his mind. It wasn’t anger or annoyance; it was embarrassment and unease. He didn’t like being exposed and vulnerable.
In case he’d forgotten, I reminded him what those two entries were about. The first one, which was more of a funny remark about his having zero desire to write a journal. Then the second…where he’d listed three words he couldn’t say out loud. Three words he felt when he was near me. Attraction, possessiveness, and embarrassment.
He nodded with a dip of his chin and sat up against the headboard. “You didn’t read more than that?”
I shook my head. “I promise. Not a word.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I was supposed to tell you. Patricia, the therapist, told me to talk to you about my goin’ there, and I just couldn’t. I was already on the fence about returnin’ for another session.”
So he’d stopped?
“You stopped going?” I guessed.
He inclined his head and stared at his lap. “I went for…maybe six months. But it turned me into a head case. Then with Nikki’s pregnancy and Sam being born, I just…” He scratched his jaw absently and looked toward the bathroom. “I went back last winter, though. I go every week now.”
Oh. That was good, wasn’t it? It gave me some hope. I didn’t know for what—no, I did. I wanted Jake to sort out whatever he needed sorted. Given his childhood, it had to be a lot. Possibly more than I could ever guess.
“How did it turn you into a head case before?” I asked carefully.
He let out a tired chuckle. “It still does, for the record. But I don’t know. Sometimes, I wonder if childhoods should be left alone. Digging shit up years later hasn’t done me any good, that’s for sure.” He cleared his throat. “What’s worse is the reevaluatin’. She got me talkin’, to her credit. But then she was picking all these memories apart and started pointin’ out what we identify as abuse today. I had to stop her a few times, ’cause not everythin’ is malicious behavior—regardless of her claims. Life was just different twenty-five years ago.”
I nodded in understanding. I could get behind that. Lord knew my siblings and I had been raised using methods that weren’t “correct” today. We’d turned out fine anyway. Despite Dad smoking in the car when we were in the back seat, despite Nana dipping my sister’s pacifier in whiskey when she was sick and couldn’t sleep. Shit like that had fallen through the generational gaps; that was how our grandmother had been brought up and so on. And my folks had heard enough stories about honey- and whiskey-dipped pacifiers to just shrug and be like, well, okay, yeah, that worked in the past, so why not now. Meanwhile, I’d joked about it to Sandra when Casper got sick, and she’d been horrified.
My older brothers had even more stories. Angus, the eldest of us, had been allowed to ride without a seat belt as a reward for good behavior. Cullen and Greer had babysat younger siblings way before they should’ve been left alone.
That said, of course there were instances we looked back on today that made us cringe. My grandparents on Ma’s side had used halfhearted threats to make us fall in line. If you do that, the devil will get you. If you don’t finish your food, you’ll get the belt. Threats they’d never carried through, but still. I’d been twelve years old when my grandpa had died, and I’d thrown all his belts out the window of their little rowhouse in Bensonhurst.
Jake’s silence stole my attention again—or the look on his face. He was lost in his thoughts.
I gave his knee a gentle squeeze through the duvet.
He flicked me a brief glance before he averted his gaze once more. “When I had my panic attack in Norway, I didn’t give you the full story. I had all these memories rushin’ back at me, and I freaked out.”
I’d figured he hadn’t told me everything that night.
I would never forget the look in his eyes when I lost my patience and set out to find him. He hadn’t wandered far, just out of sight of our camp. He’d been so fucking scared.
“What did you remember?”
“That my grandfather was probably gay.”
What the fuck?
“They usually visited over Easter and stayed with us a week,” he went on. “I was only eight, so Haley was just a crying toddler to me. Ma was preparin’ dinner downstairs, and I had nothin’ to do.” He hesitated and glanced at me. “I told you about my grandma on Ma’s side, right?”
Oh yeah. The wretched hag who didn’t believe women should vote. “The suffragettes’ worst enemy—and the root of your mother’s religious evil.”