He looked surprised. "Wait, what?"
"He told me that my best friend was obsessed with him. That they hadn’t done anything, but that she had tried to come onto him when I was gone." The tears were falling onto the pillow, now, and I couldn’t stop them. "When I finally got him to admit what he’d done, he told me that it was because I hadn’t paid enough attention to him. And that I wasn’t doing enough to look good. He twisted everything back to being my fault and I actually tried to apologize."
"Tried to?"
"Yeah. He took the ring back, kicked me out without even letting me get my shoes. I had to walk two miles with bare feet just to get back home."
"What a piece of shit."
"I should have gotten angry at him, I know that now," I said, my voice stronger. "Hell, I bet the ring was fake."
"I’m surprised you didn’t get revenge," Jax said, his scarred eyebrow lifting.
"Maybe I would have if he’d done it today," I said. "But I was so messed up back then."
Jax closed his eyes and sighed, then brought me close and kissed the top of my head.
"And then I—I went crazy." I said, cringing at the memory.
"You weren’t crazy, Riley. That’s just what Connor wanted you to think."
"No, Jax.," I said. "You don’t understand, I mean, crazy. I barely ate, barely slept. My grades fell off a cliff and I worried everyone who cared about me . . ."
His eyes, now, were focused far off in the distance. "When people like Connor change who you are, there’s only one thing you can do."
"What?"
"You cut them out of your life," he said. "Then you don’t talk to them again, you don’t think about them again. Look, you spent two years with him, right?"
"Yeah."
"And in that time, you were doing other things, too. You had classes. You had parents. You had hobbies."
I nodded. Where was he going with this? "Sure, I—"
"So those things all happened. But he didn’t." Jax’s gaze was intense. "Understand? Any time you remember those years, you remember the parts without him. Like cutting someone out from a photo."
I was quiet for a minute. "I guess I just don’t think of those years at all."
We sat in silence for a while, Jax gently stroking my hair. Since he got me talking about it, I might as well tell him the whole story. I cleared my throat and started again, "After a semester of grades that almost kept me from getting a job after graduation, I finally saw a psychiatrist. He gave me my lifesavers, and that—that helped a lot."
"Lifesavers?" Jax squinted quizzically at me.
I took the orange bottle out of my pocket. "Yeah," I said, giving the pills a shake. "The first time I took a Xanax, I could finally breathe again, you know? So since then, I think they might have actually saved my life."
Jax looked at the pill bottle. "I . . ." he started to say, then seemed to tense. "Never mind. Go on."
"I got my act together, after that," I explained. "I got straight A’s. I buckled down. Everyone thinks I’m this put-together person and it’s like I’m the only one who knows that I’m still this pathetic girl some ass**le could break, just because he wanted to."
Jax shook his head angrily. "Don’t say that Riley. You weren’t anything like that when I first met you."
"Yeah well, Connor was such a button up, clean cut guy . . . I thought he was different, but he taught me that guys were really all the same. So after that, well . . . I switched to bad boys. They don't pretend to be romantic or lie about how committed they are to you or about sharing your dreams when all they're doing is screwing you behind your back. With a bad boy, what you see is what you get, and I guess it helped me get a lot of my confidence back. At least, I thought it had. Until today."
"Look at me, Riley," Jax said, his voice low.
I turned my face away from him harder. "I’ve been ugly crying." I felt my eyes, dry and hot, and knew they must be red. "You don’t want to see this."
He lifted my chin until we were at eye level, but I kept my eyes squeezed shut. "Riley, look at me. Now."
His voice was so soothing that I couldn’t help opening my eyes and seeing his black, gentle ones staring back at me. "I’m glad you told me about Connor," he said. "And I know you wish it hadn’t happened. But you don’t need to feel ashamed. Not around me."
I looked down. "I acted like an idiot. I should have dumped him a year and a half before I did."
"That doesn’t make his lies your fault."
"When he came to the set today, I just . . . I hated it," I said, ripples of anger flooding into my body. "I thought I’d put it all behind me, but when I saw him today, it was like I would never get over this part of myself. What if I’m just that weak, pathetic person deep down?"
Jax shook his head. "No, that’s not you."
"I walked home barefoot after my scumbag ex kicked me out. How is that not pathetic?"
"Riley, you’re the most badass woman I’ve ever met," he said, his eyes wide and intense. "You’re strong, you’re brave, and you don’t take shit from anybody. The fact that some ass**le lied to you a long time ago and made you feel weak is on him, not you."
Jax pulled me to him, pressing his lips hard against my forehead and hugging me so tight that I could barely breathe.
I squeezed him right back wishing that we would never have to let go of each other. "Thanks, Jax," I whispered into this chest.
He loosened his embrace and a fragment of a laugh escaped his mouth. "You know, when I came up here, I was worried you were about to break things off with me."
My eyes opened wider. "What? Why?"
He ran a hand through his hair, "I was afraid I might have overreacted when I threw that punch."
"You didn’t."
"Yeah, but now I have a big regret." His eyes were shining, now. I felt like I’d never seen him looking quite so gorgeous.
"Oh? What’s that?"
"That I didn’t throw a harder one," he growled, his hand making a fist. "I wish I’d broken his f**king face after what he put you through."
I took his fist in both my hands and brought it close to my mouth, then kissed it softly. He turned his head to look at me, surprised.