I stiffen when he starts to use my nickname and he must have felt it. It seems I’m not so robotic after all.
“My head is fucked up Princess, it is just things… there’s things you don’t know Carrie, things I can’t share—not yet. Things that sneak up on me without me even realizing it. She said shit…and it’s not an excuse, sweetheart. It’s not, but I promise you I wasn’t doing what it looked like. You would have seen that a few minutes later, I promise.”
“You haven’t been going to therapy.”
“Carrie, I…”
“They called Jacob,” I stop him before he lies again, because that is what is wrong. When we talk about what is really wrong with him? When we talk about what is causing all the trouble? That is when he lies.
“I can’t talk about it, Carrie. Especially with some college idiot, with some initials after his name, who has no idea what I am feeling or what I am going through. There are things Princess that if you haven’t lived it, there is no way you can help someone else.
“Then find a support group, there are those around, Jacob.”
“I can’t Carrie, I can’t talk to strangers about…I can’t, not even for you.”
“Then talk to me, give it to me.”
“Damn it Carrie, I can’t tell you! I can’t go there, not right now—hell maybe not ever, you don’t know, Carrie. You can’t know…”
“I do know. I know it all, Jacob.”
He stops and his body goes hard like stone behind me.
“The night I came into your room, before you…before… You were dreaming. I heard, Jacob. I know,” I say quietly, praying I’m not doing this wrong.
I have been attending a Kentucky Rape Crisis Outreach support group with Nicole. We hadn’t told anyone, though I figure Dragon knows—I didn’t ask. I’ve only been to four meetings though and we’re mostly dealing with the effects rape has on friends and family members. What if I’m handling this all wrong? I don’t want to make things worse. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.
“I can’t talk about this with you, Carrie. Don’t ask me to.”
My heart sinks. “I know you blame me Jacob, I blame myself too. I understand and that’s the reason I should probably leave. How can you want to be with someone who is responsible for…?”
He stops me and his hand caresses my face and turns it towards him.
“Stop that, Carrie. I don’t blame you. I was angry sweetheart, so angry when I got out and I focused that anger on you, but what happened is not your fault. It is not your fault at all and I don’t want you blaming yourself.”
“Jacob…”
“Let’s go to bed, Carrie. Let’s just hold each other for a while. Then we’ll get up and eat and spend the night holding each other. I’ll sleep with you tonight. Let’s ignore the world around us and concentrate just on the two of us.”
“Jacob, I don’t…”
“We’ll start small, let’s take a nap. Let me hold you in our bed. We both need that. Okay?”
I don’t remember agreeing, but he must have taken my silence for doing so. He lifts me out of the bathtub. Standing me on the rug, he takes a towel and wraps it around me, after first securing one on his hip. He lifts me again, taking me into the bedroom. He proceeds to take the towel from me and dries me off. He kisses my forehead, my eyes, my lips, and then my shoulders, before finally placing me in the bed and pulling me close. We lie there in the dark, as if we’re both afraid to say anything that might destroy the tenuous truce we have in this moment.
“Don’t leave me, Carrie. I need you,” he says into the quiet, a good fifteen minutes or more later.
At one time those words would have been more than enough to get me to stay. They totally would have worked. I didn’t realize he thought I was leaving, but I can’t deny I am thinking hard on it. I love Jacob. I love him with all my heart, but how can you be with someone who refuses to help himself? Still I might try it, just because the past month and a half have been so wonderful I might try it…just….
“Do you really not want kids, Jacob?”
His body tenses up again and his arm that he has wrapped around my chest tightens until the point of pain, but I say nothing.
“I can’t be a father, Carrie. I’m not…capable…I’m just not cut out for it. I could make you happy though, sweetheart. I know I can, if you give me another chance. We’ll be happy together, just the two of us, for the rest of our lives, just the two of us.”
His words are like a physical blow, even if the last sentence is a sweet temptation. Can I do that? Can I trade the life growing inside of me for a shot of forever with Jacob? I don’t think I can, which means letting go of the one man who has always had my heart.
It’s over.
Those words echo in my soul.
Chapter 33
Dancer