Mattias
I walked into the apartment and went directly to my bedroom. I collapsed onto the bed, laying my head back on the pillows that had supported me and Jakob just a couple of days ago. So he had decided to come clean. I can’t say that I was shocked, but I was surprised. Why had he decided that now he wanted to tell the truth? Did he think he owed it to me? Did he feel guilty that he had taken me once again? Did he feel my pain knowing that my parents weren’t as squeaky-clean as I’d thought?
Or was he doing this because I told him I was with another man? I couldn’t believe that I was playing games with him. Not when so much was going on, but I just couldn’t stop myself from thinking about him. I was glad that Blake had contacted me. I wondered what he would find on Steve. I was annoyed that I hadn’t thought to research Steve myself. I just wasn’t thinking logically, but I knew that was due to the absolute confusion in my life. I’d tried to be light with Blake, but I was still pretty shattered about everything.
I wasn’t sure what devastated me more: knowing that Jakob had betrayed my trust or knowing that my parents weren’t who I’d thought they were. All those years, I’d believed that my father was a broken man because of my mother’s death. I’d thought he was heartbroken because he’d lost her. Now I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t want to believe that my father was responsible for my mother’s death. I didn’t want to believe that my mother had had an affair. However, I wanted to hear what Jakob had to say. I wanted to know why he’d lied about who he was. I wanted to know if what we had experienced together had been real in any way.
Then I remembered something my father had told me when I was a teenager with my first crush. What was it he’d said? “Be careful who you give your heart to, Bianca. You never know who will rip your heart out so completely that you’ll never be able to get over it.” At the time, I’d just put it down to his still being depressed by my mother’s death, but now that I thought back to it, it could have had so many other meanings. Maybe she had cheated on him. Maybe my mother wasn’t the saint I’d grown up thinking she was. Did she ruin Jakob’s parents’ relationship? Had she had another child? Did I have a sibling? If so, where was the person? And did that person know about me?
I shivered as I realized that someone who knew I was a relative could be walking around the city while I knew nothing. It saddened me to know that everything I thought about true and eternal love might be false. My poor dad! How he’d suffered. I tried to banish my thoughts of self-pity—they were useless to me. I needed to remember what Blake had said. I needed to think about everything objectively, without letting my emotions get the better of me. I couldn’t look at Jakob as my lover or my enemy. I had to look at him as a man with an agenda. An agenda I needed to get to the bottom of.
Then a text came. There will be a car waiting to pick you up outside your apartment at 8 pm. It will wait for 15 minutes. The choice is yours. Do you want to become mine once and for all?
I dropped my phone on the bed, my heart pounding fast. What was I supposed to think? Rationally, I knew I’d be a fool to go. What was I expecting from Jakob? And what did he mean, become his once and for all? If I was honest with myself, I had become his the first time we’d made love. My body craved his touch the way my lungs craved air. I needed him to survive. I needed him to exist. Yet, I still had so many questions. Who was Jakob? Could I ever get used to calling him Mattias? Could I trust him?