“What way? Tell me how I’m looking at you,” he ordered.
“Like you’re losing everything,” I sneered.
“Sure as fuck feels like I am when you look at me the way you are,” he growled.
“Fuck you, Jack,” I said, wiping my cheeks with the backs of my hands. “I never thought I’d be able to be with someone. I lived in hell since the fire and then you come charging into my life and I felt things I had never felt in my entire life. Your friend was right, you gave me closure, but you gave me a shitload of deceit too,” I struggled, trying to get my head together. “I opened up to you,” I whispered.
“You gave me your scars, Sunshine,” he reminded me.
“I never gave you my scars, Jack. You manipulated them out of me,” I said.
“Reina, I didn’t know the extent of your injuries,” he said, his voice sounding defeated.
“I saw you staring at the picture of me and Danny on my refrigerator,” I accused. “Why didn’t you tell me then? Why did you wait for me to fall in love with you?” I cried out, my body shaking uncontrollably. “Don’t answer that. I know why. You’re a greedy bastard who loves control. Most of the time you’re so out of control that when you have a little piece of it you don’t know what the fuck to do with it.”
“That’s enough,” he shouted.
“What’s the matter Jack? You’re so accustomed to lies you don’t like to hear the truth?”
“I said enough,” he warned. “Now, you got a right to be mad, Reina...”
“Mad? You think I’m mad at you? Jack, I hate you right now. In just a few words you went from being the guy who stole my heart to the guy who robbed my past. You made a fool out of me. You tricked me into thinking what we had was real,” I said.
“Oh, it’s real,” he assured me.
“Reality isn’t built on lies,” I replied.
“Reina, I’m losing my patience so you need to listen, and listen good,” he stressed. “Now you can be mad at me, you can hate me, but you said yourself you love me. You gave me your word you’d stick it out with me.”
“That’s before I knew you were a lying sack of shit,” I hissed.
“Your word, Reina,” he shouted.
I laughed in his face.
“You’re not serious are you? Fuck you, I lied!”
He grabbed my arms, his eyes narrowing as he glared at me.
“Don’t go against your fucking word, Reina, because as God as my witness I’ll never go against mine. I told you I don’t let anything good slip through my fingers, not anymore, and you can bet your fucking sweet ass I’m not letting you out of my life. Now I’ll say it again, you can be mad, I gave you a lot to wrap your head around so I’ll give you time to process it. Don’t like it, but I fucking want you in my life so I’ll deal with it. I’m not letting go, know that, understand it and when you fucking forget it, I’ll make you remember it,” he vowed.
“What other lies are there?” I asked, as the tears streamed down my cheeks. I hated myself more than I ever felt ashamed of my scars. I hated that I loved Jack Parrish. I hated that I cried. I hated that he lied. But more than that, I hated that he looked so distraught because I still wanted to be the one who took away his pain. How stupid was I? The pain of his lies gutted me and all I wanted to do was heal him.
“I said no more lies but there is something else you need to know,” he shared.
Why did I ask?
“When you told me about the fire, you surmised it wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t,” he said. “Forensic report came back that it was a faulty attic fan but that shit was tampered with, an insurance policy to guarantee Danny was dead and any evidence he had burned right along with him. I can guarantee you the man responsible for taking Danny’s life and causing you all that pain, the man who gave you those scars you hide, he will pay and he will pay dearly.”
I stared at him blankly, my tears instantly stopped as I registered what he was saying. In an instant I was back in the house and I was staring at Danny’s lifeless body. I remembered staring at his hand, seeing the blood pouring from the wound of where his finger had been sliced off. I knew Danny had been murdered. I thought the fire was a coincidence even though a part of me believed it wasn’t. I rationalized that the flames that ate away at my skin, the scars that forever marked my body was due to an accident. I lived life after the fire believing I was a victim of circumstance—but like Danny, I was a victim of violence.