God, it sounded even sillier coming out of my mouth than I intended it to.
Lifting my gaze to hers, I held her stare, wondering what she was thinking in that beautiful head of hers. Her dark, wavy hair was thick on her head, tumbling over her shoulders and above her chest. She’d stopped toying with her hands on her lap, focusing intently on me and what I was saying.
“She knew about your dad,” Jaz said. “But why did you let that control you?”
My heart ached in my chest as I pictured the woman back at the house, her nurse diligently taking care of her for as many hours as her schedule would allow. Mom always asked where Dad was, and I never knew what to tell her.
She wanted me to live my own life, but how could I when she needed me?
“My mom,” I finally whispered. “You met her on a good day, but…she doesn’t have them that often anymore. She’s seen dozens of specialists, and no one can tell what’s wrong. Some days, it’s like she’s not there, in her own body.”
Jaz’s expression began to soften, but I wasn’t telling her all of this to make her feel bad for me. Pity wasn’t what I wanted from her. I wanted…I wasn’t sure what.
“We’ve had a nurse that takes care of her, medical bills out of the ass. My dad brings in all the money, but with him in jail, he’s not working, so his health insurance will eventually stop. Paying for everything we have to, and then the lawyer and court fees for him…” I shrugged, stating a fact I didn’t want to admit even to myself: “Our money isn’t going to last forever.”
Yes, it’s going to run out, and when it did, Mom would pay the price.
Even though I wasn’t Jaz’s favorite person around, she still sounded sympathetic when she said, “I’m sorry, Archer. You shouldn’t have to go through all that.” She bit her lower lip, moving a hand to pick at the leather arm of the chair. “I did want to find dirt on you. I wanted to make you pay for what you did to me, for what could’ve happened at that party—but I wasn’t the one who tipped off the cops. Destroying families…that’s not what I want to do.”
I breathed evenly, my heart beating rapidly in my chest as I asked, “Was it Vaughn? Dante? I already know…I know they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty.” That was probably the understatement of the year.
She shook her head. “They were helping me, but no, it wasn’t them. I asked. Vaughn did have the information apparently, but he swears up and down he never released it. It wasn’t us. Someone else must’ve told the police.”
Who the hell else was there? There was no way Brittany would’ve done it, because that’s what she’d been blackmailing me with. She would never willingly lose her power over me, especially right before the dance.
“Who?” I asked, mostly to myself, because it was obvious Jaz didn’t know. Why would she? She was a newcomer to Midpark; she hadn’t grown up here, she didn’t know everyone like I did.
“I don’t know,” Jaz muttered, frowning slightly. “Just like I don’t know what happened to Brittany.”
My eyes snapped back to her. “But you think I do?”
“Well, considering how you’ve been acting toward me lately, yeah, it wasn’t too far of a stretch to imagine you trying to set me up.”
Not only that, but also killing Brittany and taking her body.
“You really think,” I paused, wondering just what kind of guy Jaz thought I was, “that I could kill someone? That I could kill someone and perfectly frame you for it?” Then again, I’d lied to her from the beginning, so I guess she didn’t really know what kind of guy I really was. “I’m not a murderer.”
Jaz looked at me hard right then, the emotion in her dark eyes apparent. “Neither am I.”
Damn it. She was right. How could I be insulted when I’d lied to her, when she thought I’d killed the girlfriend who’d blackmailed me into a relationship and framed her when I thought the same thing about her? When I heard the rumors, I didn’t exactly want them to be true, but my mind told me that it made sense.
“I hate you for what you did,” she whispered, “but I’d never go that far.”
Hate. Did she really hate me? I couldn’t blame her. It might not be