only one who misses you. He was getting really pissy with me because I wasn’t taking care of him like I used to.”
The humor dissipated as concern dotted her brow. “Why weren’t you taking care of him?”
“Because I was too depressed to do much of anything.”
“Oh,” she whispered, just as the pain in her eyes returned.
I suddenly realized that it might not have been pain at all, but rather guilt, as if she felt responsible for how everything went down. If that was the case, then I needed her to know that I didn’t blame her. “I was depressed because you weren’t there.”
“Oh,” she repeated, though this time, hope filled her voice.
“I know that I don’t deserve it, especially after the way I left things last time, but I was hoping that we might be able to talk?” At this point, I didn’t care if I sounded desperate; hell, I was desperate. There was no point in hiding it.
Without saying anything else, she finished turning the key in her door and invited me in.
“Wow, this is quite a difference from your sister’s place, huh?”
Tasha tossed her keys onto the coffee table and shrugged. It wasn’t until she made her way back from the kitchen—I only knew where she went because she returned with two drinks—that she finally responded to my statement. “Yeah, I guess it is a little different. My walls are yellow, hers are grey. Other than that, they’re almost identical.”
I twisted off the cap on the bottle of water she handed me and followed her lead, sitting next to her on the two-person loveseat. This was certainly not how I saw our conversation going, not that I was complaining. In fact, I was very happy that things were proving to be easier than expected.
“Listen, Jacoby…” She turned her whole body to face me until she was sitting sideways on the couch. “I’m really sorry about—”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, Tasha. I’ve already told you that. It wasn’t your fault; neither of us were thinking when we left the hospital together. And honestly, if we were anyone else, no one would’ve thought twice. The only reason it became what it was is because they were clearly trying to catch your sister in a compromising position, and you helping me outside was just enough for the press to take off running with it.”
“Say what you want, but I still feel awful about it. The only thing that matters is that your past never would’ve been brought up if it hadn’t been for me. No matter which way you slice it, the only reason any of this has happened to you is because of me.”
While she wasn’t wrong, I didn’t believe a single word of it. And even though I still battled with the shame left behind by my parents’ actions, easing her worries became the higher priority. It helped to block some of the embarrassment that bubbled to the surface at the unspoken acknowledgment that she knew what my parents had done.
“What happened in my past will always be there. With or without you, it was always there. And truth be told, having it brought back up in the media has helped me deal with it in ways I never would’ve been able to without you. It’s released some of the binds that have held me back for so long. If anything, I should be thanking you.”
Confusion and disbelief crossed her face again. “How did that help you?”
Before getting in my car this morning, I’d promised myself that I would give her everything. The entire time we’d spent together, I’d kept so much from her, essentially preventing her from truly knowing parts of me. But I wouldn’t do that anymore.
I’d give her all of me, and she could choose to take me or leave me.
But at least it would be her choice, and she’d have all the facts.
“I don’t know how much of my story that you know, but in a nutshell, my parents were sentenced to fourteen years in prison for a barrage of charges ranging from tax fraud to mail fraud—though they only served eight. At the time, I was twelve and Jessa was fifteen, so we were sent to live with our grandparents. While we were there, we weren’t allowed any contact with either of our parents. They refused to take us to visit them, and any calls from the jail were blocked.”
“Did you want to talk to them?”
This was something I’d asked myself many times. “To