Something inside of me just wouldn't activate. His offer seemed like the greatest thing possible, along with the worst. But why? I didn't even know. I couldn't come up with a reason—I could only feel it. Was coming up with a solution on my own better than what he was saying? It sounded like a dream job.
"Work for you." I said it as if it were an outfit I grabbed off the rack and had carried into the dressing room to see how it fit me. I guess it was my vulnerability that made me so distant in that moment, my reptilian brain falsely claiming that it had discovered danger and that I should flee to save myself.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Stupid.
"Well?"
My nerves were starting to loosen from the alcohol. "I'm not sure I can answer," I said honestly.
"I hope you believe me. I didn't know that this was going to happen, that Sam was so much of a fucking creep."
"Yeah," I said quietly, suddenly remembering that incident. It started to race through my veins like venom. Had a snake just bitten me?
"This all just sort of happened," he said. "I've been thinking about it so much, and it's the only thing that makes sense to me."
My composure started to weaken, but I battled to control myself. "It sounds pretty good, but—"
"But what?" he asked with rising intensity. "Why does wanting you have to be at odds with your goals? Why can't we just be happy together instead of deconstructing everything? What's wrong with wanting us to be a real thing? It'll be everything we've ever wanted and more. It'll be perfect." He stopped and stared right into me. "Effie, if I can't wake up next to you every morning, I don't know what I'll do with myself. I've never wanted anything more than I want you."
I was back at square one, furious at myself, furious at these walls I had constructed for no reason at all. I couldn't seem to shake them, couldn't seem to admit to myself that what Jack wanted was actually the same thing I wanted. Why couldn't I just say the fucking words?
Like an unwanted visitor, the tears arrived, spilling down my cheeks and settling on my lap. I started to sob, the chokes of agony the culmination of so many ups and downs, highs and lows, moments when the answer wasn't clear. I felt washed up, like a movie star past her prime, forced to confront a harsh reality head-on and deal with it.
By the time my crying peaked, Jack was there, his defenses down, his body cradling mine as if he'd just rescued me from a burning building. I felt safe in his arms as I always did, the feeling I tried to ignore when I had to make decisions like these. If it were up to my emotions alone, I would have said yes in seconds. Nothing could touch me when I was with him.
"It's okay, Effie." His words were like a plea, an instinctive, sympathetic response to my breakdown.
But something inside of me wanted to remain logical, to be the rational, sane, thinking person that I'd always strived to be. I was unfairly comparing the term emotional to the scene that Timothy had created in the coffee shop, trying to distance myself from that sort of unfiltered insanity that ruined lives and humiliated people.
Just because you made a plan didn't mean that you couldn't deviate from it. Just because you felt something didn't mean you should hide it.
"I'm not the enemy," Jack said as he peppered my forehead with gentle kisses. "I feel like you suspect me every step of the way of having some ulterior motive for what I do. But I don't."
He was right right right. The tears grew even worse; his hug tightened to compensate for the spike. I thought about all of the times I had worried, the things that had troubled me only because I had invented the idea that they were a problem. Our first meeting here, the gifts, the stuff with Stacy, his offer.
Everything was lined up and sorted in my mind, a list of misdeeds that I felt like I should burn. "I want to help you thrive," he said. "I want to take care of you, but I also want you to grow, to become better."
This was not unlike torture, I suspected. Everything he said made me feel better and better—but instead of getting happier, I just cried