Chapter 25

“No fucking way.” I haul myself off the bed and start rummaging through cupboards, looking for clothes. Jefferson had collected some for me, and Jake had ordered new ones. Rage courses through me at the thought of him denying me this, of him, of all people, being annoyed at me.

“What are you doing?” He follows me and tries to pull me back with a hand on my upper arm, but I shove him off aggressively.

“I’ll leave you and go back to Queens if you’re going to start being like this.” I huff and stomp around, fully aware that I’m being irrational. Jake’s just trying to be the good guy, and I’m acting like the bitch that I have been for weeks, behaving this way because he doesn’t touch me anymore.

~Your choice, Emma!~

“You don’t want me to take care of you?” he croaks, dumbfounded and more than a little hurt. I glance up and catch the expression on his face, his little lost boy look, and it physically hurts me. A sharp pain in my stomach fuels my temper tantrum.

“I want you to rip my goddamn dress off and remind me of the guy I fell crazily in love with! The one who didn’t take no for an answer or see me pushing him away as a hindrance!” I snap and turn on him with tears in my eyes. “I miss you … The real you, not this ~over gentle and walking on eggshells keeping his distance~ you. I miss us, Jake, and it’s torturing me.”

“It’s what you asked for, Emma, and it’s what you need. Do you think rushing back into sex will fix how you feel? Well, it’s not, and I don’t want it that way.” He runs a hand through his hair in complete frustration and starts pacing around the side of the bed to avoid being too close to me. He’s agitated, angry, and something else; hopeless. He’s out of his depth with this, just as I am, neither of us knowing what we should be doing to fix this.

“I’ve spent the last two weeks confused about what I need from you and holding you at arm’s length, but it isn’t working. Do you know why? Because you’re not you either. I need you, not this half-assed version of you! I need the Jake who came after me in Chicago, who pushed me into a hotel wall and kissed me, the Jake who stormed across a dance floor to find me. I need him to come get me because I’m so damned lost right now.” I cry, a sudden wave of emotion hitting like a ton of bricks as tears spill down my cheeks. That wave of heartbreak overtakes me as everything I’ve been holding back, deep inside, works its way free.

“You need time, Emma. I will not risk losing you by rushing things and pushing you further from me. I would die without you,” he implores me pleadingly. He stops his frantic pacing and comes close to me, his hands pausing on my face, brushing away my hair and tears.

“How can you know what I need when I don’t even know what I need?” I almost wail at him, emotions soaring, as I wave my hands around angrily between us.

“Because I know you, like it or not, and sometimes I know what you need more than you do, yet you’re too damn stubborn to trust me on it!” he barks back and then frowns, instantly remorseful for losing his temper.

“No! You’re just arrogant, always thinking you know what I need, but most of the time, you don’t know what I need or want,” I rant, storming and pacing, every ounce of me burning with heated fire. I’m angry at him and myself, for God knows what—an all-consuming fury that needs to be released. These past few weeks, I haven’t let all this pour out, not this way, anyway. All my outbursts and tantrums have been aimed at other issues and lots of misdirection from the real topics, doing what I always did, avoiding the painful roots and letting them fester inside.

“You never tell me what you need or feel, Emma, so I’ve had to learn to second guess you. You’re always so damn scared of truly letting it all out! Tell me what you need … Say it to me and fuck the consequences … Scream it at me if you have to because right now, I need to hear it. Hear once and for all that you fucking love me enough to let me see every fucking thing that goes on in your head!” he yells at me, losing his cool, fueled by my temper, and I snap. Enraged that he would even yell at me like this, uncontrolled anger at one another brings back the memory of him walking out on me that night. My mind spews out via my mouth hysterically.

“I need you to have not done what you did!” I wail out loud, my voice fracturing, the harshness of my temper breaking free. “I need her to not be pregnant with your baby because I hate them both, and I don’t care if you’re disgusted at me for it. I want us to be normal, for none of this to hurt this way because it all hurts so damn much, and I did not need an unplanned pregnancy thrown in the mix to royally fuck my head up more than it already is…. I don’t even know how to feel about this baby other than I don’t want to get rid of it, and that has me crazy as hell … You want to know why I didn’t want the house, Jake? Because I’m scared, I’m so goddamn fucking scared of all of this because it’s real and frightening. All I’ve ever had in life to show me what relationships are is a fucked-up, selfish bitch of a mother who let men abuse me and a father who let himself get paid off to never fucking come near me again after years of acting like I didn’t exist! I don’t believe that anyone can ever truly love me the way you say you do or that you’ll stay with me and protect me when no one else has…. Why would you?... You alone have the power to destroy me and leave me broken without effort, and giving myself over to you fully is utterly terrifying!... What I ~do~ fucking need, Jake, is just one piece of frickin normal, for one day, to stop me going out of my freaking mind…. I need the Jake Carrero, CEO, bossy, arrogant, cocky shit, who liked to get me naked and screw me on top of fucking cars and desks, and any damned place he pleased because he liked to point out every fucking second of every day that I was ~his~, and only ~his~. He owned that shit without even trying!... I ~need him~ because he’s the one who found me once before and pulled me out of this shit with everything that he was … ~is~ … ~so~… YOU… can you fuck off and go find him? Because he’s the one who I need in this room with me, right now, not you!... ~He’s~ the one I love with every piece of my messed up soul, the one I would follow to the ends of the Earth, it’s his baby in here, and we both need no one else but him!” I explode at him, letting all the anger, rage, and aching pain come out in a rush of crazy sobs before I slump down onto the floor and start weeping violently, letting it all seep out.

I feel completely free with my rambling, uncensored, emotional, verbal outburst over. Like a weight has been lifted. The building heaviness and pain of the past few weeks have just exited the building, and all that’s left is emotional exhaustion and a lot of light-headedness. I don’t even know if what I’ve screamed, rather psychotically, at him made any sense. I just got lost in the outpouring of every emotion that’s been bubbling inside me, rather manically.

Jake’s arms come around me slowly and tightly, and he lifts me into him. Cradling me as he slides us both onto the bed to sit entangled. His mouth comes close to my cheek, his breath tickles my face, and his whole body is completely still, calm beneath me despite seeing the woman he loves turn into some crazy, ranting mental person.

“I never left you, baby. I’m still here, but I’m just so scared of losing you that I don’t know how else to be,” he said. He stroked back my hair as I whimpered and cried, curled in his lap, hopelessly overcome with extreme fatigue.

“I’m trying to give you time and understanding, Emma, trying to undo what I’ve done and not make this worse for you.” Finding the strength inside of me to pull myself together, I calmed down the flood of pain to listen to the voice that seemed to run through me with every word. I sighed and sagged into him fully.

“I’m scared … I love you so much, and I know I’m messing it all up despite trying so fucking hard. I need you, Emma, more than air, more than anything, and I can’t lose you. It would end me. I have no idea how to navigate this because I’ve never been here before. I’m just hoping I know you well enough to guide you when you’re struggling.” The painful break in his tone pushed me to look up to connect with two beautiful green eyes filled with moisture, studying me with the rawest pain I’ve ever seen, mirroring my own.

“I want to let it all go. I want to be us again,” I cried, pushing my face into the crook of his neck. I fed from the warmth around me, drawing everything I could from him.

I couldn’t go back to not being held by him after this. It was healing me in ways I so badly needed, returning me to some sense of reality, grounding me in the way only he ever could, the way only his touch ever could. I didn’t want to go back to not having him around me.

“I want that too. I miss us. I miss this … Just being able to touch you and kiss you whenever I want to, being able to be close to you again is everything; this is my reason for breathing, baby.” He rested his chin on top of my head and sighed heavily.

“I miss this too … I want this back, Jake; give it back to me.” My tears had turned to silent droplets trickling down my face, and he tightened his strong arms protectively, a silent promise to keep me safe and always take away my pain if he could.

~I love him so much.~

“You can have this back, Emma, all of it. There is nothing in the world I want more right now than this. Just not sex, not yet—trust me on this, baby.” He lifted a hand, running it across his face and rubbing hard at the spot between his eyebrows.

“I can’t believe I’m even saying this … I won’t touch you that way until I know you’re ready for us to go there again. You’ll know when, Emma, and you’ll thank me for not doing this as much as it’s killing me. I need your forgiveness first and to forgive myself before we can ever go there. I need to accept what I did to you, too. I need to be able to look in the mirror, not hating what I see staring back before I can allow myself to give you every part of me again.”

He sighed and kissed me on the forehead. Each touch and caress made me curl into him more and more, trying to take from this what I needed right now; more than anything, I needed Jake wrapped around me and loving me in the way only he could.