Chapter 50

Jace once described meaningless sex as amazing at the time, and then nothing but emptiness once it was over.

I'd love to say that the heightened level of pleasure lasted forever or that there isn't any awkwardness in the aftermath, but there is. There has to be. The last time I saw Jace prior to tonight, he was yelling at me and physically forcing me out of his car.

As much as I wanted to have this level of intimacy with him, it shouldn't have happened like this. And it's clear by the way he sits on the edge of my bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, watching me through the mirror as I brush my hair at my dresser, that he might be thinking the same.

I don't think it was intentional—doing what we did as a way to avoid reality—but it happened, and now we have to deal with it. I meet his eyes in the mirror, and he looks away, unable to hold my stare. My shoulders deflate, my single, disappointed exhale falling out of me in the form of a sigh. "You don't have to stay here, Jace."

"I want to," he murmurs, but he couldn't sound less enthusiastic if he tried.

"Don't you need to go home, check on your grandpa or something?" It comes out harsher than expected, and I hate that it did.

"Harlow…" He sighs.

I lower my gaze, ashamed of my tone, of the way I'm acting. I don't want to hold this… animosity toward him. I really don't. I just wish I understood his situation better. I wish I understood him better.

"Can you come here?" he asks, patting the spot beside him, and when he must notice my hesitation, he adds, "Please."

I keep my eyes down as I sit beside him, stay that way in the silence while he gathers his words. It feels like an eternity before he speaks. "I owe you an apology."

"I don't want?—"

"Just…" he cuts in, turning his entire body toward me. "Let me get this out, okay? I've been stewing on it for days, trying to come up with the words."

I nod, facing him, my defenses falling the moment I see the sadness and regret in his eyes.

"I should not have yelled at you the way I did, and I definitely shouldn't have put my fucking hands on you."

"Jace, it's?—"

"No, Harlow. It's not acceptable. None of it is, and the fact that you're even talking to me right now is way more than I deserve. I'm so sorry for the way I treated you when all you've done is care about me. I'm not used to it—people caring about me—and I didn't know how to deal with it at the time, but I need to learn. If I want you in my life, I have to do better."

"Jace," I whisper, a sob caught in my throat. I sit sideways on his lap, try to get as close to him as possible. "I'm sorry too. I should've listened to you when you told me to stay, but I just… I couldn't hear what I did and not do anything about it." I search his eyes for any sign of understanding. "You've been ready to throw blows for me twice, and those weren't even dangerous situations."

"That's different."

"Why?"

"I don't know, it just is."

"I need more than that, Jace. I can't keep on just… skimming the surface with you."

"I know," he admits reluctantly, throwing his head back. He eyes the ceiling, murmurs, "What do you want to know?"

Everything. But I'll start at the beginning. "When did he start hitting you?"

Jace keeps his gaze forward, his entire demeanor stoic, giving away nothing. For minutes that feel like an eternity, he doesn't move. Doesn't speak. I should ask him to leave, give him the space he so adamantly needed over the past couple of days. Just when I open my mouth to tell him as much—he says, still looking ahead, "When I was twelve… I think he waited until I was big enough to hit back."

"So why don't you?"

He slowly turns to me, his empty eyes meeting mine. "Because I can take it. He can't."

"Just because you can take it, doesn't mean you have to."

"Harlow…"

"I'm sorry," I fume, shaking my head. "I just don't get it, Jace. You let him hurt you, and it's almost as if you want to protect him, which is bullshit. Does everyone around here know?"

"They assume," he mutters.

"And what? They're just okay with it?" If Jace can't be angry about this, then I'll carry enough rage for the both of us.

"They knew him before," he says, sighing, as if that's answer enough. It's not. And now he's acting as if I'm in the wrong here, and I'm not. I'm sure of it.

"That's not enough of a reason to?—"

"He wasn't always like this," he cuts in. "You don't know him. You don't know his life or everything he's been through."

"Then explain it to me!"

Jace shakes his head, pushing out a frustrated breath. "He was a kid once too, Harlow. An innocent little kid who had his entire future ahead of him. You think he set out to be a violent drunk? That's how you see him, right?"

"I…" I don't know what to say.

"You can't imagine his level of pain… You can't know what it's like to go from an innocent kid who grows up, marries someone he loves, has a baby girl, and then a few years later, loses the love of his life to cancer… You don't know how hard the decision was to give up his career in the military so he can raise that little girl, all on his own. And you don't know what it's like to have the amount of kindness in your heart that he did. To meet a twenty-two-year-old homeless man struggling through life, and his only thought is to protect him. To bring him into his home and put a roof over his head. And that same man falls for the girl he raised, the one he poured all his love into, and they have a son. His only grandchild. He built a house for them so they'd never have to go without, and he spent his days watching this perfect little family that he helped create, and then one day… one day…" he trails off, the pain in his words palpable. "You don't know, Harlow," he struggles to say. "You can't imagine what it's like to wake up each and every day and the first and only thought on your mind is that it's all your fault. My grandpa does. He blames himself for what happened, and the drinking is how he copes with it."

"I'm sorry, Jace." I'm the first to break. The first to shed tears. The first to fall apart at his words. "I shouldn't have pushed this…"

"No, you shouldn't have," he says, sniffing back his heartache. His arms come around me, holding me close. "But I understand where you're coming from. If anyone laid a hand on you, I'd set the world ablaze, but you… you can't judge my grandpa's character by his actions, Harlow. He's in pain. Just like your parents, just like you. Like me. And that pain… that pain is the price we pay for love. You and me—we're just victims of loving the right people through the wrong times, all with the hope that there's light at the end of the darkness." He wipes at my tears, then kisses them away. "If I let all of this get to me—the stuff with my grandpa—then I let the darkness in, and I let it win. And trust me, I've come close more times than I can count, but… ever since you came along, it's been easier to push it away. You've been my hope at the end of darkness, Harlow… and if we're going to survive this, then I need you to be light."