Letting Go (Thatch #1)(47)
“I’m sorry you had to go through that at all, but it’s over now.”
“I just . . .” I trailed off, struggling to voice the jumbled thoughts in my head. “What could anyone have against me that they’d feel the need to do something like this? I don’t understand, and I need to understand, Jagger. I feel like I’m going insane still. Knowing that it’s not actually Ben is a lot easier to say than to believe. I know he’s gone, I do. But I—I just feel like I don’t know anything anymore.”
Jagger placed one of his hands on top of both of mine, and I quickly stopped twisting my hands together to grip his. “We’ll find out who did this, I swear.”
I nodded absentmindedly, and kept my eyes on where I was now playing with his fingers. I couldn’t stop fidgeting; something was bothering me . . . something that had to do with the Facebook messages. I just couldn’t figure out what it was. Jagger was talking—saying something that I wasn’t hearing. All I could focus on was our hands and the messages and the vows.
“The vows!” I shouted suddenly, and looked up in time to see Jagger’s head jerk back from my outburst.
“What about them?” Jagger asked hesitantly when I didn’t say anything else.
“This can’t just be over. Not that easily.” Removing one of my hands from Jagger’s, I pointed in the direction of the front door. “They obviously know my car since the vows were on them, and they know about you, where you live, and can get inside your place since the vows were here. Just because I blocked one of their ways of torturing me doesn’t mean it’ll just be over.”
“You might be right, but we can’t know that yet.”
“Where did you have the vows?” I looked around the loft at the dresser and desk. “We could see if something else is missing, or—”
“Grey,” he crooned, and cupped my cheek so I would look at him. “I already did all that. I had some cops come and fingerprint the vows and the box that the paper had been in. Nothing else was missing, nothing was out of place, and I don’t even know when they were taken. There was nothing but my fingerprints up here, in the closet, and on the box. And nothing on the vows except for mine, yours, and some unknown ones that they’re expecting to be Ben’s since he had smudged the ink with his finger, and it matched the rest of the prints they found.”
My mouth had slowly opened as he talked, and I knew I was looking at him like I didn’t even know who he was anymore. “So the cops now have the vows? You would just give them something like that? Something that means so much to me? Jagger! They probably ruined the vows!”
“No, I have the paper back because they couldn’t find anything on it, and the vows are fine, babe.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me? Why didn’t you tell me that you’d called them? You didn’t even say anything about giving the vows that were meant for me to the police. What if I didn’t want them to have that?” I looked around the room, shaking my head. “Were you ever going to tell me?” I asked on a humorless laugh. “For all I know, they could’ve found something, but you’re still not telling me.”
He laughed edgily, and I knew he was getting mad, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t believe he’d done all that without asking me first, or telling me after. “Are you—are you f*cking kidding me? Of course I would’ve told you if there was something! Jesus, Grey. You’ve been miserable since the morning you found the vows. Most of your days are bad days, and babe, that’s fine! It’s fine to be hurting. But I didn’t want you to get involved with the police when there was a chance they wouldn’t find anything.”
“You can’t protect me from everything, Jagger!”
He dropped my other hand and sat back, shock and pain covering his face.
“There are things in this world that you can’t control or keep me from!”
“You think I don’t know that?” he yelled back. “I’ve watched you disappear because of something I couldn’t protect you from! Why wouldn’t I try to protect you from the small bullshit when you have gone through so much more?” Getting off the bed, he took large steps toward the stairs, then turned around to look at me. His arms were hanging by his sides, palms up, his expression lost. “That’s what I want to do, Grey, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, to be there for you when shit gets bad, to take as much of it as I can away from you so you won’t have to deal with it. I have spent my life doing that because I love you, and I will spend the rest of it doing the exact same f*cking thing. If you need to know something, I’ll tell you. You of all people should know that by now!”
I opened my mouth to say something—start apologizing, anything to erase that look from his face—but he kept talking.
“I’m sorry you’re mad, I’m sorry you feel like I kept something important from you. But you have no idea what I’m seeing when I look at you. You have no idea what I’ve watched happen to you since the vows ended up on your car!”
That startled me enough to make my mouth snap shut for a few moments. “I don’t—what are you seeing? I’m fine, I’ve been fine except for when it’s happened.”
Jagger laughed harshly, but he sounded defeated. “Grey . . . are you serious?”