He hadn’t been in my life for long, but I’d cared for him so much. Had always looked back on him as one of the most important childhood friends I’d ever had, both him and his brother. His poor little brother who’s dead and gone, all because of Brian and Una.
The moment I’d first laid eyes on him that day at the office, I’d felt a connection. I never fathomed it could be because I’d known him all along. And he’d known me.
Now I understand everything. I understand why Jay did all this. I understand his need for retribution. But why didn’t he tell me from the very beginning? Why keep it a secret all these months?
Before I know it, the apartment has been cleared, Jay has jimmy-rigged the door until the repair man comes in the morning, and we’re alone. Silently, he comes and wipes my tears away with his fingertips.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper, moving my eyes to meet his. I want to stare at him for hours, just soak up the contours of his face. For a brief minute in time, I’d thought he was dead out there on that balcony. A moment of silence elapses. He stares at me until I look at him again, then starts to speak.
“Because I wanted you to see me, the real me. I didn’t want you to remember a beat-up, skinny, sad little kid with a dead family when you looked at me.”
“I liked that kid. And I like the man, too. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Jay runs a hand through his hair and gets up from his seat. He walks across the room before coming back to sit with me again. He takes my hands firmly into his and looks deep into my eyes, too deep, almost.
“If I told you who I was, then I’d have to tell you my entire plan. You never would have gone for it. You have too much honour, and I didn’t want to involve you in any of the shady things I had to do to make the trial happen. That’s why I’ve kept you at a distance, too. I didn’t want what was between us to be built on secrets, secrets I couldn’t tell you. You’d have told your dad, and then he never would have agreed to represent me in court. And I needed him to do it. I needed him to be the one to take down Brian and Una, because they were the ones who ruined his family, destroyed his life. I did a lot of research on your dad, you know, before I ever came back here. He graduated top in his class, won some very high-profile cases before your mom passed. Then it all went to shit. His confidence plummeted. I wanted to give him back something of what he’d lost.”
I stare at him, mouth open, heart clenching. He did that for my dad. I never thought anyone really cared about us but each other. But that wasn’t true. There was a boy who grew into a man who cared enough to fight for us. And now I feel like crying again.
“Hush, don’t cry, darlin’,” says Jay, the tears in my eyes upsetting him.
He brings my hand up to rest on one side of his chest where the six of hearts tattoo is drawn. He’s still topless after the paramedics came and bandaged up the wound where the bullet grazed him.
He takes my finger and places it on one of the hearts. “This one is you, Matilda.” He moves it to the next one. “This one is me.” And the next. “This one is my brother. This one is my mom. This one is your dad, and this one is your mom. Six hearts, remember? Six people I care about most. I did this for all of us.”
He moves my hand again, bringing it to the other side of his chest, where the cubist design is drawn. He traces my finger over it in the shape of an “M,” and I suddenly see that the tattoo is an illusion, and hidden within the illusion is the first letter of my name.
“This one is you, too, the most important one,” he murmurs, and I gasp.
“You got this for me?” I whisper, hardly able to believe it.
“I did, Matilda. I might tell you that you’re mine, but you need to understand that it goes both ways. I belong to you, too.”
My heart hammers. I can’t think of a thing to say.
He brings his hand to my neck, to my scar, and starts to rub. “Those letters I gave you? They’re only half of them. The rest have far more details about Una and Brian. I found them one day in my uncle’s study when I was searching for money to run away with. I took them with me when I ran, and after I read them, a black pit started to grow inside me. I knew I had to do something to fix what happened to my mom and my brother, to punish the people who did it to them. They had been my whole world. I didn’t give a fuck about my dad. He could burn in hell for all I cared. The anger festered inside me for years. Then I started doing magic professionally and got back on my feet. I began looking into Brian and Una, seeing where they were now, and I knew I had to take them down. They were on top, and from what I could tell, they’d ruined a lot of people to get there.
“Then I remembered your family, how spending my evenings at your house were some of the happiest times of my life. So I got curious and looked you guys up. What I discovered was a newspaper article about the break-in, detailing how your mom was shot, and you and your dad beaten and injured. I pictured you as this little nine-year-old girl being attacked by a grown man, and it made me so angry I could kill someone. I investigated further and saw that your house had been sold to Brian’s company, and I knew he was behind the break-in. So then my plan grew. I wasn’t just getting revenge for myself anymore — I was getting it for you and your dad, too.”
He’s still rubbing my scar. “Dad knows, doesn’t he? That’s what you both were arguing about the other night.”
Jay sighs. “Yeah. I had to tell him. It had gotten to the point where half the evidence I had wasn’t making sense to him anymore, so he had to know.”
“You should have told me.”
“You know I couldn’t. This needed to run smoothly. I couldn’t risk it.”
I pull away from him. “That’s bullshit. I wouldn’t have told anyone. I would have kept your secret.”
He ignores my anger and instead continues talking.
“The first time I saw you since you were a kid was about two years ago, on the street outside your dad’s offices. You were carrying a bunch of takeaway coffees, struggling to keep a hold of all of them. God, you were so fucking beautiful. I wanted to go and help you, introduce myself, but I had to wait. I watched you a lot after that, finding reasons in my head to go and check up on you. You never saw me, not until the day I came for my appointment. I found my feelings for you growing. In the beginning, I thought I cared for you like a sister, but then I saw you as a woman, and I was done for. You were beautiful…and I was drowning.”
“You…you followed me without my knowledge?”
He clears his throat. “I’m not saying it was a logical or good thing to do. But I had to see you, even if it was from afar. I became addicted. And then I really knew I couldn’t tell you about my plan until it was all over. I couldn’t take the chance. I needed you to fall in love with me, because I was already so deeply in love with you.”
My heart stops, just literally stops beating. “What?” I whisper.
“I was in love with you,” Jay repeats. “I am in love with you. I think I’ve loved you since I was a kid.”
Staring into his eyes, I see the sincerity of his words.
Epic love.
All of a sudden, it comes to me. The epic love I’ve always wanted was with me all along, and it’s nothing like what I imagined. It’s better, because it’s real. It’s not perfect or pretty. It’s full of mistakes and sacrifices, and sometimes even ugliness. All of a sudden, I know that none of the bad things Jay has done in the past matter. My feelings for him are what matter, and there’s nothing on this earth that could change them. Words fail me again, and I’m shaking.
Jay rambles on, “If I told you who I was and what I was doing straight off the bat, you might not have wanted anything to do with me. So, I became your housemate. I became your friend. We got to know each other. And even though you won’t admit it to yourself, I know you love me, darlin’. I can see it right there in those gorgeous baby blues.”
He takes my face in his hands now, his thumbs stroking just under the line of my jaw, his voice hushed. I tremble.
“After my family died in that fire, I came to stay at your house. You probably don’t remember this, but I was crying into my pillow. You came into the room, crawled into bed beside me, and held me the entire night. I’ll never forget it. We were just kids, but I think you stole a piece of my heart that very night.”