“How can you know that?” Carrie looked into Jacob’s eyes, wanting so much to believe him.
“Because I know darkness, too. It nearly destroyed me.” He grabbed her hands, squeezing them, giving her comfort. “When I was a kid my biological mother stayed high. She was a drug addict—cocaine, meth, heroin. Whatever she could get her hands on.”
“Oh my God, Jacob. How horrible.” Her heart broke for him.
“I don’t remember my biological father. He left three months after I was born and never came back. Afterward, my mother went through men just to get money for drugs. When I was seven, I came home from school and found her passed out in the bathroom with a gash on her forehead. I called Aunt Melissa. They’re sisters. She and Uncle Hiro came and pulled me out of the squalor and got my mom in rehab.”
She realized his life had been hell, too.
“Once my mom was clean, I went back to live with her. But it didn’t last. Never. She would relapse and then go back in rehab, time and again. Finally, she married a guy who seemed nice at first and I had big hopes I would finally have the family I’d always wanted. But in a very short time I learned that wasn’t going to happen. Her new husband was a mean drunk. One night he was beating my mother and I tried to stop him. That’s when he turned his rage on me. I ended up with broken ribs. This continued and I never told anyone, including Aunt Melissa and Uncle Hiro. I was just so scared. The only light in my life was the summers I got to spend in Destiny during the school break. Josh tried to get me to tell him everything, and I almost did, many times. He’s like a brother to me.”
“More than like from what I’ve seen,” she said, her heart breaking at Jacob’s tragic story. “You are brothers.”
“That’s true. I trust Josh more than any man I’ve ever known. We might have had very different childhoods, but he has always understood me better than anyone else. I wasn’t always the most pleasant person to be around because my darkness would consume me, but Josh never gave up on me, even when I didn’t want to talk to anyone. He would just be there. Never pushing me. Just waiting quietly until I was ready to open up.”
She wondered if Josh would underst
and her darkness as much as he had Jacob’s.
“At sixteen, I left and never looked back. My life was so much better, and then my mother was killed and I started having nightmares.”
Her eyes welled up with tears. “Who killed your mother?”
“Her bastard husband, the drunk. According to the police report, he had downed a bottle of whiskey and then beat her to death.” Jacob’s voice lowered and his hands curled into fists. “I kept thinking if I hadn’t left I might have saved her. That’s what gave me the nightmares.”
She felt the tears fall from her eyes. “Jacob, how did you survive?”
“With help.” He cupped her chin. “You and I know what pain is, Carrie. Real pain.”
She nodded.
“Like me, you had to learn how to live on your own, how to rely on what you could do and no one else. But that isn’t really living, is it?”
“No.” She looked into his eyes and saw her own reflection in the darkness of his pupils.
“Even living with Aunt Melissa and Uncle Hiro, I still couldn’t get over my nightmares. They encouraged me to see Sam O’Leary. You met him at lunch the other day with Ethel and Patrick.”
“I remember him.”
“He’s a psychiatrist. I balked at the idea at first, afraid what a shrink might unearth in the dark reaches of my mind, but I eventually went to him. Sam showed me that there wasn’t anything I could’ve done to save my mother. She was on a path of self-destruction of her own choosing. And the son of a bitch is in prison for the rest of his life. My nightmares are gone. All of them. Carrie, I encourage you to see Sam. I truly believe he can help you, too.” Jacob leaned over and pressed his lips tenderly to hers. “Carrie, I’m glad I got all this out because I want you to know how much I trust you.”
“And I trust you,” she said, leaning into him. Hearing about his childhood had made her feel even closer to him.
“Sweetheart,” he said, stroking her hair. “I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. I care for you, Carrie. I care for you deeply.”
Her heart seized in her chest. “Jacob, there’s still more I need to tell you and Josh.”
Josh came into the cabin. “Why the serious looks on your faces?”
“I told her about my past,” Jacob said. “It was important to me that she knew everything about me. And Carrie says there’s something she wants to share with us.”
Josh moved to the chair beside her and took her hand. “Carrie, you can tell us anything, no matter what it is. I’m here for you and so is Jacob.”
“I believe you.” She looked into his eyes, thinking about how he’d helped Jacob out of the pit of darkness. “I need to tell you. I want to tell you. But it is very hard. I’ve never shared this with anyone before.”
Josh nodded and kissed her. Then he leaned back, keeping hold of her hand. He didn’t push her, but just sat there waiting, like he’d done with Jacob before.
Waiting for her courage to build, she said, “Maybe Jacob is right. Maybe Sam can help me.”