Izzy stayed behind me for the first few minutes of the drive, beeping when she turned and I continued straight.
“Pull it together, Jenna,” I muttered, looking for black SUVs in the rearview mirror. “Nothing happened.” I squirmed in my seat, not with fear or guilt for judging him, but at my body’s reminder that I never went to the bathroom. If I didn’t make it to the toilet before my body rebelled against my paranoia, well, that was something I’d hold against him. Especially if it was in my car. Or the lobby of my building. Anywhere but the bathroom, really.
My anger grew with my urgency. I’d been afraid to go to the bathroom in plenty of places, but never before in my library, and it pissed me off.
I hurried inside, too desperate to worry about who was around. Thor circled my feet, confused at the lack of attention as I ran to the bathroom.
Sweet relief.
My phone rang from where I’d hastily dropped my bag near the door. I ignored it, not that I could get to it anyway.
It rang a few more times while I took care of Thor and made an omelet. I wasn’t ready to talk to Liam yet, or anyone else either. Juliette and Nicky could usually talk me off the ledge, but what if Juliette told Dylan and he told Liam?
If Liam got even the tiniest inkling I was afraid of someone, he wouldn’t be talked out of doing something about it. And that would be a big problem.
I couldn’t let my worries make him even more protective than he already was. It was like Thor. I’d given him that name to sound tough, but I was glad he was actually a big babyso my paranoia wouldn’t rub off on him and make an already protective dog overreactive. It was also why I didn’t carry a weapon—there were too many times I wished I had one. Too many times I could have destroyed lives due to fear rooted in my past rather than in reality.
If my nervousness ping-ponged with Liam’s protectiveness, I’d go crazy and he’d end up in jail, and I doubtmyinsanity would helphisdefense.
No, I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get myself under control before I talked to him. Not just right now, but always if we were going to be together.
Just because Snake Eyes looked creepy didn’t mean he was a bad guy. People couldn’t help the way they looked. It wasn’t his fault his eyes were soulless black holes or that his lips stretched into a sinister smile. I knew better than anyone that looks were no indication of what was inside a person. Bad guys didn’t look any specific way, and they didn’t wear name tags announcing it.
On the surface, Brian was perfect. The kid all the guys wanted to be, and all the girls wanted to be with. Great student, star quarterback, enough of a troublemaker that the kids thought he was cool, but still polite and smart enough that the teachers liked him too. He was from a good family in a good part of town. Blue eyes, blond hair, straight white teeth and a slightly crooked, disarming smile. Everyone loved him, even my parents.
That was why I couldn’t trust my gut. What he did to me wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was losing faith in everything. I couldn’t trust the people who were supposed to protect me. I couldn’t trust other people not to hurt me. And most of all, I couldn’t trust myself.
I tried so hard to hide my fear and shame, but they were so all-encompassing that hiding them meant hiding me. I lost myself. Pushing those feelings down led to pushing everything down until I was numb. Nothing felt happy or sad or safe. It wasall just a blur of unsafe, and it was hard to see anything clearly from inside it. Hard to tell real danger from imagined. Hard to see myself. So when everyone else seemed to love him and think it was all okay, it felt like maybe I was the crazy one.
That’s why I had those rules. If I couldn’t judge a person on how they looked or acted, and I couldn’t base it on how I felt about them, how the heck was I supposed to function in a world with billions of people, with no idea which were the bad ones?
So I relied on the most basic, factless statistics. Most people were good. People like Brian were the minority. Therefore, I chose to believe people were good until they gave me a reason to think otherwise.
This usually worked pretty well. It felt so much better to be warm and friendly, even if I had to squelch my inner nerves to do it, than it was to be suspicious and guarded. It felt like maybe this was who I could have,should have, been.
But something about this guy made it harder than usual. That didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. I just had to push down my fear and be logical. I could do that.
Maybe my anger could override my fear—because I was mad. Mad at Snake Eyes and Brian, and even Tyler, for putting me in a difficult situation, albeit unknowingly. And at Fran too, for telling me to listen to my instincts when my instincts were the problem.
But I could handle mad. Better to be mad than scared.
I knew Liam, and maybe most people, would say my way wasn’t the safest, but being scared wouldn’t keep me safe either. Simple statistics. Living in fear would guarantee unhappiness without guaranteeing safety. Naive optimism, on the other hand, gave me a chance at happiness while probably only slightly increasing my risk. I’d already wasted too much of my life. That extra risk was worth it to enjoy the rest.
And right now, all my happy thoughts centered around Liam. Nothing would ruin our budding relationship faster than me freaking out about an imaginary threat. I was already freaking out enough just because we were in a relationship. I needed to put my best self forward for as long as I could.
CHAPTER NINE
Liam
“Jenna, please call me back as soon as you get this. Or text me even. I need to know you’re okay.”
I felt like a possessive ass leaving that message after only one date, but the feeling that something was wrong sat like a boulder in my stomach. Between callouts and a training session, I’d barely had a free second all day, and Jenna couldn’t use her phone easily at work, so I didn’t think anything of it when I only got one text from her this morning.
She should’ve been home hours ago, though, and she hadn’t answered any of my calls or texts. Her texts last night and this morning gave me every hope that she wanted to keep talking. I couldn’t think of any good reason why she’d suddenly start avoiding me, which left me with a hundred bad reasons swirling in my gut. I didn’t want to be unreasonable, but we could be called out any second and that could put me out of pocket for hours, so I needed to know she was safe.
“Yo man, what’s with the pacing?” Ryan asked.
I sighed. Let him call me crazy. He wouldn’t be wrong. “I can’t get hold of Jenna.”