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said, and the pronouncement did nothing to soothe my
precarious composure.  And you weren’t.   She didn’t say it; I don’t even
know if she was thinking it.  But I was.  And there was something I desperately
wanted to say.  It occurred to me then that I had never said those two words to
anyone, possibly ever.  Until now.
    “Lila,”
I began.  “I’m sorry.”
    Lila’s
tears welled up and spilled, painting shiny lines down her face.  She tried to
sit up and I helped her.  She seemed weak and unsteady.  And I could see then
that she wore a plush blue bathrobe.
    Jake’s
robe.
    A
shot of ice jolted through my veins but I didn’t immediately react.  He would
have given it to her, to change into.  Her clothes had been wet from the rain. 
And I could see it there, the bunched-up, still-soaked scrap of the dress she’d
been wearing, lying across the arm of a nearby chair.
    My
focus shifted to Lila as she began to speak quietly.  She sounded sad, and that
defeat in her voice cut me up.  I wanted to stomp on her defeat.  I wanted to
rip out her sadness, and make it all up to her a thousandfold.  I would fix
everything that had ever hurt her.  I’d right my wrongs and everyone else’s.  I
would to give her everything I had, to charm her and win her and enchant her so
I could see her smile again.  Her smile was the only goddamn thing I cared
about.
    “It
was him,” she began slowly.  She didn’t seem to mind that Jake was listening,
too.  Some kind of trust had built up between them that I no longer minded. 
There were things they had in common – devastating things.  Maybe she could
take comfort in knowing the few details she knew about Jake’s past.  A shared
burden is sometimes easier to carry.  “It was the man I told you about.  My
mother’s boyfriend.”  She paused, and I held her hand gently, wiping her tears
with my fingers.  And I waited.  She would speak when she was ready.
    After
a few minutes, she continued.  “He used to lock me up.  So he could … so
whatever he wanted.  To use as he wanted, when he wanted.  So I couldn’t
escape.  Every night, after my mother passed out on the couch, he would come to
me.  That sound, of the key … the lock … it reminds me of all those
nightmares.”  Her tears were streaming freely now as she spoke again, those big
pooling green eyes looking at me.  “I just had to get out.”
    “You
locked her up.”  It was a statement not a question, as though all had suddenly
become clear.  Jake’s disgust was palpable, but he knew my history, as well as
his own.  He knew my hang-ups were a side-effect of his abuse and his
protection.
    “You
didn’t know,” Lila said to me, defending me, of all things.  “You couldn’t have
known that.  I hadn’t told you that part.”
    “It
doesn’t matter,” I said.  “I shouldn’t have done it.  I just wanted to … keep
you safe.”  It was fucked up.  It sounded fucked up, even the way I said
it, the similarities between my behavior and some monster who’d wanted to
possess her for his own pleasure and his own power.  To keep her for his very own. 
Exactly as I had.  I’d become one of the very monsters I’d been so
determined to protect her from .
    “It’s
not the same, Alexander,” Lila said, as though reading my thoughts.  “Not at
all.  Not even close.  But it scared me.  I can’t handle it.  I just couldn’t
see straight, or think, or do anything.  I just had to get out of there.”
    I
wanted to apologize again, but the words seemed too small, too inadequate to
express how much I loved her.
    “Jake
found me.”
    “She
was a little out of it,” Jake said.  “She fainted, and I brought her back
here.”  I didn’t have to ask why he didn’t call me as soon as he’d found her. 
I remembered what Claude had said.  She begged me not to.   I could
hardly blame her.  Even so, as I held her hand and contemplated the glory that
was her face, I knew I