The offer is appreciated even though he is not quite inclined to take it. Not tonight, at least. While he has prided himself on the range of his emotional threshold, coaxing the truth out of himself now is an impossible task, not when he is still serving as Jacob’s anchor. “Another time, perhaps.” The words taken by themselves are a dismissal, though Gilly’s gesture speaks another language. His smile is soft and reassuring, the corners of his lips lifting upward to tease a promise. “We’ve got time.” After the seance, he’s come to realize he has more things to figure out, more memories to sift through. If forgetting is its own kind of murder, then he has sent Rose and her family to their deaths a second time.
In any case, that night Jacob is eager to tell him something, everything. It takes a conscious effort for Gilly maintain his reflective dignity, keenly aware that any bold gesture on his part may derail the truth he is now prepared to speak out in full.
Always, it comes back to his sister. Jacob’s guilt is as heavy is his grief—yet Gilly cannot help but find that guilt misplaced, or even misguided. Surely, his friend should not bear the brunt of responsibility, but it is an opinion he keeps to himself now. Even with the fragments of truth, the full situation is still not becoming clear to him. He wonders whether the apt metaphor is not mounting maps on sheets of hardwood together as if a cartographer, than it is picking up a thousand glass shards and praying they can still form a mirror. Less to form something, as it is to make sense the broken pieces.
“Can you tell me why? What—what did you do?” It’s a simple enough question, he surmises, though he knows that sometimes the simplest answers are the most revealing, the ones that demanded to be picked apart. “How does she factor into this? And how do you think your actions made you culpable in her death, somehow?” The tone of his voice is tentative and probing, though careful not to sound accusatory. The last thing he wishes to do is invalidate the feelings that weigh on Jacob’s shoulders. What he means to say, though, is this: help me understand.
That quiet contemplation is is interrupted by another truth—one that admittedly confuses him, until Jacob continues on.
Girls in my nightmares. I hurt them. “Jake…” His grip on Jacob’s hand becomes tighter, but the gesture is selfish. Not quite to bring his friend comfort, but to hold himself steady, to cut his own treacherous train of thought off before it arrives at a bitter destination.
I can never tell when I’m dreaming or not.
“No.” He shakes his head, fervently, the tension coiled around him beginning to unravel. “No, it isn’t you.” He isn’t sure how much of his words are meant to reassure Jacob, or himself. He figures it’s a little of both. “It doesn’t make sense. The letters. Everything is planned, so well thought-out. Even Ayda can’t figure it out.” There is a a harsh chuckle that leaves his lips that is bereft of any humor. “No, no, it can’t be you. It doesn’t—it doesn’t make sense.”
He is aware of sheer tenacity in his voice, his conviction heavy in the air—but he cannot quite muster the ability to meet Jacob in the eyes. He has been wrong in the past; he does not hope to be so now.
“If you’re trying to be good, then you are, alright?” His grip remains firm, but reverts back to its original purpose of comfort. “That’s all any of us can hope of doing.”
Do we really? is what Jacob wants to say. Time’s been slipping through his fingers lately, it either passes too fast or too slow and he can never fully control what happens with him throughout his days. And then he’s been feeling like he’s running out of time, especially lately; like something—he doesn’t even know what—is going to happen soon and take him by surprise. No matter what, Jacob can’t shake the anxiety that comes with it.
The bigger truth is that Jacob’s convinced he’s been living on borrowed time for a years now. He’s always so surprised when he wakes up alive, the aching of his limbs as proof that his body’s still working. This conviction of his, that he does not deserve it, will probably never leave him alone.
The battle of needing to tell someone and having to keep the truth a secret almost always amplifies itself when Jacob’s with Gilly. They’ve shared many conversations where they dared to get more personal and Jacob came close to spilling his guts almost every single time. There isn’t anyone in the world he trusts more—the truth would be in good hands if he were to share it, Jacob knows that. But even with this knowledge, he can’t disregard the shame he feels about his actions, the guilt of it all. He’s always been too afraid that it would change things—that if people, if Gilly, were to know the truth then they would know how rotten he actually is. And he isn’t sure if he can handle any more people leaving him.
But something cracked now, there’s an opening and the truth is spilling faster than he can mend the gaps. Maybe this won’t change things, Jacob tries to convince himself as his hands start trembling with the weight of his confessions.
“You...you remember her husband, right? Fred? The one I bought the pub with?” Jacob can’t even remember when was the last time he’s brought him up in a conversation, with anyone. “We—” he starts off but it’s a lot harder to actually say it than he anticipated. He can’t even bring himself to look at Gilly anymore, his gaze cast downwards. “He was with me first. He was mine first.” Saying that makes him feel so many things—none of them good. “We fought about him, she and I. She was jealous. And then I was jealous. But in the end she married him and I was left alone.”
“I thought I could win him back.” Jacob’s voice trembles even though this is the part of the story he always feels detached from the most. “And I did something stupid and—so awful. I—” he abruptly stops. I can’t. I can’t say it.
And he doesn’t. The shame still blooms too strong within him. He can feel tears trailing down his face and the only thing he can’t think of is that one dream he had with her the other day. What are you crying for? she said. I should be the one weeping. “I ruined her marriage. I ruined her. I made sure to hit where it would hurt the most but I never thought she’d...”
Jacob wonders how much Gilly can put together from his unfinished thoughts and broken sentences. Everything, he hopes.
“So many things haven’t been making sense and yet they’re true. So what if—” Jacob trails off again, scared to tell what he believes to be true. It’s all him. He wants to believe Gilly; what he says makes sense, that it’s something too complicated for a man who’s barely conscious half the time to achieve. But in Jacob’s head there’s always a possibility. It’s all him.
“Gilly, I don’t know what to do. I really don’t know how to manage.” What he means is: help me. I can’t do this on my own.
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