Graceful Deception

16. The First Place We Met...You Know, Where You Kidnapped Me

***Sort of edited, sort of not...but I'm sure you can look past it!***

Chapter 16

The First Place We Met…You Know, Where You Kidnapped Me

 

 

To say that I slept at all the rest of the night would be a lie.  But then again, I apparently wasn’t trustworthy, so of course I would be lying since that’s what I do all the time. 

Okay, I didn’t need to be so hard on myself, but could I help it?  No, not with what John had said to me just hours before still playing around in my head, twisting themselves into sentences that cut me down even more.  I had to remind myself that what I was thinking up wasn’t what he’d said to me, only a harsher version that I decided to torture myself with instead. 

I couldn’t go back to sleep, though, whatever I did.  The only thing that I could do was sit up in the bed, staring off into the space in front of me.  Sure, I was waiting for John to come bursting inside, begging me to forgive him, but then I really didn’t want him doing that either.  Maybe it was a good thing for the both of us that he hadn’t.  I could torture myself like I deserved and he could reevaluate our relationship and how much he could trust me.

I knew I needed to stop, but even I started to think that they shouldn’t trust me with as much as they were telling me.  How could they when Juliet was trying her best to get me onto their side at whatever the price?  I didn’t know what she would do to break me.  But if she had a sense of what could…I didn’t trust myself not to break. 

It’s a funny thing, trust.  It can take little to no time at all to gain, one simple act and that’s it.  With me and John, I didn’t know when exactly he started trusting me, but I certainly knew with him.  Standing on the edge of the room of the Met in New York, looking at him as the police came after us, and he asked me if I trusted him enough to jump. 

That jump, that leap of faith I’d blindly taken, not knowing where it would bring me, cemented my trust in him.  And it would take a lot to break that trust. 

Too bad it apparently wasn’t the same for him. 

Because it only takes another simple act to take away that trust and I’d apparently done just that.

It only took me not telling him about Juliet, something I decided to keep from him because I knew just how crazy he would have gotten, knowing that she’d gotten that close to me.  I wasn’t lying when I said I did it to protect him.  Just like he would for me, I’d do anything to protect him, no matter the cost.  He might have thought he didn’t need any protecting, but he did.  From the Knights, yes, but more importantly…from himself.     

 ...

I tried not to keep myself locked up in my room for too long after I heard everyone get up.  The quiet voices in the hallway had me straining my ears to hear what they were saying.  John’s voice wasn’t one of them, though.  I hadn’t heard him yet.  So I got up, took a shower, changed into my clothes for the day…and then sat back down on the bed, chickening out before I could go downstairs

Knowing John, he’d probably stayed up the rest of the night like I had, beating himself up for what he’d said.  Sure, I felt a little guilty for kicking him out, but really.  What did he expect me to do?  It had been the right thing to do at the time.  It gave us both the space that we needed to think things through.