Learning To Trust Again

After hastily removing the remnants of the meal from the balcony while she waited for the kettle to boil, Rebecca made the coffee. She knew their time was short and after the initial hiccup when he’d arrived things had gone well so she didn’t want to waste it with them both in separate rooms. Therefore she just left everything else on the bench ready to clean up later.

Carrying the two mugs into the living room a few minutes later, she handed one to Jake and took a seat a little further down the couch with her own. She sat with her right leg bent under her so she was facing him and tried not to think about his hand sitting on the back of the couch, centimeters from her shoulder. The sound on the television was low enough to allow them to talk still.

But Rebecca didn’t rush to fill the silence. She was happy just to sit there with him as they sipped their coffee, she didn’t really care whether they talked or not. However Jake surprised her by opening up conversation. Gesturing towards the photo of her and Todd he remarked ‘so your brother didn’t seem too happy when I came by the other day.’

Wincing as she remembered Todd’s rude behaviour Rebecca said ‘yes I’m sorry about that. He’s a little overprotective.’

‘How come?’

‘Oh I don’t know’ she said, looking away ‘because he’s male I guess.’

Even though she wasn’t looking at him, Rebecca could feel his studied gaze on her.

She wondered if he could tell there was more to the story than she was letting on. She hoped he wouldn’t ask.

After a moment he said ‘so have you always lived in the city?’

Rebecca looked up. ‘No, I grew up in the country. On a farm near a tiny town nobody has ever heard of’ she said. How about you? Are you from here originally?’

‘Nah’ Jake replied ‘I’m the same. I grew up in the country. I moved here when I was eighteen. I couldn’t wait to get out.’

Sighing Rebecca looked away and could keep the sadness out of her voice as she said more to herself than to him, ‘I was happy at home.’

Once again she could feel Jake watching her.

This time, she could tell from his extended silence that he sensed something had happened to change that, but once again he didn’t push and she was grateful for that. She didn’t want to have to explain about Mark and she was terrible at lying. He’d be sure to see straight through her.

 After a minute he changed the subject again ‘what do you do, besides being a nurse that is?’