Learning To Trust Again

Jake had to run to catch up with Rebecca, her indignation and anger causing her to move fast. Putting his hand on her arm as she strode along, he immediately withdrew it as she stiffened and stopped. She didn’t look at him.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked, his voice soft.

Shrugging and fighting to hold back tears, her voice was harsh as she said without looking at him ‘what do you think?’

‘Don’t worry about Todd, he’ll calm down’ Jake said. ‘I can understand why he doesn’t want to believe it.’

Turning to look at him, her expression incredulous, she asked ‘you can understand it?’ and as her anger rose again she added ‘good for you, maybe you’ll be so good as to explain it to me, because I don’t bloody get it at all and what about Dad telling us to leave like we’d done something wrong?’ She threw her hands in the air and looked away ‘What the hell was that?’

Shrugging, his voice calm, Jake said ‘well as far as Todd is concerned, he liked Jemma, he trusted her. Would you want to believe someone you liked could do that to you?’ He paused and watched her.

Rebecca looked at him, frowning. She knew he was deliberately drawing a comparison for her between what he’d done and what Jemma had done. But why? Why would he do that when he knew how she felt about it? And as she searched his eyes it hit her. He was showing her that he now knew he’d done the wrong thing. She just continued to look at him, waiting.

 In a quiet voice he added, ‘as for your father, what choice did he have? Todd was upset, and he’s still recovering. It was better for him that we left. Your father was just trying to do what was right for him.’

Still searching his expression Rebecca remained silent for a long minute. She’d heard what he said about her father but that wasn’t what was important to her just then so she ignored it. Instead she said ‘you understand it was a betrayal, that lying hurts and destroys trust.’

She was not talking about Todd and Jemma anymore and he knew it. Jake nodded. His eyes were fixed on hers as he said ‘I know, I should have told you and if I were given the chance to do it again, that’s what I’d do. If I were given the chance to start over, it wouldn’t happen again.’