I couldn't hold back the tears any longer.
They fell in heavy drops, splashing onto Jackson's shoulder.
The sight of him throwing himself off that rooftop and the words he'd just spoken tangled together in my mind.
I wrenched hard, pulling my ankle free of his grip.
The force sent the top of my foot dragging across a broken porcelain shard on the floor.
It opened a long gash, blood trickling out, but I was past caring.
I stared at him through blood-red eyes, watching his calm face as my voice trembled.
"Answer me!"
"Why would you do this to me!"
Jackson spread his hands, glanced at the blood still dripping from my foot, lit another cigarette, and let out a long breath.
"Because I hate you."
Hate me?
We'd known each other since we were children, and in all our time together we'd rarely even had a cross word.
Three years ago, when his mother needed a heart transplant, I was the one who scraped together every last dollar.
He'd done nothing but hurt me.
I hadn't even had the chance to hate him yet. What right did he have to hate me?
The questions piled up in my throat.
I was about to speak when Jackson's phone rang.
He glanced at the number and answered in a rush.
After a few gentle murmurs into the phone, he turned to look at me.
"Your stepsister misses me. I have to go be with her."
"She's pregnant. The child is mine."
"Tidy up the house. In a few days I'll bring her home, and you'll look after her."
Jackson said it all as easily as if he were talking about the weather.
Perfectly calm, he picked up his car keys, got dressed, and turned to leave.
As the door was closing,
his gaze settled on my blood-soaked foot.
"Deal with that yourself."
"The cotton swabs are in the first drawer of the coffee table. The first-aid kit is in the first cabinet on the left just inside the walk-in closet."
With that, he shut the door and was gone.
Ever since what happened to me three years ago, I couldn't stand loud noises.
Every time Jackson left, he always closed the door softly.
Even just now was no exception.
But that gesture, the one that had warmed me countless times before,
now only made me sick.
The moment the door clicked shut, I clutched my stomach and gagged, a dry heave tearing out of me.
And even once I'd calmed down, I still couldn't understand
where this hatred could possibly have come from...
That night, Jackson came home reeking of liquor.
He swept a glance over the empty dining table
and tossed out a single line.
"I'm hungry. Fix me something to eat."
Then he went straight into the bathroom.
Half an hour later,
Jackson came out wrapped in a towel.
His entire upper body was covered in kiss marks.
Old ones layered over new ones, red and vivid, packed close together, and my stomach began to twist again.
Drying his hair, he walked to the dining room.
Seeing the table still empty, his voice went cold.
"Camila, I just told you to fix me something to eat. Didn't you hear me?"
I didn't answer him.
I walked slowly to stand behind him, staring coldly at the kiss marks covering his back.
"What right do you have to hate me?"
"I've never done anything to wrong you."
Jackson went rigid for an instant.
When he turned to face me again, a vast contempt flickered through his pitch-black eyes.
He smiled, a smile full of mockery.
"Camila, you actually have the nerve to say that..."
Under my thoroughly bewildered gaze,
Jackson took out a voice recorder.
The next second, my own voice came drifting slowly out of it.
