Page 138 of Where Your Scars Meet Mine
There he is.
Hands clasped. Brows raised. Watching.
For one brutal instant, everything in me prepares to move. To get her off me. To put distance in the room. To stand up and say something, anything, before he has the chance to look too closely and decide exactly what kind of man I am.
But before I can shift even an inch, Jacob lifts one hand.
“Don’t move,” he whispers.
His voice is controlled, the kind of quiet that still somehow carries more authority than shouting ever could.
A cold knot forms in my gut anyway, because now I know he’s been here long enough to see her asleep on me, long enough to see my hand in her hair, long enough to know this isn’t some accidental drift into the wrong side of the couch.
An apology rushes to the front of my throat before I can stop it. Not because I owe him one for how she’s sleeping. Because I know what this looks like. Because if he knew half of whathappened tonight, he wouldn’t be sitting there with his hands folded. He’d be dragging me out of his house by the throat.
“Jacob, I…”
“Don’t speak,” he says. “Listen.”
The sentence lands with enough force that it shuts me up completely.
There’s no anger in it. That’s what makes it worse. If he were furious, I could work with that. Fury is simple. Fury makes men stupid. This is something else. Something measured. Something chosen.
Octavia doesn’t stir.
Her head remains settled on my chest, one leg thrown over mine, the warm drag of her body across me enough to make the whole conversation feel surreal. Any other night I would have been too aware of how she fit here, too aware of what she sounded like hours ago, too aware of what my body still remembers. Right now the only thing I can think about is the fact that her father is sitting ten feet away , looking at me like he already knows more than I want him to.
Jacob studies my face for a long second, then glances down at Octavia, then back to me.
“The way you looked at her when you didn’t know I was here,” he says quietly, “that isn’t fake.”
The words hit harder than accusation would have.
Because he’s right.
No denial comes. None worth attempting.
Exhaling slowly through his nose, he leans back slightly, still keeping his voice low enough that the room stays enclosed around the three of us. “A fake man looks around first,” he whispers. “A fake man makes sure someone’s watching before he softens. What I saw on your face was not performance.”
My hand stays where it is in her hair because moving it now would feel like lying.
The credits continue their silent crawl over the television. Light flickers across Jacob’s face, across Octavia’s, across the room that suddenly feels much smaller than it did when I fell asleep.
“This house,” Jacob says after a moment, “has a way of making people think they stumbled into it by accident. Like we all just ended up under one roof because of paperwork, timing, and bad luck.”
A strange kind of dread starts to build in me then, because I can hear where he’s going and I don’t know if I’m ready for him to say it out loud.
“I don’t believe in that,” he says.
My throat tightens.
His eyes settle on Octavia again, and when he speaks next, something older moves through his voice. Not just fatherly concern. Weariness. Love sharpened by years of helplessness.
“There are only so many ways I can reach my daughter,” he says. “Only so many doors she leaves unlocked. Sometimes I get the version of her that bites. Sometimes I get the one that goes quiet and says she’s fine until she’s not. Sometimes I get the one who smiles just enough to make her mother think the worst has passed.” He pauses. “Very rarely do I get the one that actually lets herself lean.”
I don’t say anything.
I can’t.
