Page 138 of Dirty Like Brody
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said. “Give that big brain of yoursarest.”
I grinned a little, then sighed. “I’ve been thinking, Jessa, about how all the tactics I’ve used to be successful in my life… none of them ever worked on you. You know, in business, I get the biggest bone for being abulldog.”
Shesmiled.
“With you, I had to take a different approach, but I was always fucking it up. I want you to know I’m sorry for that. And I want to be crystal fucking clear that I never wanted you to leave. If I’d known what to do to make you stay, whatever it was, I would’ve done it. I would’ve doneanything.”
“I know that,Brody.”
“The other night, when I said I don’t care who you get to manage you? That wasalie.”
She smiledagain.
“Figured I should come clean about that. I don’t want anyone else managing you because I’d be jealous of them. I’ve always been jealous of anyone who gets to be what I want to be in your life. That’s why I’ve always hated your modeling work. Why I always tried to butt my nose in where it didn’t belong when it came to your career. I just wanted that part of you, if I couldn’t haveanythingelse.”
“I know,” she saidsoftly.
“And while I’m being honest, the reason I wanted it was because I thought if I had that part of you, maybe eventually, I’d gettherest.”
“I know that, too,”shesaid.
A comfortable silence fell between us for a while, and she rested her head on my shoulder. But I wasn’tdoneyet.
“I’ve been struggling, Jessa,” I confessed. “Maybe you can help me, with figuring out how to see it the way you do. Without… hating him. I’ll never be able to forgive what he didtoyou—”
“He didn’t really do anything to me, Brody.Ijust—”
“Ican’t,” I said, cutting her off. She looked up at me, but she didn’t argue. “But… I can’t regret everything, either, and it’s fucking with my head. It’s hard to look back and wish it all away. Wish Seth had never come along. If he didn’t… maybe Dirty would never have become what they are. Maybe Jesse never would’ve met Katie, they wouldn’t have gotten married, and you never would’ve come backtome.”
“Maybe I never would’ve run in the firstplace.”
“Yeah. That’s the part that’s reallykillingme.”
We were silent again, this time a little lesscomfortably.
“You know we wrote ‘Dirty Like Me’ together,” Jessa said. “Seth and Jesse and me. But you probably didn’t know that me and Seth were barely speaking when wewroteit.”
“I didn’tknowthat.”
“Yeah.” She sighed softly. “I’d jam with Jesse and we’d write, then Seth would come up with the melodies, better melodies. All that beautiful, haunting, killer shit that hooks you, sucks you in and doesn’t let go… that’s all Seth. I didn’t come up with the best of the lyrics until I heard the music he wrote. You know, it was usually that way. I wanted him off that song, at first, but even I couldn’t deny he made it magic. He made everything magic back then.” She glanced away, then her brown eyes found mine again. “Musically, I mean. So, no, I can’t regret thateither.”
“Your lyrics make it magic,Jessa.”
I meant that. The song worked for many reasons, but she was right. Without her words, it wouldn’t be whatitwas.
Then something occurredtome…
“That song’s about him? About… how you felt after what happened between the twoofyou?”
“No,” she said. “It’s about you. How I feltaboutyou.”
Oh.
Shit.
I tried to digest that. To think through the words of the song and what that meant… and I wasovercome.
“You felt… dirty? For wanting to bewithme?”
