"No!" He gripped my forearms and hoisted me up as he stood too. "There are some things you should not know, Emily. This is one of them."
Anger flared, bright and fierce, behind my eyes. Already tonight he'd decided we would not be together and now he was keeping information from me that could help me solve his murder? It was too much. I deserved to decide what was important and what wasn't too. "Why shouldn't I know?" I jerked out of his grip. He sat down again, shock rippling across his handsome face. But I wasn't prepared to let my anger evaporate beneath his sudden change. Sometimes anger is a benefit, if channeled correctly. "What could it possibly matter now? You're dead. And I will find out who killed you so you might as well tell me everything you know."
He said nothing for a long time, just stared at me, and for one breathless moment I was scared that he found my anger ugly and that he was relieved he'd not committed to spend the rest of my life with me. But I could not regret it any more than I could control it. Something was bothering Jacob deeply and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
"Very well." He sucked in his top lip and indicated I should sit. I sat on the bed, my stockinged toes just touching the fringe of the rug, my hands at my sides on the quilt. "I suppose it doesn't matter what you think of me now anyway," he said, bleak.
"What I think of you?" I felt like all the air had been knocked out of me along with my anger. I shook my head. I didn't understand.
"It might even be for the best." He rubbed his fists down his trousers and didn't quite meet my gaze. "Now that we've decided I must cross over, having you...despise me will make that easier."
"Despise you?" I got up and went to him but he lifted a single finger, halting me from curling into his lap and kissing him all over. "I could never despise you," I said instead.
He pressed the finger into his eye socket and his thumb into the other. "You haven't heard my story yet."
I sat back down on the bed and tucked my hands beneath my thighs. "Go on."
"I know that boy Frederick didn't kill me because...because I killed him." He waited for me to say something but I didn't. In truth, I couldn't have spoken anyway. I was too shocked by his admission to make any sense. "I was walking home late one night when a boy accosted me. I didn't realize then that it was the same boy that had come to the house. That only came later. Much later, after I died. Anyway, the boy began shouting at me, accusing me of ignoring him and deliberately avoiding him. Of course I had no idea what he was talking about. I tried to calm him down and make sense of what he was saying but he just got angrier and angrier." He rubbed his cheek as if trying to remove a smudge. "He struck me. It wasn't a very strong blow but I hadn't been ready for it and I must have stumbled back. He came at me again but I'd recovered enough to defend myself. In the ensuing struggle I punched him. He fell and...and hit his head on the ground. The pavement was uneven and... The sound..." He closed his eyes and his nostrils flared. "The sound his head made as it hit the ground has stayed with me all this time."