Chapter 11
Jason stared at Sam in shock. "What did you just say?" He was surprised that he was able to speak.
Sam sighed as she raised her gaze to meet his and the look in her eyes told him that he had not been hearing things. "I'm the one that told Emily," she repeated.
Jason had always thought Elizabeth inadvertently let Emily know that Jake was actually his son. Or that Emily had become suspicious and finally connected the dots after the fire Cameron had started resulting in Jake suffering from smoke inhalation.
He had been a wreck that day and dashed into the hospital, demanding to know where his son and Elizabeth were. Of course, he hadn't said that Jake was his son but he was pretty sure he looked like a terrified parent that day.
After a while, it hadn't mattered to him how Emily had found out about Jake; he had been so grateful that she had pushed him to claim his son that he had completely forgotten that someone had revealed his son's true paternity to his sister.
He never even suspected Sam as the culprit. She had been out of town for months and he hadn't heard anything about her, even from Alexis. Looking at her now, he was surprised to see no remorse in her eyes. Instead, she stared him down unapologetically as she spoke.
"If you're waiting for me to apologize, I'm not going to." Her voice was filled with determination. Her gaze flashed to him but then she looked down at the examining table she was sitting on and started fidgeting with the sheet of thin paper that covered it. "I did the right thing," she added.
"Why did you tell her?" Jason asked her the most obvious question. When she had left, she had hated him. He didn't understand why she would help him so she must have done it to hurt him.
"Because you and Elizabeth were being selfish," Sam replied simply.
Anger rose inside him. "We made a decision as Jake's parents. It was a hard one to make for everyone involved. It was hard for Elizabeth, for me and for Lucky to keep the lie going but we thought it was the best thing for Jake," he said.
"None of you were thinking about what was best for Jake," Sam dismissed the idea with a firm shake of her head. "The only thing on your minds was how complicated the truth would be so you decided to cover it up and lie to everyone, including your son."
"Who are you to criticize?" Jason demanded. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
Hurt passed through her eyes after he cruelly pointed out that she wasn't a parent but she ignored it. "I know what it's like when your parents deceive you. All my adopted parents ever did was lie through their teeth."
"If you had never stepped up and claimed Jake, he would have grown up and eventually found out the truth. And he would feel as though his entire life had been a lie. Just like me."
Jason's eyes softened as he realized that she had not been trying to hurt him, but actually help him. He remembered how lost and confused she had been when she had discovered that she had been adopted.
"Why go behind my back and tell Emily like that?" he asked, still stung that she had manipulated the situation instead of just telling him herself that Jake would be better off with him.
"Would you have listened?" she questioned him and when he didn't answer, she looked at him and nodded. "Besides, I know how you are when you make up your mind about something; you're stubborn as hell and no one—not even Carly—can talk you out of it."
"We have that in common," he noted.
Sam didn't realize he was actually talking about the two of them, not him and Carly, so she shrugged in response. "And you didn't listen when I talked to you about it after Elizabeth testified either," she said.
"I thought you were only encouraging me to do that to hurt Elizabeth," Jason explained.
"That was part of it," Sam admitted sheepishly as she recalled telling him that Elizabeth should have to suffer the consequences of her actions for once. "But it wasn't the first time that I told you Jake deserved to have you in his life."
"I wouldn't listen to you," Jason finished her point for her.
"I thought about telling Carly." She looked up at his eyes and saw the anger flashing in them and smirked. "But I realized she would do more harm than good because she hates Elizabeth."
"Did you choose Emily because she was her best friend?" Jason asked.
"No, I told her because she was your sister." Sam said sincerely. She made an amused face as she continued, "It helped that she was Elizabeth's best friend. If it had been Carly, Elizabeth would have gone on the defensive immediately but I thought she might actually listen to Emily when she chewed her out."
Jason's eyes lit up. "How did you know Emily yelled at us?"
"She called me the day after to let me know that she had told the two of you that she knew about Jake and assured me that she left my name out of it," Sam replied.
"Why did you do it?" he wondered.
Sam sighed as she looked at him meaningfully. "I wanted to make things right," she said. She crossed her right leg over her left one and gestured to the chair close to the table and he sat down. "I don't owe Elizabeth anything after what she's done to me but I do owe Jake. I thought the best way to start was to make you realize that you should be in his life."
"I'm surprised Emily didn't try to convince you to come back and help her," Jason commented.
"Oh, she did try," Sam said.
"Why didn't you come back?"
"I couldn't," Sam replied.
"Why?" Jason asked.
"I was in a bad place when I left, Jason. I had to get over that before I even thought about coming back here."
"How did you do it?" Jason asked curiously. She seemed so much like her old self again, the Sam he had fallen in love with.
There was a time when he thought he would never see her again, that she had been through too much to ever recover but she had proved him wrong and fought. She truly was a survivor.
"I went to a hospital and checked myself into a psychiatric program they had," Sam began to explain that she had been in therapy for a few months. "It was a long, hard road, but I got through it. Eventually, I bought my boat and started LMS."
He looked confused by the name. "It's the name of my salvage company," she explained.
"Why did you go to a shrink?" he asked.
Sam hesitated before she answered, looking up at him with pure honesty in her eyes. "I needed help, Jason; more than my family could give me so I went to a professional."
