He flopped miserably into his desk chair and buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t think, he could only feel, and what he felt was abject misery. He didn’t see any way out of the situation, of his own making. He had wanted Pam to agree to keep their secret, and he’d gotten what he wished for, but it was only the lesser of two evils. He felt a creeping dread that it had only increased the pressure on all of them, tying their family together in a corrupt bargain, each one tethered to the other in a way that doomed them not to survive, but to sink. Jake straightened up and tried to shake it off. He could hear Pam talking through their common wall, but he couldn’t make out the words she was saying, and he felt awful for her. She’d stormed out of Ryan’s room right after she announced her decision, and he hadn’t had a chance to talk to her alone or to say how sorry he was, again. He knew she’d unload on him later, saying all the things she couldn’t say in front of Ryan, and he hated being betwixt and between, living in that hell reserved for married people, who had to postpone their fights for not-in-front-of-the-kids.
