The First Official Version
“And that version was a lie Jacob had invented to protect him.” For three years their story existed “only in darkness.” The first thing ever written down about it on paper is a lie, and Jacob composed it: playing, consent, “you wanted to relax and overdid it.” Simon does not understand: “Why did he protect me?” For someone who has been broken for three years, protection coming from his tormentor fits no known pattern — and the psyche looks for the catch, because there has always been a catch.
But look at what exactly this lie did. It saved Simon from an investigation — and at the same time made Jacob the sole author of their story. The version of events now belongs to him, filed as evidence, and all that is left to Simon is to keep silent in unison. In relationships with a power imbalance, protection and control often arrive in a single gesture, and from the inside they are almost impossible to tell apart. In the next chapter we will hear the arithmetic of this lie from Jacob himself.
