Mattie's eyes were smarting with tears again. She tried to contain them, to contain herself, but it was apparent that she could not be contained. Her anger, her tears, her anxiety... she could hold none of it back, and the thought of letting it all go right in front of Nicholas only made it worse. 

"You had the nerve," she started shakily, "to treat me like a child, like I didn't know the danger of it..." The first of many tears rolled down her right cheek, and the second down her left, and she was almost holding her breath in to keep from exploding into a mess again. "You only put [i]yourself[/i] in danger! Did you think I had no idea what we were up against?! I was willing to take that risk!" 

She took a deep breath. The thought of what Jacob had done was still traumatizing, and remembering it, remembering how he plunged with her into the lake and practically tore her apart, made her ability to stay calm even more fragile than it already was. More tears. Mattie knew what was coming, because her eyes smarted more and her nasal cavity was beginning to feel runny. 

"I thought sometimes you were dead!" she choked out. "B-because I thought––I––there was no way you could have just left me of your own will!" 

And that was it; she was bawling like a four-year-old, heaving out wretched sobs and doubling over with her head in her hands and mucus streaming from both nostrils. It was disgusting. She could almost see herself, making an embarrassment in front of Nick. So much for keeping up the damn act. She tried to grab the bottle, but it just slipped out of her hands and spilled all over the carpet. So instead, she blundered toward her bedroom where she could lock the door and hope that Nick wouldn't kick it down again.