#core wounds

Amantha and Jon are talking past each other in this scene. They are not on the same page about why they've broken up. They both have their shields up, refraining from expressing themselves vulnerably. Each is caught up in their own interpretation of the situation, which magnifies their deepest hurt/insecurity. Each asks around what their heart truly wants to know.

AMANTHA :

core wound/subconscious comfort zone = I am abandoned.

Do you love me? = Do you choose me definitively?

Amantha wants it both ways. She wants Jon to be boyfriend and legal champion of brother. She doesn't want to move to Boston with Jon, and she blames him for leaving her.

Amantha can't separate her feelings for Jon from her hope-fantasy for Daniel’s exoneration — which wasn't a problem until the plea deal. Post-plea-deal, Jon is someone she feels romantically attached to and a painful reminder of how she's wasted 20 years of her life. I infer that she couldn't make a clean choice about what to do about this conundrum, so Jon chooses for her. Jon chooses what seems best to him, taking into account Amantha’s expressed emotions and preferences, as well as his own standards of professional conduct. Jon enacts the breakup that she needs. Jon chooses to be Daniel's lawyer.

It is easier for Amantha to believe herself abandoned than to own up to how demanding, unreasonable, and hurtful she has been with Jon.

JON :

core wound/subconscious comfort zone = I am unlovable.

Do you love me? = Do you care for me beyond what I can provide for you?

Jon is fishing for an apology aligned with his interpretation of the situation. He wants Amantha to admit she's been using him the whole time. He wants to hear Amantha say that she never cared about him, only about Daniel’s case. Jon has convinced himself that he never had a place in Amantha's heart. I infer that he rationalizes that what they had was a casual, undefined, unofficial arrangement the whole time.

The breakup may bring Jon some relief. His “I am unlovable” belief is “confirmed”. Amantha was an exhausting girlfriend who needed a lot of emotional regulation and behavioral modulation. And, Jon holds himself to impossibly high standards. There was likely a part of him that self-shamed every time he gave in to his desire for Amantha. Now he gets to remain unloved and to live up to his self-expectations of professional conduct.

It is easier for Jon to believe himself unloveable than to receive any kindness/care from Amantha and her family after having “failed” them.

Look, i know in lovers' spats, no one is supposed to be right or wrong but... public service attorneys like Jon don't get to choose individual clients on their docket. So Amantha's retort question was nonsensical and out of line. Jon's question/suspicion wasn't, though. Because Jon knows that, at the time he and Amantha met, Amantha likely had no idea how Justice Row cases are assigned. And because "free" (and overworked) public service attorneys are, at times, proffered favors by clients' friends & family, with the unstated hope/expectation that more attention may be devoted to their case.

By the pool, Amantha heavily implied Jon is a reminder of “this whole goddamn tragedy”. At the bar, she speculated her romantic-sexual interest may have been “premeditated” and that it “doesn't matter now”. Her shrapnel-like words damaged their connection. Any reconciliation scenario is going to require repair work on her part.