by Marni Mann
Now that I knew he was really gone, I inhaled, and I felt a mix of so many sensations I’d never experienced before. My hands covered my face. My body contracted. My breath shuddered as the cries worked through me.
It hurt.
My God, did it hurt, and I crawled to the couch and wrapped a blanket over me. I didn’t know how long I stayed there and shook or the amount of time it took for my breath to return. But when I finally had it under control, I took my phone out of my back pocket, and I called Ally.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Is he gone?”
My voice wasn’t even recognizable anymore. “Yes.”
“Tell me everything.”
I saw the entire night replay in my head—every expression and emotion on Jared’s face, every goddamn apology. And then I saw his back as he’d headed for my door.
That wasn’t the worst of it.
There was one image my brain liked to show me the most, and that was the picture of the young boy who had killed two members of my family.
“I can’t,” I croaked. “I will, just not right now.”
“Oh, baby girl.”
I pulled the blanket up and tucked it under my chin. “I don’t know that I’ve ever hurt this badly.”
“That’s because you love him.”
The tears had been at bay for the last few minutes. Now, they were streaming as fast as before. “Ally …” My chest tightened to the point where nothing was going in or out. “I don’t think I can breathe.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said, and I heard her moving through her apartment. “We’ll get through this, I promise.”
Seventy-Two
Jared
Me: I’m so fucking sorry.
Me: I never should have lied to you.
Me: I miss you.
Seventy-Three
Jared
I came in from outside and went to the kitchen. After grabbing two tumblers and dropping a few ice cubes into each, I filled them with whiskey and brought them out onto the balcony. Brandon was sitting on the couch, and I handed him his drink and took the chair beside him.
It had been two weeks since we were in New York, hitting the road the morning after Billie kicked me out, and we hadn’t returned until a couple of hours ago. Since Brandon had retired from the SEALs, he worked as my personal trainer, and he traveled everywhere I went, so he’d been along for the ride.
I’d told my assistant I wanted to be busy. I wanted my schedule so fucking full that I wouldn’t think about Billie.
My assistant had promised me both.
But after two weeks of failed attempts, I’d told her to fly us home. Billie was all I thought of, and I couldn’t take another second of it. Now that I was back in Manhattan, I just wanted to call the pilot and tell him to fuel up the plane again. If I was here, I wanted to be with her, and the fact that I couldn’t tore me the fuck apart.
All I smelled in my condo was her buttercream scent.
All I saw when I gazed around were images of all the times we’d made love in here and of the nights she had fallen asleep on the couch with her head on my lap and of the mornings we had cooked breakfast together in my kitchen.
Fuck me.
I lifted the glass to my lips before Brandon could try to cheers me, and I took a long drink. There wasn’t a goddamn thing worth celebrating right now.
Once things between Billie and I had turned serious, I’d told Brandon the entire story. He was the only person in my world who knew the history of us. He had even recently met her.
I heard the cubes hit his glass as he turned toward me, finally breaking the silence. “How long are we going to stay in town?”
I stayed gazing ahead, my other hand gripping the armrest. “We’ll probably leave tomorrow. The day after that at the latest.”
“If you keep bringing in all of this new business, you’re going to have to hire another office of agents.”
Despite the fact that he was speaking the truth, his attempt at making me laugh didn’t work.
It had been weeks since I made that sound.
“Add that to the list along with finding me a new place to live.”
“You don’t like it here anymore?”
I shook my head, my fingers clenching the cushion so tightly that I could feel the wicker base underneath. “Every time I’m in there, I just see her.” I set the glass down and took out my phone, staring at the last message I’d sent her several days ago.
“You still haven’t heard from her?”
I wasn’t surprised he knew what I was looking at. “No.” I reached for the drink again and took a sip. “And I won’t. I know I deserve that, and I’ll keep saying it for the rest of my life, but damn it, it’s not getting easier.” I sucked a piece of ice into my mouth. “And you know what’s so fucking sad? Every time a text comes across my phone, I look at the screen and hope it’s her even though I know it won’t be.” I tossed my cell on the table beside me.
“You knew this wouldn’t be easy, and you knew it would end this way.”
“I know.”
Things with Billie had turned into a giant game of dodgeball. I’d had to duck every time a question was asked that would reveal too much of who I was. I’d had to avoid meeting her father or any members of her family, which was so fucked up but my mind made sense of that too.
But what that really meant was Billie didn’t know Casey at all. She had never met him. The person she had fallen in love with was Jared.
I got up from the chair and walked to the edge of the balcony. There was a metal railing that ran the entire width, and I hung my hands over it, crossing my fingers in the air. “I know what it feels like to not have her in my life.”
“I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot better, having her in it.”
“Isn’t that the fucking truth?”
The more I glanced around, the more I felt the storm in the air. And I saw change everywhere I looked, even feeling it during each inhale. They were reminders I didn’t need. More places that were screaming out her absence as though my heart wasn’t feeling it enough already.
Goddamn it, I would do anything to get Billie back.
But the two things she wanted—her mother and her brother—were two things I’d never be able to give her.
Seventy-Four
Jared
Me: I just want you to forgive me.
Billie: Maybe one day.
Seventy-Five
Billie
“Hey, Veronica,” I said to the barista who stood on the other side of the counter of the coffee shop I went to every morning.
She smiled, her fingers circling a medium paper cup. “Your usual?”
“Please.”
Knowing the amount already, I got the cash out of my bag and handed it to her once she gave me the coffee. She returned my change, and I weaved past the line that had formed inside the small café. I was just getting closer to the door when I heard my name.
I pulled the cup away from my lips, glancing up from the ground to see who had said it.
If I hadn’t already swallowed the gulp of coffee, I would have choked. Because it was already down my throat, I stopped breathing instead.
We all had ghosts. Mine left tiny white feathers when I least expected it. I didn’t know if they had come from my mother or brother. It didn’t matter. When I saw one, I paused, filling with the most intense emotion.
I also had another ghost.
And he was holding open the door to the coffee shop, staring into my eyes, and I was filled with an emotion that literally took my breath away.
“Jared …” I tried to inhale and couldn’t. “Hi.”
A woman bumped into my shoulder when she attempted to get by, her tray of coffees threatening to spill, and that was when I realized I was standing in the middle of the doorway.
With him still holding the door, I headed toward it, and when I got to his side, his fingers went to reach for my l
ower back to embrace me, but he stopped halfway. And then we both looked at his hand that was still hanging in the air.
He left it there, his gaze moving up to my eyes. “How are you?”
I slid to the side of the door, so I wouldn’t block the entrance. “I’m okay.”
I hadn’t lied to him at any point while we were together, so I wasn’t going to start now. Besides, he would see right through it. He knew what I looked like at my worst, and there had been points during our relationship where he definitely saw my smile at its best.
The place I was in now, I didn’t know what it was called.
In-between maybe.
He joined me against the brick building, pressed against it in a spot where we weren’t in the main path of the sidewalk. Where he positioned himself was only a few feet away, and that was making it even harder for me to find air.
It had been two months since I last saw him and several weeks since he sent a text. I understood why they had slowed and stopped.
Still, part of me missed them.
No matter how much time had passed, this didn’t get easier.
Especially now as I took in his handsome face.
Kissing Jared would make me forget. It would take away all the pain, giving me the taste I’d been craving every minute since I kicked him out.
But I had to keep reminding myself that he couldn’t be the hero who had protected me from the crash and the man who had killed half of my family.
I couldn’t find a way to make that settle inside me, so I had made a choice.
Still, as I looked into his eyes, I remembered all the happy times we’d had together. And I was reminded of the tingling he’d caused in my stomach, the way my heart had clenched when I thought about him touching me.
I put my right hand over it while it thumped in my chest and said, “How are you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He let his eyes roam my face, dipping to my lips, going around my cheeks before he returned to my stare. “I’m not going to say things are good.”
The circles under his eyes were darker than before. I was sure he was back to not sleeping well.
I heard a plane overhead, distracting me from that thought, bringing me to a new one. “Have you been traveling?”
If Jared wanted, he could log in to any social media site and get his virtual fill of me. He could watch videos where I talked about food and ate. He could see pictures of my life, businesses I was promoting, places I’d visited during my recent drive around New England.
I saw nothing from him.
Besides the memories I’d stored in my brain and the pictures I’d taken with my phone, he didn’t exist. So, those were the things I held on to.
“I just returned to town this morning,” he said.
I didn’t know why I needed the answer. Why I was still standing here, speaking to him. But this was the only place I wanted to be right now. “How long were you away?”
“The whole time, Billie.” He let that set in and then added, “I just came back to sign my closing papers.”
I felt the shock shudder through my chest. “You’re moving?”
His eyes turned even more intense, and he shifted his body against the building. He didn’t come any closer, but it felt that way as I inhaled his scent. I tried to ignore it, focusing on his news rather than the way my body was responding to his cologne.
Jared loved his condo. He had worked with the architect to design it just the way he wanted. I was so curious as to why he would sell it. But getting that answer would make me feel closer to him, and right now, I was having the most difficult time staying even this far away.
“How’s the food business?” he asked.
As he changed the subject, I glanced down at his shirt, stopping at the two open buttons and the small amount of hair that peeked out.
Details.
I was soaking in each one.
“It’s getting better,” I replied. “I’ve been booking jobs within driving distance. My taste buds still aren’t what they were, but I’m able to work, and that’s a huge improvement.” I clasped my hands around the coffee, trying to get them to stop shaking. “I sent you an email. It was returned.”
Even though Jared wasn’t in my life anymore, he had paid for a service, and I was under contract, so I continued to feature the restaurant on my channels. Before I’d sent him the quarterly report, I’d wondered if he would reply to my email. I certainly hadn’t expected it to go undelivered, especially since that was one of our only open lines of communication. But I assumed that was his way of telling me the business side of our deal was over.
The last part of us severed.
“Billie …”
The sound of my name hurt.
I heard it all the time in his voice, but it was only in my head. And with it came his arms and mouth and tongue, and it was okay because it wasn’t really happening.
“I’ll do anything for you to forgive me.”
With Jared gone, I’d had time to think, and one of the things I’d kept circling back to was Flight 88. The operator of the drone hadn’t intended for it to hit the engine of the plane. Now, it was something he would live with for the rest of his life. And now, the survivors were left with the aftermath of what that crash looked like. By the operator admitting fault, it didn’t make our pain easier. It certainly didn’t make anything about what had happened all right. But it had given us closure.
That was what Jared and I needed.
My eyes welled with tears. I’d been fighting them. I had known they would come eventually, but I’d been trying so hard to hold them off. “When you got in your car,” I said, licking the drops from my lips, “I know you didn’t intend for that accident to happen. I know you were just trying to get home, and falling asleep behind the wheel is the last thing you ever wanted.” I took a breath, my throat tightening. “And for that, I forgive you.” One day, I hoped to forgive him for lying to me, but I just wasn’t there yet.
“Thank you.” His eyes were filling with emotion, and it made everything inside me ache harder. “I’m still so fucking sorry, Billie.”
“I know.”
He wiped the bottom of his lids, keeping his voice low. “I wish I could take it back. All of it.”
“I believe you.”
I knew that sounded crazy after I called him a liar, but it was an honest response, and I had a feeling he could tell.
He ran his hand down his beard as though he were drying his whole face. “Come flying with me.”
“Oh God.” My fingers went to my throat to work some of the air through, and I pushed my back against the brick. “Don’t ask me that, Jared.” I shook my head back and forth, feeling the tears brim my eyes again.
I’d come so far, and I had been gearing myself up for that moment, but I still wasn’t there. And hearing that question was like seeing an old friend, which was the part that hurt the most.
He tapped himself in the chest with his thumb. “I’m supposed to be there with you.” He did it again when he took a breath. “I’m supposed to make sure you’re okay up there.”
My bottom lip trembled.
My shoulders quivered.
I wanted that, and I knew I shouldn’t.
And it was a feeling I couldn’t even begin to process.
“Jesus Christ, come here,” he said, and he reached forward so fast, pulling me against him.
I felt the coffee drop from my hand. I circled my arms around his body, burying my face in his chest, and I hugged him.
And while I squeezed, I lost everything.
The pent-up emotions.
The sleepless nights.
The anxiety.
The hopelessness.
And while he held me back, I was reminded of why I loved this man so much. How he’d protected me in his own selfish way. How he’d made me believe no one else existed. How he’d shown me a love I’d never felt before. One that I’d probably never feel again.
I soaked it all in, c
onflicted in a way that made me grasp him harder, filling my nose with his scent. And as I tightened my grip, I memorized the way this moment felt. Every single second of it, especially the ones where his lips were kissing the top of my head. And when I knew my heart couldn’t take any more, I pulled back, my body slowly unraveling from his.
With Jared no longer blanketing me, I was instantly hit with an icy breeze.
Before we were completely separated, he grabbed my hand, our fingers lacing together until those slowly dropped apart too.
“Don’t tell me this is the last time we’re going to see each other.”
As my gaze circled his beautiful, tortured face, I thought of my parents, how even after all of these years, my father was still so in love with my mother. He had dated in the past and was in a relationship now, but none of the women meant to him what my mom had.
That was what happened when you found your soul mate.
You loved them forever.
The same way I would love Jared.
That was what made this so fucking hard to say. “I’m not ready for more. I … can’t. I don’t know when. I just … don’t know.”
The torment in his eyes lightened a little, the emotion lifting from his voice. “I can accept that, Billie.”
Before things had advanced between us, I never understood why he was always leaving me in places when it felt like our conversation was just getting started. When I’d learned his reasoning, it made perfect sense.
And it was the same way I felt right now.
If I stayed in this spot for one second more, my mouth was going to be on his. I wasn’t ready for that. I needed to heal, I needed to find some resolution within myself, and I couldn’t do that if he was a present fixture in my life.
As much as it hurt, I reached forward, my thumb gently grazing the side of his lip, like my fingers were kissing him instead. His whiskers roughed up my skin, and I whispered, “Good-bye, Jared.”