“I never asked you to do that,” I say in my defense.
“No—I want to be with you. This is all on me. I took you for granted when you were right in my backyard. Now, in order to get you back and keep you, I have to drive four hours round trip every weekend. I deserve far worse for what I’ve done to you, to tell the truth.”
This is the part where my heart is expected to go pitter-patter. It does not. Instead, I feel a flood of three-year-old emotions. Jake Barker is a constant cruel reminder of an empty promise.
Throughout most of my college years, I felt like a loser. I never had a real boyfriend. I may not have the best self-esteem, but I wasn’t the worst looking girl by any stretch. By waiting years for Jake to come around and finally call me his girlfriend instead of his best friend, I’d sold myself short.
When he broke my heart beyond repair on the first of May, I swore I’d never waste my time like that again. I vowed to start grabbing life by the horns. I’ve earned that much. I totally deserve better.
“This was supposed to be a special night,” Jake says.
I narrow my gaze. “What do you mean?”
He closes his eyes and puffs out a huge exhale. He grabs his wine glass and takes a huge glug. “I was going to wait until dessert.”
He stands from his chair and rounds the small table. As soon as he gets down on one knee, diners clustered around us in the tiny restaurant gasp and squeal.
Oh no, what the hell is he doing?
My greatest fear comes to life when he takes out a little brown velvet box from his jacket pocket.
No, no, no…
“When I told you that I was going to marry you, I meant it.”
Jake pops open the box and I see the most adorable oval cut diamond ring. I don’t check, but I can feel the heat generating from all the eyes that are on me.
“Jake,” I sigh regretfully.
“This is a promise ring,” he says with reassuring eyes. “It signifies a promise that we’ll get married the weekend after I graduate law school. When you wear this, it means you’re my girlfriend and my soon-to-be fiancée. I figure I’ll ask your dad for your hand in marriage in two years, which will then make our engagement official. I already have that ring picked out, too.”
“Wow,” I chuckle. “You really thought this through.”
“I have.” He smiles boyishly but then the smile fades. “The moment you put on this ring, there’s no more Bobby. There’s no more Drew O’Brien. It’s just you and me.”
My throat constricts and my chest pounds like an aboriginal drumbeat. It would be ideal to dissolve into nothingness on the spot. But here I am—being put on the spot in a restaurant full of strangers. I finally look up from Jake and see our waiter paused mid-step and smiling with a bottle of champagne. I turn from the waiter and look at those who are seated at tables around us. They are anxiously waiting for me to put the guy on his knee out of his misery.
If I give these people what they want, it will absolutely be at my expense.
For months, I’ve been playing the long con. I stopped having feelings for Jake a long time ago. Even before he called off our friends with benefits arrangement, my heart was already hardened. He let me sit out for too damn long, and I grew stale.
It took meeting Drew O’Brien for me to become soft again.
With compassion in my eyes, I stand and reach down to bring Jake up.
“Wha—”
I cut him off by hugging him tight. He’s as stiff as a board before he loosens up. Placing both hands on my arms, he shifts me back and looks me directly in the eye.
“What’s this?”
“I just want to be friends, Jake. That’s what we’ve always been.” I shrug.
Voices start to murmur loudly, and the earlier cacophony of the busy restaurant returns. Everyone understands that there’s nothing to see here. There is nothing to celebrate.
“I don’t want to be just friends anymore. See this?” He gestures the box at me. “This is my commitment to you. I am giving you what you’ve always wanted from me and more.”
“We were only meant to be friends. I’ve finally accepted that,” I murmur.
“Quen, I can’t be your friend,” he pleads. “I love you. Do you hear me, girl? I am madly in love with you.”
I take a step back as I feel the tears starting to pool in my eyes. “And I’m in love with someone else,” I whisper my confession.
Jake looks as though I shot him in the heart. I take him by the hand and squeeze it.
“Goodbye, Jake,” I say quietly.
In the back of the cab, I am trying to convince myself that I just made the biggest mistake of my life.
You’ve been praying for this moment for three years!
You had him!
He was down on one knee!
If I had said yes to his pre-proposal…his promise, what would that have accomplished? Either way, I’d still be torn. But it’s easier to live in my truth.
Or is it?
I close my eyes and I suddenly feel a buzzing on my thigh. I open my clutch.
Goodness Jake, please don’t.
The second my eyes view the caller on the screen, they grow wide.
Drew?
Thumping heart and all, I pick up before the call can roll into voicemail.
“Hello?”
“Just listen to me. You don’t even have to speak back.”
His non-greeting leaves me dumbstruck.
“Let me make this clear, Quen Waverly. I want you.”
I’m hit with an explosion of emotions in a mere nanosecond.
“Drew…”
“Just listen,” he cuts me off. “If we need to do the long-distance thing, I’ll do it. But I want you to know that I won’t force you to be with me if your heart is elsewhere.”
The universe is playing a cruel joke on me. I’d just closed the door on Jake for good because of Drew, now Drew is on the phone telling me exactly what I want to hear. If I had any sense in this dense brain of mine, I’d quickly tell this man how badly I’ve wanted him.
Instead, I let my pride take center stage.
“I don’t know where my heart is right now,” I sigh. “I’m so confused.”
No, you’re not! Tell him the truth!
He will hurt you, too, Quen! Keep your guard up!
I have hope on one shoulder and hurt on the other, and the two of them duke it out for control. So far, hurt is winning. I’m still feeling the burn from my visit to San Francisco. Even though he had a valid reason to leave me by myself at his home for the majority of the time, my feelings were still hurt. He’s said ‘sorry’ so many times, but it hasn’t eased the tension. In the checklist of Drew O’Brien’s life, I feel like I’m last.
I will not be last anymore.
“And I get that,” Drew responds. “All I can do is wait for you to come to me. I’ll wait for as long as you need. Just know that you’re the only one I want. If you need Father Time to prove it to you, so be it. That’s all I had to say. I’ll text tomorrow, okay?”
I barely have any breath left, so I use it to say “Okay,” right back before we end the call.
I can think of this in one of two ways. That call was either a warning to be careful with what remains of my heart, or it was confirmation that I’d done the right thing by ending the charade with Jake.