“She left because I told her to go,” Jacob said. “She’d been planning to—eventually—so I told her to go. Because I thought she’d always leave anyway. I just, I really fucking believed it, Mont, and it seemed so reasonable at the time, I swear it did, but now I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t, and I don’t know which half of my brain is the smart half and which half is all emotional and shit.”
Mont sighed and ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “Jacob. Mate. Maybe the smart half is all emotional and shit.”
Jacob collapsed at the nearest table. “Yes, I’ve been afraid of that.” And afraid of facing just how badly he’d fucked up, hurting Eve with all his insecurities. Shit. Shit.
He had to fix it. He had to. Even if she wanted nothing to do with him after the crap he’d pulled, she had to know exactly how vital, how powerful, how perfect she was. He had to make her know, even if she despised him. Even if he’d ruined the fledgling magic between them.
“I don’t think you need me to tell you all this, Jake,” Mont said. “I think you just want me to confirm you’re not completely deluded before you run off and do something wild.”
Yes. Yes, that was true.
“So ask,” Mont continued. “Just ask me.”
His voice hoarse, Jacob managed the hardest question of all. “Do you think Eve could love me? If I told her I was sorry, and I—I trusted her, and she—gave me a chance?”
“Yeah, genius. I do. Aside from anything else, you’re pretty fucking lovable.”
Something in Jacob wanted to ignore those words, to brush them aside as unlikely or impossible. But that something didn’t have permission to lead—not anymore. It was old and battered and bruised. It was toxic and it told him such utterly believable lies. It belonged to a far younger version of himself, and it also belonged to his parents. Worst of all, that thing had hurt Eve.
He decided to squash it.
It would definitely pop back up again, but in order to maintain the level-headed analysis he so prized, Jacob would happily—and ruthlessly—continue to squash.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Thanks. Going now.” He turned to leave.
“Hey.” A viselike hand clamped onto his shoulder. “Reminder: it’s almost two o’clock in the morning.”
Jacob deflated a little. “Oh. Right. Yes.” No fetching Eve just yet, then. Fetching Eve later. Never mind. He had a feeling he’d be able to sleep, now, so that was something. “Thanks, Mont. Bye.”
* * *
No matter how hard she tried, Eve couldn’t make her old bedroom feel like home. All the things she used to do here—lying in until noon watching porn, ordering new T-shirts because she was bored with the many, many slogans in her walk-in wardrobe, bitching about her “friends” in her journal—felt silly and pointless and wrong. Which, in turn, made the room itself feel silly and pointless and wrong, because it offered no other diversions. She couldn’t even focus on her favorite romance novels, since the idea of reading about love suddenly made her feel sick to her stomach.
This was most unfortunate, since she also couldn’t get up and leave her room. If she did, she might bump into one of the relatives lingering worriedly about the house, and she hadn’t yet decided what she wanted to say to them. She knew she was pissed off about their behavior yesterday, but she couldn’t quite articulate why.
She was too busy thinking about Jacob.
As in, Mariah Carey’s “Through the Rain” blaring from her speakers, the aforementioned journal in her hands, one sad, used tissue on the bedside table—thinking about Jacob. She was trying to write something horrible and scathing about him, but she couldn’t quite manage it. Every time she put pen to paper she’d remember something terrible, like the way he forced himself to say soft, gentle things when she really needed it, or the way he threw himself around to rescue her from minor disasters in clumsiness, and then she’d cry a little tiny bit. Again.
Although, at this point, she was getting sick of crying. Because yes, Jacob was lovely and blah, blah, blah, but he’d also been monumentally shitty yesterday, and actually, she was rather fucking pissed about that, too. The more she thought about it, the more she suspected she was furious.
She remembered his iron expression as he’d asked, Did you tell anyone? and wanted to shout, This isn’t fucking chess. Stop trying to checkmate me.
She knew she’d done wrong. She’d lied, and she’d lost his trust, and she’d pressed down on a barely healed scar without ever meaning to. But he’d done the same right back, acting as if all she cared about was having her cake and eating it, too. Acting as if she was some sort of spoiled brat, after everything.
So, yes: Eve was pissed.
Satisfied, now that she’d identified the burning in her diaphragm, she put down her pen and flicked back through her journal—back through all the other times she’d been pissed off. Because that was the theme, she realized, as she combed through random dates. Something happened, she didn’t like it, so she ranted about it in silence.
Hello darling,
Olivia was absolutely frightful today, so I put coriander in her lemon drizzle cake and then I blocked her phone number.
Hello darling,
The festival coordinator called me an imbecile for putting up the map boards incorrectly—can you believe that? Well, good luck to him with putting them up right, because I’ve come home and that poxy little festival can carry on with one less volunteer. I didn’t really want to meet the Dixie Chicks anyway.
Good morning, darling,
It’s been eight days since Cecelia’s wedding. I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner, but you are an inanimate object, so it doesn’t really matter.
She remembered writing that last entry, just like she remembered the wedding itself. The rush of success that had soured so easily, and the familiar lick of fear when everything started to go wrong. It had seemed easier to give up completely than to face yet another fucking failure. Had been such a relief to come home and vent in her journal and then forget it had ever happened.
But Eve didn’t feel that relief anymore. Now, she read over that last entry and wanted to call Cecelia, apologize for the dress, then demand the slander against Eve Antonia Weddings be removed from the internet because those doves had needed rescuing, and all that aside, Eve had done a bloody good job.
Her mind stumbled over the words a little, the first time. But the more Eve repeated them to herself, the smoother they came. She’d done a bloody good job. She knew she had. She’d tried her hardest, she’d been organized and capable, she’d bent over backward to make someone else’s dreams come true. She’d been good.
Just like she’d been good at Castell Cottage, no matter what Jacob said.
Yes, you’re good. But that doesn’t make you irreplaceable.
The old Eve might accept that statement. The new one wanted to throw a chair.
How dare he think the worst of her, after treating her like she was the best? How dare he push her away after making her feel needed? How dare he act as if she was the same scared, thoughtless woman he’d first met when he must know by now that she was so much more? If he’d given her a chance to explain, she could’ve told him that she was passionate about Castell Cottage, that her commitment meant something.