He nods to the envelope. “That letter was nothing more than him finally feeling sorry for fucking up your life. Believe me, babe, if he really wanted you, he would have fought for you from the start.”
“Nothing about having Jett fucked up my life,” I seethe. But this… this bullshit with Lane. This game he’s been playing…
He might care about Jett, but he’s never going to love him like I thought he did, and now I know why.
If I’ve screwed up where Jett’s concerned, it’s by keeping him in this situation. By holding on to something I’ve known for a long time wasn’t going to work.
Twisting off my ring, I set it on the counter and hold my trembling chin high. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Just like that, huh?” Lane snorts. “You get one little inkling that he might actually give a shit and we’re done.”
“This has nothing to do with Jesse.”
“Nah, babe, this has everything to do with him.”
Chapter 13
HAYDEN
“Holy shit.” From her cross-legged seat in the middle of my childhood bed, Hannah covers her mouth with both hands. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but holy shit.”
I swipe at my tears and frown. “What do you mean you’re not surprised?” Because this sure as hell came out of left field for me.
She drops her hands to her lap and sighs. “I had a feeling there was more going on with Jesse.”
“I told you I had feelings—”
“I’m talking about feelings on his part, Hay.” She presses her lips into a small smile and tucks a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “In fact, in hindsight, I think it’s pretty obvious.”
“Hannah, are you serious? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you were adamant that you wanted to make things work with Lane. I wanted to support your decision.”
“Han…” A humorless laugh escapes my throat as I hug my pillow a little tighter to my chest. “I appreciate that, but you’re my sister. I count on you to tell me like it is, regardless of whether or not I want to hear it.”
“You were pregnant.”
“Even more reason to tell me!”
She squeezes my knee, hidden beneath the blankets I’ve been buried in since showing up on my parents’ doorstep last night. “Look, we could sit here all day and dwell on the past, but it isn’t going to change anything. What’s done is done. We have to figure out what you’re going to do now.”
Pressure snowballs in my chest until it’s hard to breathe, but I swallow it down. “What can I do? It’s been four years.”
Hannah’s dark eyes study mine for several long beats before she grabs my hand. “You want me to be honest with you, so I’m going to need you to do the same.” She curls her fingers around mine. “What hurts the most right now?”
The guilt that’s simmered beneath my skin for the last eighteen or so hours begins to burn, and I shift uncomfortably beneath the blankets.
I should be hurt that Lane betrayed me, and I am. I should be hurt that the trust I’d worked so hard to regain with him has been shattered once again, and I am.
But what hurts the most—what I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I read his words—is knowing that Jesse had felt something, too. And I never knew.
“I can’t stop thinking about how different things could have been for Jett,” I admit, though the ache in my chest goes deeper than that.
“Don’t do that,” she says softly, smoothing her thumb over my knuckles. “Don’t make this about Jett.”
“But it is about him. It’s all about him.” Hot tears spill down my cheeks once again and I let them fall. My heart hurts too much to hold it in.
“No, sweetie.” She shakes her head, her eyes swimming with sympathy. “This is about you and Jesse.” She continues to stare, her expression unwavering. “You are allowed to have some things for yourself. You know that, right?”
Uh huh. The last time I did something for myself, I ended up falling for the very guy in question.
“This is me, Hay.” She pastes on a smile that I’m sure is supposed to reassure me, but it adds to my guilt instead. “You can take off the mom hat for a few minutes and be Hayden the woman, and I swear to God, I won’t judge you for it.”
“I don’t even know who that is anymore.” I chase away the new tears and sniff.
Everything I’ve done for the past four, almost five, years has been for Jett. The decision to create a stable life with Lane even though I still had trust issues, the home we bought together, changing my career so I could be home more often than I was away…
“You do know her.” She reaches out and lifts my chin. “She was the one who read that letter yesterday.”
A sudden, stabbing ache pierces my chest and I clench my eyes shut, biting back the pain.
Hannah is right and that’s part of the reason I feel so damn guilty right now. Of course, I’d imagined how different Jett’s little life would have been if he could have had both me and Jesse on a daily basis, but I’d also imagined what it would have been like to have Jesse for myself, too.
It’s been a long time since I let myself go there, but yesterday the what-ifs came so easily.
What it would be like to simply spend time with him again. To talk and to laugh and just be the Hayden and Jesse we’d been for those couple of weeks and even during those summertime run-ins before that.
But I also let myself consider what it be would be like to have more, too.
To wake up with him in the morning.
To kiss him goodbye every time we went our separate ways for the day.
To call or text him whenever I thought about him.
To come home to him.
To share dinner and conversation and snuggles on the couch.
To touch him. To put my fingers in his hair and pull him close and just breathe him in.
To have him hold me. And to feel safer in his arms than I have ever felt before.
The irony is that I’d wanted the stability that a life with Lane promised, but it was with Jesse that I felt most secure and most protected. Most content, too, even though he and I wanted different things out of life.
Or maybe that’s what I told myself to keep from becoming too attached. Because, when I really think about it, our end goals aren’t so different. The only real difference is that he wanted to accomplish his in Cole Creek and I wanted to make mine happen here.
But what’s more, what I think I felt on a subconscious level and what kept niggling in my gut every other week when I’d see him again…
Is that I trust Jesse with everything I have.
I hand him my heart every other Friday night and I have never doubted that he will bring it back on Sunday. What’s more, he loves that heart—our son—just as much as I do.
There’s significant risk in trusting someone else with the most sacred parts of yourself, yet I have never feared sharing Jett with Jesse. If anything, I fear not sharing this partnership with him.
The thought of losing Jesse feels like someone coming after my heart with a spoon. But the thought of losing Lane… that feels like a long time coming.