“You’re not happy. You’re numb. There’s a difference.”
My mouth popped open. “Don’t tell me what I am, Jamie Shaw! If you’re so desperate to tell me something, how about telling me why you never called? Huh?”
“Does it really matter?” He threw back, pulling his shirt over his head. It was wrinkled from the rain, but he still looked mouthwatering in it. “You said you’d wait, and I said I’d come. Why did you give up? Why are you trying to push me away right now?”
“Because this isn’t right! This,” I said, motioning to my empty living room between us. “Isn’t okay. We’re toxic, Jamie. All we do is hurt each other, hurt the ones who love us, hurt ourselves.” I was trembling, and Jamie noticed. He exhaled, moving toward me like he wanted to comfort me, but I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t.”
Jamie paused, and for a moment we were both silent, the seriousness of the moment settling in around us like dust after a demolition.
“You want to know why I never called?” he asked, his voice low. “You think that will make you feel better? Because it won’t.”
I didn’t answer, and Jamie sighed.
“B, I signed the wedding certificate the morning of the wedding. That was always the plan, sign the certificate before the day began so we wouldn’t have to worry about it, and then we could put it away somewhere safe, and take it to the courthouse on Monday.”
My stomach fell hearing about Angel. “Okay…”
“I signed it. Before I found out what she did.” He sniffed, eyes connecting with mine. “After I left, she signed it, too. And that Monday, when I was trying to figure out my plan of attack to handle shit with her and get to you as fast as I could, she showed up at my house, claiming we were officially married. She went to the courthouse without me, B. We were legally married.”
My heart stopped, for three long seconds, and started again with a kick. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah,” Jamie said, stepping closer. “At first, she begged for me to take her back, to make it work, but obviously, I refused. Then, she got her lawyer involved, and they said they’d go after me for everything because I’d been cheating on her with you.” He laughed, shaking his head. “They had camera footage of us together in the hotel on what was supposed to be my wedding night with Angel.”
My head was spinning, and I reached for the back of the couch, holding it to steady my shaking legs.
“If it was just my Jeep, or just my shitty house she wanted, I wouldn’t have cared, B. But my father made me partner — officially. It was my wedding gift. And she wanted to take that, too. She wanted half of everything, if not more. She…” his voice trailed off, and I saw in his eyes that it was painful to even talk about any of this with me. “I got a lawyer. I had to block your number, my family, too. Until it was all resolved, any phone call or email or message on Facebook could have incriminated me. It didn’t matter that she’d admitted to cheating the night before our wedding, because in the court’s eyes, we’d still gotten married anyway. It was the biggest fucking mess, all of it, and I hated working with slimy lawyers and an even slimier ex. I hated waiting. But the only thing that kept me going was knowing that you were waiting, too. For me.”
I tried to swallow, but came up dry. I had to sit. I fell to the arm of the couch, hand over my mouth.
“The day Angel finally gave up,” he continued, his voice lower now, gruff and sad. “The day I received the finalization of our divorce? That was the same day I received your wedding invitation.” He choked on a laugh. “Talk about sick irony.”
I shook my head, too many times, temples pounding as my thoughts raced to catch up. “You should have called me. Somehow.”
“I did! I called you from what I’m pretty positive is the only payphone still in existence, several times, and you never answered,” Jamie shot back, chest heaving.
All the unknown numbers…
My temples throbbed again and I kneaded them with my forefingers, still shaking. “You thought I would wait, and I thought you changed your mind.”
Jamie moved to me then, slowly, as if he was waiting for me to stop him. Then, he bent at the knee to meet me at eye-level. “I could never change my mind about you.”
I pulled away from his nearness. It was too much. It burned, and not in the way I loved. “No. No, you should have found a way. You gave up too easily. You should have answered my call, or had your lawyer call me, or told Jenna, or fucking smoke signaled. This is too much. You abandoned me.”
Words flew from my mouth, but none of it made sense. I felt everything crashing in at once, the universe laughing in the background. It had won again. Timing laughed with it.
“Stop doing this! Stop self-destructing, stop making this harder than it has to be,” Jamie said, exhausted. “Maybe you’re right, okay? Maybe I should have figured out a way to reach you, but I didn’t, because you were supposed to wait. And none of that matters now, want to know why?” He touched my chin, lifting my eyes to his. “Because you still love me. And I love you.”
I flew off the couch, running my hands through my hair before spinning to face him again. “No, it does matter. Because I’m getting married.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am!”
Jamie stood, jaw tight. “You’re not marrying anyone but me.”
I scoffed, and even as the laugh left my lips, his words sent a harsh yet warming zinger straight to my core. I loved hearing him say that, and hated myself for loving it.
“You can’t do this. You can’t walk in here, at the one time I finally have my life together, and make me rip it to shreds.” The tears didn’t slowly build and bubble over, they struck fast, glossing my eyes after one blink and sliding down my cheeks with the second one. “All we do is hurt. All we do is destroy, and one of us is always picking up the pieces, trying to move on or forget or not get our hopes up. It’s sick. We’re toxic.” I was crying harder now, and once again Jamie reached for me, but I backed away. “And now, I risked everything I have to be with you last night, because I literally can’t say no to you.” I shook violently then. “I cheated on a man who didn’t deserve it, on a man who wants to spend his life with me, on a man I love, all because of my inability to let you go.” I cried, tears streaming freely, hot and scarring down my cheeks. “Your love is poisoning me, Jamie!”
He cracked, something between a sob and a groan rumbling in his throat as his face twisted. Jamie crossed the room in three steps, shaking his head and mumbling no before pulling me into him. He held me tight, and I fought against another sob until he bent, his lips pressing into mine. I shoved him back hard.
“Stop it! Stop! You have to go, you have to leave, Jamie.” My breaths were wild, voice too high-pitched.
Jamie stood there, staring at me, willing me with that damn stare of his to change my mind. When I didn’t, he growled, punching a box of pans as he passed it and I jumped with the noise. I didn’t watch him leave, didn’t watch his back move through the door, didn’t see his face when he whispered that he’d always love me, didn’t hear the slam of the door behind him. All I heard was my heart, beating in my ears. All I saw was my hands, hitting the ground, tears falling to land next to them. All I felt was everything — every aching, shitty thing that had ever existed. Guilt, regret, love, lust, desperation, want, need, pain, fear, loss — all of it, all at once, like being caught inside a huge wave that broke just in front of me, swallowing me down into the depths of a dark, cold ocean of feelings I’d avoided for so long.