He did finally get married, just a few months after his thirtieth birthday.
I swallow, chest aching a bit as I think about the lucky woman who will get to live out the rest of her life as his wife. She and I don’t really get along, but I’m sure that’s no surprise to you.
She doesn’t deserve Jamie, though I guess no one ever will in my eyes. Honestly, I think his wife is selfish. I think she’s a little lost, a little broken, and a little too fond of making mistakes. Sometimes it hurts when I see them together, but I don’t let myself focus on the bad, because the truth is she makes him happy. It may not make sense to me, but it doesn’t have to — because he loves her.
And that’s enough for me.
I kick my sandals off, propping my feet on the warm dashboard in Jamie’s Jeep just as a familiar melody comes over the speakers. The Piano Guys always take me back to the first time I sat beside Jamie, and it must do the same for him because he stops talking, hand reaching for my thigh. He gives it a gentle squeeze and every cell in my body buzzes to life at the touch.
I lay my head back against the seat and tilt my head to look up at him — my Jamie, my Whiskey. He’s looking at me in the way he always has, the way I hope he always will, and I wonder if he’ll ever be able to touch me without me feeling that same familiar, aching burn.
But that’s the thing about whiskey, isn’t it?
It’s strong, to the very last drop.
I face the windshield again just as we park, the waves rolling in ahead of us, sunshine blazing hot on our shoulders. I inhale the salty breeze, letting go of the breath slowly, breathing in the moment. Sometimes I feel like we have to rush, but then I remember that time isn’t our enemy the way I always thought. Turns out, time is our friend — the friend we never listened to, but we’re learning how to more and more every day. The friend who might have always known a little more about us than we did.
You see, I may not always like his wife, and she may be far from perfect…
But I’m so happy she’s me.
“Timing is a hell of a thing. In the end, that’s what it all comes down to. The potency of an attraction or the purity of a connection mean very little if you’re on separate journeys. You and I were a perfect fit, we were, there was just too much distance between us to see it.”
— SEPARATE JOURNEYS | Beau Taplin
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING me?”
I stood there on B’s doorstep, just like I had two times before.
The first time, I had her wet, crinkled-up wedding invitation in my hand and the fury of every Greek god rolling through me as I stared at her in disbelief, ready to remind her that she was damn sure not marrying anyone — not unless it was me.
The second time, I was resigned, heartbroken, a shell of who I once was as I finally admitted to myself that she was never mine at all.
I let her go that day.
She was married — or so I thought. She had a new life to start. She’d told me, right to my face, how badly I’d hurt her, how much loving me brought her pain. And I admitted to that. I apologized for it, and I meant every word. I begged her with one last gift not to forget us, even as she moved on, and then… I left.
That was the last time I saw her.
And then, two years later, I saw her fucking book.
I didn’t read much — not anything outside of the surfing magazines I subscribed to, anyway. But I was walking past a bookstore in downtown Miami when I saw the window display, dozens and dozens of copies of that black and white book with those golden letters on the front.
I’d walked past that bookstore for years. It was between my father’s office and the bar we frequented every Friday for happy hour.
Hundreds of times, I’d likely walked past that exact display without noticing it. Maybe hundreds of times. I didn’t know how long ago the book had been published, or how long it had been a bestseller, and to this day, I have no idea what made me finally look at that window as I strolled past. Perhaps it was the universe, ready to fuck with me again after leaving me to suffer alone for a while.
It wasn’t the title that made me stop.
It was the name.
Brecks Kennedy.
I’m not sure how long I stood there gaping at the window, blinking over and over, trying to convince myself I wasn’t seeing what I thought I was. When I finally came to, I ran inside and all but threw my credit card at the poor cashier, immediately rushing back to my apartment and devouring the whole thing in one night.
One long, sleepless, agonizing night.
She’d lied to me.
Okay, maybe lie was a strong word — but she’d let me believe she was still married that day I showed up to let her go. She had that ring on her finger, and I just assumed…
Looking back now, I can see all the signs I missed in my depressed daze. Because that first time I’d shown up with her wedding invitation, half her apartment was in boxes. She was moving. Out. Or rather in with her soon-to-be husband.
So why was she still in her apartment when I went back those months later?
I should have realized it, but I didn’t. The only thing I could process at that time in my life was letting her go.
And damn it if I didn’t fail miserably — even when I told her that’s what I was doing.
She wrote a book for me.
She wrote a book for me.
For me. About me.
About us.
Now, my third time standing in this doorway and looking into her apartment, the light shining through her floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Pittsburgh, I felt everything I’d tried to deny myself for nearly two years.
I felt the rush of her eyes meeting mine, the possession that always rolled through me when she was in my presence, the magnet — strong as ever — pulling me into her before she could even register that it was me.
“Jamie,” she breathed, and the sound of my name on her lips nearly unraveled me, nearly erased any questions I had or any urgency to know what the fuck that book meant. The way she said my name always tested my willpower, and at that moment, I nearly gave in, nearly pushed through that door and slammed her into the wall and took what I knew was always mine.
But I managed a breath, holding up the tattered book I’d read a dozen times in the last week.
“What the hell is this?”
If you’re reading this, dear reader, then I know you’ve read B’s story. I know you had to go through the same torture I did — perhaps even more so, since you lived out those thirteen years in the matter of approximately three-hundred-and-sixty-two pages.
You deserve to know what happened next.
You deserve a happy ending — at least, as happy as masochists such as ourselves can provide.
But, before I can tell you the end of her side of the story, I need to at least tell you some of my side.
So, again, we can’t start here.
We have to go back.
Way back.
To the very first drop…
SHE WAS RIGHT ABOUT one thing.
The first day I met B, she did, in fact, fall flat on her face.
It was particularly hot that day in south Florida, sweat rolling down my back in consistent streams as I ran the path I’d frequented since I was a freshman. Primarily in the fall, that path that circled a little suburbia lake was part of my morning ritual. Basketball season was in full effect, which meant running in the mornings and staying well after practice in the afternoons to work on my lay ups and free-throw shots.