“It’s like a mantra playing in my head. Martha saying she left the window cracked open, I mean.”
Jackson reached over and ran his hand down Park’s back. “I appreciate how candid you’re being.” Because he could see plain as day how trying to decide what to do tore Park apart. Jackson felt some of that himself. Because he’d been really happy with Park, something the time they were spending together now reminded him of, until Park suddenly changed and walked out.
Could he let the pastfloat away?
“I like the idea of living an honest life,” Park said, “but honesty and politics don’t always go hand-in-hand.”
“No, I know.”
“I guess I have some thinking to do.”
“Park, I...” Jackson closed his mouth. The thing was, the more time he spent with Park, the more difficult this got. “It’s not that I want to pressure you into a decision, but the longer I stay here withoutknowing if we have a future, the harder it will be to pull away.”
“No, I get it. Having to say goodbye to you again...well, even just thinking about that sucks.”
Jackson laughed, because he agreed, and because he appreciated how baldly Park had just put it. “I think sometimes that it’s like there are rubber bands connecting our hearts, and the farther we pull away from each other, theharder we snap back.”
“But we’re going to have to say goodbye soon, aren’t we?”
With great reluctance, Jackson slid to the edge of the bed and stood up. “Yeah. I think we have to. It’s nice to fantasize about a time when we could make a real relationship work between us, but that doesn’t do anything for us in the real world. You and I...it’s clear that we still have feelings for each other.But I need to know something from you now, Park. And it can’t wait any longer.”
Park looked up at him. His resigned expression told Jackson that Park knew exactly what he was about to say.
So Jackson said it. “I miss us, but this hurts. I feel like us together is at once the greatest and worst thing, because I love being with you, but I know it will inevitably end. It has to. You wantyour career, you deserve your career, and I deserve my own life, too, and these things are just not compatible with us staying together. So I have to go before I get in further. Because...I can’t just be your friend, Park. I can’t do it. It’s all or nothing. And I don’t see ‘all’ on the table. Is it?”
Park pressed his lips together and stared unfocused at the TV. “No. Not right now.”
Jackson’s heart sank. It was the answer he’d expected, and yet a part of him still hoped Park would make a change, would fight to keep Jackson this time. But nothing had changed.
“I can’t give you what you want right now,” Park said. “It’s too risky. In a few years, maybe, but—”
“I can’t put my life on hold to wait for you.”
“I know.” Park looked up and met Jackson’s gaze. Finally.“Nor should you. I...I have this fantasy of finding a way to make this work, where we keep our affair a secret until it’s safe for me to come out, but I do see how that’s unfair to you, and I won’t put you through that if it’s not what you want. You’re right, a friendship between us won’t work. There’s too much other shit between us. But, god, Jackson, I do not want to give you up.”
“I don’twant to leave, but I think I have to.” And there it was, in stark terms. This had been an odd, blissful, heart-wrenching interlude with a man that he still had feelings for, someone he could love again, but there was too much incompatibility here. Jackson couldn’t compromise himself. Park couldn’t be honest. This now had nothing to do with attorneys and clients but with two souls who wanted tobe with each other but had come to an impasse.
“I wish things were different,” Park said. “With my whole heart, I wish they were. And I know it’s my fault. I know it was my choices that ended everything, and it’s my choice now that prevents us from fixing all this, but I just can’t...not when I’m this close. That Senate seat was taken out of my grasp this week, and Iwillget it back, so Ican’t do anything to jeopardize that. And the more I turn it over in my mind, the more I’m convinced that I can’t have everything. I can’t have the seat and you and my father’s approval and my own success, and... I can’t have it. And that’s probably my fault, too, but...” Park shook his head.
Jackson wondered if Park was punishing himself somehow—for what, Jackson wasn’t entirely sure, thoughit probably had a lot to do with his father—and he almost stepped closer to the bed to take Park into his arms to comfort him, but he thought better of it before he moved.
“God,” Park said, his voice watery. “Is this goodbye now? I’m not ready for it to end now.”
“The longer I stay...”
“I know.” Park rolled off the bed and onto his feet. He stood about two feet away from Jackson andworried his hands together. “Me, too. But the thought of watching you walk away is unbearable.”
Jackson felt that in his gut, in his heart. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Park nodded. His eyes were red now. “Will you at least come with me to the walkthrough tomorrow morning? I could use an ally for that.”
Jackson knew he should say no. That he should end this now and not see Park again.The only thing the future held for them was frustration and heartache, and he knew that plain as day. And still he said, “I said I would.”
“Shaw will close the case soon and it will be over. I know we’ll have to say goodbye. But for what it’s worth, I have no regrets. Only that I have to let you go again.”
“Same. I’ll, ah, see you in the morning, Park.”
Then Jackson grabbed the restof his things and left before he lost the will.
