“It’s you, Jules.”
He says nothing more and I don’t respond immediately.
“I don’t want to think about us anymore, JP.”
“But you do. I know that you do,” he says.
I shake my head like a petulant child. My feelings for him are obvious. I wear them like marks on my skin that I’ve tried to cover with friendship. But being near him and trying to be friends is making it so much harder. I’ve been a fool. A dumb, irresponsible fool. “Every time I see you, it’s like falling in love again. With Audrey being sick, it was an easy distraction, but I can’t keep doing it. We both know that. I need to find a way to not love you. I thought we could be friends, but...”
Surprise washes out the color in his cheeks as my words register in his mind.
“And being near you makes that feel impossible.”
He swallows hard, his gaze searching the ground for a response, but I beat him to the punch.
“I miss when life was easy and there wasn’t cancer and hard feelings and a life that doesn’t make sense.” I throw my hands to my head and storm away, but he grabs my arm, spinning me to face him.
“Wrong. There were always those things. The world has always been hard and hurting. We just had each other and that made sense.” His grip tightens on my arms, but not in a way that hurts me, only in a way that makes me feel like he will never let me go. It’s a solid hold on my body that fiercely grips my heart.
“We never had each other though. Not really. Not completely. So what you’re suggesting is a fantasy. A daydream you think about on the way to work but will never get to experience. When I wanted you, I couldn’t have you. And now that you want me—” I cut myself off. He’s grieving. He’s just grieving. And drunk. God, we’re so drunk. I turn and walk away with no idea where I’m actually going.
“Don’t marry him.” There’s an urgency in his voice. A life-or-death emergency. It’s as if it was his very last chance to say the words before the world crumbles around us.
I turn around slowly. “What?”
“Don’t marry him, Jules. You can’t—” he breathes out like his heart is beating in his throat “You can’t marry him.”
Goosebumps rise on my flesh, and I force myself to turn around and face him. I want to scream he’s too late. I want to call him a bastard. A hypocrite. A selfish asshole with no idea what it means to actually love someone. But when I look into his eyes, I know he’s none of those things and he never has been.
Tears roll faster and faster down my face dropping to my chest like droplets in a rainstorm. “You can’t say that,” I say, a whisper more than a command.
I watch him swallow before he says, “I have to, though. I have to say it.”
I don’t even wipe my tears away. Nor does he. He just watches them fall—his green eyes following each stream until they drip past my chin and land on my silk blouse. The blouse I wore to Audrey’s funeral.His wife’s funeral.
“You can’t say that!” I shout with more force because it’s so simple, yet so irrevocably painful. The words—just four words, five syllables. But enough to shake my entire life.Don’t marry him, Jules.
“I can, and I am,” he says, moving closer to me.
“No. That isn’t fair.”
“I’m not saying love me or pick me,” he continues. “Just don’t pick him. Don’t—”
“You’re too late, JP,” I manage through snot, tears, and pain. “I was ready to love you...”
“I didn’t know—”
“You did! You said you wouldn’t do long distance. So I said live your life, and when you got back...” My chest heaves, then I somehow settle enough to recover my emotions. “You’re the one who went away. You’re the one who got engaged the moment you saw her. You’re the one who married her without telling mewhat was happening. You—” My throat hitches because that’s it.You. You. You.He did this. So much of our story would look different if he made a different decision. If the timing lined up. “Your wife just died, JP.” I have to tear each word from my tongue. I hate to mention it. Wife for him means so many things. Without the context, this could be wildly romantic. But with the context... this is just tragic. “She loved you. And she died loving you.”
“And through all of it, she knew I loved you. And you don’t want to admit it or say it out loud because it might taint our friendship. But she wanted me to be with you,” he says.
I hate him for this. I hate him so damn much. Of course, he and Audrey talked about this; I shouldn’t be surprised. But I am. It’s like knowing the train is going to derail but when it does, the shock is still the same. The wheels fall off. The cars tumble and roll until the grooves rip off and fly in the wind. And everyone inside is either dead or scarred for life.
The silence falls over us like a shadow at twilight. Tears well in his eyes and his fists clench and unclench. “I never said I didn’t love her. You know I loved her. She knew I loved her,” he reiterates, then hesitates for two seconds. “Butyoudon’t lovehim.”
His words hit me in the chest so hard I gasp. I shake my head, taking two slow steps back. “That’s not fair. You don’t know him enough to—”
“Yeah, but I know you—”
