Her lips parted slightly, a silent gasp I felt in my soul, but she didn’t speak.
“I want to try counseling,” I said, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. “I want to work through this. I want a family with you. To grow old with you. I’ll do whatever it takes, J. Just… give me a chance.”
She studied me for a long moment, her expression a locked door. “I’ll think about it,” she said eventually, and it was both a sentence and a reprieve.
I nodded, swallowing the boulder of frustration in my throat. “That’s all I’m asking.”
Her gaze escaped to the window, seeking an exit.
I couldn’t help myself. The poison of jealousy seeped out. “Will he make your decision harder?” I asked, the question a live wire in my chest. “The singer?”
Her head snapped toward me, her eyes sharpening. “No,” she said, her voice firm as stone. “He’s just my friend.”
The tension in my shoulders eased a fraction, but the green-eyed monster still gnawed at my insides. “Do you still love me?” I asked, the whisper a fragile, breaking thing.
“Yes,” she said, her voice impossibly steady. “I do.”
A wave of pure, unadulterated relief washed over me, so potent it was dizzying.
“But I don’t like you, Oak,” she added.
The words were a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.
“After making my life a living hell in high school, you could have at least not cheated on me.”
I flinched, the truth of it a brand on my skin. “I deserve that,” I whispered.
She stood, the movement final. “I need to get back,” she said.
I stood too, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. She started walking away, and it felt like my soul was being torn from its moorings. I’d fucked up. I was always fucking up.
“Jordin, wait.” She turned slightly, her brows lifting in a silent question. I stepped closer, my voice low and urgent with a lifetime of need. “I’ll sacrifice whatever it takes. I’ll do anything, become anything, to have you back. You’re the best part of me—hell, you’re the only part of me that’s ever made sense. I know I don’t deserve you, but I’m not too proud to get on my knees and beg. I’ve always needed you.”
Her lips parted slightly, but she held her silence.
I kept talking, the words a river I couldn't dam, because she was still listening, and her listening was the only oxygen I had. “You are everything to me, Jordin. My joy, my peace, my hope. I don’t care what it takes—space, time, the singer. Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you. Just… don’t shut me out. Don’t walk away from what we could still have…”
Her eyes softened for a single, heart-stopping second, a crack in the armor. But then the wall slammed back into place, higher and harder than before. I knew Jordin long enough to recognize that look. It was the same one she used to give me back in high school when I was the bane of her existence, the boy she was forced to endure.
“I really do need to get back,” she said, and the finality in her tone was an execution.
I nodded, my hands falling to my sides, utterly useless. The old me wanted to grab her, to force her to stay, to makeher hear me until she understood. But she hated that crazy, possessive side of me. Most of the time.
“Thank you for meeting me.”
She didn’t respond, just gave a small, dismissive nod and walked away, taking all the light with her.
twenty nine-Oak
Sunday dinners at my parents’ house were always a spectacle. My mother thrived on appearances—plating food like she was competing for a Michelin star. Everything was always perfect. The house was a curated masterpiece of marble floors, chandeliers, and elaborate floral arrangements. This Sunday was no different.
My mother was in the kitchen, directing the staff with the authority of a general, her petite frame draped in a dress that probably cost as much as some people’s rent. At sixty-five, she looked closer to forty-five, her olive skin smooth, her dark hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders. She thrived on being a rich housewife and spoiling her sons.
It was the reason Marcus and I were the way we were. We didn’t know boundaries. Not growing up in this house, where money solved every problem and love came without expectations because money buys everything, even success. My father worked hard, took us out to do “manly stuff,” and never cheated. He had been disappointed in me when he found out what I’d done to Jordin. He said he didn’t think we were right for each other, but the look in his eyes the day he found out said he expected better from me.
I didn’t bother my mother. She was in her element; I’d talk to her eventually.
When I walked into the dining room, my father was already seated at the head of the table, scrolling through his phone. Tall and broad-shouldered, with salt-and-pepper hair and a perpetually serious expression, he had the presence of a man who closed multimillion-dollar deals before breakfast. Finance was his world, and he ruled it with the same precision and control he applied to everything else. We didn't always get along. My mother said it was because we were so much alike.
