I close my laptop, shove the phone face-down, and press my palms to the counter like I can hold myself steady. It doesn’t work. The ghosts of the wedding have followed me for a year, and now they’re knocking louder.
I tell myself to ignore Ellie’s texts. To put my phone away, pour another cup of coffee, and move on with my day like a normal person. But hours later, I’m still thinking about it.
Are they getting divorced?
The words echo every time I try to focus on work, when I’m answering emails, even when I’m on the phone with a client. I catch myself rereading them at red lights, thumb hovering over my screen like I’m waiting for Ellie to say more. She doesn’t. She doesn’t need to.
Because now I can’t stop picturing it. The cracks are forming. The perfect, glossy image of Jace and Sierra starting to splinter.
I don’t want to care. God, I don’t. But the rush of jealousy that cuts through me every time her name has come up this past year is enough to make me nauseous.
At lunch, Ellie’s sitting across from me, scrolling absently through her phone while I pick at my sandwich. She shifts suddenly, angling the screen away like she doesn’t want me to see.
“What?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“Nothing.” She forces a smile, but her thumb hovers like she’s debating whether to hide it or hand it over.
I reach across the table and snag her phone before she can stop me. A new message from Emma flashes at the top.
Emma: Did you hear? Sierra showed up at that event alone last weekend. No Jace in sight.
My stomach twists. I read it again, the words blurring even though they’re perfectly clear.
Ellie must’ve typed fast, because the next message in the thread is hers.
Ellie: Maybe he had to work.
Another buzz lights up the screen almost instantly.
Emma: Or maybe the divorce rumors are true.
I stab at my salad, pretending I didn’t just read it, but the words burn under my skin. I hate how badly I want them to be true.
Because if Jace’s marriage is falling apart, what does that mean?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And yet my chest tightens like it means everything.
The truth is, I thought him marrying Sierra would be the end of it for me. I thought watching him stand at the altar, hearing him say vows to another woman, would burn out the last of what I felt. But it didn’t. If anything, it branded me.
Spending this last year trying to cauterize the wound that won’t heal has been exhausting. And maybe that’s because I’ve known, deep down, that I never stopped loving him.
The realization hits me harder than it should. But it’s not new, it’s just that I can finally admit it.
I think back to the first time I knew, really knew, what he meant to me. We were at the end of our sophomore year of college. I’d been dating someone else, a safe choice, someone who smiled at my parents and opened doors but never once made my pulse skip. Jace showed up to one of our group nights, leaned against the bar with that half-grin that said he was already in on the joke. He didn’t even say much. He only had to look at me, and I felt it everywhere. But when my boyfriend reached for my hand, I felt nothing. Then later, when Jace brushed his fingers across my back as he passed, I felt everything.
I went home that night and lay awake, restless, the ghost of his touch humming under my skin. That’s when I knew. I was his. Even if I’d never say it out loud.
And now here I am, years later, still haunted by the same truth.
I try to shake it off, focus on the real world instead of the one I keep building in my head. But the universe doesn’t let me off that easily.
Because when I walk into The Bar that night, he’s there.
Just leaning against the edge of a pool table with a half-empty beer in his hand, staring down at it like it might have the answers. The overhead light catches the tired set of his shoulders, the crease in his brow, the way his jaw works like he’s chewing on something he can’t spit out.
He looks older than he did a year ago. Worn in a way I don’t remember.
My chest tightens, because I shouldn’t care. I also shouldn’t notice. But I do.
