"He’s a man, Sierra. He made his choices too," Emma counters gently. "But right now, we aren't talking about Jace. We’re talking about you. What happens tomorrow?"
"Nothing,” I say, and for the first time, the word doesn't feel empty. “The final papers were processed today. It’s done, Em. Jace and I are officially divorced. And then... I don't know who I am if I'm not 'Jace’s wife' or 'The Carter' daughter'. I don't know how to exist without a role to play."
"You’re Sierra," Emma says firmly. "The girl who used to sneak out to watch the stars. The girl who used to draw in the margins of her textbooks because she had too much to say. She’s still in there. She’s just a little dusty. We’re going to find her, even if we have to dig through years of eggshell paint to do it."
My phone vibrates again.Knox.I don't turn it over. My heart does a slow, painful roll. Every time his name appears, it feels like a reminder of the one truth I buried deeper than all the others.
My hand moves back to my stomach. Emma’s eyes follow the movement. For a second, I think the truth might finally spill out of me. I want to scream that I lost Knox’s baby while Jace held me. I want to tell her I married Jace because I was a coward who couldn't handle the disappointment in my parents’ eyes. I wantto tell her that I’m terrified Knox will find out and hate me more than Jace ever could.
But the words stay trapped. I’m not ready.
"I should go," Emma says looking at her watch, gathering her things. "But I’m checking on you tomorrow. No 'I’m fine' allowed. We’re going to figure out what you actually want, Sierra. Not what looks good in a Carter-family brochure, and not what your mother expects. Just... what you want.”
"No I'm fine," I promise.
After she leaves, the silence returns, but it doesn't feel quite so predatory. I stay in the dark, watching the shadows of passing cars stretch across the ceiling. The papers are still there. My secret is still there. Knox is still out there, a storm on the horizon.
But as I walk toward the bedroom, my feet feel heavy. Solid. For the first time, I’m not performing. I’m just a woman in a dark room, and while I’m terrified, I’m grounded enough to move.
I didn’t leave because of Jace.
I left because I couldn’t find myself in the house he built on a foundation of lies and for a woman who didn’t exist.
Chapter Sixteen
Desperate Truths
Jace
One Month Later
It’s been four weeks since the divorce was finalized. Four weeks of staying away on purpose. And somehow the drive to Sarah’s still feels longer than it actually is. Every red light is a reminder of how much time I’ve wasted stopping for things I never really wanted.
I’m still wearing my coaching gear. The whistle is a heavy weight against my chest, a reminder of a game I’m not sure I know how to play anymore. For years, I’ve been the man with the plan. The stable one. The one who does the right thing even when it feels like a slow-motion car crash.
But as I pull onto her street, the silence in my truck is deafening. There’s no Sierra waiting at home with dinner and polite questions about my day. There’s just me and the terrifying realization that for the first time in my life, I don’t have a script. The weight of it sits on my conscience.
I tug at the collar of my dry-fit shirt and realize I should’ve changed before coming here. It feels tight, like I can’t breathe right in it anymore. This gear, the team colors and the embroidered logo on my chest, represents the man who knew how to call the plays, how to manage the clock, and how to keep everyone happy. But out here, in the dim streetlights of Sarah’s neighborhood, I’m not a coach. I’m just a guy with a crumpled heart and no idea how to explain anything. I think about the locker room talk, the cliches about ‘giving it your all’ and ‘leaving it on the field.’ I’ve been leaving my soul on the field for years, and I’m finally realizing there’s nothing left to play for if I don’t have her.
I kill the engine, but I don’t get out. I just sit there, staring at the warm glow coming from her window.
‘She deserves better than a man who walked out on a life he spent years building with someone else.’
I remember the way Sarah looked at me in college, before the pregnancy, before the marriage, before the ‘responsibilities.’ She looked at me like I was the only person in the room, not because of what I did or where I was headed, but because of who I was when no one was watching.
I reach into the glove box and pull out the note Sierra found, the one Sarah wrote me so long ago. The paper is soft now, the edges worn from the hundreds of times I’ve touched it when I thought I was alone.
I can't do this... Be this. The other woman.
The words are a punch to the gut every time. I’ve spent so long trying to be a hero for Sierra that I didn’t see how much Sarah was the one paying for it. I turned her into collateral damage. I didn’t mean to hurt her. But intention doesn’t erase impact. I’ve kept her in the shadows, a secret I only allowed myself to touch when the ‘perfect’ life felt like it was suffocating me.
I step out of the truck, the night air sharp and cold. I don’t have a plan. I don’t have a speech. I just have the truth, and I’m not even sure what that looks like anymore.
I reach the door and hesitate. My hand hovers over the wood.
‘What if she doesn’t want the version of me that isn't the hero?’I wonder.‘What if she’s moved on from the ghost I’ve been chasing?’
I knock before I can talk myself out of it. Three sharp, rhythmic hits that sound like a heartbeat in the quiet of the porch.
