She’s a rumpled vision in leggings and my old crimson and white hockey T-shirt. The one she kept “forgetting” to bring back.
If she thinks she was anything but mine all these years…
“How the hell did security let you past the gate?” Her voice is sharp, but her eyes blink rapidly, throat tightening with a swallow she tries to hide.
I smile at how predictable her reaction is.
“Logan got himself a blank card favor from me.”
The call had been short and awkward on both ends, but I would’ve bargained with the devil for a chance to lay it all out in the open.
Jackie wraps her arms around herself. “Of course he did,” she mumbles and turns on her heel, leaving the door open behind her.
I take it as an invitation to follow her inside.
The house smells faintly of paint. I move slowly through the dim space, taking in the half-furnished rooms, the swatches fanned all over the dining table, and Eliza’s unmistakable sketches taped to one of the walls.
Jackie was in such a hurry to hide away, she moved into an unfinished home.
The sound of muffled thuds draws me deeper inside, to a room where the door stands ajar. The walls are lined with shelves, the large space decorated with a mix of vintage furniture you can barely see, as unopened boxes litter most of every surface.
Jackie’s sorting through an inordinate number of books scattered around what I’m assuming is her new home office.It looks like she started organizing them by color and gave up halfway through.
I skim the cover of an old leather-bound book. “You could pay someone to do this.”
“I could,” she says, not turning, slicing through tape with a box cutter.
But I know why she doesn’t. She needs to do something physical when her emotions are spiraling. This disaster? It’s how she tries to sort through the jumbled thoughts in her own head, spilling out into the real world.
This time I’m not letting her do it alone. I grab a handful of green books and add them to a neat little stack on the opposite shelf.
While she figures out what she wants to say, I steal glances over my shoulder. At my name printed across her back. I’m enjoying the image. Maybe a little too much.
“I’m sorry,” she says, voice low between us. “For the video. For embarrassing you. I know you don’t want that.”
“Jackie,” I start tentatively, leaning on the bookshelf. “The dinner with Michelle was—”
“I know. I know.” Her voice cracks, barely audible. “I don’t even know how to thank you for that. But before that, too. It’s fine.” She keeps her head down, crouching near a pile of hardcovers. “You can go back to your life now that everything is over. I won’t ever bring up what I said again.”
Speech delivered, she busies herself with some files on the opposite side of the room.
I wait. Letting the silence settle. Giving her space to process her thoughts, even though I can’t believe she still thinks I want to walk away from her.
Then, carefully, I step closer, grab a handful of folders, and hand them to her. Finally, close enough to catch the faint floral notes of her perfume. And the dark circles under her eyes.
“You didn’t forgive me,” she says, resigned. “Not really.”
She shuts the file drawer and stares at it for a long beat.
“We can pretend nothing happened.” Her throat works around the words, and I can barely make out what she says next. “I’ll stay away. Just let yourself out, please.”
Before I get to say anything, she spins around and bolts out the door and up the stairs, her footsteps dull against the wood.
I breathe in slow and deep. This woman is going to send me to an early grave.
It took me too long to realize that Jackie’s brilliant mind is a scary place sometimes. And that she doesn’t ask for help when she gets stuck inside it. She hurts quietly.
But not this time.
