Her eyes met mine. They told me the whole damn story. Knowing her too well was both a gift and a curse, because I could feel exactly how disappointed she was in me right now. And just like me, the tension of this whole situation had stripped away her mask and shattered her filters. Whatever was coming next was unleashed, raw, and probably hurtful.
“I’m saying we’re not your family,” she said, the words cutting even deeper than I was prepared for.
The room went still. I grabbed the cup and downed half of it in one go, the liquid burning its way down my throat. My chest tightened at the sting—not from the alcohol, but from her words.
“Low blow,” I muttered.
“Well,” she snapped, “you look more interested in marking your territory, like a fucking crazy dog, than in the fact that my children’s faces are all over the internet.”
I exhaled sharply. “I said I’m sorry. But what do you expect me to do? I’m famous! People will follow me everywhere I go… You should’ve known that.” And that was it, wasn’t it? The life I chose. The life she had chosen, too, in the dreams we shared. She’d tried to make it in Hollywood once, but now she wanted to act as if none of that mattered anymore like it wasn’t still part of her.
“You’re right,” she said, carrying an edge of defeat. “This is not gonna work.”
“Don’t you start,” I said firmly.
“Chris, wecan’tmake this work. Look at us!”
“Couples fight, Jules,” I shot back.
“You’re not listening to me,” her voice broke. “I can’t do the messy relationship anymore. The going days without talking, the wanting to punch each other’s exes… I can’t.”
“But wehaveto.”
“Why? Because of some dream? Because our minds created a story that would never be real?”
“No. Because we are supposed to be married, that’s how it wassupposedto be. He wasn’t even going to meet you,” I said, letting the words tumble out before I could stop them.
Jules froze, her confusion written all over her face.
“What does that mean?”
“We were supposed to meet. Twelve years ago.”
“What?” she managed, barely above a whisper.
I took a deep breath, steadying myself as I revealed the truth. There was no turning back now, and she needed to understand why seeing her with George cut so damn deep. That son of a bitch got everything that should’ve beenmine. It was a disgusting, raw and ugly kind of jealousy, but too strong to fight.
“Your script that went into production all those years back… I was the actor attached to it. I was at that first meeting, and you…” I hesitated. “You never showed.” The moment the words left my mouth, I knew I’d messed up.Thiswasn’t how I wanted to tell her. I’d let my emotions take the wheel again, crashing into anything and anyone in front of me. I’d never really learned how to control it, because most people would rather take the hit than confront a movie star. But now it was barreling forward at full speed—fatal speed—straight into the person I’d loved the most in my life.
She stood there, her face a mixture of shock and disbelief. I saw her tears well up almost instantly, and it broke me. It wrecked me. It was like watching the crash in slow motion and everything I’d dreamed I could have, flying straight through the metaphorical broken windows.
Here I was, calling George a dick, when it was more than clear who the real problem was. Me. This was another piece of evidence—out of thousands—that the man I was, in reallife, not in dreams, was far from someone who deserved a place in Jules’ and the kids’ lives.
“How long have you known this?” She was fighting to keep it together.
“A week.”
The silence that followed was crushing. It made it physically hard to breathe. I knew what I needed to do, but all I wanted was the power to take her pain away with my bare hands. I took a small step toward her, wanting to close the distance, to offer some kind of comfort, but she stepped back, her hands raised as if to physically keep me away. Who could even blame her?
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to…”
“When?” she cut me off. The tears that had escaped now flowed freely, and she didn’t bother trying to stop them.Fuck.“WHEN?” Her voice echoed through the room, louder than either of us expected.
“I was planning to this weekend,” I stammered. “I was trying to make sense of it first. I don’t know.” I hated the way the words sounded like I didn’t care when that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’d barely wrapped my own head around it, but somehow, I thought I could figure out the perfect way to tell her.
Congratu-fucking-lations, Chris Jones. You picked the worst way possible.
