My jaw tightened so much that my teeth started hurting. “Do you know what that sounds like? It sounds likeme.It’s every excuse I’ve ever used to not stick around. Every reason I’ve ever given for why something wouldn’t work before I eventried. I’ve spent my whole life being that guy, wishy-washy and uncommitted. Always halfway in, halfway out.”
I let out a breath, shaking my head before I looked at her again. “You’re acting like I used to, making excuses instead of just giving us a try.”
Her lips parted, but before she could get a sound out, I cut over her, needing to get this over with.Now. “I’m in love with you.”
There. I said it. Out loud. No going back now.
“If I can’t openly love you, then I can’t keep doing this, Jacque.” I refused to look away, absolutely done hiding my feelings.
Past me would’ve walked away long before things had gotten this far, but I wasn’t that guy anymore and I wasn’t going to half-ass this. The ball was going into her court. It was time she started making some serious decisions, but only once she had all the relevant information.
In the meantime, she was just staring at me, stunned. I could actually see it happening in real time, the confusion fading into understanding. Like I’d just knocked something loose in her head and she didn’t know what to do with it.
“We talked about this,” she said finally, evensoundinglike she was reaching.
“No, we didn’t.”
Her eyes snapped to mine. “Yes, we did.”
“No,” I said sharply. “Wedidn’t talk, Jacque.Youdid.”
Both of her eyebrows shot up, but I was far from done. Every other time this had come up, it’d been her turn. This time, it was mine. “You told me how you felt and what you thought, and every time I tried to say anything back, you shut me down. That’s not a conversation. It’s a fucking monologue.”
A defensive sort of hardness crept across her features. “That’s not true.”
“What are you so afraid of?” I asked, deciding to just cut straight through the bullshit and get to the point.
I knew her well enough by now to know that this wasn’t about logic or practicality. It was fear, and despite everything I’d learned about her past and what she’d been through, her fear ofmewas something I still didn’t understand.
Her lips pressed together, like she didn’t want to answer. With my buttons finally done up, I planted my hands on her hips and stared at her. “What is it, Jacque. What has made you so fucking scared that you won’t even try?”
“Don’t,” she snapped, tension breaking loose in her tone. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t act like this is simple,” she shot back. “You know I’m not just overthinking things for no reason.”
“DoI know that? You’re scared, but instead of dealing with it, you’re trying to convince both of us this won’t work before it even has a chance to.”
Her composure cracked, her cheeks flushing. She threw her arms out to her sides and the words burst out of her like bullets. “I’m afraid of never being able to measure up, Jesse!”
I blinked hard, but it was pouring out of her now like a dam had burst.
“Have you even met the people in your family? Do you even hear yourself, pretending that you’re all so normal? Do you even understand what you’re asking me to step into?”
While I had a lot to say about all of that, I didn’t interrupt. She needed to say this and at least she was finally being completely honest. “I’m not going to be like them. Ican’tbe like them. I wasn’t born into a Fortune 500 company or with a silver spoon shoved up my ass.”
She swallowed hard, tears shimmering in her eyes. “How am I supposed to act like I belong when they’rethemand I’mme?”
My heart cracked open, but I already knew there was no point in telling her that, to me, the fact that she washerwas exactly what made her so special. Because this was the core of it. For some unknown, unexplainable, insane fucking reason, Jacqueline didn’t think she was worthy.
“I wasn’t the perfect academia wife to Thomas,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “Even after living like one for almost a decade, I obviously just make the cut.”
I could hear in her voice that that one sliced deeper than the rest, the fact that she’d tried so hard for so long, and he’d still left her the way he had. Honestly, that was one of the reasons I’d taken it so easy on her until now. Even though I knew she wasn’t in love with the guy anymore, it had to hurt to be tossed out like yesterday’s trash after you’d spent most of your adult life trying to conform to someone else’s wishes.
“I tried so hard to be what I thought I was supposed to be and look how that turned out.” She brought those shimmering eyes back to mine. “I was barely the perfect girlfriend for you and that was fake.”
“No,” I said immediately.
