“I jumped out of the damn boat, didn’t I?” Jamie shouts. “I suppose your squid man boyfriend always takes the risky bet. I suppose he probably has the patience of a saint and never asks questions even when you disappear for days on end.”
“That’s not fai—” I try to object, but Jamie is not finished.
“I’m sure he’s just a perfect specimen who always shaves his sideburns…” I almost laugh at that—Ididused to criticize Jamie for those overabundant sideburns—but I’m struck by the intensity of Jamie’s gaze. It’s a little unnerving, but it also feels like a veil being lifted. Like we’re finally breaking through the wall that’s been built between us.
Rain falls down heavily, plastering our bathing suits to our skin, making me shiver. Drops of it meet his forehead, his cheeks, his jaw, before trailing toward his mouth. I dart out a tongue to lick my own lips. Jamie blinks, as if gathering himself up for something.
Finally, he speaks, his voice softer now but still just as raw. “But Sybil, I was never that man, and you knew it when youagreed to marry me. You knew that I like structure and order and certainty. That I only let the people closest to me see the real me. I thought you were one of those people. But obviously, I was wrong.”
He turns around and continues hiking, leaving me standing there stunned. He thinksIdidn’t accept him for who he really is? That couldn’t be further from the truth.
“And I thought you knewme,” I call to his back. “I told you everything, Jamie. About what happened in my past. About my… episodes.”Panic attacks, Gwendolyn has explained to me. Though until I started seeing her, I never had a name for those moments when my heart would race and my breath would turn shallow and it would feel like my mind was unspooling. “You knew, and you said you understood,” I say to Jamie, raising my voice over rain. “You said that even if I sometimes had to run away, you’d always be waiting for me when I came back. But that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“You mean like the lie about where you went on our wedding weekend?” Jamie tosses over his shoulder. “You were gone for two whole days, Sybil. How stupid do you think I am? And don’t act like that’s the only thing you ever hid from me.”
I swivel around. “What’sthatsupposed to mean?”
But before he can answer, I yelp as my foot twists on a root and my knee hits the ground hard.
The rain has made everything slick. We’ve come to the other side of the hill, and the trail has descended into a steep drop. I skid into Jamie, toppling him over with me.
As he falls, he manages to use some of his momentum to roll us. We come to a stop with my body sprawled on top of his.
My face is once again just inches from his, and the rest ofhis body is pressed along my entire length. The warmth from earlier rushes back to me, and I have to stop myself from rolling my hips against his.
“Are you okay?” The anger is gone from his voice, and all that’s left is concern.
My mouth falls open again. “I’m fine,” I lie. There’s nothing “fine” about nearly dry humping your ex-fiancé on a public hiking trail.
I roll off Jamie, brushing a few leaves off my shins and straightening up. Pain shoots through my left ankle and I instinctively pick up my foot to rub the sore joint.
“Can you put any weight on it?” he asks.
I try but let out a sharp hiss. In an instant, Jamie’s arm is around my waist, supporting my weight. I let myself lean into the broad warmth of his body.
“Let me help you.” He’s tall enough that he has to crouch down a bit. We take a few more steps, but the angle must be awkward enough for him that he gives up. Before I realize what’s happening, he’s pulled me up, cradling me in his arms. I’m overtaken by the scent of him again. Even soaked with rain, his T-shirt once again drenched and sticking to him, the distinct smell of Jamie pulls me back and sends a rush of familiar adrenaline through me, and the feeling is intoxicating. As I look up at the firm line of his jaw, a wave of nostalgia rolls through me. For a moment, I let myself sink into the sensation of it. A damsel in distress, lost in the woods and rescued by a familiar stranger.
“Do you remember when you carried me over to the stables in Napa?” It was our first trip home to meet Jamie’s family. It was also the trip when Jamie proposed. Craning my neck tolook up at him for an answer, I inhale sharply at the look on his face.
“Of course,” he says softly. There’s a strained note in his voice.
Like maybe our nearness is having the same effect on him as it’s having on me.
Or maybe the heat and the pain in my ankle have just gone to my head.
The trail begins to level out—finally—and the gently rolling lawn of the hotel comes into view. It’s easy going the rest of the way, and as we make it back to the resort grounds, he sets me down gently on the path and flags a passing golf cart.
“Are you going to be okay from here?” he asks.
“I’ll be okay. I just need to rest it for a bit, and I’ll be fine.”
But will I? I wish all it took to wash you free of your past was an evening rainstorm.
I hop over to the golf cart and start to slide into the passenger seat but lose my balance on my wobbly ankle.
Jamie takes my hand and helps me up, and for some reason, just the spot where our palms meet tingles, as if a shared language has passed between us.
I look up into his eyes.
