“I’m not pretending,” she said, voice tightening. “I’m choosing.”
“Choosing what?” he shot back. “To be miserable?”
“To keep you safe.” As soon as the words exited her lips, she looked pained, like she wished she hadn’t said them. Not at all.
The words hit like a stone.
Jack blinked. “Safe from what?”
She didn’t answer.
“Madelaine.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Yeah, I’m getting really tired of hearing that,” he snapped.
“I know,” she said, and that was worse. No defensiveness. No fight. Just quiet acceptance.
He exhaled sharply, leaning back again, running both hands through his hair.
“You don’t get it,” he muttered.
“Then help me understand,” she said, echoing his words from earlier.
Jack let out a humorless huff. “You want to understand? Fine.”
He turned toward her again.
“Once I accepted you weren’t coming back, I spent more than four years trying to get over you.”
Her breath caught, but she didn’t interrupt.
“I dated,” he continued. “Tried to move on. Told myself whatever we had, it wasn’t real, or it wasn’t enough, or you didn’t feel it the same way I did.”
His jaw tightened.
“Because that was easier than thinking you just…walked away like I meant nothing to you. Like I wasn’t worth the effort.”
Madelaine’s grip on the wheel went white-knuckled.
“I didn’t walk away. You were not nothing to me.”
“You left without a word for literally years,” he said flatly. “That’s the same thing.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not.”
“Then what is it?”
She pondered his question before she said, “A sacrifice.”
The word hung there.
Jack stared at her. “That’s what you’re calling it?”
“That’s what it was.”
“For who?” he demanded. “Because it sure as hell didn’t feel like it was for me.”
