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He’s the one imploding his relationships.
Braden. Jules. Even non-romantic ones, like Matteo and his sisters.
He let his sisters’ messages go unanswered. He stopped reaching out to Matteo. He didn’t talk things out with Braden while they were dating, though she’s got culpability too. And Jules. He didn’t see how she wanted him even when she said it to his face. He spewed lies to Jules, and Jules gave him nothing but truth.
He digs the corner of his phone into his chest, emotions coagulating inside him until he feels heavy, until his breaths struggle to get to his lungs past the lump in his throat.
He ran from Jules when emotional intimacy started creeping in. He could barely tell her the truth even when she asked for it. He didn’t appreciate her enough when they were together, every beautiful facet of herself she chose to share with him. Why would she want to settle down with him?
It’s his fault things are over between him and Jules, but at least there’s one slim, silver lining. Jules deserves someone better than him anyway.
Chapter 31
Jules feels suspended in time as she rides the train to Canberra. Scenery blurs past the window, but she’s not seeing it. She’s stuck back in Cameron’s hotel room with him, watching his face as she tells him how she feels.
His reaction plays in slow motion in her head. How rigid he’d been holding himself as she led up to it, then the instant way he went slack after she confessed. The surprise conveyed by his parted lips, the way his caramel eyes softened with hope when she grabbed his hand, hope that only lasted a split second before he turned to stone again.
She clings to that moment of hope. It wouldn’t be there if he hadn’t wanted to hear she had feelings for him. And the more she replays their exchange, the more she believes Matteo was right about Cameron’s coping techniques. The running she knew about direct from the source, and him talking himself into things fits with what he was saying, how he was pulling all these tiny moments from over the week to back up the decision he’d already made. Her texts and checking him out. The fact they defined it as a fling in the first place.
Jules’s chest warms to an uncomfortable heat, like standing too close to a fire, and she yanks her jumper over her head, balling it atop the tray table.
What about all the other moments they shared, huh? Joking about ringtones and baby pics in the car ride over. Exchanging coffee and marshmallows. Sharing gelatos at Circular Quay. Dancing around his room together. Spending the night wrapped in each other’s arms. Cameron calling her an incredible woman. And that’s not even counting all their phone calls at work, and the guess-the-song game they’ve been playing for months.
She fists her hands into her jumper. She wants to send him a list of all of those moments. Would it change anything if she did? Does she want it to?
Her heart swells, pressing against her lungs, demanding attention.
Yes. She does.
Jules drops her head onto her jumper and shuts her eyes. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore though what she wants. She’s already said all she can. Conference is over, the fling is done, and come Monday, they’ll be back to how things were, except Jules’s fear will have come true. They won’t be going back to what they had. He did reject her after she told him how she felt.
But that look of hope.
She sees it again now. Her heart can’t ignore it, and with Matteo’s insight into how Cameron works, the ember of hope it sparks survives the entire trip home to Canberra.
***
Jules steps off the train and Tori and Cat are waiting for her, holding an oversized brown paper bag with the Big Drip logo on it.
She bursts into tears.
Immediately, she’s wrapped in the warm arms of her friends while she shakes with sobs, getting tears all over Tori’s dress before Cat pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and passes it over.
‘I’m sorry.’ Jules dabs under her eyes and blows her nose once the tears have passed. ‘I don’t get why I’m crying so much about this. We weren’t even properly together.’
‘No need to be sorry,’ Tori says. ‘It’s totally natural to cry over that douche.’
‘Don’t … don’t berate Cameron,’ Jules tells Tori.
‘Can I rag on him a little, though?’ Tori runs her fingers through Jules’s hair. ‘He made my friend miserable.’
‘We brought you choc-oat cookies.’ Cat offers the bag to Jules and she opens it. The smell of chocolate and butter and sugar is like a warm hug but her stomach feels too leaden to eat yet.
‘So, what happened?’ Tori starts shepherding them to her car, grabbing hold of Jules’s suitcase while Cat picks up her handbag. ‘Your text was skimpy on the details.’
Jules presses the still-warm cookies to her chest. ‘There was too much to put in a text.’
‘Uh-oh.’ Cat says. ‘Should we stop for more cookies on the way home?’
