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Faith pressed her lips together, content to listen.
“And it didn’t matter anyway, right?” I chuckled a bit hysterically, tears already forming in my eyes. At least here, on the plane, with my best friend, I could let my emotions slip, just a fraction. “He never made plans with me beyond the divorce date. It was always me making plans for his league in the summer. Making vacation plans even further after that. And yet, he never brought up postponing the divorce. Never even broached the subject. He could say he loved me as many times as he wanted, but he never once told me we’d shred the papers and stay together.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “If he’d wanted that, he would’ve told me. He’s never been the one to not go after what he wants.” I swiped the tears off my cheeks, hating that I couldn’t control them, not when it came to Axel.
“Langley,” Faith said, her voice calm, soft. “Did you ever think he didn’t tell you that because he didn’t want to scare you away? You couldn’t tell him you loved him—”
“I tried to show him. I needed…needed more time. Because what would happen if I told him the truth, and we ended up here anyway? It would break me.”
“It’s already broken you,” Faith said.
I leaned my head back against the seat. There were few people who could see through the mask I’d worn for the past two weeks, but Faith was certainly one of them. She knew how hollow I’d become, worse than when my ex-fiancé had hurt me before. And maybe that was the key, the answer. It had hurt, sure, when he’d made me choose. But, this? With Axel, it was like a piece of my soul was missing. Like half of me would constantly bleed out, and the only way I could heal would be to regain that missing piece of myself. This, this was true heartbreak.
“You really have the papers in your bag?” Faith asked after I’d been lost in my head too long.
I nodded.
“Can I see them?”
I tilted my head. “What, you think you’ll find a loophole?” My laugh was broken, jagged, as I dug into my bag and placed the papers in her hand.
She scanned the words, flipping from one page to the next, her eyes flickering from the pages to me and back again. “You haven’t read these.”
“I read them the day before our wedding,” I said. “I know the jargon. The legality of it. We decided on it all together.” Just another example of why we were a perfect match, even our divorce papers had been orchestrated as a team.
“Langley,” Faith said. “You really should’ve looked at these.” She pushed the papers back into my hands, flipped open to a specific page.
“Why?” I took the papers, still focused on Faith.
“Look.”
I gave my friend a glance that clearly showed I was debating her sanity, but I looked down. Then back to her, and down again. My heart rate sped, a rapid beat in my chest like it was trying to restart from the dormant state it’d been in since Axel had walked out our door.
“He didn’t sign them.” The words were a broken whisper.
“He didn’t sign them,” Faith echoed, her voice much stronger than mine.
Hope bloomed in my chest, in that aching, hollow spot inside me.
“Why wouldn’t he sign them?” I asked. “He told me they were on the counter. He told me to sign them, and we’d be done.” I sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes locking with Faith’s.
“Maybe he’s not done,” she spoke the words I couldn’t dare say.
“But,” I said, still staring at those empty lines where Axel’s signature should be. “He won’t talk to me. He won’t—”
“He’s hurting, Langley,” Faith said. “Just like you. He needs more than a talk. He needs to see that you love him as much as he loves you.”
I arched a brow at her. “Telling him should make that very clear.”
Faith gave me a pitying look. “I love you, Langley, but you’ve never been the most romantic person.”
“Romantic.”
“Yes,” she said, laughing softly. “You need to show him.”
I blinked at her.
“You remember when Echo convinced you to take your husband on an actual date?”
Light clicked behind my eyes. “Omigod,” I said, the realization dawning on me so hard I facepalmed myself. Of course, Axel didn’t want to talk to me. He was afraid I would say the right words but wouldn’t follow it up. Afraid I’d always put him on the sidelines when he should be on the priority list. Afraid that I might say I loved him to keep him, but not prove to him with every ounce in my being that I undoubtedly felt the same way for him.
“I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not,” Faith said. “You just don’t always think with your heart. It scares you.”
