I smiled softly, leaning my head on her shoulder. “So why are you so sad about this?”
“Because of you, you dummy. He wasn’t my husband. I didn’t divorce the idiot.”
I laughed despite it all. “You really have some creative names for him tonight, don’t you?”
I felt her shrug. “Sue me. He was a jerk for a few years. I also think they would make him laugh if he heard them. But how are you so okay? You two were the reason I believed in love in the first place, and then… well.” She picked up my left hand, her thumb brushing over where my ring used to sit. “I think this speaks for me.”
I sighed deeply, relaxing further against her shoulder. “We didn’t divorce because we stopped loving each other. We divorced because we were drowning, and the only way to come up for air was on our own.”
“So you still love him?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t think I could ever stop. Loving him is akin to breathing—it’s necessary for my survival. It’s written into my bones. Loving him isn’t a choice; it’s a part of who I am.”
There was a pause, the night serving as our backdrop as crickets sounded in the distance and wind whistled through the trees.
“That sounds mildly codependent,” Jackie whispered.
I couldn’t help it; I barked a laugh. Jackie stared at me for a moment before following suit, the two of us acting like we had lost our minds. Maybe we had.
“Why don’t you go talk to him?” I asked after we both caught our breath.
Jackie sighed and leaned back on her elbows, stretching her legs out in front of her. “I’m going to, in the next few days. I thought I would give him a couple of days to… process? Recover? Whatever it is he needs to do. No reason to bring up all the shit between us at the same time. What happens with the two of you?”
I sighed. “I don’t know.”
“You two… didn’t talk about it?” she asked with a raised brow.
I avoided her gaze, picking at my pants to dodge the question.
“Sarah… did you seriously hit it and quit it?” she asked in surprise.
I rolled my eyes. “We were actively running from a psychopath. There wasn’t a lot of time for… discussion.”
“There was enough time to get into each other’s pants—literally getting down and dirty on a cave floor,” Jackie teased.
I rolled my eyes, pushing against her shoulder playfully. “You know… I’ll always be grateful Fai brought me you. At the end of the day, if everything between Fai and me truly ends, I’m happy it brought me you.”
Jackie smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners and her nose scrunching. “You make me sound like your kid or something.”
“If I remember correctly, you used to make jokes about that very subject,” I reminded her.
She laughed. “They were funnier when I was in my twenties.”
“I’m glad you’re okay-ish with Fai and me sleeping together. I thought you would be angry, livid even.”
She shrugged. “Oddly enough, I’m the reasonable one in my family. It was never me you should have been worried about…”
“Nate?”
She nodded. “Nate. He’s the real grudge-holder.”
