I didn’t understand what he meant by that, and I raised an eyebrow. He leaned forward and smoothed down my eyebrow with his thumb.
“I . . . I was talking about you. She understands why I can’t letyougo. I mean, we’ve been engaged for over three years. I think we both knew we were never going to get married.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. It was me? I was his first love? He couldn’t letmego?
“What do you mean?” I managed to get out.
“I might be Sophie’s first love, but you were mine. It’s always been you, from the moment I saw you walk through the kitchen doors. God Addie, I’ve been in love with you since before I kissed you in that closet. It'll never not be you.” He paused, and I watched as a tear trickled down his cheek. “But I can’t be with you . . . Not until I’m forgiven.”
I reached forward and swiped the tear from his cheek with my thumb, leaving my hand cupping his face.
“I forgive you, Jackson.”
He closed his eyes and let his head fall into my palm, resting all his weight on it.
“Not you, Addie. Me.Ihave to forgive me first.” He swallowed thickly, then opened his eyes. “I broke my sobriety.”
I sucked in a gasp at his admission, and he shut his eyes again, pain covering his face.
“The night you were drinking on the couch, I had a drink after you went to sleep. I’ve been drinking again since that night.”
It was a blow to the chest. I was the reason he broke his sobriety, and I was the reason he drank so much in high school.
“This is all my fault,” I whispered through a choked sob.
He shook his head quickly. “It’s not your fault. It never was. I’ve been struggling for a while—before you even came back. I just can’t seem to get it together,” he admitted.
“I can help you; I’ll stop drinking, too. You can get sober again.”
Everything was slipping through my fingers; he was saying he wanted me though, right? He was finally choosing me again?
He shook his head again. “I’m going back to treatment.” Another tear fell from his cheek. “It was never our job to save each other.”
I started to cry now, too, and he pulled me into a hug. We stayed there for a while, feeling the rise and fall of each other’s breaths, not ready to break apart. Because we knew when we did, that would be it, at least for a while. I focused on his heartbeat, and the way it was in sync with mine—the steady pace of us being together.
There was no telling when we’d find each other again, or if we’d ever get it right. After a while, he was the one to break away. He surprised me by kissing me on the lips—lips I hadn’t felt since I was eighteen. I knew a Jackson kiss, but this kiss was slow and tentative, the softest press. It didn’t feel like a beginning; it felt like an ending.
“You’re my best friend, period. And I love you, period,” he whispered against my mouth.
And then he was gone.
Chapter 37
NOW
July
Ibought a plane ticket to North Carolina the next day. I couldn’t handle driving in my current emotional state.
I felt delirious—like I was watching a bad movie about every worst-case scenario that could’ve transpired in my life. I tortured myself by listening to “Orange Juice” by Noah Kahan, and “I Know The End” by Phoebe Bridgers in a fucked-up loop.
Wren picked me up from the airport, and the second I saw her, I burst into tears. She wrapped me in a tight hug, right there in the pickup lane. She rubbed my back soothingly, telling me that everything was going to be okay. I knew it would be. But it wasn’t right now.
We took Mia to the mall and watched as she picked out a Build-A-Bear, putting in a red heart and excitedly pumping her foot on the lever to fill it with stuffing. She was almost a teenager, and this would probably be one of the last times she would indulge us by doing something like this.
One of the first things I did with Mia when I started nannying her was take her to this same mall to pick out a Build-A-Bear. She still has it at home; a white unicorn with a rainbow horn that’s dressed in a ballerina tutu. No shoes, of course, because per Mia you don’t need pointe shoes when you have hooves.
We got ice cream and took turns riding the glass elevator up and down, watching each other from the lower level and waving.
