I didn’t say anything, focused on the way the corners of his mouth kept trying to twitch up into a smile, only to falter and drop back into a straight line.
“And I’m sorry about earlier, too,” he said, then quickly added, “actually, no I’m not, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry about it.”
“You’re not?” I asked, frowning.
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d crawl under this table and between your legs right now if I thought you wanted me to.”
My mouth went dry, and the space he’d filled in me earlier throbbed in response, and I gulped to try to silence the traitorous feeling. That was the last thing I needed right now.
“But I heard you,” Jack said. “I believe you. If you tell me it’s over, then I get it. I don’t want it to be, but I understand.”
All of a sudden I was struggling to breathe. I pressed my hands hard into one another under the table to try to steady myself.
“This is what I meant earlier,” he said, and even the word “earlier” sent a tingle down my spine. But the smile was gone from his face now. “When I said you were right? That wasn’t just talk. It wasn’t just an apology. I’m actually doing something about it. And you deserve to know that. Because even if you don’t want to be with me anymore, you helped me get there. And I’ll always?—”
His voice broke, but he swallowed hard and carried on, a bit slower, over-enunciating his words.
“I’ll always appreciate that you were brave enough to show me.”
And with that, he pushed away from the table and left, wiping at his face as he did. And I just sat there for ages, staring at the space he’d occupied. The chair he’d been sitting in when he pulled the rug out from under my best laid plans.
* * *
I lay awake all night,twiddling the crystal Amy had given me between my fingers, replaying everything that had happened. And not just in the dining room; at the gala, at my house, in the bathroom … there was exactly zero chance of me getting any sleep.
I ended up on the sofa at 2am , drinking chamomile tea – a habit I’d picked up from Jack – and drawing him the way I knew he would look the next day, with that cooked crown and sexy jerkin. (If Past Morgan had ever known that Present Morgan would use “sexy” and “jerkin” together, she would have mocked her mercilessly.) And as his face came to life on my screen, with his green eyes and chiselled jaw, I knew what he’d been saying to me at the table. Jack cared about what I thought. He trusted me. And I was pretty sure he still loved me.
If anyone but Jack had told me that I’d been letting others dictate my life, I wouldn’t have listened. I probably would have brushed it off when he’d first implied it if I hadn’t already been thinking about it myself. Even Cara; despite hanging on her every word for years, I wouldn’t have taken it to heart. I certainly wouldn’t have upended my entire life over it like I had now.
But Jack had upendedhislife, too, it turned out. I’d broken up with him, pretended to be fine without him, and then had one last shag before putting the final nail in the coffin of our relationship. Yet he’d still taken what I’d said, what I wanted for him, to heart so much that he was upsetting his careerandhis family dynamic. It made me love him even more.
And it made me hate the way I’d acted, too. When he’d told me to choose him without knowing if he would change anything? I was pretty sure he’d been right. That I should have done it.
Part of me wondered, in fact, if it was too late to do it now.
It was clear as the day that was breaking outside my window that I wanted him, and I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t screwed everything up beyond repair. I thought about the life that he was going to build now – training to become an architect, finally bringing his creativity to life, not living under his family’s thumb – and I knew that I wanted to be there for that. I wanted to be a part of his story, and I wanted him to be a part of mine. And I wanted him to know it.
What Ididn’twant was to crawl back to him and pretend like the last two weeks hadn’t happened. Because actually, as embarrassed as I was that I’d so vehemently shut him down before hearing him out, I knew that all of that fallouthadto have happened to get us to where we were. If we hadn’t broken up, maybe he wouldn’t be taking the next steps towards his own dreams. I probably wouldn’t have been taking mine, either. And to quietly sweep everything we’d been through under the rug would be a disservice to both of us. To how much we wanted for ourselves, and for each other. To how much we loved one another.
He said I’d been brave for showing him the truth. So now I needed to be brave in how I showed himmytruth: that I loved him. And as the sun peeked over the horizon, I knew just how to do that.
I literally startled myself when the idea came to me, my tea spilling all over my tablet, which was face-down on my lap. I jumped up and got a tea towel from the kitchen, wiping it clean, taking the case off to make sure it was okay. And as soon as I knew it was safe, I set it aside, pulled out my phone, and started typing. I had a lot to do.
Chapter52
Jack
Morgan was nowhere to be found.
Chloe had woken up to a text from her that she would meet us at the Ren Faire, but I knew I’d scared her off. Not least because, when I knocked on her door to see if she was okay, the door swung open to reveal an empty room. Well, empty except for the dress hanging on the back of the wardrobe door.
“Where do you think she’s gone?” Grey asked, chomping the end off a strip of streaky bacon.
“Maybe the pharmacy?” Fatima offered. “If she wasn’t feeling well, I guess. There was one just past the neighbourhood entrance I think.”
But I knew they were wrong. Wherever she’d gone, she was avoiding me. Or, at least, avoidingus. And I didn’t blame her. But if she didn’t want to be with us, I’d have to learn how to be without her. I’d have to learn how to be happy.So I might as well start now.
I sat down at the sofa, where I seemed to have left my tablet the night before, to continue my sketch. I decided it didn’t matter that I’d started it with Morgan in mind; I deserved to finish it either way.
