“It fits.” There was a bleakness in the slump of his shoulders and the hang of his head. It was in the thin timbre of his words, as if they could be snapped in half as easily as spoken.
My hope shattered like glass on the rocks along the shore—washing up and washing out.
Through the tightening of my throat, I asked, “Giving up?”
“I told you I didn’t think I could give you what you want, what you deserve.”
“And I told you just being there would be enough.” I dabbed at tears welling under my eyes, but my voice came out strong and controlled.
Unlike his voice that had grown hoarse and strained. “But I’m not. Even your sister knows it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“She said it, that it was never going to be enough, and she’s right.”
“That’s not what she was saying—” I began to explain but he interrupted.
“All I have to offer you is what you’ve already gotten from me. There’s nothing more.”
I rocked back on my heels, blown away with every insecure reveal from him. “Jesus, Jamison, are you suggesting all you’re good for is sex?”
“No...I’ll always be a good coworker for you too. I’m good at my job.” It felt like the space he took up was empty, as if he were barely present. He sank into himself.
“That is the most depressing bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
He turned his face away from me, but I took his jaw in my hands his stubble tickling my palms. There was a line between his eyebrows, and tears pooled along his lower lashes.
“You,” I began when I was certain I had his full attention, “have so much to work through. How you feel about yourself isn’t true, and it’s not healthy. I would be there with you to support you, comfort you,bewith you if you’d let me. But I will not chase you. I will not wait for you.”
My voice began to wobble as my heart broke for the loss of him in my life—for the loss of what we could be. Letting go of this man I had wanted for so long, a story I’d been telling myself. But this was well and truly the end of the cycle. I would not end up back in his bed. Not when he knew what we were letting go of, not when everything was on the line, and he still didn’t step up to what this relationship could be.
Staring into his eyes, I spoke what I’d been too afraid to say. “I love you.”
The air rushed from his lungs as he pulled away from my touch, but not before his tear fell to land on my wrist.
“Sadie,” he said between shallow gasps, “I . . . ”
I waited, silently begging him to say it back while knowing he wouldn’t.
He slowed his breathing little by little, his fists clenching and releasing at his sides, until finally he whispered, “I can’t.”
Taking a step backward, I retreated, shoving all of the pain and rejection into a dark corner of my brain. I shoved it into a box and locked it away. When I got home, I would need to deal with it, but for the remainder of my trip, and especially for my sister’s wedding, I’d ignore it. I was practiced at that, anyway.
“You won’t,” I corrected pulling my key card from my clutch. “If you wanted to, you could.”
Inside my suite, I let the door close behind me.
Devastation leaked out of the place it was supposed to be hidden, but with it was also a victorious feeling. It straightened my spine leaving me empowered. I’d done the thing I’d always been too afraid to do. Even though it hadn’t changed the outcome, it did feel more powerful than letting fear make my decisions.
I wiped away the few tears that had escaped and shook the tension from my limbs. I picked up the phone to room service and ordered a bottle of bubbly. I’d pop it with June to celebrate her upcoming nuptials, as well as quietly celebrate my own bittersweet moment.
Chapter 24
Jamison
Steam swirled off the surface of my coffee as I watched the ocean lay placid and wave-less, a dark gray mass under a thick soupy fog. Everything was made into a blur of gray and grayer behind the moisture clinging to my glasses. The damp sand clung to my sandals and toes as I wondered just how long I could be alone before having to launch into my wedding tasks. But for right now, I sat alone on the beach sipping my bitter coffee feeling a kinship with the dreary morning.
In a long list of terrible elements to the night before, the worst part was the knowledge that I had handled it all wrong; at least from the moment I’d left the beach—that was when I’d really ruined everything.
