Page 64 of Fight from the Heart

Jacob: My heart.

Jacob: I can’t let you go.

Jacob: I need you.

I stare at the words once I power on my phone on Monday morning. I’ve just pulled into the parking lot at Mae’s, and as I need the phone for work, I don’t have a choice but to turn it on. The texts light up the message app, and as much as I don’t want to look, my eyes are pulled to his words as they’ve always been with his writing.

My finger hovers over a response, but my heart holds me back. Jacob has needed me for years. He’s told me over and over again—in concerns of his writing, in needs for his home—but it’s never been me directly. He’s never wanted me. Sure, he wanted sex, and we have that pull to one another that was finally acted upon, but I’m not the girl for him.

The monster demands a mate.

He has one now, and as much as he says he can’t let me go, he’ll need to. She’ll give him the baby he claims he doesn’t want. Jacob will not deny his responsibility. He’s felt guilty for his sister’s condition, so he’ll step up for Mandi.

Before I exit my car as I’m parked in the lot at Mae’s staring at line after line of text, I have only two words for Jacob.

Me: I quit.

Finding strength I don’t feel, I enter Mae’s Flower Shop. We share an office, and our desks sit at right angles, each under a window providing us a view of the large garden center. I’m seated in my chair when I’m accosted by Mae’s jovial voice.

“Spill,” Mae calls out, dropping into her seat. “Tell me every sordid detail. I want positions and poses. He rocked your world, didn’t he? Tell me everything. I’m living vicariously through you.” Her enthusiasm would be catching if it weren’t for my breaking heart.

“It wasn’t like that,” I state, swiveling in my chair as I turn to face her. He rocked my world but not in ways she might imagine.

“What happened?” she asks, slowly leaning forward in her desk chair.

“Mandi’s pregnant.”

“Who’s Mandi?”

“His girlfriend.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mae’s expression morphs to shock as her mouth hangs open, and her eyes widen. “The one he wasn’t going to marry? Now he’s having a child with her?”

Hearing it said aloud is like an arrow through the heart. “Yep.” I reach forward to straighten a few things on my desk, which don’t need straightening.

“Pam?” she questions.

“I’m okay,” I state, shrugging a shoulder.

“You are not okay. You’ve been in love with the mystery man for years. How did this happen?” she asks. Taking a deep breath, I back up and tell her about his vacation with Mandi and Jacob’s declaration not to marry her or anyone. If I do some basic math, it doesn’t add up that she’d know she’s pregnant within weeks, so it had to have happened before their vacation together. Perhaps New Year’s when he was in New York with her, and I started another year alone.

“I’m so sorry. What’s he going to do?”

“I don’t know, and it’s not my concern,” I lie as it’s all I’ve been thinking about for twenty-four hours. After arriving home from a day of travel, I finally allowed myself the breakdown I needed. I folded onto my bed and cried. Waking up this morning, I found myself still in my clothes from the day before, and I refused to be that girl. The girl I once was when Brendan and I fell apart. I curled into myself, hating myself, and walked through the motions of each day for months. I can’t go back to that person.

“You don’t mean that,” Mae hesitantly states.

“I quit.”

Taken aback, Mae blinks several times as she sits straighter in her seat. “You what?”

“I can’t keep going back for more with that man. We had sex, and we shouldn’t have. My heart was already too involved.” Heartbreak was inevitable, I’d told her a few weeks ago.

Mae reaches out for my hand, and as much as I don’t want any human touch, I accept her comforting fingers. “You’ll get through this,” she says, encouraging me as she knows what I’ve already been through with Brendan. I nod, but my heart disagrees. Tears blur my vision.

“I don’t want to cry,” I whisper, and Mae releases my hand to flap hers before her face.

“Okay. Okay, there’s no crying at the flower shop. Only happy thoughts,” she teases, but she doesn’t believe her words any more than her saying them. “Drinks tonight. That’s a happy thought.”