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“I really don’t,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady as the tears threatened.
He pushed up to his feet. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry, Jess. I just wanted to say good-bye to you in person.”
Everything inside me fell to pieces at those words. Good-bye seemed so final, so resolute, like something we could never overcome. Part of me had held out hope that Nick was here to seal the cracks he had inflicted on my heart, but he wasn’t. I was moving, and he was letting me go without even trying to keep us together.
He didn’t want me. Why I needed to constantly remind myself of that fact was beyond irritating.
“Good-bye, Nick.”
He reached out a hand, and I only hesitated a moment before accepting it and launching myself into his arms. I hated the way I still wanted to be touched by him, but I loved him. I couldn’t shut off my feelings as easily as he had.
I breathed him in, my hands finding their way to the back of his neck as I committed him to memory—the curve of his neck, the warmth of his skin, the stubble on his cheek. His lips found my cheek and I closed my eyes, knowing it would be the last time that I would feel them on my skin. I wanted to remember how they felt, how soft they were, how gentle he was with me.
When he released me and stepped back, I almost gasped at the distance. It felt like I was losing him all over again. I had finally gotten to a place where I didn’t feel the pain of his loss with every breath, but now I felt like I would have to start rehab all over again to kick my Nick addiction.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box before handing it to me. “Open it later. After I’m gone, okay?”
I stared at it a second, trying to figure out what could possibly be inside. “Okay.”
“You’ll do great up north, Jess. You’ll be great. Go be great.”
He leaned down and placed another kiss on my forehead, his lips lingering too long, but I refused to complain. With a small squeeze of my shoulder, he hurried toward the door before turning back one last time.
“You don’t need the luck, Jess, but I wanted you to have it.”
Confused, I frowned as he disappeared from my sight. I wanted to chase after him, but chasing a man who didn’t want you was pointless. Even my broken heart knew that much.
The door slammed, and I stood there with the box in my hand, my heart in my hand, my pride in my hands . . . feeling overwhelmed and emotional.
“Jess?” Rachel said in a small voice, and I looked up to see her standing in the doorway. “Is he gone?”
I nodded, afraid that if I tried to speak, I wouldn’t be able to find my voice.
“What’s in your hand?” she asked, and I shrugged. “Open it. Open it right this instant!”
I removed the top, and when my gaze landed on the red-and-white-striped poker chip nestled on the cotton inside, I almost dropped the box. He’d given me his grandfather’s lucky poker chip?
“Why the hell did he give you a poker chip?” Rachel asked, her expression as confused as my heart and mind.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“But does it mean something?” She reached for it but I pulled the box away. “Is it an inside joke between you two? I don’t get it.”
“It was his grandfather’s,” I said and then shook my head, not wanting to give away any more details of a story that wasn’t mine to share.
“Are you going to thank him for it?”
“Thank him for it? Thank him for what, exactly? Coming over here, confusing the living shit out of me by giving me this gift that supposedly means the world to him, when he refuses to stay with me because I’m moving four hundred miles away? No, I’m not going to thank him for it, Rachel.”
She threw up her hands in defeat. “Easy, tiger. I was only asking.”
“I know. Sorry. I just don’t understand him at all. I can’t take this.” I shoved the box into Rachel’s hand.
“What do you want me to do with it?” She pulled out the chip and flipped it back and forth in her palm, studying it like it held magical powers.
“Give it back to him. Please.”
“What if he won’t take it?”
