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She snakes her hands around me and finally embraces me, but it doesn’t feel like the love from before. Her arms are heavy with sadness and the worst thing in the world. Hopelessness.
I try to unlock myself from her to look her in the eyes, but she holds on tighter when I do it, and I know she doesn’t want to let go. She doesn’t want to show me her face. A lot like Joey is with trust, I am with promises. She can’t handle feeling untrusted. I can’t handle breaking a promise. And right now, I’m breaking two. Joey clings to me like I shattered her heart, something I vowed to treasure and protect. And the only way out of this is to break the one I made to my mom.
I have to tell my mom to tell my brother or let her know I will. And just as importantly I need to do all this before Chloe plays any cards. My body aches with selfishness, but it’s the only thing to do. “I’m not letting you walk away from me, Joey, so don’t even think about it.”
My words make her tears flow stronger. Her body shudders in my arms, and I swallow hard, but nothing goes down apart from the rough dry feeling of hurting Joey.
“You know what?” Her words are muffled in my chest. “You’ll have to?—”
I stiffen. “Have to what?”
“You’ll have to walk away from me.”
I grab the sides of her arms, I need her honest gaze. I need to see if she means this? She resists me again.
“You need to look at me now, baby girl, because you are talking crazy, and I can only sort this out if we stare each other in the eyes.”
She doesn’t leave my embrace but peeks up. Her green eyes brim with tears like dewy grass, and I’ve never seen something more heart-wrenching than the meaning behind them in my whole life.
“We can’t be together, Pup.”
“How can you say that so easily? You’re going to give up?”
My accusation fires her up, and she peels away. Instantly, I regret pushing her buttons with my comment because the sick feeling in my throat tells me that might have been the last time I hold her and I was a fool not to enjoy it for longer.
“Give up?” she asks, defiance in her eyes. “I have loved you for the better part of thirty years. I’m not giving up. I’m finally seeing that what you said on prom night is true. It’s some pipe dream between us. We’re just a fantasy. A cliché.”
“You don’t mean that.” Her words twist my gut.
She shakes her head, and a tear escapes down her cheek. “No. I don’t mean that, but I’m so”—her sobs strangle her words—“so angry. And I’ll say anything now to delay what really needs to be said.”
My heart fucking stops. This can’t be happening.
“I’ve had hours since Chloe was here to run through the playbook. What could we do to get through this and not hurt anybody? There’s no answer, Ashton. None. And I’m angry now. So goddamn angry.”
She throws her hands behind her on the counter, and her breasts spill out toward me. They are round and beautiful, and underneath them is the heart I want to reach in and grab and protect. But she’s guarded. She’s building a wall between us.
She clenches her fist and brings it downwith restraint on the worktop. “I’m angry with your mom for cheating. I’m angry at your parents for keeping your brother’s life a lie. I’m furious with Monica for asking her twenty-two-year-old son to let her indiscretion be his biggest secret. I’m angry at you, Ashton. I’m angry at you for choosing someone like Chloe.”
My brows pinch so tightly listening to my girl, taking in all her validity. Every ounce of her vulnerability. But it hurts. It kills me.
“But most of all”—her gaze lands on me now, and our eyes connect—“most of all, I’m angry with myself.” Tears trickle down, but apart from them tracing rivers on her pink, round cheeks, her face is unmoving and as serious as I’ve ever seen her. “For not choosing me.”
I shake my head. “No. Fuck no. Not happening, Jolie.”
“I can’t do it. I can’t make that decision. I can’t be the person who tears Fletcher’s world down to build mine up.”
“No.” I bring her back into me, but her body feels lifeless. “No, Joey. This is not the way this story goes. We make it.”
“No we don’t, Ashton.”
“We do,” my words are a plea.
She shakes her head slowly, deliberately, not saying another word but her gaze is filled with terrifying clarity. And then, she says goodbye.
“Can I have one last kiss?”
Time stands still between us. I search every inch of her face for doubt. There is none. And this time I have no answers. I can’t save her. I can’t save us. She won’t let me. So all I can do is… kiss her.
