Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
A NNIE
I’m sitting here at Pat’s Diner, my stomach in knots, waiting for Jack to arrive. I’ve ordered a coffee for myself and another for him. I don’t plan to be here long, so I didn’t want to go with anything else, though the pancakes are tempting me.
I didn’t want to come see him, but it has to be done.
He keeps showing up at the ER whether on B shift days or on other official Elladine Fire Department business.
His daily text messages keep coming, too.
I read them every day. Still not deleting, but still not responding.
Until yesterday. Yesterday he texted me a sweet message, and I decided it was time we talked.
Jack: I love you and I miss you so much. Today, I had Tommy for a while, and he asked when we were going to have another sleepover. It brought back memories of how great you were with him and how much I realized I loved you that day. I hope you’re okay.
I sat with that for a solid ten minutes before responding.
Me: Jack, we probably need to talk in person…
The bell on the door rings and I look up to see Jack walking toward the booth. God, he’s so handsome it almost hurts to look at him… especially now that he’s not mine.
He sits down opposite me and thanks me for ordering him a coffee.
I just nod, not able to choke out a response. I wait a few seconds and gather my courage.
“Jack, we need to talk about?—”
“Wait, Annie, please. Let me go first,” he interrupts, looking at me for my agreement.
I nod at him.
“I’m so sorry for… for how I shut you out when Teddy died. For snapping at you… for everything. I need you to know that nothing happened with Chelsea.”
When he says her name, I can’t help but break eye contact, looking down at the table.
“I was in a really dark place, blaming myself for Teddy. I was trying to drown that in alcohol. That night—the night at the bar—I was drinking so much I put myself in a position that could make you think I was unfaithful?—”
“Jack, I—” I try to interject.
“Please, I’m almost done. I’m so bad at speaking about my feelings, so please let me get this out while I can.” He pauses, and when I say nothing else, he continues.
“When you left with Joel, I went nuts, and then when you went away and I couldn’t find you or talk to you to explain, I hit rock bottom. I haven’t had a drink since you left. Drinking isn’t a problem for me most of the time, but I should never have put myself in an altered state of mind when I was hurting so much. I’m seeing a counselor… and journaling.”
He reaches for my hand, but I move them down to my lap, not missing the hurt in his eyes.
“I love you, Annie. Tell me what I need to do to fix this. Please. What do I need to do to convince you nothing happened with her?”
“I know nothing happened with her, Jack. Shayna and Emily have told me everything about what they found out. About Joel setting it up so I would walk in and see. About Chelsea admitting nothing happened.”
“Does… does that mean we can work through this?” he asks, his eyes filled with hope.
I don’t say anything for several seconds. I can’t. God, I want to say yes, that we can work on it. That’s what my heart wants, but my brain says otherwise.
“Annie, baby?” he asks, his voice shaking.
“No, Jack. It doesn’t,” I whisper. I’m not able to look him in the eyes, fearing I won’t be able to stick to my plan if I do.
“Please, Annie. Don’t do this. I love you. I need you. What we have, this is a once in a lifetime type of love. Please fight for it. Come back to me.”
“I can’t,” I answer, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “You may not have left me physically, but you left me emotionally. You refused to let me in. You promised me you wouldn’t hurt me, but you did. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but you made purposeful choices that led up to it. Just because you feel you didn’t do it intentionally doesn’t make it any less devastating for me. You made me love you, made me give you my heart, and then you… you broke it… You broke me,” I say, wiping a tear away as it rolls down my cheek.
Neither of us say anything for a few moments.
He won’t look away from me, either.
“Sugar,” he whispers, “do you still love me?”
“Jack…”
“Answer me, sugar… please.”
I sigh. “Yes, I still love you, but sometimes love isn’t enough, Jack. I can’t risk putting myself in a position to be broken again. I won’t survive it.”
Before he can say anything else, I grab a twenty from my purse, throw it on the table, then stand to leave.
Jack gently grabs my wrist, stopping me before I can walk away. “Love is always enough, Annie. Always,” he says, before releasing his hold.
I swallow before responding, “You promised me when we started this that you would stop coming in on medical runs when you were captain, if I wanted you to. If you love me, please stop coming. And… please stop the texts. If you love me, please give me the chance to heal.”
I walk out of the diner before Jack can say anything else and before I can change my mind. Once I’m in my car, I collapse forward onto the steering wheel, sobbing from the pain of what I just did.
JACK
I sit alone in the booth at Pat’s Diner for at least another twenty minutes. I knew coming to meet her tonight wouldn’t be easy, but I thought that was going to be because I’d need to convince her I didn’t cheat on her .
I never imagined she would know that nothing happened with Chelsea, but still not want to fix this. I’m such an ass. I totally underestimated how much I’d hurt her with my actions leading up to the night she’d found me at the bar with Chelsea draping herself over me.
God, how could I be so stupid to miss this? Every man she has loved has left her in some way or another. When she was seventeen, she lost her dad—her one parent who made her feel loved and cared for. His death ripping the last of her childhood from her as she had to step up to take care of her sister.
Then Jason… fucking Jason. He left her emotionally and then physically, taking her dreams for her wedding and her career with him.
How could I be so ignorant to not see that what I was doing while grieving Ted was the same thing? I left her alone. She loved me with all she had, and I fucking left her, too.
Maybe it wasn’t forever, but who knows how long I would have kept it up if I hadn’t been woken up from my numbness and my self-inflicted punishment by her leaving town.
Cheating on her would have been horrible, but it was me leaving her emotionally, after she’d given all of herself to me, that broke her.
Now what do I do? She asked me to stop coming to the hospital and to stop texting her if I love her. If I ignore her requests, I’m not loving and respecting her. If I follow her requests, it feels like any hope of us ever fixing this is impossible.
“Hey, Jack, mind if I sit down?” a familiar voice asks.
I look up and see Jim watching me thoughtfully and a pang of guilt strikes me. Since I had been in such a hurry to get into the diner to see Annie when I arrived, I didn’t even check if he was in his usual spot outside .
“Sure, Jim, you hungry? I could get you dinner…”
“Nah, I already ate. I still have some meals on that running account you keep for me here, so I ate an hour ago. But… Well, I saw you in here with your girl a while ago and it looked like a rough conversation. I have little to offer you in the way of thanks for all you do for me, but I thought maybe a listening ear might help.”
So, I spend the next hour telling Jim the story of Annie and me over coffee and Pat’s homemade apple pie. He doesn’t interrupt, just listens.
I end with telling him the last few things Annie said to me before walking out tonight.
“I don’t know what to do, Jim. I’m afraid if I honor her wishes about not contacting her, that she’ll forget me… forget us. But if I don’t, I’m an asshole.”
“Do you want my advice, for what it’s worth?” he asks.
“Sure, shoot,” I answer.
“When Jenny left me and took the kids, I fell deeper into the bottle, trying to drive away my demons from not just the military, but the loss of my family, too. She asked me to stay away from her and the kids but said if I ever loved her, to find the man she fell in love with and pull him out of the darkness, whether or not she was in my life.” I don’t miss the sadness in Jim’s eyes as he tells me his story.
He pauses and takes a bite of his apple pie and a sip of his coffee, but I also think he needs a second before he can go on.
“I was so hurt and so lost that I didn’t listen to her. I was angry at her request, truthfully. About two years later, she reached out, and we connected for coffee. I could see that she was hoping to see that man she had loved, and I sensed she was in a place she might be willing to work on our marriage. But I hadn’t found that man again. Honestly, I hadn’t even tried. That’s when she really gave up. I received divorce papers a month later.”
“Jim, I’m so sorry,” I say.
“The thing is, Jack, if I had listened to her, fought my way out of that darkness like she’d asked me to, I think she would have tried again with me. I didn’t dig my way out. But you, you’re already most of the way there. You’re a good man, you’re already pulling yourself out of the darkness Teddy’s death brought out in you. You need to respect what she asked you to do if you love her. Other than that, all you need to do is continue to be the man you are—the man she loves. And if she’s the one you’re supposed to be with, you’ll be ready when she finds her way back to you.”