Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
JADE
Shani didn’t say a word on the drive back.
She just gripped the wheel like it was the only thing holding her together, glancing at me every so often with that worried best-friend look. I didn’t cry in front of anyone. Not even her. Not even when I saw Leo kiss Nicole like she was some damn consolation prize.
But as soon as we pulled into the driveway and the porch light flickered on like a spotlight, the tears came.
Hot. Relentless. Ugly.
I barely made it inside before I collapsed on the hallway rug, arms folded over my stomach, knees curled up like I could somehow fold myself small enough to disappear.
Aunt Susan shuffled in from the kitchen, flannel robe and all, three of her cats circling her ankles like guardians. She took one look at me and didn’t ask questions. She just wrapped me in a hug that smelled like mint tea and cinnamon and whispered, “Let it out, baby girl.”
And I did.
I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe. Until the memory of Leo’s lips on that girl faded into static.
She helped me up, guided me to the couch like I was made of glass. One of the cats—Edgar, the judgmental one—curled on my lap, kneading my thigh with tiny claws that somehow grounded me.
Susan handed me a mug of something warm. Tea with honey. Comfort in liquid form.
After a while, when the worst of the crying passed and my breathing leveled out, she spoke.
“You know,” she said, settling in beside me with a sigh, “I’ve been where you are.”
I blinked at her, bleary. “You have?”
She nodded, a faraway smile ghosting her lips. “Point Judith. Summer of ’85. He was a fisherman. Captain of a big ol’ trawler that smelled like diesel and salt. Strong hands. Blue eyes. Knew how to make a girl feel like the only one on earth.”
“What happened?”
She took a long sip of her tea before answering. “Turned out I wasn’t the only one he made feel that way. The bastard was shacked up with the woman who ran the bed and breakfast by the ferry. Told her the same lies. Same promises. While I thought he was out fishing, he was two-timing us both.”
My eyes widened. “No.”
“Oh yes,” she said with a bitter chuckle. “Broke me clean in half. I thought I’d never love again. And I didn’t—not the way I loved him. But I survived. I grew stronger. And now, looking back? I thank the stars that salty bastard broke my heart.”
“Why?”
“Because it made room for everything else,” she said simply. “My own place. My independence. You, in this house, drinking tea and crying on my couch. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.”
I stared into my mug, the tea swirling like some kind of truth serum.
“I loved him,” I whispered.
Susan didn’t say, I know. She didn’t say, He didn’t deserve you. She just nodded and let me sit in the weight of it.
“Everyone’s got a past, Jade,” she said gently. “Everyone’s been cracked wide open at some point. But you don’t have to stay broken.”
Something shifted in me.
Maybe it wasn’t about pretending it didn’t hurt.
Maybe it was about hurting and choosing to keep going anyway.
I looked down at Edgar, purring like a furry metronome. Then I looked around the room—soft lighting, secondhand furniture, and love in every corner.
“I don’t want to be bitter,” I said. “I want to be better.”
Susan smiled. “Then you already are.”