Chapter Twenty Six
Choosing the Future
Jace
By mid-afternoon, whatever had been holding me upright finally loosened its grip.
Not all at once. Just enough that the quiet starts to feel heavier than the noise that came before it.
I’m sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee I reheated and forgot about, staring past the surface of it like answers might rise if I wait long enough.
The house is still, not quite lonely, just hollowed out in a way that feels deserved.
I keep expecting relief to show up now that I understand why things never quite fit.
It all makes sense now why there was always tension under the calm, a sense of standing on ground that never fully settled beneath my feet.
But relief doesn’t come. What settles instead is something slower and harder to carry.
The realization that I kept choosing what made sense, trusting it would eventually start to feel right, without realizing the scale had been tipped before I ever stepped onto it.
I push back from the table and move through the house without paying much attention to where I’m going. Habit takes over. I grab my keys from the counter, shrug into my jacket, and leave the coffee where it is, untouched. Standing is starting to feel worse than moving.
Outside, the air is cold enough to sting, and I welcome it.
It forces my body to register something immediate instead of looping the same thoughts until they wear grooves into my head.
I get into the car and sit there for a moment with my hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield like direction might appear if I wait long enough.
I should talk to someone. Anyone who knows me well enough to tell me what I’m feeling before I can name it myself.
I don’t.
Because it isn’t advice I want, or a translation. And while I want to talk to Sierra, I am not ready to talk to her yet.
My phone buzzes and her name lights up the screen.
I let it ring. Not because I’m trying to punish her or make a point, but because answering would only lead to one of two outcomes, and neither feels genuine.
I either say something I can’t take back, or I fall into the familiar role of smoothing things over and absorbing the damage because it’s easier than sitting with my own anger.
I’m not doing that today.
I’m allowed to be hurt.
I put the car in drive and let the streets choose themselves. The world moves on like nothing cracked open last night. People walk dogs. A couple laughs outside a shop. Someone argues loudly on a corner like it’s the most important thing happening anywhere.
It makes me feel unsteady, like I’m the only one who heard the impact.
I don’t realize where I’m headed until I’m already on Sarah’s road. The recognition lands quietly, without drama, like my body figured it out before my mind could catch up. My throat tightens, and I don’t slow down.
I think about the way she looked at me when everything came apart, calm and steady, without expectation or demand. Just there, steady in a moment that could’ve turned explosive and didn’t.
She didn’t press me. She didn’t ask for anything I wasn’t ready to give. She met me where I landed and stayed present by choice, not obligation. A quiet kind of courage that didn’t need an audience.
That’s what stays with me.
I pull up in front of her house and sit for a second longer than necessary, fighting the instinct to leave before I ever knock. That’s my pattern. Get close, then disappear. Convince myself that distance is restraint instead of fear.
I don’t want to be that man anymore.
I get out of the car, walk up the steps, and knock, scrubbing a hand down my face as my nerves finally catch up to me.
Whatever I thought my life was supposed to look like doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that I finally see where the truth has been standing this whole time, waiting for me to stop walking past it.
Sarah opens the door before I knock a second time.
She looks surprised, then relieved, then careful, all in the space of a breath. Like she’s bracing for impact but hoping for something softer.
I don’t trust my voice yet, so I just stand there for a beat, hands shoved into my pockets, shoulders tight.
“You can come in,” she says, like she’s not sure if that’s what I need.
“I didn’t want to assume,” I say finally.
She swallows. “You’re not assuming.”
Permission. It settles something in my chest I didn’t realize was still braced.
She steps back and lets me in.
I step inside and stop short, like my body needs a second to catch up. The house feels different now, not because of last night, but because I feel different.
I stop in the living room, not because anything feels unfamiliar, but because I feel more exposed than I did last night.
She watches me for a second, like she’s checking something I can’t see.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I exhale. “No. But I will be. The girls… were you okay?”
She nods. “Yeah. They took care of me.”
Good. Relief slides in, unexpected and real.
I nod once. “Good.”
I stay standing, tension locked through me, unsure of my footing
“You don’t have to hover by the door,” she says gently.
My jaw tightens. “I don’t want to get this wrong.” The honesty slips out before I can filter it.
Her eyes soften. “You won’t, and even if you do, you’re allowed to.”
Something in me loosens.
She crosses the space between us and touches my cheek, slow and deliberate. I lean into it before I can stop myself, the contact grounding in a way words haven’t been all day.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I don’t lie. “No.”
She nods like that answer is expected. “Do you want to talk?”
I hesitate. Then shake my head. “Not yet.”
“Okay.” No pressure. No disappointment. “Do you want quiet?”
“Yes.”
She steps closer, studying me. “Come here.”
I don’t hesitate. I close the space between us and reach for her first, catching her like I’ve been holding myself together with sheer willpower all day. My arms lock around her waist and I pull her in, breathing her in like oxygen.
“I’m here,” she whispers.
“I know,” I say, and this time I mean it.
The kiss that follows isn’t frantic. It’s heavy and intentional. Full of everything I haven’t said yet. My hands slide into her hair, grip gentle but sure, like I need the contact to anchor me.
“If I start talking,” I murmured against her mouth, “I’m going to lose it.”
“Then don’t talk,” she says softly.
I kiss her again, slower, like I’m calming something inside myself instead of chasing it.
We sit on the couch tangled together, her weight in my lap, her head tucked against my neck. I breathe her in and let the tension ease by degrees. Not gone. Not fixed.
But quieter.
Her breathing evens out first.
Mine follows slower, like my body doesn’t trust calm yet.
I rest my forehead against her shoulder and let my eyes close, not sleeping, just existing in a way that feels unfamiliar. I can’t remember the last time I let someone see me without structure, without control layered over every response.
This is different.
This isn’t collapse.
It’s release.
Her fingers keep moving, absentminded, tracing and grounding and reminding me that I don’t have to disappear to survive this. That I don’t have to solve it tonight. Or tomorrow.
I don’t need answers right this minute, I just need to stay.
Eventually, the words come anyway. I keep thinking there should be one perfect sentence. One clean truth I can hand her that explains everything without making it uglier.
But that’s not how pain works. Pain isn’t tidy.
It’s layered. Contradictory and it holds two things at once. I feel betrayed, and I feel guilty for feeling betrayed because part of me still doesn’t want to villainize Sierra.
I feel anger, and I feel pity, and I hate that pity exists at all because it feels like it softens something that shouldn’t be softened yet.
I feel grief, and I feel relief, and that relief makes me feel like an asshole because why should any part of me feel lighter after a truth like that?
I want to fix it, and I want to burn it down. Mostly I want to go back in time and grab my own shoulders and shake myself and say, I keep choosing what makes sense instead of what feels right.
Sarah shifts slightly, her fingers still moving in slow patterns like she can sense my mind running laps.
I press my nose to her hair, breathing her in again.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
Her head lifts. “For what?”
“For today,” I admit. “For… not making it worse.”
She doesn’t pretend she doesn’t understand. “I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s the point,” I murmured. “You didn’t push me toward anything or try to make it easier. You just stayed and let me find my footing.
Sarah’s hand pauses, then resumes. “I just want to be here for you when you are ready, and I’ll continue to be.”
Something inside me twists at that, tender and sharp. Because I spent years accepting solutions that weren’t real.
I swallow again, my throat tight and the truth is right there, waiting. Maybe not the whole truth, just the part I can finally say out loud.
“I keep thinking about what my life would’ve looked like,” I admit into the space between us. “If I’d known.”
She doesn’t interrupt, she remains quiet, listening to me.
“I don’t hate her,” I continue. “And that almost makes me angrier. Because it would be easier if I did.”
Her fingers trace slow lines down my arm. “You don’t have to hate her to acknowledge what she took from you.”
I swallow. “She took my choice.”
“She took mine too.”
“And time I can’t get back. Time that should have been spent with you.”
What hurts most is realizing how close the truth came to being buried forever under everything else.
But sitting here with Sarah, feeling how steady she is, how deliberate her forgiveness was, I understand something I didn’t before. She doesn’t move through the world looking for absolution. She moves through it protecting herself.
And maybe that’s what I need to learn too.
Not how to forget or how to excuse.