Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Jacob
Later that night...
I closed the store that evening, but didn’t leave it.
The lights on the signage were turned off, the doors were locked, the drawers were counted, but I wasn’t mentally present for any of it.
I’d been at the store so long that the heat had turned off, and the shop was cold, but the cold didn’t bother me.
I felt nothing. Or maybe I felt too much at once.
The rage, disappointment, confusion, and relief that my truth was out, and ultimately, the regret that it came out the way that it had.
All those feelings stacked on top of each other until I went numb.
Everything felt like muscle memory running on autopilot, while my mind looped one image over and over like a broken record.
The image that kept replaying: Amariah’s face when she walked away from me.
She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t defensive. She just looked wounded.
And I’d been the one to leave the battle scar.
I never wanted to be the reason her eyes dimmed.
So, here I was still planted in the same place, elbows on my knees, and hands dangling uselessly, thinking of how many different ways I could’ve handled that situation with Amariah.
Koby had long gone home once he realized I wasn’t going to discuss what happened with him, but I could tell that he’d called in reinforcements. Bryce had texted twice. My mother called once. I silenced them all. I didn’t want their voices on top of the noise in my head.
The anger I unleashed earlier still throbbed in my heart, but underneath it was a quieter ache, creeping in slowly like the Grinch, stealing my hope and joy.
Stealing Amariah. I didn’t want to admit what that ache was, but I knew.
Disappointment. At her. At myself. At the probability of a future that I let myself believe in, but also at the possibility I may have robbed myself of ever having said future.
I scrubbed both hands down my face. “Damn it.” My whispers echoed loudly in the empty store. The sound echoed back at me like even the walls wanted to stay out of this.
I was certain when I saw them holding hands that they were together, so when Amariah declared they weren’t, it confused me because I was sure of what I’d seen.
Now that I actually thought about it instead of letting anger lead me, she and I had been far more intimate than simple hand-holding, and yet we weren’t officially together, so it was definitely possible. Hindsight truly did bring clarity.
With a cooler head prevailing and all, I wasn’t mad that Aaron showed up.
She was his woman, and he was—or had been—her fiancé, or whatever the case may be.
I wasn’t even mad that he’d said what he said at her house and at the restaurant.
It was his truth—or perhaps, he’d been lying to himself for so long, it sounded like gospel to him.
What gutted me was how easily I believed him.
A man only believes those kinds of lies when there was already a wound for someone to poke at.
And I knew exactly when that wound formed.
In the past, from my own insecurities of never having approached her.
When she left, I thought she’d tossed me and our friendship and feelings aside, and more recently, when she pulled back after we had been intimate.
It was in our hesitancy to wholly address our elephant in the room.
It was in the way she’d look at me like she wanted to say something, and then changed her mind, but I had also done the same.
Getting just close enough for her to suspect, but not stating the obvious.
Our swallowed truths. The fact was, I wanted her to be a new grown-up Amariah and let go of the past, when I hadn’t fully done the same.
Regardless, I was convinced we were building something steady.
Something adult. Something real. Then I paused.
Were we? The quiet thought seeped out as I sat in contemplation.
I didn’t know anymore. Maybe we were exactly what I’d just concluded.
Maybe we were two people trying to pretend the past didn’t still have its claws in us.
Forever stuck in limbo because we didn’t know how to let go and move forward.
I got up, pacing the length of the aisles, hands in the pockets of my distressed jeans.
The more I tried to clear my mind of Amariah, the harder it was.
I hadn’t gone home because memories of us on my sofa and on my floor in front of the fireplace invaded my mind every time I was there.
Before Aaron, it was a welcome feeling, but now, it was a burden.
The store would’ve been my refuge, but even it reminded me of her.
The holiday garland looped along the tops of the shelves, vanilla scented candles for sale near the register, tiny warm lights twinkled all around the windows, and those snow globes I’d gotten sat prominently on a display.
I never would’ve put up anything except maybe the same red Christmas bow that adorned the front door.
But Amariah liked decorations. And I liked her liking them.
Heaven help me. There was no escaping this woman.
I leaned my shoulder against the doorframe of the office and blew out a breath.
Why did this fallout between us today feel so different?
It’s not like we hadn’t been split from each other before.
Because the truth was simple: I wanted her to be mine.
Seeing her with him cut deep because she mattered that much, and I thought I had mattered as much to her as she did to me.
I walked back to the front of the store and stared out the window. Snow was falling again. The flakes drifted slowly under the glow of the streetlamp. The scene gave off a simple serenity—peaceful and quiet. It was a complete contrast to the storm raging in me.
My reflection stared back at me in the glass.
I barely recognized the man standing there.
Once laid back and carefree, my jaw was clenched, my eyes were tired, and my shoulders were heavy.
I knew what I had said earlier came from hurt.
But the look on her face when I snapped…
that wasn’t something I was proud of. And then she left.
She walked away carrying the weight of something bigger than the argument we’d had.
For the first time, I realized it was greater than hurt. She looked…defeated.
As I mulled over her interaction, her true intentions came to realization.
She didn’t defend herself the way a guilty person defends themselves.
She’d spoken words that only now felt like an explanation.
Like someone who was trying to make amends after messing up, but didn’t mean to.
Like…the truth. At that realization, my stomach twisted.
“Jacob?” a voice called at the door. Koby. He hadn’t left after all. Or maybe he’d returned.
I turned slightly but didn’t unlock the door. “We closed an hour ago. Go home to your wife, bro.”
He didn’t budge. “I know. Bryce and your mom said you weren’t responding. When I went by your house, and you weren’t there, I figured you were still here. I wanted to check on you.”
I shook my head, my head tilted in sadness, but also in shame. “I just need space.”
He held up his hands, stepping back. “All right. I’m here if you need me. We all are. At least call your mom so she’ll know you’re good.”
I watched him leave, guilt furrowing deeper into my stomach. He’d seen the fallout.
He’d seen me break. He’d seen her cry. And I hated it.
I hated that something that sacred got dragged into the public eye like some spectacle.
It was one thing to confide in my boys. It was another to have it play out in front of one of them.
I didn’t want the world to watch me disrespect her—and worse, lose her.
I sighed and locked the last latch on the door, then turned off the remaining lights, letting the events of today fade into the darkness. I needed to go home. I needed a release. I needed something, anything, to keep my mind off the disaster I’d contributed to because everything felt wrong.
I grabbed my coat and walked out into the cold.
The air bit at my face, sharp and harsh, matching my earlier mood.
The snow crunched beneath my boots as I crossed the lot toward my truck.
Then I stopped because in the silence, I heard her voice in my mind.
It was soft, warm, and filled with anguish.
A bitter honesty that slapped the harsh reality into me, “but you already chose your version of me that you wished to believe.”
It wasn’t real, obviously. It was just my memory echoing again, but it felt as real as if we were standing face-to-face.
My breaths came out shakily from emotions I was trying desperately to withhold.
I leaned against the cold metal of the truck door.
I shouldn’t miss her like this. I shouldn’t want to hear her side.
I shouldn’t want to believe she wasn’t choosing him.
But wanting and knowing were two different things.
The truth was easy to see, but accepting it was difficult.
I pressed a fist over my sternum, feeling the ache that had settled there.
It was the same ache I’d glimpsed in her eyes right before she walked out.
That was the worst part. We weren’t on opposite sides of this.
We were two people holding different pieces of the same broken thing, not knowing how to put it back together.
Earlier, I hadn’t been ready to hear her yet.
I’d forced myself to believe that today, I needed the quiet.
Today, I wanted to live in the coldness of the ache in my heart.
All because I didn’t want to face the real truth.
The truth about why I felt this way in the first place.
I’d always loved her. I wasted eighteen years of my life hiding that fact, and despite everything, I wanted her… still. And that truth terrified me.
I climbed into the truck and sat there, staring at the steering wheel without starting the engine. “I need to know what to do to get her back,” I muttered to myself.
Easing my cell phone out of my jacket pocket, I cradled it in my hand like it held all the power to turn back time. But perhaps, it did have the power to change the future. I dialed the one person who held the answers I needed to correct my mistakes.
“Good evening, Mrs. Luke. Is Mr. Adam able to talk to me?”