Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
JUDE
My house has never felt so empty.
I sit in my room, staring at Ava’s empty bed, wondering if I should’ve thought twice before letting my parents take her for the evening.
My mother was thrilled about the idea of Ava staying with them overnight. I didn’t know this, but after I first told them about Ava, they had workers come to their house to make a nursery for my daughter. She even made sure to purchase all the necessities for Ava to have at her house as well.
When she offered to take Ava for the night, I thought it’d be nice to have a night alone with Charlotte since she said she’d be coming home.
I thought it would give us the chance to talk about whatever is clearly bothering her and what made her stay away for days.
But she still hasn’t returned home. And no matter how many photos my mom sends of Ava looking happy as can be at their house, I can’t help but miss my daughter.
I also can’t help but miss Charlotte.
I thought with each day she didn’t come back that maybe her absence would make me understand why she felt the need to leave in the first place, but it hasn’t. All I’ve done is miss her and solidify that I’m in love with her.
I’ve fallen for my best friend.
How could I not?
It feels like I’ve fallen for her twice.
Once, the very moment I met her. It was the sudden kind of love that I didn’t have the capacity to understand at the time.
She was so magnetic that I found myself thinking about her all the time.
All I wanted to do was find ways to spend time with her.
I’d never felt such an intense pull to another person before until Charlotte.
I pushed it away until I couldn’t anymore.
I tried to pretend it wasn’t there until I fell for her a second time.
The second time was after Ava. She stepped in so effortlessly that I couldn’t pretend any longer.
She was there for me in a time when she didn’t have to be, and it was the first time I had real hope that maybe she could feel the same way I felt about her.
I’ve been terrified of telling her how I feel because I hate the thought of her not feeling the same way, but at this point, I hate the thought of keeping it to myself even more.
She has to know how I feel, and I have to deal with whatever happens after I’m honest with her.
I’ll tell her the moment she finally decides to come home, risking whatever happens next.
I don’t know how long I sit in my room, staring at Ava’s empty bed. It could be minutes; it could be over an hour. I get so lost in thinking about how I’m going to tell Charlotte I’m in love with her that I don’t even notice when she gets home.
There’s a soft knock on the door. “Jude? Are you in here?”
A knot loosens in my chest at the sound of Charlotte’s voice. I turn around, coming face-to-face with the woman who owns my heart. “Char,” I breathe, blinking a few times to make sure she’s here.
She gives me a tentative smile. “Hi.”
I stand up and take a step closer to her before stopping.
I want to pull her in for a hug and press my lips to hers, but I don’t know if that’s something she wants me to do.
It takes everything in me to keep my feet planted.
“I missed you,” I blurt out, my eyes immediately closing because I couldn’t sound any more pathetic.
She doesn’t say anything at first. She’s quiet long enough for me to work up the nerve to open my eyes and look at her once again.
“I missed you too,” she responds the moment our gazes meet.
My shoulders sag with a sigh of relief. I clear my throat. “Really?”
She nods. “Where’s Ava?” Her focus travels over my shoulder to the empty bed behind me.
“She’s with my parents for the night. Her first official sleepover.”
She raises her eyebrows. “How do you feel about that?”
My lip twitches with the hint of a smile. “They’re probably incredibly annoyed with the number of times I’ve checked in on her.”
My words earn me another one of her beautiful smiles. “I’m shocked you even agreed to it in the first place.”
I scratch at my neck. “I wanted the night to talk to you.”
Her eyes go wide, and I don’t know if it’s a good reaction or a bad one, but either way, I tell myself that I still need to be honest about what I want to talk to her about.
“Oh,” she whispers, giving no indication of what’s going through her head.
“Do you want to sit?” I ask, pointing to my bed. I pause, wondering if I should offer for us to go out into the living room instead.
Why do I suddenly feel so awkward? This is Charlotte. I don’t need to feel anxious around her, but nerves are the only thing I’m feeling right now.
Charlotte doesn’t answer, but she does step into my room before walking past me and taking a seat on the bed. “Sure,” she finally gets out once she’s sitting down.
I nod before I follow her lead and sit down on the edge of my bed. I want to sit so close to her that our bodies touch, but I make sure to leave room between us just in case that’s what she wants.
My heart pounds. I’m not used to ever feeling uneasy. I’m never nervous. But now that she’s here and willing to talk, I’m so anxious I can barely form a coherent thought. Every speech I made up in my head disappears with her so close to me.
I swallow and turn my body to face hers. “Can we talk about why you left Monday? I want to know what happened.”
Charlotte winces before nodding. “I spoke with your mom.”
I already suspected it had to have been something with my mom, but no matter how many times I asked my mom about it while Charlotte was gone, she found ways to avoid the question.
Because of my mom acting like she didn’t know what I was talking about, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was another reason Charlotte left and stayed away that didn’t have anything to do with my mom.
“And?” I ask, my voice quiet. There’s a tightness in my chest at learning that the reason Charlotte left was because of a conversation with my mom, but I wait to hear more about it before getting worked up about it.
“And she brought up some things that scared me. I’m sorry for leaving the way that I did, but I didn’t know how to process what she was saying, and I needed to get away to work through it.”
It feels like my heart might pound right out of my chest. I could throw up from nerves alone. “What did she say?” I ask hoarsely. I want to know, but I’m also not sure if I want the answer.
Charlotte’s eyes rake over my face. She rubs her lips together as she thinks about my question. “She was worried we were going to hurt each other.”
“How so?”
“She was worried that maybe one—or both—of us will get so lost in the living together and taking care of Ava that we’ll think we’re feeling things we’re not. It was clear she thought we were better off as friends and nothing more.”
I don’t know what to say back to her. All I do is stare, wondering how I can even begin to form the right words to convey to her that everything I’m feeling is real.
I’ve come up with a million different speeches in my head to tell her how I feel, but now that she sits next to me, staring back at me with her beautiful blue eyes, nothing feels like enough.
I don’t know if I can put into words how much she means to me… how much I love her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispers.
I can’t help but smile, remembering another time she asked me that same question. The night I kissed her for the first time.
“Because, Char, you’re not just my friend. You’re my every thought. My every feeling. My everything.”
Her lips part with her sharp intake of breath. “But…” She shakes her head. “We were friends for so long. What changed? What about our friendship?”
I scoot closer to her, close enough that I cup her cheek in my palm. She leans into my touch, and I savor the connection of our skin. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, but fuck the friendship. I love being your friend, but I want to be more too. So much more.”
“But…I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
“The friendship isn’t ruined. It’s just…
more. It isn’t ruining the friendship exactly, but opening it up to be something better.
And I’ve caught feelings for you, sweetheart.
It’s more than that.” I grab the other side of her face until I cup both her cheeks in my hands.
I press my forehead to hers for a moment, breathing in at the same time she breathes out.
We sit like that for a moment as I work up the courage to say more.
I slide my fingers under her chin and tip her head so our gazes connect again.
“I love you.” I make sure the words come out confident and with conviction.
“And I don’t need you to say it back right now.
I know it might take time for you, but I don’t want to keep it to myself anymore.
I think I’ve loved you since the moment we met; it just took me a while to put a name to the feeling.
But I love you. Not because we live together.
And not because of things with Ava. I love you because you’re the easiest person in the world to love. ”
Tears run down her cheeks as she lets out a sound that’s a mix between a hiccup and a laugh. “Jude.” She shakes her head in disbelief. I’d be worried about the tears, but she wears a smile that’s so radiant it steals my breath.
“I love you,” I repeat. “And I know there are a lot of things we still need to figure out, but I don’t want to keep how I feel about you to myself anymore.”
“What if you only think that because we’ve spent all this time together? What if I give you my heart and you change your mind down the road? What if you realize you mixed up being grateful that I’ve helped with Ava with being in love?”
I shake my head, wishing there was a way she could read my mind so she could see just how much I love her. “I’m not changing my mind. And the only thing I’m going to realize is that just when I feel like I couldn’t love you more, I’ll find a way to fall in love with you even more anyway.”
Charlotte’s gaze flicks down to my lips for a moment before she meets my stare again. “I don’t even know what to say. I want to believe everything you’re saying, but you’ve known me for a year. What makes you sure now when you weren’t sure before?”
It’s a valid question, and I love that she’s asking me questions instead of shutting down.
It gives me hope that with time, she’ll feel the same way about me that I feel about her.
Obviously, it’s important for her to be sure of how I feel about her, and if she didn’t think she felt the same, or eventually could, I don’t think she’d even be asking.
“I think I was scared. I didn’t even realize what I was feeling.
I’ve never been in love before, and since we were so close, I pretended how I felt about you was the way a friend should feel about another friend.
I’m not used to being rejected so it was easier to pretend to just be your friend than to open myself up to the hurt I’d feel if I told you how I felt and you still weren’t interested.
I was terrified of you seeing the real me and the man I want to be and you still not wanting me or you still not feeling the same.
So, I just pretended I was fine just being friends.
But the last few weeks… I can’t pretend.
I don’t want to pretend. You’re my best friend, but also the woman I’m in love with. ”
“Jude, I—” I kiss her before she can get any more words out. I want to know that she loves me too, but I want to give her time to really think about it before saying the words out loud. Once she says them, there’s no taking them back, and I just want to make sure she means them first.