Chapter 34
“S o put your first finger at the fifth fret of the second string and your middle finger directly underneath it. That will leave an anchor finger between the G and E minor,” I said to Jace as we sat on the floor of my living room.
It was Tuesday night, so even though I was in a shitty mood, I still honored the commitment I’d made to give him weekly guitar lessons. I chose E and A minor to go over this week because those chords matched the sullen emotional state I currently found myself in.
“Like this?” He positioned his hand and gave his guitar a strum.
“Yes, good,” I said. “But keep your fingers at more of an angle to the frets, especially when you have to change to the C chord. It will be a more comfortable grip for you.”
He did exactly as I said. “Perfect,” I told him.
Jace was a natural. He picked up on the chords so effortlessly. I never had to give him the same instruction twice, which always made the lessons so easy and enjoyable. I was the killjoy on this particular evening.
Jace’s phone started to ring, so he excused himself to take the call. After he walked away, I peeked at my phone for what felt like the thousandth time today to find I still had no calls or texts from Lex.
I sighed. It had been two days since I'd heard from him. He asked me to give him some time to think, so I was trying to respect that, but I was growing more fearful with every passing minute that he was pulling away, and soon he’d be gone from my life for good.
Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was the horrified look on his face when I had said we could try long distance. And I guess I knew why. It was no secret that Garrett and I broke up because I didn’t believe we could make long distance work. But this was different. We were different, and I thought he knew that.
I massaged my temples, feeling completely exhausted. I couldn’t sleep at all last night, just imagining Lex telling me that things were over when I saw him again. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to quiet the storm of thoughts swirling inside me. The more I replayed our conversation, the tighter the grip of fear became, until it felt like I was drowning in it.
“Sorry about that,” Jace said, interrupting my melancholic trance as he came back in.
“No worries,” I said, trying to keep it together, but failing miserably as I felt the sadness settle on my shoulders.
Jace easily picked up on where my mind was at. “He’s just as miserable as you are, you know,” he said, taking a seat next to me.
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know,” I said. “He left Sunday night after I told him I thought he should take the job, and he hasn’t spoken to me since.”
He looked taken aback. “Jesus, so you don’t know.”
I was immediately struck with anxiety. “Don’t know what?”
He sighed. “I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. I’m sure he was going to tell you eventually.”
“What is it?” I asked apprehensively.
“He took the job,” he answered reluctantly.
A pang of sadness sliced through me. It was what I wanted for him but hearing it from someone other than Lex made the hurt feel bone-deep.
“Are you going with them?” I asked quietly, fighting back the tears. Sarah had made it seem like he was still unsure.
“Yes. I need to do this. I didn’t want to but… Sarah convinced me,” he said with a smile. “She said she knew what we had was real, and a year apart wasn’t going to change that.”
“I wish other people felt the same way,” I said glumly.
Jace stared at me for a brief moment. “Did Lex ever tell you how he and I met?”
I shook my head. “I assumed it was through work.”
“We became a lot closer through work, but we actually met in our first semester at MIT.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. “I always thought Stuart was his oldest friend out of everyone in the group.”
“No, you were right,” he responded. “Stuart is his oldest friend in the group.”
I titled my head, giving him a questioning look.
“I’ve known him longer than Stuart, but let’s just say he and I weren’t exactly friends back then,” he explained, a smile playing across his lips. “Rivals might be a better way to describe our relationship in college.”
“You and Lex?” I couldn’t have chosen two more unlikely people to have a rivalry. “Were you guys like the modern-day Tesla vs. Edison? Was there backstabbing and pistols at dawn?”
Jace started to laugh. “Hardly,” he answered. “It wasn’t much of a competition. It was pretty clear from day one just how much smarter he was than everyone else, and I’m ashamed to admit how much that bothered me.”
I gazed at him curiously. “What do you mean?”
“Just that it was the first time in my life that I had met anyone who was better than me at anything academic. I had to work twice as hard to keep up with him, but no matter how hard I tried, he still always outshined me.”
“What a know-it-all,” I teased.
He chuckled. “That’s the thing. He really wasn’t. Lex never seemed to care or even notice how hard I was working to try and beat him. The jealousy was all one-sided.”
Surprise flickered through me. “I can’t even picture it,” I mused. “You’re always so easy-going about everything. The first time I met you, all I could think was that this guy doesn’t have an insecure bone in his body.”
He gave me a half grin. “A lot has changed. I’m not that person anymore, and I have Lex to thank for that.”
“How so?”
His eyebrows knitted together. “He never told you what I did to him?”
“No,” I answered. He only ever told me what a great asset to his team Jace was.
Jace shook his head, chuckling. “Figures.”
I was curious to hear what happened between them, but I didn’t want to push. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business. We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.”
“I will tell you only because I want you to understand something about Lex.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting for him to explain.
He paused for a beat, seeming lost in his memories before he finally spoke. “Every year, MIT has this competition where teams try to come up with the most innovative research proposal to win funding for a community-based project. You get the prestige and a ton of money, and I was desperate to win. I wanted so badly to beat the great Alexsander Strovinski just once…” he said, lowering his eyes. “So I stooped really low and convinced his partner to switch to my team in the last few weeks of the competition. He wasn’t exactly Lex’s biggest fan either.” He smiled wryly. “I told myself that my ideas were better, but I’d essentially copied Lex’s ideas that his partner stole, and we built our proposal around it. Lex had to finish the proposal on his own, and there just wasn’t enough time for him to complete all of the work… although he still came pretty damn close.”
That didn’t sound anything like the Jace I knew. “Did you win?”
Shame tugged at his expression as he nodded. “Yeah, we won,” he said. “I thought Lex would be furious. I thought he would report us for what we did, but he did something even worse… When they called our names as the winners, Lex was the first one to stand up in front of all our classmates and start clapping for us. He even came to congratulate me and his old partner after the ceremony. I thought I would be on top of the world when I finally beat him, but I felt like an absolute piece of shit and a complete fraud.”
His shoulders sagged as he finished the story, and I could tell how badly he still felt about it.
“That’s not you anymore, though,” I said, letting him off the hook.
“No. I wasn’t the same after that. I realized how much time I wasted trying to be the best when the opportunity to learn from the best was right there in front of me. I apologized to him so many times for what I did, and Lex, being the person he is, forgave me like it was nothing. Years later, even after all of that, he still gave me a job on his team and a life doing something I love. It’s crazy to think how much I owe that man.”
I smiled, becoming teary-eyed listening to him talk about Lex this way. “Same.”
He smiled back at me in understanding. Jace had become a close part of my circle through Sarah, so he knew what Lex had done for my mom.
“My point to this very long, rambling story is to tell you that Lex has never been jealous of anyone or anything, ever. He didn’t care in the slightest that I won that award with ideas that were stolen from him… But that same man didn’t talk to me for almost a month after he found out that I asked you out. Asked. You hadn’t even accepted!” Jace started laughing so hard, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Sometimes I still catch him giving me the side eye when your name comes up.”
He continued to laugh, and I shook my head, thinking of how I was standing by my statement that these men of science could really be so dramatic.
“I guess all I’m trying to say is to cut him some slack,” he said. “It may not be as obvious to the rest of the guys why he didn’t want to take this job offer when he’s been completely focused on our work for so long. But I know exactly why… He’s never wanted anything as badly as he wants you. Not even this project.”
I sniffled. “I feel the same way about him,” I said, the emotion getting caught in my throat. “But I can’t be the reason you guys don’t finish this project. It’s too important.”
He nodded. “I know… Just don’t give up on him, Hadley. He really is the best person I’ve ever known.”
I pulled Jace in for a hug and thanked him. There was no shortage of wonderful people in my life.
Jace and I called it a night not long after that, and I walked him to the door.
“Thanks again, Hadley,” he said with a wave as he walked out the door, but almost ran straight into an irritated-looking Lex. I saw Jace’s face break into a grin.
“Just here for my guitar lessons, man.” He held up his guitar like it was exonerating evidence. He turned his head back to wink at me before running down the steps.
Once Jace was gone, Lex and I stood in the doorway staring at one another, so many unspoken things moving between us. It had only been a few days, but I had missed him like we’d been separated for twenty lifetimes.
"Can I come in?" he asked quietly. The tone in his voice made my chest instantly tighten with worry.
I cleared my throat. "Of course," I said, gesturing for him to follow me inside.
We went to sit down on the couch together, the stillness pressing in around us, and I waited, heart pounding, for him to say the words I’d been dreading.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” he said, his gaze finally lifting to meet mine. “This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life.”
“You took the job,” I said, acknowledging it out loud for the both of us.
He nodded, his hands twisting together like he was trying to wring the guilt from them. “I thought a lot about what you said, and I realized you were right—I was being selfish by not considering what this would mean for my team. They’ve all worked so hard. They deserve this chance.”
“You deserve it, too,” I said, placing my hand over his to still them. “I’m so proud of you, Lex.”
He forced a tight smile, but his eyes seemed lost somewhere beyond the room.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” I said, seeing the conflict etched in his expression.
He nodded again. Anxiety curled in my stomach as my mind became fixated on the worst-case scenario. “There was something else you said that helped me come to a decision.”
“What was it?”
He began interlacing his fingers and pulling them apart repeatedly. “You told me it wasn’t fair that I was making this decision without considering what it would mean for everyone… But that also includes you.”
I tilted my head, trying to piece together the meaning behind his words. “What do you mean?”
“I know they told you that this job would just be for a year, but that isn’t a guarantee. Our contract doesn’t specify a timeline. It could take an entire decade to figure this thing out for all any of us knows.”
My pulse was pounding in my neck, making me feel lightheaded as I started to sense where this was heading. “What are you saying?”
His gaze drifted downward. “I can’t ask you to put your life on hold for me, Hadley. It isn’t fair.”
My breath came quicker, the air between us felt thick, suffocating.
“Are you… Are you breaking up with me?” My voice barely came out above a whisper.
He swallowed hard before letting out a shaky breath. “I never want to be without you, but you were right—the work we’re doing is important, and I can’t walk away from something I believe in so deeply… But your work and your life are just as important,” he said, taking my hand in his. “This job won’t leave room for anything else in my life, and for you, that would mean having to live your life around me and my strict schedule."
“S-so, you don’t even want to try?”
He looked up towards the ceiling, blinking rapidly. “Trust me, I’ve tried looking at this from every possible angle, trying to find a solution that makes sense for everyone, but I always came to the same conclusion—I can’t have both. I can’t chase my dreams while also making you stand in the shadow of them.”
My chest ached as the reality of what he was saying slowly sank in. “But you’re not even giving us a chance.”
His gaze lowered to me again. “You said you didn’t want me to resent you if I stayed, but I can’t bear the thought of you resenting me for trying to make you mold your life around a schedule that’s not yours, just waiting for scraps of my time. There’s no way for me to win here.”
“So, you’ve decided we lose instead.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t a loss. Not to me. You’ll always be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re throwing it away?”
He looked up, his expression devastated but resolute. “Because if I ask you to wait for me, if I ask you to put your life on hold for something I can’t promise, I’ll ruin the very person I love most.”
I choked back a sob. “Please… Let’s just try,” I begged.
He took both my hands in his, bringing them to his lips to brush across my knuckles. “You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met. It would be foolish of me not to try and emulate something I admire so much about you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I love you, Hadley. I love you so fucking much,” he said, his voice breaking. “This is absolutely destroying me, but I can’t keep only thinking about myself… You need to focus on your mom and her recovery, not waiting around for those few hours a day I would be available to you on the other side of the world… That’s not a relationship. And I’d be a completely selfish bastard to even ask that of you.”
The tears were pouring down my face. “Is this it then? You and me... It’s just over?”
His head hung low. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I wish things were different. I wish I could give you everything you deserve.”
A sharp pressure clamped down on my chest. The words I had feared were now hanging in the air, unbearable and suffocating. His apology only deepened the space between us, making everything feel more absolute. My hands shook as I wiped at the tears spilling down my face.
“When do you leave?” I asked, wondering how much time, if any, we had left together.
The expression on his face told me everything I needed to know—the answer he was about to give was going to be another blow to my already breaking heart.
“In a week.”
I inhaled a sharp breath, feeling my heart fracture with a wound that felt too deep to ever heal.
“I don’t know how I’m going to say goodbye to you knowing it might be forever,” I said, my voice trembling.
He stared at me for a long time, his face a battlefield of emotions. Finally, he whispered, “I’ll never stop loving you, Hadley. What we have… it’s everything I never knew I needed. And I hope like hell that someday, somehow, our paths cross again.”
Before I could respond, before I could beg him to stay one more time, he kissed me. It was slow and aching, filled with everything we couldn’t put into words. When he pulled away, his eyes were red, his face etched with pain.
He turned and walked toward the door, each step feeling like a nail in the coffin of us. When the door finally clicked shut behind him, a dark realization came over me—Not even the deepest, truest kind of love is enough to keep two people together.