22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
K ade left Jessica's house Saturday mid-morning like she asked him to, but he'd had an uneasy feeling. Something in the way she spoke, and the tears in her eyes she didn't let fall, tells him she's scared and pulling away. This hasn't gone the way he'd anticipated in the slightest, and he knows he needs to talk to her.
When Jess didn’t reach out after he left that day, he could only hold out until Monday. She went back to work and had a lot of catching up to do, but they planned for him to come over to talk on Wednesday after work. Wednesday has now rolled around, and his stomach bounces around as he stands on her porch, waiting for her to open the front door.
"Hey," Jess says, standing before him in a cute black skirt and button up blouse tucked into the waist. She must’ve just gotten home because she hasn't changed yet.
"Hi," Kade says, his stomach knotting further.
She steps aside and lets him walk into the living room, where he immediately starts pacing. "Kade, are you okay?"
"You look pretty, Jess. You always look pretty, but I don't think I ever told you that enough."
Her eyes cast down at her outfit, and she giggles. "You saw me at my absolute worst, so I'd say almost anything compared to that is an improvement."
"You were beautiful, even then."
"Kade, what's going on?"
"That's why I'm here. I need to ask you that question."
Her head tilts, and he moves to sit on the couch. His pacing seems to make her nervous, so he sits and rests his elbows on his knees. His right one shakes so much the right side of his vision jumps with it.
"I'm not sure what you're asking me."
"I'm so confused, Jess. Why'd you kick me out on Saturday? It felt like things were moving forward, and it felt like things were falling back into place."
Jess swallows and looks at the ground. "I want to lie to you, Kade. I really do. It would make everything so much easier, but I can't. The feelings I've had for you since our third date came rushing back the moment you told me you wanted to try again, and it scares me. It took so much for me to push through when my heart broke, and I don't know if I can go through that again. To push down everything I felt for you and try to forget it again."
"I don't want you to push everything down and forget. And I don't want you to be scared about what you feel for me."
"But I am," she says, tears in her eyes but never falling. "You don't understand what the past four or five months have been like for me."
He stands and rests his hands on her biceps. As much as he doesn't want to know, he needs to hear it. To know if what he thought was right. "Tell me."
"Why do you want to do this?" she asks, pulling away from him and walking a few steps away. "We both know this idea you have about being a commitment guy will fade once you finally have me again. Why put ourselves through all of this again?"
"Because I am a commitment guy. For you. And I think the only way to move past everything is to know exactly what you went through. It'll probably kill me to hear, but it'll be what makes sure I never make you feel that way again."
Looking away, Jess crosses her arms under chest and sighs. "You really want to do this?"
"No, I don’t, but I need to."
"Walking into your place and seeing you with Lena was the most devastating thing I've ever had to experience other than my dad's death. I loved you, Kade. So much, and you just didn't care."
He shakes his head. "That's not true. I cared, Jess. I still do."
"You had no remorse. When we talked, you explained it away. That it wasn't as big of a deal as I felt it was because we weren't exclusive. You didn’t understand that I was exclusive. I was yours, but you were never fully mine. You wouldn't let yourself."
"I didn't show it, but I did feel remorse. I hated what I did, and I hated how what I did made you feel."
"Then why did you do it?" she asks, the tears appearing in her eyes again. "Did you ever care about me?"
His chest heaves. "Yes. I still do."
"Then why didn't you even try and fight? You let me walk away like it was the easiest thing in the world while I was dying inside."
Her voice comes out uneven, and he wants to reach out and hold her. Comfort her in some way. "Because it wouldn't have been fair or right for either of us at the time."
"But it was fair and right to change your mind when you saw me with someone else? Then you decided you wanted your toy back to play with?"
His eyes close at her description of how she sees herself through his eyes. She was never his toy. "I understand why you feel that way, but that's not what you were to me. Never once did I feel like you were my toy. I'm sorry it felt like I played with you instead of cared for you."
"Do you want to know why your lack of remorse and lack of interest in asking for my forgiveness after what happened hurt worse than seeing you having sex with someone else?"
"Why?"
"Because I would have fought tooth and nail for you. I would have gone to bat for you, and I would have fought every fight there was to fight for you. You were my one and only, and I was just a number to you."
Moving to sit down on the recliner, he can't help but feel like he's losing this fight. "I'm fighting for you now. Doesn't that count for something?"
"Not really. Not when it feels like you're only here because I was with someone else. It's the chase, and I don't want to be chased, Kade. I want to be caught and kept and treasured. Just like I did with you. As much as you'd let me, anyway."
"I'm not the same guy as I was before. The good parts, yes, but not the one who couldn't commit to you. You were never just a number. I knew I lost one of the best things to ever happen in my life when you walked out without a word, but I wasn't in the place to fight for you and not hurt you again."
She laughs and shakes her head. This is really not going well for him. "You keep saying that, but I don't know what that means. You weren't in a place to fight for me and not hurt me again? At least, not until I spent time with another man. Then you suddenly found yourself in a place to do that?"
"It took time. And yes, seeing you with Landry snapped something inside me. That piece that fit back into place told me that if I didn't shape up and figure my shit out, I would lose you forever. That you might already be gone, but I didn't want to come to you before I was ready. I didn't want to put us through everything again until I knew I could truly give myself to you."
"And you did that in a couple of months?"
"Am I perfect? No. I never will be. And I know there are still a few things I need to deal with, but the difference is I didn't want to deal with them before, Jess. Now, I do. And I want to deal with them with you. It makes me want to be the version of myself you need every single day. And it turns out, I actually kind of like this version of myself. I sure as hell like him better than the person who hurt you. He was a selfish prick."
The comment earns him a small smile, and he feels the glimmer of hope returning. Just a tiny one.
"Yeah, he kind of was."
"I'm putting myself out here, baby. I am. But I guess what I need to know from you is if you're actually willing to accept that I'm trying and give me a real shot here. If not, if I'm just wasting our time, please let me know."
Her lip quivers, and she takes a deep breath, holding it for a few moments that feels more like a few hours to Kade as he waits for her to speak. "I care about you. I was in love with you. And you hurt me. You hurt me like no one else ever has, and you broke my trust. God, you shook my faith in people, not just men. I don't want it to be this way, but if I'm being honest, I don't know that I can let myself trust you again."
"You can't take the risk of trusting I'm not with anyone else."
"That and whether you mean what you say, or if you're just saying what you think I want to hear. If this is really what you're looking for. That thought keeps me at a distance because I don't know if you really do want what you say you want. I really do think you believe that you do, but deep down, can I risk taking the chance of being wrong? It’s really hard to have faith when it was ripped away from me last time."
"I haven't slept with anyone since you walked in on me with Lena," Kade blurts out, his stomach feeling like he just swallowed battery acid. Why the hell did he just say that?
Jess seems to have a similarly shocked reaction, although he doubts she feels the same burn in her gut. "What... what did you just say?"
Here goes nothing. "I went to the bar every night until the night I saw you with Landry. All of those nights were spent looking for you. There was no girl who could hold a candle to you, and it wasn't worth trying to pick up anyone. Or, I would pick a woman that I had a feeling would turn me down. Like Noelle. Every single one of them did."
Blinking, she stays silent. He wouldn't know what to say to a comment like that if he was in her shoes, too. What can she say? Congrats on being the one out of the two of them to stay celibate?
Kade continues, uncertain if he's helping or hurting himself at this point. "We were seeing each other for five months, and I wasn’t seeing anyone but you. Until the day I woke up and realized how attached I was starting to get. The feelings... they overwhelmed me because I wasn't that guy. I didn't do the relationship thing. I panicked. When you had to stay late to work on that restaurant project, I went to the bar to try and blow off some steam. That's when I met Lena."
"Kade-"
"When you asked how many other women there were, there were no other women. Not until I freaked out and thought I thought I needed to remind myself of who I was. That I couldn't be a committed guy. But not being with you has been eating me alive from the inside out, and I knew I needed to deal with all the shit holding me back from being able to make a real commitment. But I can now. There may be times where I need some patience, but I'm yours, Jess. Only yours."
Sighing, she shakes her head. "I want to believe you. I really do, but you understand why I don't trust that I can, don't you?"
Leaning back, Kade pulls his phone from his front pocket and taps the screen until her phone chimes. "There."
Jess turns and looks in the direction of her purse and asks, "What there? Are you a magician about to pull a rabbit from your hat?"
"I just shared my location with you. You can check up on me anytime you want to see if I'm where I say I am."
"If you say you're home, the location doesn't tell me if you're alone. It just shows you're home, and then there's another loophole semantics situation."
Okay, she has him there. "I'll give you the account information for my doorbell camera. I'll also install one on the backdoor and the garage entrance, if you want. You can check it anytime you want to see I came home alone."
"Kade, I appreciate the sentiment, but you realize how not normal this is? People in healthy relationships don't need to share their locations and doorbell camera passwords just to make the other feel at ease about who they are or aren't spending time with. This is crazy."
"Who determines what's considered normal or healthy?"
"Do you really want to be in a relationship with someone you have to go through so many extreme measures and jump through hoops for just to prove yourself? Wouldn't you rather start out fresh and have trust there?"
He panics. This isn't how he thought it would go. Giving her all of his information to track him should have made her feel better. That he wanted to show her he could be trustworthy and say what he means. He'd be stupid if he thought he could bring a girl home or go home to her house with Jess's ability to track him.
"Jess-"
"This just seems like a lot of effort for someone who probably has never been committed to anyone in his life. What's that line from that movie? Your longest relationship has been with a sandwich or something."
He shakes his head. "That's not true."
"Really? When was the last time you were in a real relationship? Because things have started to make sense now. Why your family was so surprised you introduced me to them. It's probably never happened before."
"Yeah, it has."
Jess laughs. "When? In high school? That doesn't count as commitment."
"I know what commitment is. Very well."
"Kade, I know you think you do, but-"
"I was engaged."