Chapter 23 #2
I did. Vividly. It was when I first knew something was going on with Fai.
I didn’t know he had relapsed, but I knew that after me, Jackie was the most important person to him.
It was six years ago. Jackie was in the midst of a case at work, having just met Will, and was falling in love with him.
She had confronted her parents and reconnected with her oldest brother, but she was also being harassed.
While it had been resolved and the people who had hurt her were behind bars, in the midst of the chaos… Fai abandoned her.
He didn’t just abandon her; he pushed her away and all but spat in her face.
He had fired her, claiming she was putting herself and the journal at risk. We later found out it was a bald-faced lie to protect himself. He knew that she would find out about his drinking, so he pushed her away.
When she needed him, he refused to come.
“I didn’t listen. I still went to work, pretended like it never happened, and even then he didn’t talk to me. For years, he pushed me away. He was all I had for so long…”
“You have your siblings here now…” I interrupted.
She nodded in agreement. “Yeah… but they weren’t here at first. When I came here, when I met him and you, I had no one.
I had nothing. He gave me a family—a support system.
He helped me find my passion. He was…” She finally let a tear fall, the drop trailing softly down her cheek as it shone in the porch light.
“I just don’t understand how he did it. How he could hurt us so easily. ”
“And it makes you angry?”
She laughed again without humor. “That’s the thing… it doesn’t. It should! I should be furious. I should never forgive the dickface! But… I get it.”
I took her hand in mine, the two of us connected not just by touch, but as the two people Fai had hurt the most.
Besides himself.
She huffed a breath, her demeanor deflating along with it. “I remember how ridiculous my mindset was when I was in active addiction. It was volatile and completely nonsensical. But in those moments… all my choices felt necessary for my own survival. I can’t blame him. I should, but I can’t.”
I smiled softly, leaning my head on her shoulder. “So why are you so sad about this?”
“Because of you, you dummy. He wasn’t my husband. I didn’t divorce the idiot.”
I laughed despite it all. “You really have some creative names for him tonight, don’t you?”
I felt her shrug. “Sue me. He was a jerk for a few years. I also think they would make him laugh if he heard them. But how are you so okay? You two were the reason I believed in love in the first place, and then… well.” She picked up my left hand, her thumb brushing over where my ring used to sit. “I think this speaks for me.”
I sighed deeply, relaxing further against her shoulder. “We didn’t divorce because we stopped loving each other. We divorced because we were drowning, and the only way to come up for air was on our own.”
“So you still love him?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t think I could ever stop. Loving him is akin to breathing—it’s necessary for my survival. It’s written into my bones. Loving him isn’t a choice; it’s a part of who I am.”
There was a pause, the night serving as our backdrop as crickets sounded in the distance and wind whistled through the trees.
“That sounds mildly codependent,” Jackie whispered.
I couldn’t help it; I barked a laugh. Jackie stared at me for a moment before following suit, the two of us acting like we had lost our minds. Maybe we had.
“Why don’t you go talk to him?” I asked after we both caught our breath.
Jackie sighed and leaned back on her elbows, stretching her legs out in front of her.
“I’m going to, in the next few days. I thought I would give him a couple of days to…
process? Recover? Whatever it is he needs to do.
No reason to bring up all the shit between us at the same time. What happens with the two of you?”
I sighed. “I don’t know.”
“You two… didn’t talk about it?” she asked with a raised brow.
I avoided her gaze, picking at my pants to dodge the question.
“Sarah… did you seriously hit it and quit it?” she asked in surprise.
I rolled my eyes. “We were actively running from a psychopath. There wasn’t a lot of time for… discussion.”
“There was enough time to get into each other’s pants—literally getting down and dirty on a cave floor,” Jackie teased.
I rolled my eyes, pushing against her shoulder playfully. “You know… I’ll always be grateful Fai brought me you. At the end of the day, if everything between Fai and me truly ends, I’m happy it brought me you.”
Jackie smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners and her nose scrunching. “You make me sound like your kid or something.”
“If I remember correctly, you used to make jokes about that very subject,” I reminded her.
She laughed. “They were funnier when I was in my twenties.”
“I’m glad you’re okay-ish with Fai and me sleeping together. I thought you would be angry, livid even.”
She shrugged. “Oddly enough, I’m the reasonable one in my family. It was never me you should have been worried about…”
“Nate?”
She nodded. “Nate. He’s the real grudge-holder.”