Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Amariah
I didn’t remember driving home. I must have, because the Jeep ended up in my driveway exactly where I always park it, beside the big oak tree, but slightly slanted, as if I were inebriated.
In some ways, I was. Intoxicated with guilt and drowning in its wreckage.
Everything between leaving the store and pulling in at home had dissolved into a fog I couldn’t lift.
I just sat there, hands still curled around the steering wheel, heaving short breaths that refused to return to normal.
I didn’t cry at first. Not at the store.
Not in front of him. I held it in like a badge of honor, apologizing to Koby before making my exit.
As I drove, my anger disintegrated into jumbled thoughts.
Now, I sat here feeling haunted and not by ghosts.
Jacob’s face wouldn’t leave me alone. It wasn’t the anger he expressed, even though his tirade felt like it was piercing a hole in my heart; it was the look right before his anger crested that choked me.
The softness. The hope. The disappointment from the belief that I…
that we…were moving toward something real. And the belief that I ruined it.
The realization of what our fallout today meant folded me in half.
Jacob, the man I loved, the man I’d always loved, the man who didn’t compare to any other man, which is why Aaron couldn’t even compete, I’d lost him.
This time felt like it was for good. I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel and let out a low, broken sound that I didn’t know was inside me.
My throat burned. My eyes stung. My heartbeat felt wrong.
It beat too slow and too fast all at once.
A hollow ache thudded through me, like my whole body was trying to mourn what I threw away, or maybe what we threw away.
Eventually, I dragged myself out of the car.
Between blurry eyes and endless sobs, my legs wobbled as I placed one foot in front of the other, trying to climb the few steps to the front door.
My keys felt heavy. At that moment, I was grateful that my parents were at my father’s doctor’s appointment.
There’s no way I could face either of them in the state I was in, and I didn’t want to upset my father in any form or fashion.
His health was too important to me, but I would be lying if I pretended that I didn’t want my daddy right now.
He was the one man I could always count on to love me unconditionally, whether I was right, wrong, or indifferent.
And I desperately needed to feel his comfort.
Somehow, I got inside, dropped my purse by the door, and sank onto the couch like gravity had pulled me into the black abyss.
But the silence in the house was deafening.
Jacob’s name echoed in the chambers of my heart.
Our shared time together since my return rolled over like quick film in my mind.
Thoughts of his tender touches, which ignited an internal inferno inside me every time, clung to my memory.
Even his voice floated back to me, always soft and kind like the gentle giant that he was.
The way he talked to me, but more importantly, the way he listened to me, as if everything I said mattered.
Like I mattered. That is the exact reason I should’ve spoken up the moment Aaron placed those false claims on me.
Why didn’t I just tell him the truth before everything got tangled up?
That answer was simple, although my actions were complicated: while I had ended that relationship with Aaron, I was afraid that Jacob would still feel that I was in love with Aaron and not him.
When Aaron kept attempting to make contact and sending flowers back in DC, I felt that if I ignored him long enough, he would move on.
He wasn’t even a concern for me when I arrived in Skye Ridge, and with him out of the picture, Jacob and I could continue in our personal bubble, even if we were dancing around our unspoken truths.
Aaron. Jacob. Two names. Two histories. Two men vying to be the one man.
My man.
I didn’t have either one now.
I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to hold myself together.
But the moment I closed my eyes, good and bad memories ambushed me yet again: Jacob and I laughing over which tree to cut at Jolly’s tree farm, Jacob brushing snow from my coat after our snowball fight, Jacob looking at me like he’d found something worth holding on to as we held on to each other at the ice skating rink.
Then the bad memories began to flood in like a tidal wave.
The look on his face when he’d heard Aaron call himself my fiancé, and the defeat in his face when he saw us holding hands.
My stomach twisted, and I couldn’t sit still. I shoved myself off the couch and started pacing, fingers dragging through my hair until it was a messy heap.
“Why didn’t you make him listen instead of storming off?” I whispered to the empty room.
But the stillness didn’t answer. A heavy, unkind judgment lingered over me.
I’d let him down…again. My eighteen-year-old and thirty-six-year-old selves had collided, and I loathed the results.
I walked into the kitchen. Then the hallway.
Then back into the living room, like I was looking for comfort even though I knew it wasn’t here.
The house felt cold despite the heat being on blast. Or maybe it was just me.
Maybe all the warmth I needed was internal, and its absence was a result of losing the one man who warmed my heart and my soul.
I ended up at my bedroom door and pushed it open.
My eyes fell on the sweater draped across my chair—the one I wore the night he made spiked hot cocoa, and we took our relationship past the point of no return—only to do just that, start back at none.
I picked it up and brought it to my nose.
I could still smell his scent. Sweet bergamot tickled my nostrils, and I immediately sat on the edge of the bed before my knees buckled.
This is what I got for playing tug-of-war with my heart.
Now, I regretted everything. At this point, I even regretted not telling him how I felt when I was eighteen.
Even as a person who believed there was a time and place for everything, somewhere deep inside me, I wondered if we’d been honest back then, where we would be now.
Maybe our chances might’ve been better if we had acted on our feelings as teens, especially since our adult selves still couldn’t pull it together.
I curled onto my side and clutched the sweater tight.
The room blurred around me. The tears I’d been trying to swallow back finally broke free again, silent and hot, and soaking the fabric.
This time, I didn’t sob. I didn’t wail. The pain was quieter, deeper, and more reflective, exposing the bruises left on my heart.
The thought of Jacob never wanting to have anything to do with me sent another wave of hurt rolling through me.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my sternum as if I could push the ache down, hide it, and trap it beneath the bone.
But nothing helped. It rose again and again: shame, regret, fear, and longing.
All the emotions were layered on top of each other until it felt impossible to sort through.
What if this was my only shot at something real, and I threw it away because I didn’t know how to be brave?
My fingers tightened around the sweater, and I could feel his lips against mine when he asked whether he could have me.
That part hit so hard it stole the air from my lungs.
Because the fact that he kissed me, touched me…
entered me, had left me ruined for any other man, and I’d never recover.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.
I’m such an idiot. The ceiling offered no absolution.
I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly, trying to calm the storm inside me.
But the truth was, I didn’t deserve calm.
Not yet. Not until I made this right. Janelle’s voice ran through my mind.
It was clear, sharp, and annoyingly accurate.
“Stop pussyfooting around and talk to the man.” I winced.
She was right. And the fact that she already knew from Bryce made it sting even more.
That meant Jacob’s hurt wasn’t private. It was visible and felt by people who loved him—people who probably wanted to protect him from me.
If that wasn’t clear before, it was definitely clear when I saw the look of concern on Koby’s face as I was leaving after he’d heard pretty much everything we’d discussed.
The shame settled heavier than before at the mere thought of our—rather, his—friends circle knowing how things had turned out.
I betrayed his trust, and worse, I betrayed my own feelings.
I loved Jacob way more than I expected, far more than I realized, and even more than I’d allowed myself to say out loud.
And now all I could see was the way he stepped back from me, like how we felt for each other suddenly meant nothing, and distance from me was the cure to the kryptonite that was me.
I pressed my palms over my face, tears slipping through my fingers. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I murmured into the quiet. “I didn’t mean any of this.”
But intentions didn’t undo consequences.
And love didn’t survive half-truths. That one word captured me: love.
I could admit the words so clearly now. I love Jacob Gold.
It settled in my bones. This is what I had been missing and had kept hidden for years.
The feeling that I was now positive had never left.
When I finally sat up, the sky outside my window had dimmed as cloud coverage moved in. I didn’t turn on the lights. I just sat there in the dim blue of dusk, feeling the weight of everything I’d done and everything I still had to face.
I had to ensure that Aaron knew the chapter between us was closed.
Although Jacob may not speak to me again, if there was even the smallest chance he might listen—even the smallest chance I could repair the damage I caused—I would.
I owed him the truth. All of it. Even if it was too late, and the result was losing him for good.
Inhaling shakily, I knew that finding peace with Jacob was what I had to do.
And for the first time since the fallout earlier, I felt something besides the devastation of heartache.
It wasn’t hope. There was still too much to unpack to bet on hope, but more like resolve—a fragile, trembling resolve.
But that was enough to boost my confidence.
Enough to grant me peace for the rest of the day.
Tomorrow, I’d face Jacob. Today, I’d let myself mourn what could’ve been and pray that somehow and in some way it wasn’t too late for us.