Chapter 13
Jett
This bathroom is too damn small for both of us and our baggage.
Staring across the room at Wren, who’s still hunkered down in the large tub, a blanket wrapped around her, shadows dancing across her face from the candles flickering, all I can think about is how much she looks like the girl I’ve always loved.
The girl I used to chase around and tease relentlessly.
But she’s not the same. She’s scarred and haunted by something I can’t pinpoint.
I’ve seen the sadness behind her eyes. Years in a war zone will condition you to spot that look.
Wren’s whiskey eyes have lost their shine.
Her words replay in my head as we sit in silence.
“You don’t get to explain yourself or offer any excuses. It’s ten years too late.”
“It’s already fucking over, Riggsby.”
She wants to fight, and hell, I’m ready for the battle.
I know she means it, but I refuse to accept it. There’s a reason she’s back, a reason I chose to come home instead of reenlisting.
I drag my hand through my hair as my chest heaves. Before I can say anything more, to push back about things not being over, not even close, I watch as she sits straighter, squaring her shoulders. Like she’s ready to fire the final blow.
“I’m not yours to protect.”
The words grate against my skin because, dammit, she’s still mine.
“I’m not yours.” Her eyebrow quirks, challenging me, as if she can read the thoughts swirling in my mind.
God, I hope she can’t. Because then she’ll know how much she still affects me.
How I want to rip her out of that tub, flip her over, and punish her for leaving me.
How I want to thrust inside of her and show her the effect she still has on me.
I want to nip her smooth skin and mark her, claim her over and over again.
Pushing my hands against my thighs, I stand, and she cowers.
Is she afraid of me? The sirens wail louder, wind batters the siding, and rain pelts the metal roof, making the house moan and creak.
I should take it as a warning, but I don’t.
A warning has never stopped me before, and it sure as hell isn’t stopping me now.
We stand locked in a moment, air thickening, hot and suffocating, as we dare the other to break.
And I lose the war.
I can't drown in silence while she still believes I abandoned her. The walls are closing in, and if she won't listen, I'll force her to see the truth.
I turn and storm out of the bathroom.
“Jett!” she screams after me, and I hear her jumping to her feet, clambering against the iron tub.
But I don’t stop.
I wrench open the front door as soon as I reach it and throw myself straight into a different storm. The rain feels like knives. My shirt is drenched in seconds, sticking to my skin in a frozen blanket. Thunder rolls like cannon fire as lightning breaks, painting the sky in a natural artwork.
But I don’t let the fear of a tornado sweeping me away stop me. My feet carry me to my truck, where I’ve kept something hidden below my seat since I returned. It’s the same something I’ve carried with me for ten goddamn years.
I jerk open the door and dig under the passenger seat until my fingers graze the smooth edge.
The wooden box that holds my deepest secrets. It’s worn from years in the desert and traveling. But it’s still solid, held together with broken promises.
By the time I shove back into her cottage, water dripping from my clothes, she’s waiting in the living room. Her long legs pace the floor, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she chews on her thumbnail.
Her head whips in my direction at the sound of the front door clicking shut.
“What the hell are you thinking? There’s a tornado heading straight for us, and you decide to go cool off in the rain!”
I don’t answer as I place the wooden box on her coffee table. The thud is loud even through the sounds of the storm.
Her gaze flicks to the box and back to me. “What’s this?”
“Open it,” I demand, voice harsh, heart pounding in my ears.
“Wh-why would I do that?”
I dip my head toward the box. “It’s your proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That leaving didn’t mean I forgot about you.”
Her breath catches. “This doesn’t change anything.”
“Open it.”
Hesitantly, she drops to the floor, tucking her legs under the coffee table as her hands hover over the lid.
Just when I think she’s not going to open the box, her fingers twitch, brushing over the lid like there’s a bomb waiting to detonate.
In some ways, there is. A time bomb with all my secrets resting inside.
She flips it open and the air leaves her lungs in a whoosh. Whiskey eyes flicker to mine and back to the box. Even from the slight glow from the candles, I know she knows what she’s looking at.
The living room lamp glows softly, giving her the much-needed light to sort through the time capsule.
Photos tremble in her grip as her chest rises and falls.
Her breaths are fast and shallow. And maybe the reality of it all is like a punch to the stomach.
I know that’s how I felt watching her from a distance, wishing I were the one standing by her side.
She looks through them all, taking her time.
One from trick-or-treating when we were eight—I was dressed as a sheriff while she was a pink cowgirl.
One I took of her lying on her stomach on a beach towel.
The tiny bikini shows off her lithe body.
It was the first summer I started noticing Wren as more than my best friend.
The summer her legs grew a mile, bronzed and toned from hours spent running around the farm.
There’s one of our first homecoming together. Both of us sport braces and acne. But she was a vision in yellow. I remember wondering how I got so lucky to have her as my best friend—and my girlfriend.
Selfies she took of us in my truck, sitting on my lap on the tractor, hiding in the haystack. Photos of her snuggling baby kittens and bottle-feeding calves. Happy and carefree. The Wren Drummond I’ve carried with me.
But there’s so much more inside that box than a pile of photos from memory lane.
Letters I wrote to her but never sent. Whenever something good happened, she was the first person I wanted to share the news with.
On my worst days, when I needed a hug and a shoulder to lean on, she was the one I searched for, but she was off living her life.
While I was happy that she was moving on, my heart broke because I lost the woman I loved with all of my being.
So I wrote to her. I wrote everything I wished I could tell her.
Every dark detail of my time overseas. How I craved hearing her laugh, because on my worst days, her high-pitched giggle would melt my stress. Her smile was everything.
“Jett,” she whispers, sounding pained, and I know what she’s holding without having to look at it. The article announcing her engagement to Elias. “Why? Why would you save this?”
“Because it was the reminder of how I lost you.”
Her laugh is bitter. “You don’t get to play victim and act as if you lost me, not when you’re the one who left.”
I growl, shoving my fingers through my hair. “I broke us. I know that. I lost you. That article”—I gesture to the paper in her hand—“was my reminder that I was never getting you back. Not when you were engaged to someone else.”
She says nothing, simply staring down at everything in that damn box.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye.” My throat tightens with rage as I relive packing my bags and climbing into my father’s truck.
“You think I wanted to go? To leave you? I fought for you. For a chance to say goodbye to my best friend—the girl I was in love with—but life doesn’t always work the way we want it to. ”
A crack of thunder overhead jolts Wren, causing her to clutch her chest.
“You should’ve found a way... If I were so important to you, you should have found a way. I-I needed you.”
The way her voice breaks when she admits to needing me makes my chest ache. Her fingers swipe the tears streaming down her face and I want to drop to my knees and kiss her pain away. But I can’t. I’m frozen in place.
“I wrote you,” I bite out, gesturing to the stack of crinkled-edged envelopes. “Even after the letter you never received, I still wrote to you.”
Her eyes flick briefly to the stack of letters, but she shakes her chin as her expression hardens. “But you never sent them.”
Something snaps inside of me. “You don’t get to act like you were the only one hurt in all of this.
You cut me open, too, Wren. I left, yeah, but so did you.
” My chest heaves. “But I guess it all makes sense now. I didn’t think you’d wait for me, but a part of me hoped you would.
It was all explained in a letter our moms decided not to give you.
It hurt to see your face on a goddamn magazine cover, smiling on another man’s arm.
It gutted me. I felt like my heart was left bleeding out on the floor. ”
She smacks her hand against the wooden coffee table. “Four years, I waited. I went to college, earned a degree, and still never heard from you. You. Abandoned. Me.”
“Everything is so fucked. Yes, I know I fucked up. I left without a trace, but I didn’t have a choice. I wrote you after basic, but that didn’t matter. I made a mistake, I screwed up, but I’ve never stopped caring for you, Wren.”
“If you truly cared, you would have tried harder. Even after not hearing from me. Something, anything to talk to me and explain everything.”
I growl, collapsing back on the couch. I feel defeat creeping through my limbs. “Months went by, and I lost myself in training. I never forgot about you, but I needed to grow up.” I sigh, struggling to find the words to explain my actions when I don’t even fully understand them.
“When I finally felt like I was in a place worthy of your love, it was too late. One of the guys received a tabloid from his girl while we were stationed in the Middle East. It was the first time I’d seen a recent photo of you in years, and what a shock it was, Wren.
To see you on the cover, wrapped up in someone else.
To know that you were lying in someone else’s arms, him loving you, when all I wanted was that for us.
I know I had no right to be angry, not with all the years between us, but it didn’t hurt any less.
You looked happy. I wasn’t going to ruin your life again. ”
“It was—” Her voice breaks again, and she pauses to take a breath.
I hate how I’m causing her so much pain.
“It was survival. You don’t know what I went through…
what he—” She stops short, lips clamping shut, eyes widening as if she almost revealed something she didn’t mean to. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter now.”
Leaning forward, I drop to my knees and move around the coffee table until we’re next to each other. My thigh brushes against hers, and she gasps at the contact.
“It does matter.”
The overwhelming urge to touch her pierces through me.
I want to grip her face between my hands and beg her to forgive me.
To put the past behind us and start over.
I don’t even care if it’s as friends—well, I don’t know if I can simply be friends with Wren.
But I’d take whatever I can get. The awkward interactions and tension are suffocating me.
Fuck it.
Risking her rejection, I reach up and use my thumb to wipe away her tears. It tortures me to see her cry.
“It’s too late, Jett.” Her voice is quiet, resigned.
“It’s not too late, baby. As long as I’m still breathing, I’ll keep fighting for you. For us.” I pause, letting my words sink in. “You’ve always been it for me. I’ve known since I was thirteen that it was you and me. If I have to beg for your forgiveness every day for the rest of my life, I will.”
“I hate you,” she whispers brokenly.
“I hate me too,” I admit, feeling every bit of hatred I’ve bottled up for years.
The storm outside howls harder. The lights flicker on once. Twice. Three times before plunging us back into darkness.
For a second, we just breathe each other in. Our breaths, ragged and in sync with Mother Nature’s wrath.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should have stayed away with my secrets and the box full of moments we can’t get back. But I don’t regret coming. Not when the air is alive, thick with anger and longing and spilled truths that have the power to bring us back together instead of keeping us apart.