Chapter 34
NOW
July
Jackson showed up the next morning after our perfect day in Holland with two coffees in hand. I narrowed my eyes at the sight of him on my doorstep before I opened the door.
“Bold,” I said as I crossed my arms.
After we nearly kissed last night, I couldn’t believe he’d even dare to show his face here again.
“Actually, it’s a medium roast,” he said as he held a coffee out for me.
How could he be making jokes right now? I wanted to punch the coffee cup right out of his hand, but that stupid small part of my heart still just wanted to kiss him.
How could I have such strong feelings that were so polar opposite?
The devil wasn’t just sitting on my shoulder, he was buried deep in my chest, scratching and clawing, telling me to say and do whatever I wanted.
I ripped the coffee from his hands and tried to shut the door on him, but he stuck a hand out to stop it.
“Can we talk?” Jackson asked.
“No. There’s nothing to talk about,” I said as I tried to shut the door again. He pushed back harder. For a split second I almost lost my mind and threw the coffee at him.
“Addison—” Jackson started to say, and I gave up the fight at the way he said it, stepping back and causing him to almost faceplant inside. He caught his bearings and I turned around to walk into the family room.
I started getting the paint supplies ready. That was the only task I had to get through today; finish painting this room, and then I didn’t have to deal with Jackson or our baggage anymore.
“Will you look at me?” Jackson asked.
“Jackson, please for the love of god, just stop talking to me. Can we just paint? That’s all I need you for right now, okay? Can you just do that?” My voice was laced in venom, and I hoped he felt every word like a sting.
He looked at me for a while, clenching and unclenching one of his fists. I almost dared him to say what he wanted, but I gave him a look that I hoped conveyed how much I couldn’t stand the sound of his voice. After a moment he looked up at the ceiling, then gave in to my request.
“Fine,” he whispered before setting down his coffee and pulling his phone out of his pocket.
I knew he was starting a playlist, and after he chose his songs, he tossed the phone to me. No risk of our hands touching.
I caught it and swiped up on the screen. He didn’t even have a passcode. He was one stupid motherfucker. I picked a song, and a notification dropped down that said he had multiple missed calls from Sophie.
“You have like, five missed calls from Sophie,” I said as I chose more songs, pressing harder than I had to against the screen. “You should probably call her back.”
I threw the phone back to him, smacking him directly in the chest, but he caught it before it fell to the floor.
“I just talked to her last night.”
After he almost cheated on her with me. I wanted to hate him so badly.
I took a quick sip of the coffee, and screw Jackson, because it was delicious.
“So, how is she doing?” I forced myself to ask. I picked up a paintbrush, chipping off a piece of dried paint with my fingernail.
“I have a question,” Jackson said, ignoring my own question.
I rolled my eyes so he could see my annoyance.
“What’s that?” I asked as I dipped the brush into the paint.
“What’s your plan after this is done?”
I turned away from him. I was quiet for a little while as I started to paint the wall.
I didn’t have a plan. My mind was a mess of complicated thoughts.
Wren was almost positive she didn’t need me to nanny Mia anymore, so I would have to find a new job.
I could keep this house, live in it—and then, what?
What would I do here? I had no one. Or I could sell it, and use the money to do whatever I wanted.
I could start over again if I wanted to, somewhere new just like before. Somewhere Jackson wasn’t.
I didn’t want to admit all that, so I said, “Sell it. Go back to North Carolina.”
“That’s what I thought,” Jackson said softly. How dare he act like he cared at all?
I finally turned to face him. “And you can go back to your fiancée. Happily ever after.” I tried to look mad, but we both knew it was a mask.
Jackson blew out a long breath of air then dipped his paintbrush into the can. “I, uh . . . didn’t tell you that Sophie and I were on a break while she was away. I bet you thought I was some asshole, trying to cheat on my fiancée.”
What . . . ?
They were on a break? Why was he just now telling me?
I could have kissed him in the car, and I wouldn’t have had to feel bad about it.
Heck, I could’ve kissed him on the Fourth of July.
When he was on top of me after we fell while painting.
In the bathroom without his shirt on. At the beach yesterday.
Every moment he touched me since I came back was blinking beneath my skin, alerting me to how much I craved his touch.
“Oh.” Was all I said in return.
Did that mean he wanted more with me? My mind was reeling, my brain trying to look at every interaction between us these past two weeks in a new light. I wanted to kiss him now, too—until I realized that he said they were on a break.
He started to go on. “Yeah, she called me last night to see if I had figured my shit out with you before she came back. I told her nothing is going on with you and I, so . . . we’re back together.”
I thought he was with her the entire time. That he was repeating the past and trying to cross the line—that he didn’t know what he wanted. Did that mean he wanted me, but because I rejected him, he was going back to Sophie?
“So, that’s it? You’re just . . . getting married still?”
“Yes,” he answered adamantly.
I huffed like a fucking child. “Why didn’t you tell me you were on a break?”
I watched his jaw tick. “Because it didn’t matter. You were always going to leave again.”
I wanted to yell at him, because no, he didn’t know that.
But he was right, it didn’t even matter anymore.
I decided I would be leaving now. I would sell the house and forget about all of this.
All I needed to focus on was painting this wall.
Sophie would be home tomorrow, and I wouldn’t let Jackson come back to this house.
His phone hooked up to the speaker then, at an ear-splitting decibel, which he’d likely done on purpose so that we couldn’t talk.
“Let Me Down Slowly” by Alec Benjamin was Jackson’s first song choice. I bit my lip to keep from screaming. He was the one who decided he didn’t want me, not the other way around. After that was “car” by Royel Otis. Did he really think this was the best thing for us?
When “If It Means A Lot To You” by A Day To Remember started playing, I almost lost it.
We both knew we couldn’t even go back to being friends—there’s no way Sophie would allow it.
Why was he doing this to me? It was killing me—absolutely shattering me—that he was fighting the feelings he had for me.
I was feeling a hurricane of emotions in my chest, knowing this would likely be the last time Jackson and I ever saw each other.
My first song pick, “I Love You, I’m Sorry” by Gracie Abrams, was starting to play, and I put a hand over my chest to calm my heart rate.
Every beat felt so intense it hurt. I pretended to focus hard on the paintbrush strokes, but they came out jagged across the wall.
“Alley Rose” by Conan Gray was queued up next, and I sang it with malice to hide the devastation in my chest.
I kept sneaking glances at Jackson, finding him with a stone-faced expression, painting as if he couldn’t hear the music.
“Fortnight” by Taylor Swift played next, and this time he sang along, too, with his fist clenched and his other hand white-knuckling the paintbrush.
It gave me way too much satisfaction, seeing him struggle with this, too.
“Last Kiss” by Taylor Swift began, and I tried not to look at Jackson while it played. I was mouthing the words, trying my hardest not to cry. I could feel him looking at me as I painted the wall with shaky hands. I didn’t want to play this game anymore. I couldn’t.
When I finally gained the courage to look over at him, he was closer than he had been a moment ago.
I watched as he took three steps toward me, grabbing the sides of my face and lowering his forehead to rest on mine.
The end of the song was blaring around us; I could feel it rattling against my heart, like it was bursting from within me.
Our chests were almost touching, and with each heave of our breaths they came in contact.
All I had to do was angle up my face, and we would be kissing.
I didn’t want to fight it anymore—I just wanted to give in.
But this time it would be cheating, because he was with Sophie again.
I hated him. I absolutely despised him for doing this to the both of us.
“You want to kiss me,” I whispered up at him. It was a statement, not a question. I wasn’t even trying to taunt him. I just needed to hear him say it—to admit to me that he wanted me.
Jackson froze before he took a step back, staring at me with regret before turning around and throwing open the front door.
He pounded down the porch steps, the door slamming behind him in the process.
I should’ve let him go; I should have turned around and continued to paint the wall.
But, like an idiot, I followed him, because my stupid heart was attached to his.
“Jackson!” I yelled after him when I pulled the door back open. He was pacing back and forth on the curb, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and scoffing at himself.
“I know,” he said in a strained voice. It sounded like he was yelling at himself, not me. He actually fucking admitted it. He had a fiancée, and he wanted to kiss me.
I could feel the burn starting beneath my skin, the rapid popping of anger.
“And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t marry her; because the fact that you even want to kiss me is wrong,” I said, my chest heaving.
“I’m marrying her, Addie,” he said defiantly.
It was like a knife to the chest. What was I thinking, wasting my time with him these past three weeks? I should have never let him back in. I couldn’t believe I’d let him do this to me, again.
“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” I sounded like a wounded child. I couldn’t even scream—I was too hurt. I just needed the truth. I was so tired of all the circles we were running in.
“Because . . . Because you know it can’t happen.” He sounded exasperated, like I was making it all up as I went along. Like everything was inside my head this entire time.
“Why, Jackson? Why not? You’re hurting me. You’re really fucking hurting me, and you’re hurting Sophie.”
My throat was on fire; it was taking everything in me to keep it together.
“I want to do the right thing here,” he said with his arms splayed out.
“The right thing would be to end it. Call it quits if you don’t want to get married!”
“I can’t!” He screamed it so loud I flinched back.
He looked wounded; I could see the tears in his eyes as his face softened.
“I can’t,” he whispered this time. “I asked her to marry me, okay? I can’t hurt her like before.
I was horrible to her back then, and I can’t be that guy again.
And I’m so tired of constantly hurting you.
The one time I tried to do the right thing for you, it hurt you. ”
He didn’t even say he wanted to marry her because he loved her. It was just his way of making amends for his past actions. That cut me even deeper. He was choosing her over me.
I couldn’t stop myself from crying then. I had no idea what he was talking about when he said he was trying to do the right thing for me; he’s always hurt me.
“When, huh? When the fuck did you ever try to do the right thing for me? All you’ve ever done is hurt me, Jackson. And I’m dumb enough to still want you!”
A tear fell down his jaw. Ha! I thought. He needs to hurt, too—to suffer this pain. He would never hurt as deeply as I did.
He let out a painful sob, and my eyes widened. I had never seen Jackson cry before in all the time I’d known him.
“I did, Addie,” he cried, sitting down on the curb and placing his hands over his face as his shoulders bounced with his sobs. “I came for you that night. When you called me after graduation, I did come. I tried.” He was looking at me now, face raw and red as more tears trickled down his face.
I was frozen to the ground. I didn’t think I could take another step if I tried.
“I crashed the truck on my way to you. I was drinking too much at the senior party. That’s why I never showed. That’s why, okay? And I knew I wasn’t a person who deserved you if I was too drunk to be there when you needed me.”
I stayed standing, crying as I watched him sit there. I was pained and hurt and just taking it all in.
The scar through his eyebrow. Being sober for the past five years. The new front bumper on the truck. Everything was starting to make sense.
“I love you. I’ve always loved you, Addie. But I can’t cheat on Sophie. It’s not right.” He wiped his cheeks before standing up, taking two long strides until his arms were wrapped around me.
I sunk into him, letting myself continue to cry as he enveloped me. “I love you. I promise I love you. I’ve never stopped.”
I couldn’t even say it back because the sound of a car door slamming broke us apart from each other. I looked up and froze. The worst possible person that could’ve heard that conversation was stalking toward us, her gaze sizzling with fury. She wasn’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.
My blood ran cold when I heard Sophie say, “What the fuck is going on?”