51. Morgan
Chapter 51
Morgan
I t was over. After months of working towards this moment with my friends, both in and out of character, it was finished.
Fatima had done a wonderful job with the finale of our arc, and to everyone else, the tears in my eyes probably made sense as a reaction to what we’d just been through, and the loss we’d nearly incurred. But when I chanced a look up at Jack, I knew that, as sad as that finale had been, neither of us was half as jarred by it as we were by what Jack and I had just done. God, was it wonderful and horrible at the same time; unadulterated bliss followed immediately by the cold shower of reality.
“How’s everyone feeling?” Fatima asked, reaching out to put a hand on my arm, her other hand clasping Grey’s.
“A bit overwhelmed,” Grey said. “Like, good, but also sad.”
“Well,” Fatima said, “let me read a little something I’ve prepared.” She cleared her throat and looked down at the notebook, which she’d opened to the first page.
“At court, not all is as it seems. And though the story of the brave adventurers who destroyed the Supremacy Sphere will pass into legend, there are new stories to explore and new evils to defeat.”
As Fatima continued, telling us about how the Adventurer’s Guild was being tasked with an even greater mission, I was only half-listening, because I knew it probably needed to be my last session. Yes, I had a lot of life changes happening. But for Jack’s sake, and my own, we probably did need to create that distance I’d mentioned earlier, and sooner rather than later. We clearly weren’t capable of maintaining it if we were still around each other.
And though I knew that was probably the right thing to do, he wasn’t the only one I’d come to love through this little group playing our silly game each week. I would miss Phil’s wit, and of course his brownies. I’d miss Fatima’s creativity and kindness. I’d miss Grey’s chaotic energy. And I’d miss Chloe most of all, though I also knew – or at least hoped – that saying goodbye to the group wouldn’t mean saying goodbye to her, even without sitting across a desk from her.
And then there was Jack, who kept trying to catch my eye. But there were too many things I’d miss about him to think of in the moment, and I couldn’t keep playing across from him, wanting him the way I did, if we couldn’t be together. If he wouldn’t take responsibility for his own future.
As Fatima finished setting the scene for what would be everyone else’s next adventure, I expected her to ask us all if we were planning to continue. Bless her, she probably assumed it was a given, and I’d have to bring down the vibe by bowing out.
“But before we talk about continuing,” Fatima said, and I looked up at her, surprised, “we’re going to have to move from Monday nights.”
“Wait, why?” Chloe asked. “We’ve been playing on Mondays for years.”
“Yeah,” Grey said, “what’s the deal? I’ve already written it down in my diary for the rest of the year. In pen, no less.”
But Fatima didn’t answer, instead turning her gaze to Jack. “Over to you, buddy.”
“Oh,” Jack said, clearly not prepared to say anything. “Okay, um…”
He trailed off, and his eyes found mine for a small moment, but I bailed, looking down at my character sheet instead, fixing my eyes on my atrociously low health, my leg bouncing up and down beneath the table.
“I’m starting a course,” he said, and I froze. “It’s on Monday and Wednesday nights. So, actually, we can’t do Wednesdays either. Hope that’s okay.”
“Wait, what?” Chloe asked.
“Hey, congrats, mate,” Phil said at the same time.
“Thanks,” Jack said to Phil.
“Hold on,” Chloe said, “what course? What are you talking about?”
“Uh, it’s actually an architecture course. Not a degree or anything, just a self-paced intro course with a tutor. Then I can go on to do the actual qualifying ones if I want.”
I looked up at the shy smile on Jack’s face. I could only imagine what my own face looked like.
“That’s so cool,” Phil said. “You can finally put all those scribbles to good use.”
“What about your dad?” I asked, not thinking about it until the words were already out of my mouth. They all turned to look at me, but I ignored them. I only cared about what Jack was saying. What it meant.
“Dad’s cool with it,” Jack said, meeting my gaze. “Or, he will be. He knows it’s what I want.”
It’s what I want. Those four words were so innocent, so simple, and yet they were a tsunami wave crashing over me as I blinked at Jack. Two weeks ago, he hadn’t even been able to admit that he didn’t want the future he’d laid out for himself. Now, all of a sudden, he not only knew what he wanted he’d actually signed up for a course. Talked to his dad. Made a schedule. The number of steps he had to have taken in the last three bloody weeks to be able to say those words?
I didn’t know what to think.
“Well, I can do Tuesdays,” Grey offered. “Or Thursdays, for that matter.”
“Thursdays are better for me,” Chloe said.
“Fine by me,” Phil added.
They all looked at me; now was the moment. I needed to tell them I couldn’t do it. But Jack caught my eye again, and I found I couldn’t do it. Those four words had changed everything, and I was at a loss.
“Thursdays are great,” I said, too mesmerised by the way Jack’s eyes crinkled at the edges to listen to the voice in my head insisting this was a bad idea.
“Great,” Fatima said, closing the notebook. “Thursdays it is. Now I don’t know about you all, but I’m fucking exhausted.”
“Hear, hear,” Phil said.
“Huzzah!” Grey cheered.
As the rest of the table got up, Phil patting Jack on the shoulder and congratulating him, I focused in on my bare feet against the cold hardwood floor. Surely, if I concentrated hard enough, I’d be able to actually feel the earth shifting beneath them. The tectonic event that was tonight must have been registering on some Richter scale, somewhere.
“Sorry,” Jack said, suddenly the only one left at the table. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”
I didn’t say anything, focused on the way the corners of his mouth kept trying to twitch up into a smile, only to falter and drop back into a straight line.
“And I’m sorry about earlier, too,” he said, then quickly added, “actually, no I’m not, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry about it.”
“You’re not?” I asked, frowning.
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d crawl under this table and between your legs right now if I thought you wanted me to.”
My mouth went dry, and the space he’d filled in me earlier throbbed in response, and I gulped to try to silence the traitorous feeling. That was the last thing I needed right now.
“But I heard you,” Jack said. “I believe you. If you tell me it’s over, then I get it. I don’t want it to be, but I understand.”
All of a sudden I was struggling to breathe. I pressed my hands hard into one another under the table to try to steady myself.
“This is what I meant earlier,” he said, and even the word “earlier” sent a tingle down my spine. But the smile was gone from his face now. “When I said you were right? That wasn’t just talk. It wasn’t just an apology. I’m actually doing something about it. And you deserve to know that. Because even if you don’t want to be with me anymore, you helped me get there. And I’ll always?—”
His voice broke, but he swallowed hard and carried on, a bit slower, over-enunciating his words.
“I’ll always appreciate that you were brave enough to show me.”
And with that, he pushed away from the table and left, wiping at his face as he did. And I just sat there for ages, staring at the space he’d occupied. The chair he’d been sitting in when he pulled the rug out from under my best laid plans.
* * *
I lay awake all night, twiddling the crystal Amy had given me between my fingers, replaying everything that had happened. And not just in the dining room; at the gala, at my house, in the bathroom … there was exactly zero chance of me getting any sleep.
I ended up on the sofa at 2am , drinking chamomile tea – a habit I’d picked up from Jack – and drawing him the way I knew he would look the next day, with that cooked crown and sexy jerkin. (If Past Morgan had ever known that Present Morgan would use “sexy” and “jerkin” together, she would have mocked her mercilessly.) And as his face came to life on my screen, with his green eyes and chiselled jaw, I knew what he’d been saying to me at the table. Jack cared about what I thought. He trusted me. And I was pretty sure he still loved me.
If anyone but Jack had told me that I’d been letting others dictate my life, I wouldn’t have listened. I probably would have brushed it off when he’d first implied it if I hadn’t already been thinking about it myself. Even Cara; despite hanging on her every word for years, I wouldn’t have taken it to heart. I certainly wouldn’t have upended my entire life over it like I had now.
But Jack had upended his life, too, it turned out. I’d broken up with him, pretended to be fine without him, and then had one last shag before putting the final nail in the coffin of our relationship. Yet he’d still taken what I’d said, what I wanted for him, to heart so much that he was upsetting his career and his family dynamic. It made me love him even more.
And it made me hate the way I’d acted, too. When he’d told me to choose him without knowing if he would change anything? I was pretty sure he’d been right. That I should have done it.
Part of me wondered, in fact, if it was too late to do it now.
It was clear as the day that was breaking outside my window that I wanted him, and I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t screwed everything up beyond repair. I thought about the life that he was going to build now – training to become an architect, finally bringing his creativity to life, not living under his family’s thumb – and I knew that I wanted to be there for that. I wanted to be a part of his story, and I wanted him to be a part of mine. And I wanted him to know it.
What I didn’t want was to crawl back to him and pretend like the last two weeks hadn’t happened. Because actually, as embarrassed as I was that I’d so vehemently shut him down before hearing him out, I knew that all of that fallout had to have happened to get us to where we were. If we hadn’t broken up, maybe he wouldn’t be taking the next steps towards his own dreams. I probably wouldn’t have been taking mine, either. And to quietly sweep everything we’d been through under the rug would be a disservice to both of us. To how much we wanted for ourselves, and for each other. To how much we loved one another.
He said I’d been brave for showing him the truth. So now I needed to be brave in how I showed him my truth: that I loved him. And as the sun peeked over the horizon, I knew just how to do that.
I literally startled myself when the idea came to me, my tea spilling all over my tablet, which was face-down on my lap. I jumped up and got a tea towel from the kitchen, wiping it clean, taking the case off to make sure it was okay. And as soon as I knew it was safe, I set it aside, pulled out my phone, and started typing. I had a lot to do.