She stands and comes to me then. Sitting next to me, she places her hand on my cheek. A single tear falls down her face before more start flowing. “I love you and I will always love you. You gave me so much and made me feel things I never imagined I would ever feel in my life.” She wipes her tears. “I just want you to be happy, Luke. Promise me you’ll find a way to be happy.”
Fuck.
I grip her arms. “Callie, don’t do this. You’re what makes me happy. I need you.”
She nods. “I know, and I need you, but I also need to stick to what I believe is the right thing. And pushing the truth aside in favour of personal gain is not the right thing to me.”
She leans forward and presses her lips to mine. Her kiss is slow, almost hesitant. It’s not a passionate kiss like all the ones we’ve shared before. This is a goodbye kiss. It’s over before my mind can even catch up. When she stands, she looks at me like she already misses me and says, “Goodbye, Luke.”
Shock pulses through my body as I watch her leave. I want to go after her and beg her to change her mind, but I’m paralysed.
I can’t breathe.
Jolene finally stole my breath.
34
Callie
I watch Jolene walk towards me while doing my best not to think about her husband. Walking away from Luke last night was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I spent the night crying. Sleep eluded me in favour of heartbreak and tears. The fact he didn’t come after me just about killed me. It sure as hell shattered my heart. But I should have expected it. If there is something Luke excels at, it is digging his heels in when he’s made a decision. The fact I share that trait seems to have determined our fate before we even got started.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Jolene says after she sits across from me. I’ve visited her twice now and any inroads I’ve made to gain her trust appear to have been destroyed. The woman across from me has her armour fitted tight once again.
“Luke certainly tried to stop me from coming back.” I’m in a weird mood with her today. I can’t help but feel some resentment towards her, and yet I don’t want to feel that. I believe in her innocence enough to know any bitterness would be misguided. But if I wasn’t here trying to help her, Luke and I would still be together.
She doesn’t respond to that. In fact, she doesn’t speak again for a few minutes. I get the distinct impression she doesn’t want to be doing this with me today. “I don’t understand you. You’re dating my husband? Why didn’t you tell me? And why are you trying to help me if you’re with him?”
I sigh. I struggle to understand myself, too. “I didn’t tell you because that would just have made an odd situation really weird. When I told you I wanted to help you, I meant it. I didn’t go looking for this—it came to me. And I can’t walk away even if I wanted to.”
She shakes her head. “Why? Most people would.”
“I believe in the truth. I’m flawed like everyone and might not always choose it, but I try to fight for it.”
“We have shades of truth, Callie. People twist the truth to suit themselves. And sometimes they completely fuck with it.” She is so broken it bleeds through her words and causes me to flinch. I’ve never had my life ripped apart by lies so I know I can’t fully understand her, but I can feel her torment.
I don’t know what to say to that so I say nothing.
Jolene leans forward. When she asks her next question, her voice cracks. “Does my husband love you?”
I inhale sharply. “Yes.”
Her eyes close and she takes a few quick breaths before opening them again. “And you love him?”
I nod as I swallow hard. “Yes.”
She stares at me. “How?”
“How what?”
“How did you two meet? How did you get together? How long has it been going on for?” Her face crumples as she continues. “How did my husband give up on me so easily?” No tears fall. I’m not sure Jolene has it in her to cry anymore, but the agony she’s in is clear as day from the way she hugs herself to the way she’s fighting to control her emotions.
My lip quivers as I take in her hurt. Tears threaten at the back of my eyes and I force out a breath in an effort to hold back those tears. I don’t even know where to start to try and explain to a wife how her husband moved on. In the end, I just start with her questions. “I met Luke over a year ago when he took over the bar where I was a customer. Nothing happened between us until just over four months ago when our friendship changed into something more.” I avoid her other question because it’s not my place to even go there. That’s between her and Luke.
She stares at me, her breaths coming fast. “I lost Luke a long time ago. I know that, but I always held onto the hope that we’d be able to find our way back to each other. I thought he loved me as much as I love him.”
It’s funny how the story behind a relationship is different depending on which person in the relationship you talk to. Luke thinks Jolene doesn’t know how to love and yet here she is telling me she thinks she loved him more than he ever loved her.
Talking about Luke with his wife is one of the strangest experiences