“Nothing!”
“I just want to know what’s in your heart, Rose. Jesus, just fucking tell me!”
“PAIN! OKAY! PAIN and… fear! The worst pain you can imagine and fear that I will never, ever, get over it no matter how hard I mask it.” I looked down at the ground, afraid to meet his eyes. “And even with all these jagged pieces he left… you, you’re here, too.” I pounded my chest with my closed hand. “And you don’t fit, or you weren’t supposed to, but somehow you’re making all those pieces smoother and easier to carry around. I can’t love you both and be fair to either of you. I have no idea how to do it.”
A long silence followed as he studied me. I did my best to keep from looking at him, hurt coursing through my every limb.
“He’s dead,” Jack concluded as I snapped my head up to meet his gaze head on with a slow, small nod. Tears streamed down my face one by one, and I wiped them away quickly. Jack took a step back as shock covered features studied me.
“Jesus, Rose… I’m sorry.” He stayed where he was as he stood looking at me like they all did when they found out. I hated that look. I never wanted to see it on Jack’s face.
“When?”
“Almost three years ago.” Tears I didn’t bother to catch poured freely now that I’d confessed all. “He died a week before our wedding. This house—” I pointed behind me “—was supposed to be ours. We fell in love on this land, and it belonged to him.” Jack stood motionless, watching me. “Every day I live in what was supposed to be our life. So don’t credit me for being a strong woman who moved on with her life because every night I’m cowering in that fucking house, afraid to let go, afraid if I move on too far, I’ll forget him. And between the fear of forgetting him and wanting to give you the biggest part of me, I don’t know what to do. I didn’t want to fall in love again, Jack. Doing that somehow feels like I’m diminishing his memory or what we had, and I can’t…do that to him.” I braced myself as I told him the rest. “His name was Grant…” I watched him closely. “Foster.” He physically flinched when he put it all together. “I didn’t want you to know, Jack, and I wanted to keep it that way, just for a while longer.”
“I thought he was a family friend,” Jack said incredulously. “Jesus,” he said, swiping his hand down his face, his jaw set. “Why?”
“Because,” I said, taking a step forward as he took one back. I flinched as the pain spread throughout my chest. “For the first time since he died, I had a personal relationship that had nothing to do with him, and I wanted to keep it that way. I’m sorry.”
“So I was what? A way for you to test the waters?”
“More than that, damn you… Jack, stop it! You know how I feel. You’ve known. You’re the only man I’ve been with since he died. We don’t get a goddamn handbook, you know. I’m winging it here.”
We stood facing each other, every piece of each other bared to the other, and though I felt a small amount of relief in Jack knowing, it was also tearing me apart. It was ruining what we had, and I could feel the imminent loss of us.
An endless and unbearable silence followed as he watched me. The stillness between us was a heavy weight in my chest as I waited with bated breath.
“You’re afraid you’ll love me less.” He sighed, defeated.
“No,” I said, pushing my shoulders back as I admitted my biggest fear. “I’m afraid I’ll love you more.” He took a step toward me, and I saw all the love in his eyes dim as I cowered away. “And that would mean I was wrong about Grant and the way we felt and what we had.”
Jack watched me crumble as I tried my best to keep from shaking. It felt like years of bottled emotions were coming out at once, the anger of my loss, the fact that I had to hide my pain after the ‘allotted’ amount of time to grieve, and also the fact that I’d let myself get wrapped up in another man. I couldn’t shake the fucking guilt that I knew was keeping me from moving on with him.
“Or maybe he just died, Rose, and there’s no rhyme or good reason, and the man you’re supposed to be with is standing right in front of you, losing his goddamned mind because he’s competing with a ghost. You don’t have to make a choice between us.”
“That’s not true,” I said as I let out a small sob. “I’ve been holding on to him for so long, Jack, I have no idea how to let go.” We stood and stared at each other, every part of me begging for release of the guilt I’d inflicted upon myself, yet every bit of my words to Jack were the absolute truth. I was afraid to love him for so many more reasons other than just forgetting Grant. I was terrified of losing it all over again. And yet, as I stood watching, him I knew that fear was already becoming reality. I was in love with him, totally, utterly, and completely, but I was losing him with every word I spoke. He looked behind me, studying the house, and I didn’t have to ask to know what he was thinking. I had barricaded myself in my love for Grant, in my loss, and rebuilt my life around him, not without him. I made no room for anyone else. It had never seemed so damning for me until that very moment.
I saw Jack’s decision before he spoke, but I spoke first. “No.”
“I can’t do this,” he said as he turned toward his truck and looked back at me briefly. “I’m sorry, I can’t. My chest can
’t take it, baby. You knocked the wind out of me again, and I’m not going to stand here and wait for you to rip the rest of me apart.”
“Jack, please don’t leave,” I said weakly.
“I can’t stay here and watch you throw us away. Tell your father and the family I said goodbye.”
“Jack, please don’t leave like this.” I was sobbing now as he looked me over and took a step toward me, cupped my face and slid his thumbs along my cheeks. “My being here is tearing you apart, too, and as selfish as I feel right now, I hate seeing you cry. Don’t cry, baby. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so fucking insensitive.”
“Don’t be sorry. I should have told you,” I said as a fresh wound opened and my heart bled freely before him. “Don’t leave, Jack.”
“God, Rose, all I wanted to do was make you happy. I wanted in, but I had no idea what I was up against. I can’t make you mine if you’ve already decided you belong to someone else. I can’t stay, not like this, wondering if I ever had a real piece of you, fighting a battle you tell me I’ve already lost. You don’t belong to me, and I can’t handle it. I’m too far gone and I’ve made a goddamned fool of myself.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“What for?” He looked at me with unshed tears in his eyes. “I fell in love with a beautiful woman worthy of it. I’m not sorry.” He leaned in and kissed me. Just as the kiss deepened, I gripped him to me desperately. He pulled away, making our separation unbearable.
Jack looked at me for a long moment before he kissed my tear soaked lips one last time and climbed into his truck. I banged on his window as I begged. “Jack, please don’t drive!”