The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

We stood studying each other for long moments, and I could feel Jack slip away from me. I wanted magic words, but there weren’t any. I felt the last pieces of my heartbreak as he offered me nothing.

“I’m not a man who can play second fiddle.”

“And if you weren’t so damned blind right now, you would see that you aren’t. I’m not her. And you aren’t him. And we both have to let go of the past to be together.”

Jack snapped back as if I’d just slapped him.

“I can’t erase your past any more than you can erase mine. I’m not asking you to. I want to keep it. All of it, even the part that almost ended me. I’m not broken, and neither are you.”

“How did you know?”

“You woke up one day and changed your entire life, your career path. I knew something must’ve happened to push you into it. We’re see-through, you and me, when we’re together. I’ve known you were keeping something from me, too. You were just better at hiding it.”

Jack nodded.

“Tell me.”

He remained quiet as I waited.

“Jack, just tell—”

“She was my first mate,” he said in a whisper as he looked through me into his past. “The first person to really talk to me when my face was… the way it was,” he said, circling his finger over his lip. “She just ignored it, like it didn’t matter, and eventually it stopped mattering. I was eight.”

I stood silently as he continued.

“She was the first hand I held, the first kiss, she was my first everything. She taught me how to dance, and we used to explore the swamps together. As we got older, we planned trips everywhere, all over the globe. She seemed to want it just as much as I did. She was passionate about it, about everything. She was my childhood in a way.” He cleared his throat as emotion choked him.

“We grew up, I fell in love with her, and remained devoted, but she pulled away and declared us life-long friends.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked over to my window and peered through the blinds at the party. “And so I waited for her to come back to me. But she didn’t. She kept falling head first for asshole after asshole, and when they left her in pieces, I would pick them up.”

I stood silent, scared, so much so I was unable to go to him, my heart heavy as lead as his voice turned to gravel.

“One morning I woke up, drove to her apartment”—my stomach dropped—“but there were too many pieces.”

“Oh my God,” I said as I gripped my chest.

“I know exactly how you feel,” he said as he turned to me suddenly. “I’ve lived it, lived through it. I know that a brief explanation of what a person meant to you and how they died doesn’t begin to cover it for the person who lost them.” He took a fist and hit his chest. “I know this pain.”

Words failed me completely as I stared at him in shock.

“I’m not a complete bastard, Rose. I’m dying a little each day without you. I just don’t know how to handle this because I have lived it. I know what you’re battling. I know how you feel… about him, how you will always feel. And now I know why you’re so scared to love me. But mostly, I don’t know if I’m the right man to walk in his shadow.”

I nodded as the tear across my chest increased tenfold and my throat stung unbearably.

“I have to go,” he said as he looked at me with regret. There was absolutely nothing I could do for him. His insecurity and jealousy stemmed from a deep scar he’d suffered long ago. Just as my paranoia and panic about his wellbeing had moved me to act irrationally and had pushed him away.

There was no quick remedy for our fears: my fear of losing and his fear of rejection.

I could tell him how amazing he was, how perfectly we fit. I could tell him how much I wanted him every day, how good he made me feel, but I knew it would be in vain. He’d been there right along with me. I couldn’t force him to believe in what we had. He had to come to that conclusion on his own.

I couldn’t stand to watch him leave me a second time so I made my way to the door, my back to him, keeping my tears inside. I could fall apart all on my own. I’d perfected the art.

“I’m not sorry, not for any of it,” I said softly. “No matter what decision you make, I’ll never regret giving you my heart. You’re the only man in the world I want to have it.” I looked back at him, freely saying the words that felt so right. “I love you, Jack.” I looked at him for another few seconds, both scared and beautiful, as he watched me but no decision came. “Love doesn’t have to hurt to be real. You reminded me of that.”

I closed the door behind me and walked back to the party. Minutes later, as I reluctantly danced with the new lab tech underneath a blanket of Jack’s stars, I watched him leave through the doors where I met him.

“I feeled it move, Aunt Wose,” Grant reported as he wiggled his fishing pole. “I have a fish?”