To cry for the incredible way he worshiped me, all while cursing me.
To get on my knees for more. For always. For eternity.
But it had all been a lie.
A horrible, horrible lie.
He’s…gone.
How could he?
How did I not see it coming?
Why did I keep letting him kill me piece by stupid piece?
An hour ago, I’d been wary but hopefully. Content but grateful. Ready to face the man I loved and bargain with him for a life together.
The temple in the bay glittered with golden sunshine as I’d searched for him, looking like an alter for gods not ghosts. I could’ve floated across the turquoise water to give an offering—that was how tentatively happy I’d been.
I hadn’t worried when I’d found an empty bed beside me.
I didn’t grow concerned when I couldn’t find him.
After all, Jacob was reliable. He had employment here, and he wouldn’t let people down just because we’d lived an impossibility last night.
I didn’t expect him to interrupt his life for me. He was a fisherman. He had responsibilities, and I loved that he upheld those responsibilities as diligently as he upheld them at Cherry River.
Last night, Jacob had given in to us. He’d accepted that I loved him. He’d willingly asked for contact and kisses and a connection as old as time.
That was the hardest part, wasn’t it?
He’d crossed the biggest hurdle. We’d been together. His body in my body. His heart against my heart.
Surely, he would find it simple to accept the rest. To see that being alive meant celebrating togetherness, claiming your soul-mate, and loving your best-friend.
Those thoughts kept me trusting as I stood in the warm shallows, daydreaming of a future with horses and husbands, smiling at the boats twinkling in the distance, imagining Jacob on one.
I’d wait all day if I had to. I’d be there when he sailed home, glittering in fish scales and dusted in sea salt, and I’d kiss him so, so deep. I’d prepare a meal for him, I’d bathe him, listen to him, laugh with him, then fall into his arms and his bed.
There was nowhere else I wanted to be.
The beach mirrored back the tentative newness inside me. The sand soft and white, the sky crisp and clear. The world had been washed clean, ready to inscribe anything we wanted.
And in a way, the storm washed away my own transgressions.
I’d cried when I’d called Michael.
I’d felt so dirty breaking up with him on a crackly line with thunder booming overhead. My guilt hung heavy on my shoulders for hurting him.
I’d been a terrible person even as I broke up with him because he deserved someone better—someone who hadn’t given their heart away when they were ten years old. I’d been a lousy girlfriend and deserved to repent.
I was willing to pay that price.
But I didn’t think the cost would be higher than I could pay.
Standing on that beach with a fantastical future within my grasp, karma decided I wasn’t worthy. That I deserved punishment…for everything.
The Balinese man Jacob had fished with yesterday tapped me on the shoulder, ripping apart my daydreams.
I’d spun around with a gentle smile, serene and calm…trusting.
Stupidly, stupidly trusting.
And that was when it happened.
When I died.
When I stopped hoping.
When I stopped existing.
My heart that had already been fractured far too many times thanks to Jacob, broke for good.
Snap.
Just like that.
All the little cracks here and little cracks there were too weak to weather another blow.
I’d given him my everything last night. I’d fought the inevitable for as long as I could. I’d asked him not to make me do it. I’d warned him what would happen if he took me.
But he hadn’t listened.
He’d taken me, destroyed me…and now…he’d left me.
Left me to the rubble and ruin proving, once and for all, I was still a stupid little girl with stupid little hopes who would never earn a happily ever after with Jacob Ren Wild.
The local fisherman hunched his shoulders with reluctance, pitied me as my smile fell, and then swung a spiritual sledgehammer into my heart.
“Sunyi gone home. Isn’t coming back. He tell me take you to hotel. We leave now.”
I almost buckled to the sand.
I switched from whole to fragmented, tinkling with tiny broken pieces.
I had nothing left. I’d tried everything. I’d held him close and given him all I had to give. I’d hurt others. I’d left my job, my life, my world all to be worthy of him.
And it still wasn’t enough.
Those pieces tumbled to my toes, utterly irreparable.
There would be no more sticky-tape. No glue strong enough in the world to fix what he’d done.
Jacob had gone.
Without a word.
Without a goodbye.
He’d hurt me for the last time.
I was no longer a friend turned lover. I was an unwanted woman in a village where I knew no one, abandoned by the boy she’d pinned all her hopes on.