Before You

“Thank you.” His eyes were filling with emotion, and it made everything inside me ache harder. “I’m still so fucking sorry, Billie.”

“I know.”

He wiped the bottom of his lids, keeping his voice low. “I wish I could take it back. All of it.”

“I believe you.”

I knew that sounded crazy after I called him a liar, but it was an honest response, and I had a feeling he could tell.

He ran his hand down his beard as though he were drying his whole face. “Come flying with me.”

“Oh God.” My fingers went to my throat to work some of the air through, and I pushed my back against the brick. “Don’t ask me that, Jared.” I shook my head back and forth, feeling the tears brim my eyes again.

I’d come so far, and I had been gearing myself up for that moment, but I still wasn’t there. And hearing that question was like seeing an old friend, which was the part that hurt the most.

He tapped himself in the chest with his thumb. “I’m supposed to be there with you.” He did it again when he took a breath. “I’m supposed to make sure you’re okay up there.”

My bottom lip trembled.

My shoulders quivered.

I wanted that, and I knew I shouldn’t.

And it was a feeling I couldn’t even begin to process.

“Jesus Christ, come here,” he said, and he reached forward so fast, pulling me against him.

I felt the coffee drop from my hand. I circled my arms around his body, burying my face in his chest, and I hugged him.

And while I squeezed, I lost everything.

The pent-up emotions.

The sleepless nights.

The anxiety.

The hopelessness.

And while he held me back, I was reminded of why I loved this man so much. How he’d protected me in his own selfish way. How he’d made me believe no one else existed. How he’d shown me a love I’d never felt before. One that I’d probably never feel again.

I soaked it all in, conflicted in a way that made me grasp him harder, filling my nose with his scent. And as I tightened my grip, I memorized the way this moment felt. Every single second of it, especially the ones where his lips were kissing the top of my head. And when I knew my heart couldn’t take any more, I pulled back, my body slowly unraveling from his.

With Jared no longer blanketing me, I was instantly hit with an icy breeze.

Before we were completely separated, he grabbed my hand, our fingers lacing together until those slowly dropped apart too.

“Don’t tell me this is the last time we’re going to see each other.”

As my gaze circled his beautiful, tortured face, I thought of my parents, how even after all of these years, my father was still so in love with my mother. He had dated in the past and was in a relationship now, but none of the women meant to him what my mom had.

That was what happened when you found your soul mate.

You loved them forever.

The same way I would love Jared.

That was what made this so fucking hard to say. “I’m not ready for more. I … can’t. I don’t know when. I just … don’t know.”

The torment in his eyes lightened a little, the emotion lifting from his voice. “I can accept that, Billie.”

Before things had advanced between us, I never understood why he was always leaving me in places when it felt like our conversation was just getting started. When I’d learned his reasoning, it made perfect sense.

And it was the same way I felt right now.

If I stayed in this spot for one second more, my mouth was going to be on his. I wasn’t ready for that. I needed to heal, I needed to find some resolution within myself, and I couldn’t do that if he was a present fixture in my life.

As much as it hurt, I reached forward, my thumb gently grazing the side of his lip, like my fingers were kissing him instead. His whiskers roughed up my skin, and I whispered, “Good-bye, Jared.”

I felt his eyes on me as I walked away from the coffee shop, and I heard him say my name as I made it another step. When he voiced it again, I pressed a finger against each of my ears, similarly to how I had blocked the noise on the plane, and I kept moving deeper into Greenwich Village.

Jared wasn’t the loudest sound I’d ever heard, but his voice caused my chest to ache the worst.