The Soulmate Equation

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Jess reminded him. “We were already so much more than a number on a piece of paper. And if you’d come to me, you would have had someone in your corner, ready to fight anyone who hurt you. Ready to fight for you.”

“I didn’t even know how to understand it in my own mind. I—I—” He struggled to find the words, sitting up and looking at her in earnest. “I didn’t leave my office for days. I pored through every line of data from every Gold or higher pairing we’ve had. Sanjeev and I reran samples twenty-four hours a day to make sure the company wasn’t going to have to fold.”

“You still could have called.”

He opened his mouth to defend himself and then exhaled, tilting his face to the ceiling before meeting her eyes. “I could have. I should have. I’m sorry, Jess. Time just flies for me when I’m like this. But I’ve only been home to shower and change.”

She couldn’t help but let her gaze rise, studying his new haircut.

He shook his head, understanding immediately. “I got a haircut just before coming to see you.”

“So you could look handsome for our breakup?”

Abruptly, River stood. “Is that what you think this is?”

Jess let out a sharp breath. “I’m sorry, what?”

“We’re breaking up?” he asked, voice tight.

“What are the other options?” She pretended to check her watch. “I mean, it’s a little late for our standing sex date, and it’s been a weird week, but why not, for old times’—”

“Jess,” he rasped, “stop it.”

She crossed the room and got right up in his face. “You stop it. Why are you even here? I get that you needed space. But I fell in love with you. Juno fell in love with you.” He reacted like he’d taken a shove to the stomach, and Jess pushed on. “Do you know what that means?” She pressed her fingertips to her chest, mortified when her throat started to burn. “I opened my life to you. I gave you the power to gut me if you disappeared, and you knew that, and you did it anyway. I understand that you were struggling, too. But just a word—a text—and I would have waited.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I wish I’d handled it differently. I fucked up.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.” He bowed his head. “I didn’t know how you’d feel once you weren’t obligated to be with me.”

That pulled her up short. “River, I never felt obligated to be with you. Not the way that we were together by the end.”

He took a step closer, growling, “Stop calling it the end.”

“I don’t understand what you think is happening here! You don’t get to drop off the face of the earth for a week and then act confused.”

“Do you remember what you said to me the last time we saw each other?” he asked, closing the distance between them. “You said, ‘Statistics can’t tell us what will happen, they can only tell us what might happen.’ And you were right. A Diamond Match is so rare that two random people are ten thousand times more likely to find their soulmate with a Base Match than they are to ever score above a ninety with someone else.”

“I could have told you that,” Jess said quietly, adding with a reluctant smile, “And I bet you didn’t even use the right analysis to calculate it.”

He laughed dryly. “I guess I needed to see it for myself.”

Jess couldn’t help but give him an exasperated look.

Tentatively, he smiled. But it ebbed away in the face of her stony silence. “Do you really want to break up?”

Jess had no idea what to say to that. She hadn’t expected to be given the option. She’d thought it was a done deal. “I didn’t, but, I mean—”

“It’s a yes or no,” he said, but gently, reaching forward to take her hand. “And for me the answer is a no. I love you. I love Juno. I needed to get my head on straight, but once I did, the first person I wanted to talk to was you.”

“About a week ago,” Jess said, “my mom called. She was drunk at a friend’s house in Vista. I had to drive up to get her on a school night, walk into a house full of fucked-up people with my seven-year-old, and give my mother ten thousand dollars so she could avoid being arrested for stealing a huge amount of merchandise.”

River paled. “What?”

“I told her that if I gave her the money, she was never to contact me or Juno again. When I came home to get my head on straight, the first person I wanted to talk to was you. But I didn’t have that option.”

To his credit, River didn’t wince or frown or tense his jaw defensively. He just swallowed, nodded once, and absorbed it. “I should have been here. I hate that I wasn’t.”