I LOOKED OVER AT SID, but she was still turned toward her window. Her entire body was twisted away from me.
I fucked up.
When I checked my phone at my agent’s office, I couldn’t believe how much time had passed. It felt like a few minutes, not over two hours. When I saw all her texts and missed calls, a sense of foreboding sat like a weight on me. I immediately called her, listened to it ring, trepidation filling me by the time she answered. “I’m so sorry, Sid. I’m going to be right there.” Silence filled the air until finally I heard her take a deep breath.
“Okay, see you soon.”
Sidney’s voice sounded wrong, too hard, too brittle. Nothing of the sassy tone she normally gave me. By the time I picked her up, I was a wreck. My hair stood on end from how many times I’d run my hand through it, but she just got into the truck, giving me a small smile. I asked about her interview, and she seemed genuinely excited about how it went. She was so understanding when I said I lost track of time. Too understanding. Fuck.
I tried to meet her gaze, but she kept her face turned to the window. She looked tired, and I drove faster to get back to my place. I was going to worship her tonight. Make her feel everything that I couldn’t figure out how to say.
When we pulled up to the house, she was the first out of the car, but she waited for me. Her eyes didn’t meet mine, and my breath constricted in my chest. She held out her hand, and I followed her to my room. Sid didn’t sit on the bed. Instead, she stood in front of me and leaned her head against my chest. She trembled in my arms, and I squeezed them tighter, trying to hold us together. “I’m right here, Sidney. Talk to me.”
I slid my hand over her cheek and gently tipped her face up.
“I’m…” Her breath caught. “I can’t… I can’t keep doing this.” She straightened her shoulders, pushing back, and a hard look crossed her face. “This is why we promised to end at the end of the semester.”
I stepped back from her. “First, I never promised a goddamn thing—especially not that. Second, we still have time. I’d think if you feel the way you say, you’d want to spend all the time we have left together. That’s certainly how I fucking feel.”
My chest felt like it was crumbling in on itself. My voice came out in a plea as I circled her arms lightly with my hands. “Tell me what you need. Tell me what I could do. I’ll do it, Sid. I’ll fucking do it.”
I knew this was real. She was just spooked. Everything about us was overwhelming but worth it.
She inhaled a deep breath, and I could faintly see her quietly counting. One, two, three before she stepped back. My hands hesitated, but they let her go.
She rubbed her palms over her face, pulling the hair out of her bun, and stared at me with tears in her eyes. Her voice was laced with a desperate kind of anger. “I’m such an idiot. I knew this would happen.” Her words broke on a sob.
“Sid, I’m sorry. I just lost track of time. It won’t happen again.”
She laughed, but there was nothing funny about it. “Jax, I knew this would happen, just like I knew it would happen again. I can’t do this.”
Panic froze the air in my lungs, and I struggled to breathe, my words coming out hoarse. “It won’t. I promise it won’t. I’m so freaking sorry for forgetting to pick you up, but I promise it won’t happen again.”
She sniffed, and for the briefest of moments, I thought she was going to say it was fine, that nothing had changed, but what she said next fucking broke me.
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and her lips trembled. “You broke number five. Shattered it into a million little pieces I’ll never be able to put back together.”
It was like a shotgun to the chest, sending pain radiating from my heart out through my body, and my lungs collapsed as I processed her words. She loved me. She fucking loved me. “I can fix this.”
“It’s not yours to fix. This isn’t something we power through. I thought I could do this. I thought…”
My heart was catching on her words, hoping she would change them. “I thought I could handle this… but I can’t.”
Every reason I could think of that this was stupid flooded my head. It was one time, I wouldn’t forget again, I’d do better. But then she took another slow step back, holding her hand up, and I stopped myself from responding.
“It’s not going to be enough, Jax. Your life will be full of amazing things, but it’s not the life I want to live.”
I shook my head in frustration, needing to make her understand. “I want all of those things too. We can make it work. You said you’d try.” My hands tightened at my sides. “Don’t you understand? You’re already in… you’re… inside my skin. Inside my chest. Inside my lungs. Deep within my bones, my heart, my soul. I fucking love you, Sidney.”
Anguish flashed across her face. “What if you’re meant to leave? What if this isn’t a love story but a tragedy?”
“I’m not leaving you. I’m going to Boston, but I’m not going anywhere. You’re the one trying to end this.”
Her eyes met mine. There were tears pooling, ready to spill, but her shoulders were set in determination. “I’m not going to be able to make the concessions required to make this work. I need certain things in my future, and one of those things is someone to come home to. There are plenty of women who would be okay with you being gone throughout the season, but I would be miserable.”
She clenched her hands together to hide them, shaking. “I won’t be the reason you feel guilty about doing what you love.” Her jaw clenched, and I knew what was coming before she said it. “This is over. We’re over. I need this to be a clean break. There’s only Professor Carter’s final exam left, and we both know we’re ready for it. I’m sorry. I need this to stop.”
Her words vibrated through my head. This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. I stepped toward her, then another and another. She didn’t move, but she also didn’t lean into me.
“I’m ripping my fucking heart out trying to decide between being here with you or with my team.” I backed her into the wall. “I can’t have both, and the idea of giving one up is fucking devastating.” Cupping the sides of her face, I captured her mouth in a hungry kiss. I pulled away, sucking in breaths, and tried to breathe through the pain. “Fuck, Sidney, why? Why can’t we just give it a shot? Why did it have to be all or nothing? I can’t accept it. My heart won’t let me.” My fingers trembled on her skin, the world crumbling around me. I didn’t look away.
But she did. “It’s not your decision, Jax. It’s mine. You don’t need to choose between the game and me. You just have to let me go.” The crack in her voice lanced through my heart.
I slid my hands down her arms and laced our fingers together. I tipped my forehead down to rest on hers and dragged in shaky breaths. Each inhale felt like a dagger sinking into my chest. She’s leaving me. Desperately, I searched for some other option, some way that we could reverse tonight and pretend that it didn’t happen. Somehow I got to keep her in my life. Keep this feeling of finally reaching happiness. Squeezing my eyes shut, I breathed in her citrusy scent for maybe the last time and closed my grip on her fingers, pleading with her. “Come with me.”
I could see her heart breaking in her eyes and released her hands to wipe her loose tears with my thumbs, gently cupping her face.
“Please…” My voice cracked.
Sid stiffened, and her shoulders shook, and I kissed down the side of her face, trying to calm her as she took deep, hiccupping breaths. Her heart pounded against me, and she was staring with so much anguish I knew she felt the same. She knew how remarkable what we had was. That separating would be a special kind of torture, but it didn’t stop her from straightening in my arms as if steeling herself.
Her fingers glided over my face, thumbs smoothing out my brows, knuckles dragging across my lips. Her gaze took in every detail as I did the same to her. I memorized the patterns of her freckles, the perfect green hue of her eyes, the slight puffiness of her lips. I stared back into her, and I could see what was coming. She wasn’t going to let me avoid it this time. There were no more extensions, no more mercy.
“This was a mistake—”
Fuck no. I crashed my mouth into hers, cutting off her words. “Whether it’s a lifetime or a moment, not a second of what’s between us could ever be a mistake. Love is moment to moment. It’s not dependent on how much longer you’re together, and I fucking love you, Sidney. It’s going to hurt like hell, but it’ll have been worth it.”
I pressed my lips to hers and tried to get lost in her kiss, washing away everything that was to come—wanting to feel everything that she was—never wanting to stop. I slid her against the wall as she angrily kissed me with sharp nips and bites. Her fingers dug into my hair as she pulled me into her, and she desperately reached for my shirt, pulling it up over my head. Our kisses were frantic, knowing when we stopped, it ended forever. The thought stopped me cold and sent shards of ice through my veins. It would end. It was ending.
I sucked in a shaky breath and stepped back, straightening her shirt. The realization that I couldn’t stop her from tearing us apart carved into my chest. She was going to go off and be amazing, and one day, she would meet her perfect guy who wasn’t always on the road, and they would have their 2.5 kids and live in their house in the suburbs, and I couldn’t take that from her. She deserved to be happy, even when it was crushing me.
Cradling her head in my hands, I wiped her tears with my thumbs and searched her eyes for any other way. She stared at me, looking as desperate as I felt. I needed to let her go. She was begging me to let her be happy. I took a steady breath. “Okay, Sidney. Okay.” My voice cracked, but I got the rest out. “If that’s what you need, I won’t press you, but know I would do anything to change your mind.”
Tears streamed down her face as she pulled away from me, turned, and rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping at the bottom. I followed close behind, trying to steady her, but she was already swinging the door wide and racing out. Familiar burning filled the back of my eyes as my vision of her blurred.
She slammed herself into her car just as I heard a sob break from her, and I pulled on my hair to keep from following. This was what she wanted. I was doing what she wanted, but seeing her like this was killing me. She crumpled over the steering wheel, and her shoulders shook. Her pain was an echo of mine.
I couldn’t fucking take this. I pulled open her driver’s-side door, and her eyes snapped to mine, my agony reflected at me. She hiccupped as another sob racked through her.
“Shhh, it’s okay, beautiful. Shh, now. It’ll be okay. I promise it’ll be okay,” I kept whispering, gently placing one arm beneath her legs and one behind her back.
I lifted her out of the car, shut the door, and pressed my back to its side. I slid down until I was sitting on the ground, leaning against it with her cradled in my lap.
“I won’t change my mind.”
I kissed the top of her head. I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, me or herself. My fingers gently stroked her back until her breathing calmed. “I know.”
It took a long time before I could speak again, voice coming out thick. “What if I quit? If I don’t go to Boston.”
A shudder rolled through her, as if my words physically pained her. “That’s not how love works. We need to let each other go before we take something special and ruin it.”
She was right, but she looked so sad, like everything she wanted was conflicting with each other. I sucked in a breath and said the words I didn’t want to but I knew she needed to hear. “It’s okay to make your own choice.”
She leaned into me, her fingers curling into my shirt. “Everyone’s going to think I’m an idiot. Hell, I think I’m ridiculous.”
“You are not ridiculous.” My voice came out harsher than I wanted. I tipped her head back so she could read the truth in my eyes. “You don’t want to do long distance. That’s an understandable life decision. You have your own dreams and a brilliant career ahead of you.” I held her face in my hands and tried to fill my voice with sincerity. “You’re made for amazing things. You will conquer the senate. They need to watch out because you are a force of your own. It’s not foolish to follow your dreams, and don’t let anyone tell you it is.”
My fingers stroked through her hair, and I watched it slip through my fingers. “You don’t think I’m ridiculous for moving to Boston?”
A laugh escaped out of her. “That’s because you’re going to be famous!” Anger flashed through her eyes. “Everyone wants to be you. Of course you should go after your dreams. You’d be an idiot to stay.”
I shook my head and said, “So I was right because of what? Money? Fame? They don’t make my choice any better than yours. We’ve always known we’re on diverging paths—I just didn’t want to admit it. I needed to pretend for a bit so I would know what it felt like to truly have you.”
I tugged hard on my hair until my scalp shouted in pain. Fuck, I wish I could stay. I wish I could keep you.
We sat for another half hour, and I let the feeling of her soak into my memory so I could bring it out and feel it against me when I was desperate. Sidney looked up into my eyes, but I was already staring down at her. She slid out of my arms and pushed herself up to stand.
“To dreams, then.” Her mouth wobbled slightly on the words, but she held herself together. All I could do was nod at her in return. I didn’t dare try to speak. I moved out of the way of her door and watched long after she drove off.
As I collapsed on my bed, a familiar pain filled me. After Marcus died, I didn’t think anyone else could make me feel this way. My phone pinged, but I silenced it. The only person I wanted to talk to had just walked out of my life.
