Chapter Thirty-Nine

Jonah

It was after three by the time Jonah pulled into his driveway. Evie’s car was nowhere to be seen but he knew she was home. Well, at his home. The four unanswered calls and texts from her explained as much—not to mention the messages from the preschool. The high from signing on as a partner at the new firm was squashed under the guilt thumping in his chest.

He’d been so caught up in playing the big man that he’d let the important things slip through the cracks. Evie assured him in her message that Waverly was okay, just a little tummy bug, but he could tell by the defeat in her voice that everything was not okay. In fact, it was as far from okay as things could get.

Today was her placement exam. He knew this. Knew that Waverly was a little fussy when he’d dropped her at school but had chalked it up to typical two-year-old crankiness. He hadn’t even checked her forehead for a fever—which she’d apparently had.

The drive home was, unquestionably, the worst half-hour of his life.

Wanting to appear like he had it all together, Jonah had put his phone on silent for the duration of the meeting. What kind of single dad does that? One who was pretending to have his shit together when in reality his world was still tilted far off axis—and it was derailing the lives of the people he cared about.

Grabbing his phone and briefcase, he strode up the walkway and into the house.

“Evie?” he called out.

He heard the television coming from the back of the house and followed it to the family room. This time his chest thumped for a different reason all together.

Evie was curled up on the couch in a pair of fitted jeans and no shoes, looking adorable and comfy, like a safe harbor in the midst of a storm. Nestled in her arms, fast asleep, was his baby girl. Cheeks flushed while clutching her favorite bear, Waverly looked comfortable, content—safe.

Remarkable, considering what a day they both must have had. Even more remarkable was Evie, managing her world in a way that he’d never achieved on even his best days. She was calm and capable, her confident energy giving Waverly the security she craved.

Hell, seeing her like this, with his daughter in her arms, gave Jonah the security he craved. Something inside him rolled over as a wealth of relief took hold. It had been a while since someone had his back. Only his relief had come at someone else’s expense.

Shit.

Today only added to his greatest fear: that he wasn’t enough on his own.

Evie had yet to notice him, so he stood silently in the threshold, breathing in the moment as she smoothed back Waverly’s baby-fine hair and brushed a kiss over her forehead. Watching the motherly gesture tugged at the core of his heart.

Jonah realized that, while he’d worked hard to be part of his kids’ lives, when Amber had been alive he’d been on the periphery. As the working parent in his marriage, he’d struggled to find a balance between being breadwinner and parent. When he’d become a single dad the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction. Either way he couldn’t cut it and came up short. But that wasn’t an option anymore. His kids needed stability and structure, and it was up to him to provide those.

Kicking off his shoes, he padded over to the couch. Evie looked up and damn she was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that had a heart-rending tenderness taking over his body.

“Hey,” he whispered, sitting on the coffee table in front of her so that he could read every emotion on her face. Unfortunately, she was carefully schooled.

“Hey,” she said. Her tone was hard to decipher, but her body language spoke volumes. It reminded him of the way strangers looked at him when Waverly had a meltdown in public.

He reached out and ran a hand over his baby’s cheek. It was sticky and warm. “How is she?”

“She’ll be okay. I’m pretty sure it’s just a tummy bug.”

“Thank you for today.” He took Evie’s hand but she didn’t hold his back. In fact, she just let it hang there loosely. Not a good sign. “I’m so sorry this fell on you.”

“Can we talk,” she said, then situated Waverly on the couch and stood. They walked to the kitchen.

“First, let me tell you how sorry I am for how this all went down.”

“You already apologized.”

“Well, I need to do it again,” he said.

She wrapped her arms around her stomach as if it hurt. “What happened?”

“I had the meeting with Curt and his partner, and I put my phone on silent and left it in my briefcase. I didn’t even hear it buzz.” He searched her eyes. “How was the test?”

“I wouldn’t know, I got a call in the middle of it and had to leave.”

“Will they let you make it up?”

“Sure. Next year.”

“Jesus, Evie. I really fucked up. If I’d known this would happen, I would have left my phone on. This day was really important for me.”

That was the wrong thing to say because any openness she had vanished and all those walls snapped into place. “Today was important for me.”

“I know.” He reached for her hand but she backed away.

“Do you? Because they only offer this test in the fall, which means I have to put off school for another year.”

“Maybe I can call them, explain that there was a family emergency—”

“There aren’t any do-overs, Jonah,” she said, sounding weary. Up close he could see how tired she was, how the creases around her eyes were deep with discouragement and resignation. “This is just the reality. My reality. You made a decision that suited you and it blew up my plan.”

NO. The guilt hit him like a punch to the stomach. She’d had so many people derail her life. How could he have let this happen? He hated that he was just another in a long line of people who’d put her last.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he said, cupping her cheek. “Tell me how to fix this.”

“You can’t. I get why you did it. But the end result is the same. I can’t carry any more weight, Jonah.”

“You don’t have to carry me, sunshine.”

“Today tells me I do. I’ve been carrying people my whole life, and for once I wanted someone to carry me.”

“Then let me,” he said quietly.

That’s when the first tear lined her lash and his gut hollowed out. “I’d rather do it alone than risk being dropped again.”

“What are you saying?”

She shook her head and that tear fell. Followed by another and another. “I can’t do this anymore.”

He had to take a moment to decipher what she was saying. Yesterday, she’d told him she was falling in love and today she was suddenly done.

“That’s it?” he asked roughly. “One mistake and you’re calling it quits?” It was as if he were right back in that moment when Amber told him she didn’t want to be part of the medical trial. She chose to leave him rather than fight. And Evie was doing the same thing.

“Both of us knew that this was never going to last.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

She wiped angrily at her cheeks. “Maybe at one point I believed that it could be more, but more can’t exist when there isn’t any room left. There’s no room for you in my world, Jonah.”

“Then let’s try to make some room.”

“I’m tired of waiting for something to change. The only way I’m going to make my life better is to change how I’m going about it. Plus, this was never real, remember?”

And that was the stake through his heart that he’d been dreading. “This is as real as it gets for me,” he said. “I love you, Evie.”

She shook her head and stepped back. “Love shouldn’t mean giving up parts of yourself for it to work.” She went up on her toes and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. “I can’t do that anymore, and we both agreed that if it wasn’t working we’d reassess.”

“Yeah, reassess how to make it work.”

“It can’t work, and the longer we ignore the truth the worse it will be when we finally do.”

The air vacated his lungs and filled him with panic. He was losing her. He could feel it in his soul. “So what are you saying? We go back to being neighbors separated by a fence who argue over a fucking tree that overlaps some invisible easement?”

She blinked and fresh tears fell. Each one like a lance to his heart. “Trees that are growing and thriving and shadowing my life. Trees that bring rodents to my yard and mess up my efforts to grow and nurture and cultivate. Trees that leave lasting marks on the sidewalk that even a power washer can’t fix. My life has so many marks, most days I can’t even see the light, let alone get enough to bloom,” she whispered. “I love your family, and I loved you so much that I was willing to walk away from myself again.”

He took her hands. “Love, sunshine. Present tense. Please say it’s present tense.”

“Love isn’t always enough, Jonah. Not the kind of love that makes you choose between yourself and everyone else.”

“I choose you.” His plea barely pushed through the emotion clogging his throat. “I’ll choose you every moment of every day if you’ll let me.”

“But you can’t,” she whispered hoarsely. “We both have a long list of people who have to come first, and they deserve to come first.”

“What about us? What about what we deserve?”

Her fingers slipped from his and no matter how fast his hands chased them it wasn’t fast enough. “We deserve to spread our wings as far as they can go. I need to spread my wings.” She took a baby step closer and went up on her toes. “And you need to spread yours.”

The pain in this moment was like a living thing, consuming the air between them.

He regarded her silently. “So that’s it. You tell me you love me and the minute we hit a speed bump you want me to pull the car over so you can get out?”

“Would you rather me get out now while we can still walk away in one piece, or wait until we crash into a brick wall?”

She watched the roll of his throat as he swallowed. “So I don’t get a say? That’s not how love works.”

“But that’s how our agreement works.”

“Agreement? Are you even hearing what you’re saying?” he asked, and it felt like his hands were gripping the bottom of her heart. “This isn’t some project you can compartmentalize, someone’s life you can organize and stick in a closet. This is real life, and real life is messy and complicated and exciting and alive. You make me feel alive.”

“So do you, but eventually our obligations will kill whatever we have, and I’d rather have you in my life than not have you at all.”

He expelled a short, humorless laugh. “Don’t do this, sunshine.”

“I don’t know what else to do to protect us both.”

The air between them was filled with hurt and disappointment. And worst of all, betrayal. She’d betrayed his trust and his heart. “I’m not going to stand here and beg for you to choose me. I can’t do that again.”

“But I am choosing you, and one day you’ll understand. I just hope until then you don’t hate me.” She gave him a kiss that shattered what was left of the organ in his chest. Ripped it out and let it crash to the ground. Just like what his life felt like. A giant puzzle with pieces that would forever be missing.