Page 153 of Forget Me Not

I almost feel bad for her. She thought Jack was choosing her. “Jack chose himself. Right until the very end.”

She nods solemnly. “I know,” she whispers. “I was so terrified when Dad told me what happened. I thought you were going to die and that would be the end.”

I think back to Reid. Him pulling me out of the water. Forcing the water out of my lungs.

“You need to leave the island, Sophie. Move. Start somewhere new.”

She shakes her head, chuckling. “I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

She wraps her arms around herself, shivering, though the building is warm.

“What would I do?”

I shrug. “There’s a whole world of possibilities beyond Port Nova.”

“You came back,” she points out.

“Because this is where I want to be. I like the quiet. I like the peace. You’ve lived it your whole life. It’s time you go do something else.”

She pauses, picking at the purple fingernail polish on her fingers, biting her lip.

“I know you’ll probably always hate me—”

“I don’t hate you. I hated the idea of you. I’m sorry for making you feel like you were second rate when we were growing up. I can’t make up for that, just like you can’t make up for trying to sleep with my husband.”

“Or for Reid.”

I wince at his name. Hearing it out loud is painful. Like a knife cutting through freshly healed scars.

“You know,” she says, reaching for her coffee cup and sipping. “I would have asked him to stay.”

I shake my head. “He was ready to move on. We weren’t permanent. We both knew that.”

“Yeah, but you love each other.”

Ouch. Hearing that hurts.

“I knew he loved you the day I went into his room,” Sophie murmurs, breaking through my thoughts. “He saw you standing there and it’s like a panic set in because he had to get to you. I think that’s when I came to my senses.”

“He didn’t love me, Sophie.”

“He loved you enough that he asked Pappap if he should stay.”

I pause, ice filling my veins. “What?”

“I overheard, before you jump to conclusions. I stumbled on them in the back garden one day. Pappap told him that if he had to ask, he wasn’t ready.”

Does everyone in my life hide things from me?

“What made him so special? I’ve never seen you open up quite like you did when he was here.”

I swallow past the hard lump forming in my throat.

“He saw me,” I whisper, as if speaking it into existence makes it all too real.

“And you’re willing to let him go?”

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