Page 57 of Still the One

“Here’s to you.” I lift my glass, looking from the ocean into Mac’s equally blue eyes. The hotel we stayed at twenty years ago, where I asked Mac to marry me, is now a private house with a high fence around it. Instead, I’ve splashed out on a beach-side rental where we have privacy and an unobstructed view of the ocean.

Mac only turns fifty once and I’ve missed all of her past twenty birthdays. I have so much to make up for, although, sooner rather than later, I’m going to have to stop seeing it that way. Just as she has to let go of her fear, I need to let go of my guilt.

“And to us!” Mac clinks her glass against mine. “The best birthday present ever.”

“Also the most unexpected.”

“I’ve always liked surprises, but this really does take the cake.” Mac looks as relaxed as our surroundings. It’s been a few weeks since she surprised me by saying she wanted to try again, and they couldn’t have been more perfect. Morning after morning of waking up next to her. Night after night of going to bed with her, catching up on all the love we couldn’t make. Curling an arm around her warm body in the middle of the night has been the greatest pleasure of all. To have her there, with me, where she should have been all along.

“I love you, Jamie,” Mac says.

“And I love you.” Simply saying the words doesn’t seem adequate enough to express how much I do. I remember feeling exactly the same way twenty years ago, when we first came to this beach, and I had a ring burning a hole in my pocket. Even though I was sure Mac would say yes to my proposal—we’d hinted at it often enough—I was still nervous. The brain can play tricks on you like that. It always tries to find the tiniest ‘but’. I love you, but…

The times I said that to her when I chose Cherry over Mac—the worst words for any person in love to hear.

It still scares me, too, that despite my love for her, despite asking her to marry me, despite all those undeniable, big feelings I had for her, I left. That I had it in me to hurt us like that. But isn’t the biggest triumph of life—and love—that we’re sitting here now? I don’t have a ring in my pocket but—who knows?—maybe someday I will again.

“It’s hard not to think about last time we were here.” Mac fixes her gaze on me.

I nod. “I was quite surprised you wanted to come here for your birthday, out of all the places in the world we could have gone.”

“Maybe we should have gone back to Maui.” Mac chuckles. “All jokes aside, coming to Rockaway is kind of a full circle moment for me. We met Cherry…” I flinch at the mention of her name, but I don’t let it show. “Three, four days later?”

And then it all turned to shit. “Hm,” I mumble, wondering where she’s going with this.

“Then everything changed, even though we didn’t really know it yet. But when we were here, when we got engaged, that was probably the last time we fully chose to be with each other.” Mac sips from her champagne and it’s so at odds with what she’s saying—unless I’m being too uptight to miss her point. “That’s why I wanted to come here. It might be silly, but returning to that point in time feels like pushing the reset button to before we met her.”

“Okay.” Mac’s neither foolish, nor naive, and I’m far from convinced she actually believes this is possible, but sometimes, the foolish, naive action is the only one you can take.

She must have heard the trepidation in my voice, because she puts her glass down and leans into me. “I promise I’m not punishing you. I’m not interested in that. I’m just trying to find as many ways as possible to come to terms with what happened.” She rests her palms on my knees and presses down. “I know I can’t turn back the clock and we can’t just pick up where we left off, but… it’s my birthday week, and I’m indulging myself.” She digs her fingertips into the flesh above my knees. “In fact, I’d like to indulge a little more.”

I slant toward her, expecting a passionate kiss, but that’s not the kind of indulging Mac has in mind.

“Just for a few minutes,” Mac says, “I would like to go back in time and revisit the plans we made when we got engaged.”

“Are you sure?” I put my hands over hers.

“I am.” She looks deep into my eyes.

“Let’s do it, then,” I say, even though I’m not entirely sure what it is she wants to do.

“I wanted four children, although I would have been happy with three,” Mac says.

“I know.”

“My dream was a house full of kids with obnoxious names like President and Princess.”

I shake my head. “There’s no way our kids would have had names like that.”

“We’ll never know,” Mac says.

“True.” But still.

“After you left, I held on to that idea of our perfect imaginary family for too long,” she says. “I wanted my life to go a certain way and when it didn’t, I couldn’t pivot. I could have had a President and a Princess, but I can see now that the kids I didn’t have were all part of this big idea I had for my future. The one I held you responsible for ruining. So I threw myself into work and here I am, twenty years later. With you. Life goes on, no matter what happens and the choices we make.”

“Indeed, here we are.” I look into her eyes, because I want her to fully grasp what I’m saying. “I’m sorry for—”

“No.” Mac shakes her head. “Let me finish. I need to make my point, babe.” She sends me a soft smile. “I don’t need another apology. What I’m trying to say is that despite my choices or mistakes, all the decisions I made, whatever the reason behind them, have given me a good life. Ask anyone, any person alive, if their life went the way they wanted it to go. That’s not what life is. And, yes, I suffered heartache. You hurt me so much, but guess what? That’s also part of the experience. It may have taken me a long time, but I got through it. No matter what it cost me, it was worth it. Because, yes, here we are. So many things could have happened if we’d stayed together. We could have met Cherry later. We could have divorced. We could have not been able to have kids. We could have been the happiest couple alive. The point is, we don’t know. But we’ve found each other again. And I might be slow when it comes to certain things, like feelings.” She pauses to send me a silly grin. “Like getting over you, and living without you, and knowing, when I saw you again, that all I wanted was to be with you again. But I got there in the end.”

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