Page 110 of Between Now and Forever
Oh, but I think I did.“You wanted to talk to me tomorrow night. What did you want to talk about?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
He paces to the other side of the living room. “We need to stop this.”
“This argument?” I ask, even though I know that’s not what he means. He means we need to stop this—us. “I’m happy to stop arguing with you.”
He places his hands on the back of a chair, keeping it between us like a barricade.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he says. “We can’t.”
Anger bubbles from the depths of my soul.Well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe he really doesn’t want us.“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“Why?” I glare at him. “Why did you go through all the trouble to make this happen, only to back out? Is this a game to you? Are you bored?”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Then what is it, Jay?” I refuse to let him look away. “Tell me why we suddenly aren’t a good match. Is it because you aren’t into me anymore?”
“Gabrielle . . .”
“Because I know the answer. It’s because things got hard, you got scared, and now you want to quit.”
He doesn’t refute it. Probably because he can’t.
I give him time to come around and admit I’m right so we can work through it.
But he doesn’t.
Tears fill my eyes as I realize what’s happening—that he answered the question I asked myself at Scottie’s a while back.
When things get hard, he won’t fight for me.
Why did I expect differently?
A swell of emotion rises from deep inside my soul—from a place that I’ve been harboring it for years. This is the theme of my life. Aside from something happening to my children, it’s my biggest fear too.
I’m not worth fighting for.
Tears flood my eyes, making it a danger to blink. My heart pounds in a silent wail of pain. I tremble in my struggle to remain composed, so Jay doesn’t see my heart break at his feet.
His blank stare scalds me, burning me with the truth.
When Christopher asked for a divorce, his words were soft. He wanted more for me. He still loved me. We’d still do life together, just from different houses. But the truth is that our love wasn’t worth fighting for.
Hell, Levi and I weren’t in love in elementary school, but even he didn’t find me worth fighting for. It seems like a ridiculous thing to think about now, but the similarity can’t be denied.
The differences in Levi, Christopher, and Jay can’t be dismissed either. Levi and I weren’t destined to be an item. We were children. And as much as it hurt when Christopher walked away, I knew it was the right answer. It was painful to my heart, but it was right in my soul.
There is nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing, right about losing Jay ... except pining after him would be a giant waste of my time.
That’s a lesson better learned too soon than too late.
“It doesn’t matter how much I like you,” I say, backing toward the door. I will the tears to stay away until I get outside. “It doesn’t even matter that I was considering that there could come a time when I could even love you.”
