Page 55 of Then Came Love
Chapter Ten
JORDAN HAD THOUGHT she’d mastered the art of holding her shit together, juggling grief, loneliness, and emotions she didn’t even understand as she made her way through each day. Boy was she wrong.
In one evening, she’d managed to bring her entire life toppling down around her, leaving her to question everything she thought she knew about herself.
Her fingers curled around Jax’s handkerchief. She was sitting on the couch, where she’d been since three in the morning, when she’d left Todd a third unanswered message and had finally given up on trying to sleep. She looked at the applewood candles on the mantel, coffee table, and windowsills and the wedding gown designs and crocheted gloves still artfully displayed on the dining room table as if she were getting ready for a visit from a king and needed to have everything perfectly presented.
Jax’s voice traipsed through her mind—He hasn’t reached out to you once in all of the time we’ve spent together. I don’t have to tell you what that tells me—bringing the sting of tears.
Her phone vibrated on the cushion beside her, and AUNT SHEILA appeared on the screen. She answered on autopilot. “Hi.”
“Hi, honey. I’m sorry to interrupt your time with Todd, but I wanted to see how your day went yesterday. Did you pick a venue?”
“He never showed up,” she said flatly.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry, honey. Work again?”
“Mm-hm.”
Tsk.Her aunt sighed. “I wish you had let me come down. Did you go alone?”
“No. Jax Braden went with me.”
“Really? Isn’t that unusual, for the wedding gown designer to go?”
Jordan shrugged, realizing too late that her aunt couldn’t see her. “He’s pretty unusual.” Her voice cracked, and tears slid down her cheeks. She’d been crying on and off all night and hadn’t thought she had any tears left.
“Oh, baby girl. Are you okay?”
“Yes. No.”She swiped at her tears, not wanting to be a burden, but at the same time, wishing she could fall into her aunt’s arms and let it all out. “I’m tired and overwhelmed.”
“I’m not surprised. You’ve been running yourself ragged lately. I’m worried about you.”
“I am, too.” A sob broke free. “My life is out of control.”
“No, it’s not, honey. It just feels that way.”
Jordan swiped at her tears. “I wish that were true, but I don’t know which way is up anymore.”
“Take a deep breath and tell me what you mean.”
Between sobs and gasps, Jordan managed to tell her aunt everything, from the first time she and Jax met and how she’d postponed her wedding because of what she’d felt for him right down to the last thing she’d said to him last night. “I told you I’m a mess. When did I turn into such a crappy girlfriend?”
“You are not a crappy girlfriend.”
“I postponed my wedding because I felt something for someone else. That makes me awfully crappy.”
“No, honey. It makes you smart for realizing you weren’t ready to get married.”
“Not smart enough.” She wiped her tears. “I feel like I cheated on him by enjoying time with Jax.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve outgrown a man who has neglected you and taken you for granted for too long. Did you and Jax get physical?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then that proves that you’re not a mess, and to be honest, I’m surprised nobody caught your eye sooner. But you keep yourself in such a safe little box between work and Todd, you haven’t let yourself experience very much outside of that.”
“Because I’m engaged, and that’s what I thought I should do.”
“Honey, being in a relationship shouldn’t feel like a prison sentence. If you were happy with Todd, you never would have given Jax a second thought, and keeping your circle so small tells me that some part of you knew that, even if you couldn’t admit it to yourself.”
“I should have ended it with Todd instead of postponing the wedding last year.”
“You weren’t ready, just like you weren’t ready the three times before that.”
“I was terrified. I still am. I’ve already lost so much. I didn’t want to think about losing anyone else.”
“I know, baby girl. Todd has been your person since you were nineteen. He was there for you when you needed him most, when you were at college starting over again. Kids are usually excited to get away from home, but you’d had your home ripped out from under you when you were so young. Everything that happened in the years between the time you moved in with us and when you moved back to Prairie View was just a means to an end for you. Prairie View is where you always wanted to be. But you’ve been feeling alone for years, and you’ve made excuses for Todd since shortly after he moved to New York.”
“Because we had a plan,” she reminded her.
“Yes, but the two of you also agreed to make joint decisions and support each other from afar, which is difficult for any couple. But somewhere along the way, Todd forgot those pieces of the bargain. And this will be hard to hear, but your mom’s not around to tell you the hard truths, so I have to do that. You held up your pieces of the bargain, but I don’t believe you could ever hold up the moving to New York part of it. I had hoped you could, and I know we encouraged you to do it, because we thought it would help you move forward with your life and finally stop holding out for the past to rectify itself. But now I wonder if we did more harm than good. We never meant to make things harder for you.”
Jordan closed her eyes against a flood of tears. “You didn’t.”
“I’m sure we did, and it’s okay to say that, Jordan. Gary and I aren’t perfect. We love you, and we’re just doing the best we can. But we’ve been worried about you for a very long time. We’ve watched you grow into a smart, compassionate woman, so much like your mother, I swear sometimes it’s her words I hear coming out of your mouth.”
“I hope it’s not when I talk about messing up.”
“Everyone messes up, honey. That’s what makes us human and allows us to grow.”
“I’m so confused and scared.” She swiped at her tears. “I think I’m with the wrong man, but how can that be when I’ve only known Jax for a week?”
“You haven’t only known him for a week. You just told me that you postponed your wedding because of what you felt for him. But you do realize that this isn’t about Jax, don’t you? He’s just the person who opened your eyes enough for you to finally admit what I think you’ve known for a very long time, which says a lot about him and even more about your feelings for him.”
“I never felt with Todd what I do when I’m with Jax. That makes me feel guilty, but it’s true. I know it’s fast, and the circumstances are horrible, but if you met him, if you saw how he is with me, you’d see what I mean. He listens to every word I say, and he cares about me, not what anyone else will think of me, or him when he’s with me. I feel like I can talk to him about anything. I feel safe with him.”
“You don’t have to convince me about how fast feelings can come on or how big they are. I fell in love with your uncle when I was twelve. But since he was twenty and saw me as the little girl down the block, I had to wait a decade for him to even notice me. Your father was less than thrilled about his baby sister falling for a guy who was older than him.”
“Did he give Uncle Gary a hard time, or just you?”
