Changing Course (Wrecked and Ruined #1)(86)

I'm about to open my mouth again when I hear the click of the dead bolt. The door only swings open a few inches, and I see timid Jesse from months ago shyly standing in the darkness. I try to catch her eye, but she won't look up at me. Shit, this is bad.

I can feel my own heart banging around in my chest. What if I'm not able to fix this? I know she doesn't want me to come in, but I'm not having this conversation in the breezeway. Careful not to hurt her, I push open her door wide enough for me to squeeze inside.

"Brett!" she yells as I close the door behind me.

"Sorry, gorgeous. Add it to the list. I've got things to say, and I need you to listen.” I'm lying. I still have no idea what the hell I'm going to say. Why do I never plan this shit out?

"Come here." I pull her into my arms.

"Have you lost your freaking mind?" She moves out of my reach. "Say what you need to say, then leave."

It's now or never. Time to dig deep and figure this out. I need to fix this with Jesse so I can escape this screwed-up existence I call a life. I've learned over the last four years there is no escaping it, this really is my life. Suck as it might, you either live it or leave it. I glance over at the tiny brunette leaning against her kitchen counter with a glare that should be melting my face. Somehow it just makes me smile instead. She looks like a tiny, pissed off fairy–a description that would surely earn me even more of her pixie wrath. As my eyes slide over her, I realize that leaving Jesse isn't an option. Caleb was right, I've committed.

I walk to the kitchen cabinet, grabbing Kara's bottle of Vodka, and pour us both a shot. I'm going to need this if I am possibly going to get through this conversation. I'm about to rock her world, and I know because this revelation just rocked mine.

Tipping back the glass and pushing one towards her, I start. "Jess, I had a wife and I loved her with every fiber of my being. She was my life for seven years. She was my best friend, and I miss her...a lot. Yes, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Sarah, but it didn't work out that way. She’s gone, forever. You can't hold that against me. I lost her four years ago, but it took meeting you to realize I lost myself on that same damn night."

Jess starts nibbling on the edge of her thumb nail nervously like she so often does.

"What if one day she changes her mind? I mean...what if she isn't really gone."

"Yes, she is still breathing, but the woman I loved is dead. Jess, I can't change my past. I was lucky enough to meet a woman at twenty-one, fall in love with her, and spend seven of the best years of my life with her. Did you know we planned to have three kids? We had all these silly names picked out. There was supposed to be a little Danika and Hephzibah running around tearing shit up right now. God, those names were ridiculous," I smile and laugh to myself.

"She wanted unusual names, something about her name being so plain, and I could not have given two shits what she named them. They were going to be ours, and that was enough for me. We wanted to move to Georgia. Live on the coast. Buy a big house on the water, and spend our weekends lounging on the dock arguing about who won last night’s Jeopardy challenge. That is all I have ever known about my future. Those were our plans. Then one day I woke up, and just like Sarah, everything was gone," I pause to take a breath and Jess pounces.

"Jesus Brett, why are you telling me this? This is exactly our problem. You're sitting here reminiscing with a Cheshire cat grin on your face. You have dreams, and the perfect little story-book life of you and Sarah in your head. How am I supposed to compete with that? I struggle every single day knowing I have to share you with her. I can't do this, I can't be her replacement." She wipes a tear away from her eyes while scanning the room for an escape. "You need to go."

"Please shut up...it's about to get better, I swear." I take two steps closer, effectively blocking the doorway in case she decides to run.

"No, you need to leave." She crosses her arms over her chest in an adorable display of attitude.

"Christ Jess, stop running. You are always running from me, just hear me out. I have a point. I'm not trying to rub anything in your face."

"I don't want to hear you out!" she shrieks in a tone unlike anything I have ever heard before. "Call me a quitter or whatever you want, but I can't live like this. Everything I do, it always flashes through my mind 'what would Sarah do.' She was your perfection. She was your happily ever after. It's f*cking exhausting living in her shadow. I can't do it anymore. I love you, I really do. But damn...at some point you have to say enough is enough. This," she frantically waves her finger between us, "is not working."

I run my fingers through my hair as I look around the room, hoping for some sort of divine intervention.

"Clearly, we are having some sort of miscommunication because this," I wave my finger between the two of us the same way she did, "is very much working."

"No it's not. This relationship is crap. I am the only reason it's even a relationship at all. If it were up to you we would be nothing more than friends who have sex. I'm sick of pushing you for more. It's not going to happen and I have to accept that. I get that you're scared. You had your life snatched out from under you. I can even see why you would be hesitant to get back into a relationship. If things had slowed down back in September, none of this would be happening right now. You can't honestly think we have been taking this slow.