Regretting You(63)

“What kind of question is that?”

He shrugs. “I’ve just always wondered. I wasn’t sure if you decided to stay with him because of Clara or if it was because you were in love with him.”

I look away from him, because honestly, it’s none of his business. If he wanted to know how my life was going to play out, he shouldn’t have left without warning.

His voice is quieter when he continues. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“Jonah, stop.”

“You told me to say something.”

“I didn’t mean . . .” I sigh. “I don’t know what I meant.”

It suddenly seems too stuffy outside. I go back inside, wanting to put space between Jonah and me. But he follows me all the way to my bedroom. Again, he closes the door behind him so our conversation doesn’t wake Elijah. He seems a little annoyed that I keep moving from room to room to get away from him.

The letters strewn out over my mattress feel like they’re staring back at me, taunting me.

“Are we going to address what happened in the kitchen?” he asks.

I’m pacing again, whether he likes it or not. “Nothing happened in the kitchen.”

He looks at me like he’s disappointed in my inability to face this in a mature way. I grip my forehead with my hand, trying to massage away an oncoming headache. I don’t look at him when I speak.

“You want to talk about it? Fine. Okay. My husband has only been dead for a matter of weeks, and I almost kissed someone else. And if that isn’t bad enough, it was you I almost kissed. It makes me feel like shit.”

“Ouch.”

“What if Clara had caught us? Would it really have been worth it?”

“This isn’t about Clara.”

“It is about Clara. And it’s about Elijah. It’s about everyone but us.”

“I feel differently.”

I laugh. “Of course you would.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I shake my head, frustrated. “You cut ties with your best friends for seventeen years, Jonah. All you do is think about yourself and what you want. You never think about how your actions affect other people.”

I feel the look he’s giving me deep in my core. He’s staring at me in a way I’ve never seen him look at anyone. It’s a mixture of confusion and injury. He whispers, “Wow,” then turns and walks out of my bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Jonah Sullivan, running away again. Why am I not surprised?

I’m angry now. I storm out of my bedroom, prepared to yell at him, but he’s walking out the door with Elijah. He sees me following after him, and he can tell how angry I am because our expressions match. He just shakes his head and says, “Don’t. I’m leaving.”

I follow him outside anyway because I don’t feel empty yet. I still feel like an endless well, full of things I need him to hear. I wait until he buckles in Elijah’s car seat and closes the door before I start in on him.

As soon as he faces me, waiting for me to speak, I can’t think of a single thing to say.

I just stand in my yard with absolutely nothing left to say.

I honestly don’t even know why we’re arguing. We didn’t even kiss. And I’ll never put myself in a position like that with him again, so I don’t even know why I’m so angry to begin with.

Jonah leans against his car and folds his arms over his chest. He waits a moment, allowing calm to settle between us. Then he lifts his head and looks at me with so much emotion in his expression.

“Jenny was your sister. No matter how I felt about you, I would have never come between the two of you. I left because unlike Jenny and Chris, I had respect for them. For you. Please don’t ever call me selfish again, because that was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my entire life.”

He gets in his car, slams the door, and leaves.

I’m left standing alone in my front yard, in the dark, full of information I’m not sure I wanted and feelings I’ve never allowed myself to confront.

My knees feel weak. I don’t even have the energy to walk back to the house to think about everything that happened tonight, so I just lower myself to the grass, right where I’ve been standing since Jonah pulled away.

I drop my head into my hands, feeling the weight the day brought with it. Everything that happened with Clara at the school. Everything that happened with Jonah in the kitchen. Everything he just said. And even though there’s a part of me that needed to hear all that from him, it doesn’t change anything. Because it could never work between Jonah and me, no matter how long Jenny and Chris are out of the picture. It would make us look like the bad guys.

Clara wouldn’t understand it. And what would we tell Elijah when he’s older? That we all just switched partners? What kind of example is that?

Nothing between Jonah and me is a good idea. It’ll be a lifetime of reminders that I so desperately want to forget. And now that he threw everything out there that he’s probably been needing to say for seventeen years, I want him to take it back. I want to go back to yesterday, when it was easier. When he could bring Elijah over without all the awkwardness that will be between us from now on.

I feel like he said all that hoping it would solve something, but for me, it only created an even larger wedge. And I don’t know that it’ll ever get better.