Page 61 of We Thought We Knew It All
“Jamie.” She stood and rushed toward me. “Tell me what I can do.”
“Cal.”
“I love you,” she sobbed. “Don’t you get that, you big idiot. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
When she kissed me, I let her. I let her push herself up against me and wrap her arms around the back of my neck. My head clouded, and I began to forget all the reasons I shouldn’t be doing this. When she started pushing my shirt up, I stopped her, placing my hands over hers.
“Cal.” I pushed her back. The hurt flashed across her face and I couldn’t stand that I put it there, but there was no helping it. “California, I’m not coming back.”
“What?” She stumbled back.
“I’m taking a contract job at my old base in Georgia.”
She narrowed her now dry eyes. “You’re just leaving?”
I nodded slowly.
She shoved me with both hands and I wasn’t prepared. My back slammed into the wall. I reached out to grab her as she stormed by, but she swung her arm out of my reach.
“Coward,” she yelled. “You’re running. Again! I never should have let myself believe in you again. The only thing you ever do is let me down.”
“Me?” I yelled. “You’ve been lying to me for ten freaking years.”
“Oh, you mean the ten years you didn’t speak to me? Those ten years?”
“Yeah, the ones when you were raising a boy you thought could have been my son. With another man!”
“Maybe I knew you too well, Jamie Daniels.” She lowered her voice to plunge the final dagger into my flesh. “Maybe I did what was right for my son. I couldn’t count on you then, and it looks like nothing has changed.”
She turned as if to storm away, but didn’t go.
“I would have married the hell out of you,” I admitted.
She turned to face me.
“Maybe not back then, but we’re older now and I thought we were on the same page. Callie, you fell in love with another man, and that’s okay. But you chose that love over ours when you decided he was the father. Now you know that he really is and I know what that means for me. You’ll never be free of what made you marry him. It’ll never be me, not anymore. And I can’t take that. You’re right. I’m a coward, but I don’t know how to be anything else.”
Tears shone on her face as she looked up at me once more and gave her head a little nod. She smiled sadly, her lips quivering, before leaving the way she had come. I was starting to think Callie and I were always destined to be at odds.
I shut the door, closing that part of my life for good, and collapsed onto the bed.
25
Callie
I didn’t go home that night. I couldn’t face my boys with tears in my eyes and a broken heart. Aunt Kat and Noah’s place was only a few minutes away, giving me barely enough time to pull myself together.
Kat was surprised to see me, but waited for me to be ready to tell her what happened.
Noah made us tea as we sat on the couch and I explained everything.
“It’s good that it was Dylan, right?” she asked.
I nodded. “But, Kat, I don’t think Jamie will ever forgive me.”
“Oh, honey.” She smoothed back my hair. “That boy loves you.”
“Sometimes that isn’t enough.”
