Page 133 of The Last Second Chance
I saw this horse mug and it made me think of you, especially since the last horse mug I gave you shattered against the wall when you threw it at me. Consider this a replacement. The booze is to accompany what’s in the envelope and your burger. Please don’t throw out your burger to spite me. That would be sacrilege.
I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with the right way to tell you how sorry I am that I’ve hurt you again and remind you of how much I love you. But I realized that until you know everything about that night and after, there’s no chance of that ever happening. So here it is. My screenplay. Our story.
I’ll be in touch.
Love always,
Your Jax
Joey putdown the note and slouched as low as she could on the cushion. All the answers to the questions she’d been asking for nearly a decade were neatly packaged before her. And yet she hesitated.
What if the answers she got weren’t forgivable?
Waffles gave up on his bone and hopped up on the couch next to her, his bi-colored eyes watching her pitifully hoping for a bite of burger.
Her indecisiveness lasted exactly two seconds longer when she reached for the burger and the folder.
“Screw it. Right, Waffles?”
Waffles’ tail thumped on the couch as he looked at her adoringly.
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One hundred andten pages and two fingers of bourbon later, Joey swiped at perhaps the hundredth tear as it sluiced its way down her cheek.
Her guts had been ripped out and shoved back in upside down. He’d given her the answers she’d needed in a way that was wholly Jax. Gutted, she was nowhere nearer to a solution than she had been before she came home that night. But at least she had her answers.
She hadn’t expected to learn so much about the course of their relationship. How long he’d loved her. How long he’d noticed her and yet talked himself out of making a move on the girl his brothers thought of as a sister, the girl his parents thought of as a daughter. Instead he kept her at arm’s length until he couldn’t be without her for one more day. To see the longing that she’d so acutely felt growing up mirrored in his words was indescribable.
And what he saw in her? What he poured into her character? Strength, beauty, single-minded determination. In those pages, she saw herself as Jax saw her.
It clutched at her heart to read about the accident from his point of view, the guilt and the fear, of feeling responsible for nearly destroying the one thing you valued above all else. It hadn’t been an easy decision to live with, she learned. Jax hadn’t just walked away without a backward glance. He’d never stopped thinking of her, stalking her online with news alerts and social media, loving her. Did that help? Knowing that they’d needlessly wasted eight years because of a decision she still didn’t agree with?
She felt raw and open, like a fresh wound. Knowing for certain now that he had loved her as deeply and expansively as she did him, it loosened something around her heart. Something that had constricted years ago. Another wall, another lock.
But what did that mean for the end of their story?
Instead of the final pages of his screenplay, he’d included a photocopy of his father’s account of the evening. A story from three sides that still added up to men who thought they knew better than she did.
It was galling. It was heartbreaking. And somehow, through Jax’s own typed words she could begin to comprehend the why. It was hard to see past her own anger, but the words of two Pierce men had slowly blazed a trail through the hurt.
She wasn’t sure if she was ready to feel anything other than anger toward Jax. Except for a strong desire to find out how his screenplay ended. That she could admit to being curious about.
Joey picked up John’s essay again, stared at the handwriting of a man long lost to this world. He’d seen something deep and enduring in her relationship with Jax. A foundation and a prison. Had she ever thought of their relationship as a prison? Had Jax?
She’d been so certain then that their futures had been twined together. That Jax was a given in her life. And then when he was gone, her foundation cracked and she rebuilt it slowly, independently, determined to never again build a life around someone else. She did what she wanted. She went after her dreams with dogged determination and she built this life and these walls that would keep her safe.
Yet, once again, she’d let Jax in. And, once again, she’d been rocked. That had to mean something. There wouldn’t be so much hurt if they were supposed to be, would there?
There was one person she could ask.
She picked up her phone and dialed.
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Mr. Snuffles was pawingat the door of Phoebe’s townhouse until Franklin opened it. The little dog sniffed Joey’s boot, sneezed, and ran back into the kitchen.
At least nothing green and slimy had flown out of his nose.
