So I told him.
“JC and I had…” I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to put into words what it was we’d had. “Well, a relationship similar to ours. Except it evolved and became more.” I kept my eyes down, pinned to the remaining tendrils of steam floating from my mug, ignoring the awkward subtext of I evolved with him, not you. “And just as we were moving to the next level, JC had to go into protective custody because he was a key witness in a murder trial.” I ran my teeth across my bottom lip. “In his fiancée’s murder trial.”
I looked up as Chandler let out a small huff of surprise. When he didn’t say anything else, I went on. “Before the show last night, I hadn’t seen him in a year.”
“So you broke up?”
“Not exactly.” I propped my elbow on the arm of the couch and leaned my face on my hand. “Actually, he asked me to marry him.” I’d been irritated when he did. It was unpractical and rushed and I’d been so unprepared for it.
Now as I remembered it, I warmed inside. Tingled from the tips of my toes up through my belly, spreading through my chest. It had been a rash proposal, but with the insight of the circumstances he’d been under, I understood where it had come from. He’d known he had to go into hiding. He hadn’t known how long he’d be gone. And he’d wanted me with him.
Wherever his emotions were based—in love, in lust, in loneliness—at least that had been something I could hold on to with certainty. That he’d felt enough for me to want me with him. That was…a lot.
But was it enough?
“You’re engaged?” Chandler’s question tugged me from my reverie.
“No, no. I turned him down.” It had been the right thing to do, and I didn’t regret it. Mostly. “But we said we’d find each other again after the trial was over.”
“Hmm.”
It was one syllable and yet it was confirmation that he understood the whole of things now. Understood that I’d slept with him while I was “waiting” for someone else. While it would have been easy to defend my actions or explain that JC had not wanted me to stop living, I didn’t bother. Because I’d been selfish in my relationship with Chandler. Part of the consequences of that was enduring his bitterness now.
Again, I felt like an asswad.
“Anyway.” I ran my hand through my hair and tried to shake off the guilt. “Since he couldn’t communicate with me this past year, I had no idea he was finally testifying. It shocked me, I guess. I’d kind of given up on him coming back at all.” I smiled weakly, wanting exoneration and wanting wrath all at once.
I got neither. Chandler’s face was stone—another Pierce trait the boy had inherited. “Then you’re going to start seeing him again.”
Would it really be that easy? To pick up where we’d left off? To be in love and happy?
Until I’d seen him on the news, that was exactly what I thought would happen between us. It was naïve, I realized now. I hadn’t considered that we might not even be compatible long-term, hadn’t stopped to think that I didn’t know him well enough to have a firm grasp on that. Even if our relationship had been real enough to build on, a year had passed. So much could have changed.
And the decision wasn’t entirely mine. I couldn’t know what JC wanted or thought until I talked to him, and I wasn’t sure when that would be. His testimony would be over today, but did that mean that the risk for his safety was over? If so, maybe I’d hear from him later tonight. If not, maybe it would be the end of the trial.
Or maybe not at all.
Because it was possible I already did know what he wanted. The way he’d looked at me earlier. The way he’d looked through me. The declaration he’d made…
“I’m not sure what happens now, to be honest.”
Chandler’s expression eased into a playful smirk. “If you’re not into him anymore, you shouldn’t lead him on, you know. You need to be upfront.” He was teasing me. Acknowledging that was what I’d done with him.
I chuckled. “It’s not that.” Well, it was that too. But it was mostly something else, and even thinking about that something else made a switch flip inside me. So I wasn’t surprised that my voice cracked when I actually said, “I’m just not sure he’s still into me.”
Then the dam broke. My frozen composure was gone, and in its place, I was water. I was pain. I was sadness.
Chandler pulled me into his arms, and I didn’t worry about what it meant or what he might think. I just cried. I grieved. I mourned for everything that I’d lost and everything JC had lost and mostly for what I was afraid was so near to my grasp yet would never be mine again. Never really was.