Jack swung his gaze to hers, and his eyes softened. “I’m not. They worked out the way they were supposed to. Darlene might think she wants me back, but that’s only because she hasn’t found someone who can give her what she wants.”
“And have you found someone who can give you what you want?”
“I feel like I’ve been searching ever since you and I broke up,” Jack replied, his eyes never leaving her face. “What did happen between us?”
Emma broke their gaze and clutched her drink tighter. “What usually happens. I went away to college, and we drifted apart. It happens to a lot more people than you think.”
“I remember it being worse than that.”
He was right.
It had been.
Those first few months without him had been like trying to walk around with half a heart. Even though he’d only been to her campus a handful of times, she’d see him everywhere she looked,and his face had haunted all of her dreams. At nineteen, she had done her best to make it work, everything from going home every weekend to inviting Jack to any and all events on campus, all in an effort to make sure they didn’t drift apart.
In the end, it hadn’t mattered.
He’d started pulling away the day she told him she’d gotten into the university in Boston.
Emma hadn’t known it then, but it was the beginning of the end, and she’d fought against it with everything she had until she couldn’t.
Until it hurt too much to realize he wasn’t holding on anymore.
What were you supposed to do? Keep up a one-sided relationship? Jack had basically started the timer on your relationship before you were completely packed for college.
A lump rose in the back of Emma’s throat. “I don’t think it’ll do either of us any good to relive this. It was a lifetime ago. We’re different people now.”
Jack plucked the drink from her hand and set it on the table behind her. He lowered himself onto the chair next to hers and twisted so he was looking at her completely.
She saw herself reflected in his eyes.
Her teenage self, who was younger and freer, had all these plans for her life.
What had happened to her?
“I know we both went on to have lives,” Jack began in a low voice. “But you were always in the back of my mind, Emma. A part of me held on to you for a really long time.”
Emma’s heart felt like it was going to jump right out of her chest.
Why was he telling her all of this now—at the Christmas dance, no less?
This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
She wasn’t here to rekindle an old flame.
She couldn’t.
“I know why we didn’t work out, and maybe things worked out the way they did because we weren’t ready at the time.”
Emma’s breath hitched in her throat. “Jack, I-I really don’t think we should be talking about this now. This isn’t the time or the place.”
Jack searched her face. “Isn’t it? Fate has brought us back together after all this time for a reason.”
Emma shook her head, tasting bile in the back of her throat. “Fate didn’t bring us back together. My father’s letter did.”
And no amount of wishful thinking was going to change that.
Emma couldn’t let herself get swept up in the fantasy, not when Jack was clearly too far gone. She’d already gotten lucky in love twice, and she wasn’t naïve enough to think that she’d been brought back here for this.
