Letting Go (8 page)

“He’s my friend,” I explained without looking at them.

“Who has pictures of you in an art show?” Heather asked in disbelief.

“Drawings. He does charcoal drawings, he’s really good, actually.”
And he has an art show in Seattle this weekend. Does that mean he’s here?
A smile slowly tugged at my lips at the same time as the pain in my chest spread.

I hadn’t talked to him since the morning he’d told me he loved me. That’d been almost a month and a half ago, and I missed him. I missed my friend. I missed everything about him. I just didn’t know how to talk to him after what had happened, after I’d run away from him.

“Is he cute?” Heather asked, and Janie snorted.

“Cute is an understatement for him. Hot, rough, rugged, tatted-up-amazing-body-take-me-home is a better description.”

Something I’d never felt when it came to Jagger moved into my stomach, overriding the pain for the moment as I listened to Janie. We’d never talked about the way Jagger looked, so I’d never heard her describe him to anyone. And the way she had . . . I didn’t know how to feel about someone else saying that.

“Well then,
I
am definitely going just so I can meet him,” Heather said loudly. “God, I haven’t gotten laid in months.”

“What?!” I whirled around, my eyes and mouth wide in horror. Before I could say something stupid—like lay claim to Jagger—I noted both their expressions.

Janie’s smile had turned into some beyond-happy smile that looked painful, and Heather looked like she’d just won something.

A knowing smile crossed Heather’s face. “Do you maybe want to reconsider that whole ‘just Jagger’ bit now?”

Chapter 5

Grey

July 12, 2014

M
Y STOMACH WAS
churning as we walked down the block to where the gallery was. After going back and forth with Heather and Janie for two hours this morning, they’d somehow gotten me into a salon. For the first time in over two years, I’d gotten my nails and hair done while they had gone shopping for me.

That alone should have tipped me off that tonight was going to be too much.

I don’t think I’d been in anything other than leggings or sweats since graduation, and they wanted to make sure I looked completely opposite how I normally did.

Mission accomplished. I wanted to put my hair up in a messy bun and get into comfortable clothes already. I had more makeup on than I’d worn to graduation, four-inch-heel boots, and an outfit I’d expect someone like Janie to wear.

Well, I guess I know who picked it out.

“Stop messing with your shirt,” Janie chastised for the twentieth time tonight.

“It feels like I’m not wearing anything!” I hissed. “It’s awkward!”

I shoved my clutch at her and looked down at myself as I moved the shirt around, making sure I was covered. The tank was already low cut to the point where I was showing more cleavage than was necessary, but the material was too thin, and loose enough that any breeze made even just by walking had it feeling like the shirt had evaporated. The only saving grace of this outfit was that I was wearing jeans—unfortunately for me and my poor legs, they were constricting the life out of me.

“Who wears this stuff?” I groaned, and turned around to look at myself in the window of a store. I refused to admit I was happy with the way I looked tonight . . . I was
that
uncomfortable.

“Better question, who
doesn’t
?” Janie asked. “You used to too. You just seemed to replace your entire wardrobe with sweatpants.”

“Much more comfortable than skinny jeans.”

Heather snorted. “No one ever said you were supposed to be comfortable. Let’s go before you find somewhere you can buy something else.”

I snatched the clutch back from Janie and made a face at them before walking in the direction of the gallery again. “At least then I would be sure I’d have full use of my legs after tonight. I swear, there is no blood flow down there.”

“Get over it, you look hot. Jagger’s not going to know what to do with himself when he sees you.”

“I don’t care what Jagger thinks, Janie,” I mumbled.

Both girls laughed, but there was a part of me that was trying so hard to cling to the idea that Jagger and I could never be anything more than friends. As the last six weeks had come and gone, and the pain of being away from him had only grown, I’d fought with what I’d thought I’d known, and what I was slowly coming to terms with. That my family might have been right, that in the last two years my love for Jagger had grown from a love that could only be formed when you’d been friends as long as we had, to something so much more. And it had changed without my ever realizing it.

They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Whether Jagger was
gone
or not would probably be determined tonight, because up until now, I’d been the one hiding . . . I’d been the one who was
gone
. But that hadn’t changed the truth of those words. I was very much aware of what I had left behind in Thatch.

But I’d also had a love that I’d known could withstand anything. Time, separation, death . . .

I just hadn’t known the death would come so soon, or how hard it would be to try to live my life apart from Ben when my world had revolved around him for so long. I knew I couldn’t live my life grieving over him forever. I knew that. Ben wouldn’t want that for me, and if the roles had been reversed, I would want him to be happy. I would want him to love again.

But knowing he would want that for me as well was so much easier to accept than actually allowing it for myself. It’s hard to continue on in life when the person holding your heart can’t.

I stopped walking and stumbled back when Heather yanked on my hand, and I turned around to look at them.

“Uh, where are you going?” Heather pointed to the brightly lit gallery we’d just passed, and my lips parted on a heavy exhalation.

“Oh my God.” I took a few shaky steps toward the windows, my chest tightening as I looked at the drawing Janie had been talking about. It was the one Jagger had been finishing when I’d walked into his studio that morning.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Janie squealed, and grabbed my other hand.

“Jesus Christ, it looks just like you.” Heather stared with open amazement. “You said he was good, but . . . damn.”

“I know,” I breathed.

“Well, are you ready to go in? See if your guy is here?” Heather asked.

I looked at Janie, and she must have seen the panic on my face, because she squeezed my hand once. “It’s okay, Grey. Whatever happens tonight, it’s okay. Just see if he’s here. Talk to him. He’s your closest friend if nothing else; you can’t hide from him forever.”

No. But in that moment, I really wanted to try. Releasing Heather’s hand, I grabbed the delicate chain around my neck, searching for the ring that had been nestled between my breasts. Holding it tightly in my fist, I stared for a few more seconds at the drawing that had started all of this before slowly walking toward the entrance.

The open gallery wasn’t crowded, but there were definitely a lot more people than I’d been expecting. Then again, I hadn’t really known what to expect. I’d had a dozen different scenarios playing through my mind all day. Janie had just been driving too fast when she saw the drawing and that’s why she thought it was of me . . . so this was all for nothing. The drawing would be the one and only piece of Jagger’s in the gallery, so, again, this would all have been for nothing. The gallery would be too crowded to get in. No one would be here at all. Jagger would be here with someone . . .

My stomach clenched, and my grip on the ring tightened. If he was here at all, and he was with someone . . . I didn’t think I could handle seeing it. And that sick, jealous feeling sitting at the bottom of my stomach made no sense to me. Because again, I reminded myself that I had run from him. That even though he hadn’t tried to get ahold of me since the night I’d left, I hadn’t tried to call him either. And most importantly, my heart still belonged to his best friend.

Janie, Heather, and I had been inside for close to twenty minutes, and I’d been staring at another drawing of me—the one that portrayed all of my grief—for countless minutes without realizing that the other two had left my side. I pressed the ring to my lips as I stared, and a jolt went through my body when I heard a deep voice directly behind me.

“This is the hardest one to look at of you.”

“Jagger,” I breathed. From the corner of my eye, I watched as he stepped up next to me. Close enough so our voices wouldn’t carry, but far enough that I’d have to reach to touch him. Keeping my eyes on the drawing, I shakily asked, “If it’s hard for you, then why is it here? Why do you keep it?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Probably because of what you said to me that night.”

My brow furrowed, and I turned to look up at him, but his eyes never left the piece in front of us. “What night was it?”

“Night of Ben’s funeral.”

I nodded slowly as I looked back at the canvas. “I came to your house, but I don’t remember what I said.”

“I opened the door, and you said, ‘Make it so that this is a dream. Wake me up, Jagger.’ And I remember thinking that was exactly what I wanted. To wake up. I couldn’t wake us up, but while I drew this that night, I knew I would do anything to keep us moving.”

And he had. He’d always been there to talk about Ben, never treated me like I was too fragile, and had always pushed me to keep going. Everything I’d needed, and everything I’d pushed away.

“I’m so sorry, Jag,” I whispered a minute later.

He exhaled slowly, and when he spoke, there was a hint of the pain he’d been in since I’d left. “I never should have told you.”

“Why?” I looked at him again, and when he still wouldn’t look at me, I reached out for him.

“Because you ran away from me, Grey.” The pain in his voice tore through me, and my arm fell limply at my side. “You ran, and you stayed gone. But I get it, Grey, I swear to God I do. I understand why that upset you, why you aren’t okay with it. I thought—I thought if I gave you time, you would change your mind. I came here hoping enough time had passed, and I don’t know what I would’ve said to make you change your mind. But after seeing you come in . . . seeing how much better you look now that I’m not in your life . . . I can’t stand the thought of watching you go back to how you were. I can’t do it now.”

“Jagger . . .” The plea in that one word was clear, but in that moment, I still wasn’t positive what I was begging of him. To forgive me? To understand why I was trying so hard to not let anyone else touch my heart? To know that I needed him more than he realized . . . more than even I had realized?

“I just needed you to know that I understand, Grey.”

Before I could ask
what
he understood, he turned around and walked away from me. In our short conversation, he’d never once looked at me. My eyes went back to the drawing of me, and I listened as his heavy footfalls drifted away. I could feel each step like it was another nail in the coffin of my relationship with Jagger, as friends or something more. I knew what I did right then would forever change Jagger and me.

If I continued to look at this drawing for another minute before walking away from the gallery, then that would be it. We could never go back to the way we had been, because we couldn’t go back to being as close as we were now that I knew how he felt. I couldn’t do that to him; I couldn’t give him hope that there would someday be an us when I knew that I would never allow it. He would eventually find someone else, and I . . . I would just focus on moving.

But if I stopped him, then the dynamics of our relationship would change in a way everyone had already been expecting them to. A way Jagger wanted them to. A way
I
wanted them to.

That thought shook me as I finally admitted what I’d been trying so hard to deny. I wanted this. I wanted him.

“Jagger,” I mumbled, and turned to look for him in the gallery. He was twenty feet away from me, shaking a man’s hand, with his back to me. “Jagger,” I said louder when he began walking again.

He glanced over his shoulder for a second, before pausing and turning to face me. His face went blank in an attempt to mask his emotions. I walked toward him, each step feeling a little easier than the last—as if my decision was solidifying with every step closer. He didn’t move toward me, and didn’t say anything when I stopped directly in front of him, just looked at me with those green eyes . . . waiting.

“I’m sorry that I ran,” I whispered, and a muscle ticked in his jaw from the strain he was putting on it. “I was scared, and I think I still am. But I’m not better without you. It hurts to be away from you. This?” I gestured to the side and shrugged. “Seattle? I needed to think about what you said, what my family said . . . I just needed to think. I can think here with Janie, but that doesn’t mean I’m better here. And all of this”—I gestured toward myself—“was only because of tonight. Janie and Heather did this because they thought I would see you. I miss you every day, Jagger. I don’t know how long I would’ve stayed gone, but please . . . don’t stay away from me
for
me.”

Taking a step forward, I leaned into his chest as I had done so many times in my life, and I knew that this was right—this was where I needed to be now. His arms automatically came up around my waist to hold me, and I sighed against his chest.

“I’m scared.”

“Why? If you’re scared to lose me, you won’t. I’ll always be here for you.” His voice was low, and the way it rumbled through his chest and against my cheek was something so familiar and so calming. When had I started craving this?

“Not that. I just . . . I don’t know how to let myself love you too,” I confessed, and felt his body tighten against mine.

Lifting my head to look at him, I paused when I found his face inches from mine—closer than it had ever been. I let myself take in everything about him that I never had before. His green eyes that seemed to look straight through me, the bridge of his strong nose leading down to full lips that were usually in a playful smirk. But now that my gaze was on them, they slowly parted as his breathing deepened, his chest moving harder against mine. When I looked up again, his eyes were dark with want.

“Loving you scares me,” I whispered, “but I know I can’t keep telling myself that I’m not in love with you, Jagger.”

“Excuse me.” A voice called out from next to us, but neither of us moved until I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned and took a step away from Jagger when I saw an older woman standing there. Her pondering expression turned excited when I was facing her. “It
is
you.”

“I’m sorry?”