Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Oh, Jazzy,” she said softly, shaking her head. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
Later that night, after the sun had set over the welcome beach party and all the wedding guests had slowly made their way inside their respective houses, Aunt Laura sat on my bed with a glass of red wine and a plate of cheese she’d snatched from the party. She tossed one cube in her mouth, not bothering to chew it completely before she tucked her legs under her and pointed at my chest. “Alright. Start talking.”
The sight stung my chest in a way I wasn’t expecting, because I could remember so many nights when I was in high school and she’d said those exact words to me. Aunt Laura was in tune with me like no one else, and she always knew when something was bothering me — whether it was the absence of my parents, a boy at school, homework, something with Morgan or another friend. She could always see it, and she always seemed to have the answer to everything.
But I had a feeling she wouldn’t have an answer for this.
“Where do you want me to start?” I asked, folding my own legs under me to match her.
“How about telling me why your plus one is missing in action?”
I swallowed, glancing at the dresser where the flowers Jacob had surprised me with once sat. My chest immediately caught fire, because the next memory was a flash of Tyler’s hands on my hips, spreading my legs until that vase of flowers clamored to the floor.
“I broke up with him,” I whispered.
“Clearly. But why?”
I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling as they filled with tears, but it was no use, and when I looked at my aunt, I broke with my admission. “Because I’m in love with Tyler.”
Her next breath came like a long, cool breeze, her eyebrows folding together. “I was afraid of that.”
“Trust me,” I said on a bitter laugh. “You weren’t the only one.”
Aunt Laura reached forward to squeeze my wrist, and then she asked me to start from the beginning — from the very beginning — and so I did.
For two hours, I rehashed every single moment that had led to the very one we existed in. I told her about that day when Mom left, about how he’d called what we’d done a mistake, how I’d spent years trying to forget him and this place, only to come back for Morgan’s wedding and be completely thrown by him again. I told her about Morgan’s confession, that it had actually been she who told Tyler to stay away from me, and how that had changed everything for me.
All that time, I thought he didn’t want me.
And when I realized he did, there was no turning back.
I watched every emotion pass over my aunt’s face as I recounted the years with Tyler, everything from surprise and disappointment to sorrow and understanding. And when I’d finally caught her up, I fell back into the comforter of my bed beside where she sat, my eyes on the ceiling, chest tight and skin hot to the touch.
“Well,” she said after a long while, folding her hands in her lap. “I’m not proud of you for falling into temptation, for doing what you did with Tyler when you both had someone else.”
I felt her disappointment in me like a shotgun to the heart, the shell splintering off and damaging every part of me that I was somehow still holding together.
“But,” she continued, reaching out to run her fingers through my hair. “I am proud of you for realizing you couldn’t be what Jacob deserved, or give him what he was giving you. I know that conversation must have been hard, but you did the right thing in letting him go, and in telling him the truth.”
I blew out a breath, nodding as my eyes filled with tears.
“He was a good man to you,” she whispered. “It breaks my heart that you couldn’t see that.”
“I could,” I argued, rolling over to face her. “I still can, Al. That’s the problem. It didn’t matter how good Jacob was, how good anyone was or would have been. It’s always been Tyler.” I shook my head, throat tight. “And I didn’t realize how much he still had a grip on me, not until I was standing right in front of him again after convincing myself that he meant nothing to me for seven long years.”
She swept my hair from my face, watching me with pinched brows. “Have you talked to him? Since Azra got here?”
I sighed, because I’d purposefully omitted the last conversation I’d had with Tyler in this very room — mostly because I looked back on it now, wondering what the hell I was thinking. “Yes,” I confessed. “He followed me up here, and I told him we couldn’t be together. I told him it was a mistake. He had Azra, and I had Jacob, and we couldn’t break any more hearts pining over something rooted in our past.”