We remain silent. I don’t pull away from Jax, if anything I mold my body closer to his. Wishing that I can melt into him so that I never have to be apart from him. He holds me as tight as he can without hurting me, as if wishing for the same thing.
A lifetime passes in minutes before I ask, “This is it? There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” I’m desperate for a sign that we can be more.
“Be with Kohen,” Jax whispers.
I can’t even manage to nod. Tears run down my face and I make no move to stop them. I let them fall. I feel them slide from my cheeks onto Jax’s chest. Jax shifts and gently lifts my chin with his thumb and presses his mouth to mine.
I know this is it. This is our last kiss. This is goodbye. After this, we will be over. No more pretending that I’m moving on from him while secretly hoping that we will work it out in the near future. No, none of that. This is it. After tonight, I’ll be moving on. Eventually I’ll be happy. Eventually I will be able to be his friend again.
Slowly I kiss him back. Memorizing every second. The way his tongue feels gliding over mine. The small moan that escapes my lips that he breathes in. It’s a slow kiss that will forever be etched into my soul.
Jax rolls on top of me. He stares into my eyes as he brushes hair out of my face. I watch him memorize my face, knowing he is saying goodbye too, and that he wants to remember everything about right now just as desperately as I do.
I need to see him. “Wait.” I break away from our kiss to turn on my lamp.
“Much better.” Jax drags me back to him and lays over me again.
I smile up at him with tears in my eyes. I would give anything to be with him. To be enough for him. To be the one that will make him truly see what a wonderful person he is, inside and out.
Jax bends and follows the trail of each tear with the whisper of a kiss. He barely presses his warm lips to my skin, and I feel each and every kiss all the way to my toes.
I want to confess my love for him. I want to tell him that I don’t want to love anyone else, that I can’t love anyone else. I want to hear him tell me everything is going to be okay as long as we have each other. I want the big gesture. A piece of me shatters knowing that will never happen. Eventually Kohen will give me the big gesture and someday maybe I’ll love him back.
Another piece of me breaks away.
Forcing all thoughts of tomorrow away, I focus on the man I love hovering over me with love in his eyes. This is how I want to remember us. Together, in love. Nothing else matters. All of the petty fights that led us to this moment don’t exist. Nothing but Jax exists in this moment.
I trace every line of his face with my fingertips, never taking my eyes off his. Jax does the same and bends every few seconds to peppers my face with soft kisses. Intertwining our hands, Jax leans down for the last time and presses his warm lips to mine. He traces my lips with his tongue. Ever so slowly, he really kisses me. The second his tongue touches mine the tears are back again.
I’ll never experience this again. Nobody kisses me like he does. Nobody can make my body feel alive and cherished at the same time like him. There is only one Jax. There is only one true love for everyone and he is mine. Jax squeezes my hand and I squeeze his back. He doesn’t speed up the kiss and neither do I. He kisses me slowly, tenderly.
A little piece of me shatters even more.
No matter how much time passes, I know I will never stop loving Jaxon Chandler. He’s my first love. My one great love. The kind of love they write stories about. And I never had a chance.
I wish that I could keep kissing him for forever. Wishes don’t come true. Time moves too fast. The kiss is over before I want it to be. It was a perfect kiss. A perfect kiss to end our shattered love.
Nine years ago, I kissed the love of my life on my fourteenth birthday. Tonight, we’re ending a long, broken love story with the same perfect kiss. This is the end of us.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Yawning, I snuggle closer into the warm chest behind me. I moan contently when Jax’s strong arms tighten around me and he kisses the back of my neck. I turn into him so that my face is pressed against his chest, head resting on his arm. As I press my lips to his chest, I wish that time would stop. I want to be forever held in this man’s arm. Just like this, in love. Too bad that time doesn’t stand still and that our reality can’t let us be together.
Closing my eyes, I breathe him in, loving the way my face breaks into a huge smile just by being near him. He reminds me of home, of hope. I’ll miss his touch. I’ll miss everything about him.
Wiping a tear from my cheek he whispers, “None of that.”
I nod, but the tears keep flowing.
“What’s wrong?” he asks into my hair.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I don’t know how to say goodbye.” I start to weep silently.
He has a sad smile as he caresses my face. “This isn’t goodbye, Adalynn. I’ll aways be here. I’ll never leave you. Whenever you need, me I’m here.” He places his hand over my heart.
I cover his hand and mumble, “I know . . . it doesn’t make this any easier.” He sucks in a ragged breath. “I know this is what we both need . . . so you have to understand that I’m going to need distance. Jax . . . I can’t be around you for awhile. I need space . . . Or I won’t—”
“I know,” he says, regret clear in his voice.
The urge to kiss him is so strong that I force myself away from the warmth of his body and out of my bed. My body hates the distance that I’m putting between us. It’s for the best. Knowing that doesn’t make this any easier.
“Breakfast?” I ask, needing to do something, anything instead of being in the arms of the man I love, knowing that I can never have him.
After Jax nods, I flee to my bathroom to brush my teeth, but mainly needing a minute alone. Not a second after I flush the toilet, Jax walks in.
My face turns beet red. “Ever heard of a thing called privacy?”
Jax ignores me and grabs his toothbrush that I haven’t gotten around to throwing away. Once his toothbrush is in his mouth, he snags mine, squirts toothpaste on it, and hands it to me.
“Thanks.”
“Relax. You’ve thrown up on me. I’ve seen you pee before. At least this time you were sober.” Toothpaste drips down his chin. Without thinking I reach up and wipe it away with my thumb.
“You’ve never seen me pee and you didn’t now. I was already pulling my panties up,” I say once I’m finished brushing my teeth.
“Freshman year.”
My eyes are trained to his toothbrush. It doesn’t belong next to mine. It never did. Forcing the tears away, I snatch it and toss it into the trash. Jax nods as if he knows that it doesn’t belong here either.
It’s maddening that until yesterday, I haven’t cried in six years and now throwing out a pointless toothbrush makes the tears threaten to spill over. Because in some way you’re throwing out Jax. That little voice in my head reminds me bitterly as if I had a choice in the matter.
When I’m not on the verge of crying any longer, I murmur, “I’m confused.”
“I know.”
Following him out of my bathroom to my kitchen, I think back to freshman year of high school. That feels like a lifetime ago, which it is. So much has happened since then. I’m still coming up with a blank, though. I wasn’t the type of girl to party in high school. Even if I wanted to, nobody gave me alcohol because they were afraid of Logan or Jax beating them up. Those two were beyond annoyingly protective in high school. I can only remember two times in high school when I got drunk. Once freshman year and the other was the day before junior year.
“You’re such a liar. I only got drunk—”