“Stop being stubborn, Natalie. Just get in the car.”
Jem’s voice called out to her from behind, but Natalie ignored it. Her stomach had declared mutiny. Her head pounded with every step she took on the footpath outside the church. The fabric of Mom’s shirt clung to her still-sticky chest. And her emotions had time-traveled back to nineteen-year-old Natalie, who tried so hard to make something work and was still blindsided when it didn’t.
She pretended the old Camry creeping along the road wasn’t there.
“Natalie.”
“I really need some alone time here, Jem.”
Understatement of the century, but she managed to keep her voice calm. Well, relatively.
She threw a cursory glance at Jem’s vehicle. “How’d you even get the car? I had the keys. And how did you get here?”
“You left the keys in the church when you stormed out, and I hitched a ride with a workmate and planned to ride home for lunch with you.” The Camry kept rolling along beside her, Jem leaning to talk to her out the window. “C’mon, Nat. I’m sorry I laughed at you.”
She kept her eyes forward. “It’s not about that.”
“I’m not letting you walk home alone with that face. You’ll scare small children.”
It took every fiber of her self-control not to kick a dent in his door. “I’m not bleeding, so I’ll take that as a reflection on my looks.” She stormed over to the car and dropped into the passenger seat. A squeak sounded from under her backside.
Jem smirked.
She dug a plastic Nemo from the cushion and threw it on the floorboard. “I’m in. Happy?”
“Your eye is purple and green.”
“Fabulous.”
“I don’t know why you’re so upset. The soccer ball was bad—I didn’t realize how hard it hit you at first—but the rest of the morning wasn’t so awful.” Jem accelerated into traffic. Yawned. “Even if you don’t get this internship, just go try something else.”
Steam built up between her ears. “Opportunities like this don’t exactly come knocking on my door.”
“So go out and make them happen.”
Like she hadn’t tried. Maybe if he’d stuck around seven years ago, they could’ve shared the burden of Dad’s sickness together, and she wouldn’t have had to leave college. She clenched her hands. “I can’t.”
“Give me one good reason why not.”
“Responsibility!” The word spewed forth, seething with seven years of hurt. “I have people depending on me. I can’t just run off and do whatever I want.”
Oliver jolted at her sudden rise in volume and cried.
Jem’s jaw clenched and he slowed the car a little. “Like I did, you mean.”
A quiet voice rapped its knuckles on her skull and told her to quit while she could. She told it to shut up. “We don’t all have that luxury, Jem.”
“Luxury?” Jem jammed on the brakes for a red light, much like she’d done to him a few weeks ago. Natalie’s body lurched forward, but the seat belt held tight. Her head banged against the headrest as the car screeched to a halt.
Jem twisted in his seat to face her, his expression thunderous. “You think my leaving was a luxury?”
“What would you call it?”
“I’d call it the worst day in my entire life. And that’s including the day my mother died. For Pete’s sake, Nat, I—” He bit back what she assumed were some pretty choice words.
Heat swept through her, along with a wave of indignant rage. Her muscles quivered.
The day he’d left hadn’t been the worst of her life. No, hers was the day Steph sat at Mom and Dad’s old dining table, six weeks after Jem left, and told her that Mike had shipped the last box that morning.
He wasn’t coming back, and that date marked with love hearts on her calendar wouldn’t be her wedding day after all.
Her jaw tightened, and her voice came out as a growl. “Don’t you dare play the sympathy card.”
He barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I left. And that makes me the bad guy.”
She gaped. Was he serious? “You bet it does.” Did he have any comprehension of what he’d put her through? The crippling insecurity as she grappled with what she’d done to make him leave? The humiliation?
He pulled a hand down his cheeks. “Unbelievable.”
Heat rushed into Natalie’s face and her voice turned into a screech. “‘Unbelievable’? What do you mean, ‘unbelievable’? You ran out on me months before our wedding! You—”
A car horn blared. A flash of color caught her eye. “Green light.”
“What?”
“Green light!”
He hit the gas and took off.
Shudders rippled through Natalie’s body, but she held her breath to prevent a single sob. She pressed her lips together. If she spoke, she’d shout, so she said nothing at all. Olly’s screams turned into whimpers, and she twisted in her seat to slip his pacifier into his mouth.
“Don’t touch him.” Jem’s voice cracked.
“What?” Her gaze flew to his face. The granite expression he wore was reminiscent of John.
“If you hate me this much, you don’t have to stay. I’ll find you another job, and you can go do what you want.” He pulled the car into its parking spot at the apartment block and yanked the keys from the ignition.
She fumbled to release her seat belt as he pulled Olly from the car. It gave way and she scrambled out, looked at him over the hood. “Are you firing me?” She’d only worked for him for four days. That had to be some kind of record.
He swung Olly up into his arms and didn’t meet her eye. “I’m pretty sure you just quit.”
She stomped her foot. “Fine, run away again.”
Jem slammed the car door shut and speared her with his gaze. “Let’s get one thing straight. You can remember whatever twisted version you want, but I did not run away.”
Twisted version? Twisted version? She remembered, all right. The strange distance between them for a couple of weeks. Then his incoherent break-up speech on Mom and Dad’s porch. Her frantic, unanswered voice messages in the days after. And the unending silence, which made one thing clear: whatever he’d babbled on the porch that night, the simple truth was that he hadn’t wanted her anymore.
A passing jogger glanced at them, and Jem turned toward the apartment building. “If you want to yell at me some more, come inside. Unless you want someone to call the police and my dad to join this little party.” He walked away.
Nuh-uh. He wasn’t walking away from her again. She’d have the last word, and then she’d walk away from him.
Jem didn’t slow, and the stairs were horrendous to climb in her light-headed state. She caught him as he unlocked the apartment’s front door.
“You want a pity party, Jem? Fine, let’s go there.”
He spread his free arm in a bring-it-on gesture.
She followed him into the living room, riding the momentum of her righteous anger. “Let’s bring up the night I had to explain to my mother that she wasn’t going to be mother of the bride in ten weeks’ time. The day I had to explain to my friends why my fiancé would leave me. How about the day I returned my unworn wedding dress?” She folded her arms. What comeback could he possibly have to that?
Jem plopped a now calm Olly in his playpen and faced her. “I left because that was best for you, for both of us.”
She stared. In his warped mind, the months—years—of heartbreak she’d endured were “for her own good”? While he moved on with college, a career, and obviously another woman?
She pointed a finger at him and enunciated each word with precision. “Don’t you ever say that to me again.” Her voice shook with fury.
While he’d received his education, dream career, and a son, she’d had to drop out of school. Work jobs that turned her brain to oatmeal. Watch Dad shrink into a hundred-and-fifty-pound shell of a human being. And she’d had to do it alone.
To justify his selfish decision with this kind of lie was nothing short of delusion.
Jem closed his mouth, but nothing in his clenched-jaw expression looked like he was backing down.
She lowered her finger and folded her arms tight against her chest. “I’m not only mad that you left. I’m mad that you’re the one who did the wrong thing and it was my life that derailed.”
Jem threw his hands up. “You think I’m not derailed? You think I planned to move back within shouting distance of Dad? To practically get fired? Be a single dad?”
She barked a mirthless ha. “You know what people say when they look at you? ‘There’s Jem. Did you know he was a reporter in Chicago? It’s so sweet he came back to his hometown. And he’s so good with his little boy.’” She ran a hand through her hair, fingers snagging on each split end. “You know what they say about me? ‘Poor Nat. Do you know she was engaged once? And do you know who her father is? Everyone used to think she’d follow in his footsteps. Funny how things turn out.’” She spat the last word out with seven years of bitterness.
The moment stretched, Jem’s gaze unreadable.
Natalie swallowed, cheeks burning. What had she done? At least before she could pretend Jem hadn’t had the power over her that he did. Now she’d given up the one thing she had left: her dignity.
She pulled her jacket tight around herself and swiveled to leave. It was over. There was nothing left to salvage here.
“I’m sorry.”
His quiet words halted her trudge to the door. That was the first sign she’d ever seen that he regretted any part of how things ended between them.
“It’s not like I enjoy hating you.” Why were these words even coming out of her mouth? But still, she turned to face him, hands jammed into her jacket pockets. “Every day I walk up those stairs and tell myself, ‘Unforgiveness only hurts me. God forgave me, so I extend the same to you.’” She shook her head. “And every day it lasts for three seconds before I hate you again.”
Jem stared at his toe, expression thoughtful. After a long moment, he met her eyes. “But you try the next day?”
She swallowed. “I do.” Not because he deserved it. Not because there could ever be anything between them again.
But because it had been done for her.
Jem shifted on his feet. “Thank you.”
Her “You’re welcome” stuck in her throat.
“I can’t fix the past.” Jem pulled his notebook out of his pocket. “But I can help you get this internship.”
She sniffed, brain struggling to catch up. “What?”
“What if we make you unfireable?”
“I haven’t been hired yet.” The words came out scratchy, and she cleared her throat.
“I’m serious.” His blue eyes lit with an idea. “Have they given you anything else to help out with? Mentioned anything we could work on to prove how useful you are?”
“Ummm . . .” She tried to focus. “Sam mentioned he wants to plan a new type of event. An outreach that can connect with families as well as teens. But I don’t think he’s started work on it yet.”
“So do it. Work up some ideas, something that convinces him you’re too valuable to lose.”
“I don’t think—”
“I’ll help you. Come on, you want this. Let’s fight for it.”
Her bones felt hollow from lack of energy, her face throbbed, and her brain still screamed for caffeine.
The corner of Jem’s mouth pulled up. “I have ten minutes left before I have to head back to work. I’ll bet you one diaper change that I think of more ideas than you before then. Then you can go back to hating me.”
Competitive Natalie arose from her nap in the corner of her mind and stuffed a sock in Whiny Natalie’s mouth. This festival idea could be her chance to get a new photo on Dad’s wall, even if the price was working with Jem.
She pulled a pen from the pocket of her jeans, sniffed back the rest of her tears. “Fine. You’re on.”