Unleashing Chaos

Chapter Twenty-Two

The knock on my bedroom door startles me and I sit up in bed, pulling the cover up around my bare chest. I haven't been out of bed all day, nor have I seen Jace since he left my room. What he said last night hurt me so unexpectedly that I haven't even wanted to risk seeing him in the kitchen or passing him in the hallway.

But it wasn't even so much what he'd said to me. It was what he'd said when he thought I was asleep that stung more than anything else. The knowledge that he believes he could have loved me if I'd met him sooner.

I hadn't even truly realized until that moment how much I wanted the chance for Jace to be my eternal partner. And to know that if timing had been different, it might have happened? It was devastating in a steamrolling over my heart kind of way.

Because I didn't expect it. I didn't expect to feel that pain. And if what I felt was a fraction of what Jace's heart went through, I couldn't imagine functioning day after day like that.

Another knock.

"Desi? Are you in there?"

Meredith.

Shoulders slumping in relief, I call, "Yes, come in!"

My friend opens the door and slips in, closing it back immediately, as if she knows I don't want anyone else inside. In one hand is a family size bag of peanut butter M&Ms and in the other she clutches two 20-oz bottles of Diet Coke.

"I thought you could use a little snack, especially when you didn't answer my texts all day. I thought we were going to go to the movies," she says, perching on the end of my bed and holding out the treats.

I take them and slap my forehead with my free hand. "Shit, Mer, I'm sorry. I completely spaced. I haven't even looked at my phone today. I'm..." I take a deep breath and rip open the bag of candy, shoveling an entire handful in my mouth. "I'm in crisis mode. I need advice, and it's an emotional emergency."

She pops two candies in her mouth and says, "Tell me what's going on and hopefully I can help."

"First of all, remember I told you that Jace and I had an incredible time at the dance you helped me get ready for?" She nods and I continue, "Well, ever since, we've pretty much been inseparable, and things have gotten, well, let's just say we've gotten close. I'd consider him my best friend, and I think he feels the same way about me. But we've complicated matters with..." I raise my eyebrow suggestively and her mouth forms an "O" of surprise.

"Oh! Oh my God! I had no idea!" She climbs up next to me in bed and burrows into the covers. "How is he? He's amazing, isn't he? He has to be. Ugh, I am so living vicariously through you," she sighs, cramming more M&Ms into her mouth. "Not that Jeremy isn't good at the bedroom stuff. But he is tired and with the kids, it's hard to find time. I'm sex deprived."

I shake my head and say, "Calm down. You don't want to live vicariously through me. He can't—I mean, you remember everything with his ex and the accident, right? That's, like, scarred him for life. He's convinced himself that he can never trust anyone again, and while he likes being with me and hanging out with me, and...you know, being with me, he says it can never be more than that. And you know I only have so long before I have to bring someone home with me as my intended. He's made it crystal clear that it can never be him."

Meredith rolls her eyes. "Come on. You can't tell me he doesn't have feelings for you. I call bullshit."

I lift one shoulder and say, "Even if he does, he refuses to let himself act on them in any sort of real way. And last night, he came upstairs with me and we were talking." When I tell Meredith everything Jace said, her eyes soften, and I can almost see her heart break for me.