Cole & Jamie

March 2018

 I dropped down onto the couch next to Jackson. He already had our bi-weekly spread of pizza and margaritas laid out on his coffee table, and the movie geared up to go. Unfortunately, I was going to be the drama tonight. "I did it."

Jackson coughed, almost choking. "You did?!" He wiped down the front of his shirt with a napkin. "I thought you just had a case of cold feet. I didn't know you were for real."

I nodded. "I told you I was." It wasn't an easy decision to make. I'd been contemplating breaking things off for a while. Then when Tony proposed and I idiotically said yes, those thoughts only got louder. I knew what I had to do and I knew it wouldn't be easy but I did it.

Jackson leaned closer. "How did he take it?"

"Worse than I imagined." Right on cue, my phone buzzed with another notification. I didn't have to turn it over to know who it was. The same man has been repeatedly calling and texting me for the last two hours. 

Tony has never been overly expressive of his emotions, but this breakup is bringing out a completely different side of him. My mailbox is overflowing with hysterical messages and my text messages aren't much better.

I took a large gulp of my strawberry margarita hoping that would help wipe the memory of him on his knees begging me to change my mind. "Please stay," he pleaded. "I'll do anything you want."

It was a nightmare.

My stomach rolled, as I sobbed, "God, I feel like such a bitch."

Jackson rubbed a hand up and down my back. "It's okay. It doesn't feel like it right now, but you will be okay."

"I broke his heart," I cried. "Utterly destroyed it and for what, a dream that might fail before it even gets started, to move back to a small town. To move back in with my mom?!"

There was no stopping the tears now. Jeremy wrapped his arms around me as I cried hysterically into his shoulder. "Oh, Jamie, it's going to be alright."

I sniffled. "What if it's not?" What if this is my last chance at a good life with a decent man? Tony's not perfect but he'll make an okay husband and I could find happiness with him.

He held me by the shoulders. "You are the most organized, put-together, sure person I know if this is where your heart is telling you to go then that is exactly where you have to go. It's hard, trust me, I know, but if you stay you'll only end up resenting him. A breakup is a lot cheaper than a divorce."

"I guess you're right." I guess he's right, if Tony is acting like this now who knows how messy a divorce he would make a divorce? He would just love putting that law degree to use. "It just all sucks."

Jackson gave me another comforting squeeze. "How did Trish and your mom take the news?"

"Oh, they're ecstatic." I wiped the tears from my cheeks. "Apparently they never thought the engagement was a good idea." I left out the part where Trish called Tony a pretentious asshole because it didn't seem relevant to the story.

"I wish they would have told me that a month ago."

Jackson looked at me, his brown eyes soft and sympathetic. "So you're really leaving me in the city all by myself?

I cuddled up to his side taking comfort in his bulky frame."You have plenty of people to keep you company. You'll probably be ready for me to leave by the time all this is over."

While I prepared for the move, I was back in my old room which was now Jackson's guest room. I hated crowding his space but there was no way Tony and I could stay in the same apartment now.

"Doubtful, I never wanted you to move out in the first place."

I sighed, remembering it all too clearly. Two years later and I wish I would have listened. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty or however the saying goes."

"It's something like that," he laughed.

My phone rang again. "Ugh," I shrieked, before turning the damn thing off and throwing it across the room. "Enough!"

Jackson pressed his lips together and poured more into my glass. "I'm going to need to make another pitcher."

I wiped my mouth, I told him, "You might need to make a third."