Purposefully Accidental

Chapter Twenty-Eight

We ended up doing A Thing.

And he's not sleeping on the couch. Neither am I, for that matter.

It's 4 a.m., and I'm pressed up against his bare chest on the bed in his hotel room. We fell asleep like this—his chin on my shoulder, his arms over my waist, our clothes all over the floor.

I can't remember the last time I awoke like this: snugly wrapped in a safe embrace, whole body tingling with blessed satisfaction.

Loved.

I haven't been loved in such a long time; I didn't have any idea how much I've been starved of it. I can't get enough of the feeling of Jonah all over me, adoring every inch of my skin, treasuring me so tenderly.

I never want to get out of this bed.

I think back of the moment he ever held me like this for the last time. I know it was in this city, all those years ago, during my last visit before we broke up over the phone a few weeks later. But the only thing I remember about that night is the fact that neither of us knew that it would be our last time together before we epically broke up.

Jonah knows I'm awake. He presses a soft kiss on the skin of my shoulder, his arms tightening over my waist.

"What time is your flight?" I ask.

His rough voice rumbles, "Seven."

I shift, turning around to face him. He smiles sleepily at me.

My eyes roam around his face. Memorizing everything, because I know I'll never have this again. But I can have him right now, at this moment, and that's all that matters to me.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asks.

"I've just missed you," I tell him honestly. "Even when I didn't want to. And I'll still miss you, I think. I'll never stop."

"I've missed you, too." He tucks a few strands of hair behind my ear.

I'll never get over the way he so delicately looks at me.

"I'm sorry for the way things ended between us." He closes his eyes, then. As if it hurts to look at me. "I shouldn't have proposed to you—I should've known I'd scare you away."

I hum. "We were too young."

"We really were." He chuckles unhappily. "It was careless of me. I was reckless. We both weren't in the right headspace and I... I wasn't thinking—I'm sorry that I hurt you."

I don't tell him that I wanted to say yes. That even though I doubted myself, I already bought my own ring for him.

I can't tell him.

It'll break his heart.

But he broke yours, a small voice in the back of my mind reminds me. But what's the point in telling him that, now? The ring remains in a box deep in an untouched corner of my closet, collecting dust. He'll never get to wear that ring, the way I'll never get to wear the ring he proposed to me with at Tony's wedding.

Jonah continues, unaware of the battle in my own mind, "It really broke my heart, but I understood why you wouldn't talk to me after that." He opens his eyes. The saddest smile plays on his lips. "I just wish you'd let me explain and apologize."

Why doesn't he understand that none of that mattered in the end?

"You kissed Renata," I remind him. And dated her. And he was happy with her. Happier than he would've been if he stayed with me as I fell sick.

He lets out another humorless laugh and shakes his head. "They shouldn't have aired that."

"You know, I had to wonder if you really meant it at all," I confess. "How do you think I felt, watching you kiss her? Watching everyone in the damn country root for the two of you?"