“You’re going to do what you’ve always done, Jamie. You’re going to fight your way through. You’re going to carry over all those things you learned from him. Because that’s the kind of woman you are. You’re strong, and you’re scrappy. And you never let anyone tell you how it is. So why should you start with him?”

“Because I can’t exactly—” she waved her hand “—make Gabe love me.”

“No. But you can choose whether or not you let him make all these things you learned about yourself mean nothing. You can take it forward, and you can build yourself something good. Build yourself a life. It’s terrible. But you can... You can choose what to do with the pain. We talked a little bit about my...my dad. And how the man who raised me isn’t my biological father. How getting rejected by the man who was my biological father hurt me. It was the reason that I couldn’t face Dane. The reason that I almost destroyed everything with Dane. But you learned something real here, with Gabe. And your feelings are real, too. But you can choose what you do with them. With this hurt. And then, when the right guy comes along, you won’t hide from him.”

“I don’t want another man,” she said stubbornly. “I want that man.”

“Yeah, and I expect that will be true for a while.”

It would be true forever, and Jamie knew it.

Maybe there would be another man eventually. Because that was just how life seemed to move on.

But it would never be like it was with Gabe.

He was her first. He was her firsts. Sex. Love. Being told she was beautiful. Eating toast and hot chocolate in bed. Heartbreak. Longing.

The first of so many firsts.

“In life, the only thing we can control is our own choices,” Bea said, the note of pragmatism in her voice making Jamie feel murderous.

“Funny, I pretty much said the same thing to Gabe. It didn’t seem to make a difference.”

“It might someday. You don’t know. I had to go and sit with my fear for a while. Maybe that’s what he has to do, too. In the meantime, don’t forget who you are. You’re strong as hell, Jamie Dodge.”

“I’m a lot more fragile than I thought, too.”

“But I think being able to admit that shows me that you’re even stronger than I thought you were.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

GABE HAD DECIDED not to keep drinking, because the only thing worse than being sad was being a sad drunk.

By the time he got into bed that night, he was regretting it.

He could use a little oblivion.

The absence of Jamie in his house was so pronounced it was surreal. She hadn’t lived with him. She’d spent a handful of nights with him. And yet his house felt...

It felt wrong somehow. Like it had lost the most important piece.

And a strange, matching emptiness echoed in his chest. He refused to think about what that might really mean.