“Please. I’m here to say my piece. I believe you when you say you’ve changed—I can see it in the way you look at me and Caleb—but I’m still so fucking hurt. I don’t know what to do with this darkness in my chest.”

“I am so sorry, for everything.” Gretchen placed her hand, palm up, on the table. Jax didn’t take it, but she’d leave it there and wait. “I’m mostly sorry for running to a lawyer and letting him talk me into fighting for custody when I should’ve talked to you. You threatened to take Caleb and I panicked, but that’s no excuse for doing what I did.”

Jax looked at her with shame-filled eyes. “I wouldn’t have done it.”

“I think we both spiraled out of control, and I was desperate to make it stop, to do something to make things better. Even if that meant getting a divorce.”

Jax snorted. “All you had to do was come home more.”

“I was trying,” she said quickly, jumping on the opportunity presented. “I was working a lot for the money and for a promotion. There was a management position I had my eye on that would guarantee a raise and no more than nine-to-five. No weekends, no after-hours.”

“You didn’t have to kill yourself for money. We were fine.”

“Except you weren’t.” Gretchen reached into her purse and pulled out a bank statement. She unfolded the paper and handed it to Jax. “I was saving for you. You can quit your job and find something that makes you feel good again.” She watched Jax’s eyes widen as she read the paper. “I figured it all out—between these savings and me going back to work part-time, you can take at least six months off to take care of yourself.”

Jax looked between the paper and Gretchen. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Just believe that we could’ve been okay—that we can be okay.”

“I know I sound like a broken record,” Jax said, folding up the paper, “but it’s not that simple.”

“Nothing is simple. If this was simple, we would’ve known to talk to each other more when shit got hard, but we didn’t. If this was simple, I wouldn’t have had to live through a nightmare twice to see the difference between hate and love. But you know what? I’m better because of it and I think we can be, too.”

“What exactly are you proposing?”

A light bulb went off, and even as Gretchen felt more and more sets of eyes on her, she couldn’t help herself. She got down on one knee right beside their small café table and took Jax’s hand. “Jacqueline Shay Levine—”