Soundtrack for this chapter:
Only Hope—Switchfoot*
Read My Mind—The Killers
Fight Song—Rachel Platten

15

Jules

Witnessing Theo react the way he did to his nightmare was awful. My heart ached for him because it was beyond clear that for the last seven years, he'd been harboring the weight of his experience overseas. What was worse was that he'd accepted it as normal; he'd thought he was perfectly okay, which was far from the truth.

The moment I was able to make physical contact with him, I could feel the stress, the tension, the fear leaving his mind. In my head, I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter that it was me, that it could have been anyone who quieted the torment of his mind, but I knew that wasn't the case. There was a connection between us, something beyond anything I'd ever felt for another person before, and all I wanted was to make his hurt go away.

In the morning, I woke not in his arms, but with him in mine. I could see the twenty-two year old boy in him. I could see him with a shaved face, military haircut, a freshness in his eyes. Something happened to rip that boy from him, and though I could use my own reasoning and deductions to tell exactly what he'd been through, he had to be the one to tell me; I wouldn't strip him of the right to tell his story.

Theo twisted in my arms, and I released my hold on him so he could face me in his bed. He brought a hand up to my cheek and his lips to my forehead.

"Good morning." His voice was scratchy from lack of sleep.

"Morning, T."

That brought out a smile, along with a roll of his eyes.

"You know, only my friends call me that. And my brothers."

"So I can't call you T?"

"No. You're not just a friend. And you're definitely not one of my brothers."

"What am I?"

His hand still held the right side of my face, his thumb gently sweeping back and forth over my cheek, his eyes searching mine.

"Whatever you want to be."

He was giving me the choice, and after the conversation I'd had with Will earlier in the week, I knew exactly where I wanted to stand with Theo.

"I want to be your girlfriend. And I want you to be my boyfriend."

There was the ghost of a smile on his lips; he was holding back, afraid of looking too happy or eager, afraid that anything he did could ruin the moment. But that was the thing; nothing could ruin the time Theo and I spent together.

He set his lips on mine. "Then it's settled."

I slid closer to him in his bed and pressed my body against his. I wanted to feel as much of him against me as I possibly could. I wanted to hold him and be held by him and have neither of us ever let go. I was in over my head, but for the first time I was alright with it.

Without intending it, my hand had fallen to rest on the spot where his scars marked his perfect body. Without looking up from his chest, I broached what happened during the night.

"We should talk about last night."

I'd kept my voice low, soft, but that didn't stop a deep moan, primeval almost, from rumbling through his chest.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Theo, it's not—"

He pulled back enough to look into my eyes, a new frustration brewing in his. "Was that a counselor trick? What you did just there? Give me something I want so I feel the need to give something back?" The rapidity with which he shifted moods only confirmed what was already in my head.

I let my eyes fall shut as I gently shook my head at him. "There was no trick, Theo. Being mutually exclusive is something we both want, isn't it?"

He blinked a few times before nodding his head just once.

"Okay, so I wasn't trying to trick you into anything. I just thought you'd want to discuss what happened." I ran a soothing hand up and down his side. "It would be good for you."

"I'm not ready to discuss everything. I, I hope you can understand that."

I could understand it far too well; I also wasn't ready to discuss certain things with him, but those things weren't affecting my mental state. And, I had a plan for those things.

"Okay. Then we'll save it for another day. Are we going to church this morning?" If nothing else, it would be good for him. The Theo I witnessed at a church ceremony a few weeks back was the most relaxed Theo I'd ever seen, and I enjoyed the whole experience very much.

His eyes widened before he responded. "You, you want to come to church with me?"

"I mean, if you don't mind. I liked it last time. It was very peaceful."

"I don't mind at all. Most people avoid it or come up with any excuse not to go, like Aiden. I'd love for you to come; I know my mom would, too."

I left a small kiss on the tip of his nose before climbing out of his bed and heading down the hallway to the bathroom on the second floor.

Theo hadn't asked if I wanted to come to church and family brunch with him prior to our date, but I'd packed a dress just in case. I guess, technically, he still hadn't asked me, but I didn't want to leave him. Besides, I probably would've invited myself along anyways, even if he hadn't had a breakdown overnight; I almost always found myself wanting to extend my time with Theo in any way possible.

I took a cool shower that morning. My mind was racing with too many thoughts, and a hot shower would've just made me want to wallow in them for a bit longer. The coolness at least kept my mind on being cold rather than on how I was going to best be able to alleviate Theo's mind.

At some point during my shower, I seemed to forget that I was no longer in my own apartment and started singing. It's kind of hard to tell how loudly you're singing when you're in the shower with the water running, but I very quickly realized I'd been singing a bit too loudly when I turned off the water and the sound was replaced by clapping.

I peeked out around the curtain to see Theo standing just inside the door, clad in boxers with a towel thrown over his shoulder, slowly bringing his hands together.

"Not bad, Calhoun." He pulled the towel down and held it out to me.

"One, you don't get to call me by my last name if I can't call you T. Two, if you wanted a duet, you always could've joined me."

"You don't want to hear me sing. There's a reason I play the drums." He winked at me as I wrapped the towel around myself and stepped out of the shower. "I'd be more than happy to play another kind of duet with you, though." The mischievous smile on his lips looked like it'd been drawn there by the devil itself.

"Your brothers are home. I, I don't want them to hear about anything we do in, well, private."

He stepped forward and placed a kiss on top of the soaking wet mop of hair on my head. "They're my brothers; we live for a good bit of competition. Now that I have you, Dan can stop teasing us about being the only one with a girlfriend, and Aiden is now the one who's losing."

Something about that didn't sit well with me, and with everything else in my head, my brain was seconds from short circuiting. "Is that what I am to you? Something to help you one-up your brothers?"

"I, well, no, that came out wrong."

"I need to go get dressed. I suggest you take a cold shower and knock some sense back into your brain."

I turned out of the bathroom and down the hall before he could respond. Was I overreacting? That much was obvious. But for a moment he made me feel like a means to an end, assumingly without intending to. I recognized that behavior too often from my parents and Will and even his parents, though purposefully on their parts.

By the time Theo had returned from his shower, I was fully dressed and had just finished braiding my hair. I spent a few minutes trying to make it look like I hadn't gotten only a few hours of sleep with some concealer as Theo pulled on some clothing. The moment he had jeans and a sweater on, he came up behind me and started into the mirror in front of us at my reflection.

"I can understand how what I said could have come across the way that it did, but I promise you I didn't mean it in that way. Brothers, or, well, any siblings, can be really competitive. Especially when there are five of us."

Turning to face him, I let my hands run over the shoulders of his sweater to smooth it out; it was something I was trained to do for nearly every picture I'd had to take with Will. "I get it, well, sort of. I'm sorry I overreacted. I don't have any siblings, but I do know what it's like to compete for my parents' attention, just not against a brother or a sister."

His lips pursed together, and his thumbs ran over the freckles on my cheeks. "You had a shitty family life."

I shook my head. "No. It could've been a lot worse. I've learned that from some of the clients I've worked with who've dealt with the unimaginable. But now I'm here with you, and even though we're both going through a few relationship growing pains, I'm happy to keep being with you."

His eyes bore into mine before turning down just slightly to the movements his thumbs made over my cheeks.

"I love your freckles."

I knew exactly what he meant. I loved him too, but neither of us seemed ready to say it out loud.

"You tell me that often."

"I don't want you to forget it."

My heart beat so quickly in my chest that it made my body temperature rise. I never imagined, not in my wildest dreams, that I'd ever meet a man like Theo, or that I'd be lucky enough to fall in mutual love with him.

The beep of a car horn in the driveway told us we had to get moving. As I followed Theo through the hallway, he took a moment to pop his head into Aiden's room. When the door opened wide enough for me to see that Aiden was still in his bed, I could almost feel the anger radiating from Theo.

He walked into Aiden's room, opened the curtains, and let the sunlight fall right over his bed.

Aiden groaned and pulled the covers over his face, but Theo yanked them off almost instantly.

"Fuck off, T. I got in at four."

"We've been doing this for your entire life, Aiden. You know how much it means to mom and dad. You know how much they've sacrificed for us."

"Yeah, well you missed years of our Sunday tradition, I'm fine to miss one."

I felt the goosebumps raise on my skin, and I stepped into Aiden's room behind Theo because I was nearly certain he was going to land a punch square into Aiden's jaw. But instead of being filled with fiery anger, a quieter rage passed over him. He straightened up, and spoke in a voice that sent another wave of chills over me.

"I was in the army. I was thousands of miles from home, serving our country so ungrateful little shits like you can live a life like this. Don't you think I'd rather have been out partying all night? Don't you—"

He stopped talking when he felt my hand on his back. I had to get him out of there; after the night he'd had, he was fragile, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Theo turned to me, anger quickly dissipating from his glare, and allowed me to guide us out of his brother's room.

At the bottom of the staircase, he pulled back on my hand, and once we were face-to-face, he drew me into him and set his mouth against mine. I kissed him back with everything I had. After another beep from Dan's car, Theo released his lips from mine.

"Thanks."

"Just didn't want to be late for church." I winked at him, and his angry exterior slipped away into a small grin.

***

Time with the other members of Theo's family seemed to be exactly what he needed. Watching him interact with them, it was as if nothing significant had happened over the last twelve hours. He was happy and calm and relaxed; at least, he appeared that way. To anyone else, Theo seemed okay. I knew he had perfected concealing what he really felt from his family.

Theo's mom prepared the same spread of food she had the last time I'd been there for brunch, and when we arrived I joked that hopefully I'd be able to stay long enough to actually eat what she had cooked. She took the apple cobbler Theo and I made and threw it in the oven to warm up, and Theo and I brought the remaining cider donuts to the table.

When we got there, I saw that my seat had already been chosen for me. My guitar, looking almost brand new, was propped up on one of the seats, and Theo's dad was seated in the one next to it.

I walked over to my guitar, picked it up, and turned it over in my hands. As soon as the shock of seeing it look so perfect settled, I set my gaze on Theo's dad.

"Mr. Bryne—"

"Davin."

"Right, Davin. Thank you so much. It, it looks even better than before it was broken."

"No problem at all, young lady. It was a wonderful way to destress after the cases I've been dealing with lately."

"Cases?" I lifted the mug of coffee Theo had put in front of me and took a sip.

"At the firm. Theo never told you what I do?" He changed his line of sight to Theo.

"It, er, never came up. Dad owns a family law practice."

The sip of coffee I'd just taken turned course into my windpipe, and an obnoxious coughing filled the room.

"Wrong tube?" Theo's mom had entered from the kitchen with a mug for his dad.

Through coughs, I managed, "Um, yeah, sorry, please continue."

His dad took a sip before turning back to us. "Been dealing with a lot of custody cases lately. Shows me how lucky I am to have a wife like Colleen. Divorce can be a messy business."

Oh, no. Oh, no. Theo's hand came to rest on my knee.

"Aw, dad, don't bore us with work details. It's Sunday brunch."

"Right you are, son. Pass me one of those donuts you brought. Always loved those when we went up to Palmer."

After my brain calmed down from the news of Theo's father's profession, I focused all of my energy into trying to enjoy a true Sunday brunch experience with the Bryne family.

In the back of my mind, though, I couldn't quiet this fear that Theo's dad would somehow use his sharp attorney skills to figure out I was still married; what if Theo had told them I was divorced? What if his dad asked me questions about it? There wasn't a single part of me that wanted to add to the lies I'd already had to tell, and I had the feeling Theo's dad could spot a lie instantly.

Later that evening, after brunch and Sunday football, and yet another shared dinner with Theo, it was time for him to drive me back to campus. On the way there, I realized I'd never given his dad any money for fixing my guitar.

"Hey, um, I completely forgot to offer to pay your dad for fixing my guitar. If—"

"He won't take anything, even if you tried to give it to him, so don't worry about it."

"I could at least give him money for the parts he had to replace."

"He likely used pieces he already had. He used to build guitars as a hobby, and his workshop is overflowing with spare parts. But I'm glad you brought him up. I'm sorry I never told you about dad's firm. I was worried it would stir up bad memories for you since you had to go through the divorce process."

I reached across the center console of his car and set my hand on his thigh, feeling a new level of guilt. "You don't have to apologize for that. I appreciate you looking out for my feelings. I know I can be a little sensitive at times."

"A little?"

"Funny." I gave his thigh a squeeze. "What are you going to do when you see Aiden?" When we returned from brunch, Aiden wasn't home, and he hadn't come back prior to us leaving Theo's house.

"Nothing. I'm over it. I shouldn't have lost my temper with him; it's not his fault he doesn't understand."

"Does he try to understand?"

"That's a counselor question, Jules. It's complicated."

I scrunched my nose at him. "For what it's worth, I think you were justified in being upset, and that's coming from girlfriend-Jules, not counselor-Jules. And you didn't yell or take out your anger on him in any way. Maybe your words were a little harsh, but so were his."

"It's my job to not lose my cool with him, though. He and Dan have gotten into it before, and I've felt myself being less and less able to remain patient with him lately. I don't know."

"That's understandable. You've had a lot going on in your head since last night. I just don't want you to feel like you can't talk about things. If you keep everything in, one day, no matter how hard you try, it's all going to come out, and it won't be pretty."

"Well, for now, this tactic has worked for me for the better part of a decade." He said it with such finality that it was clear our conversation on the subject was over.

When he pulled up to my building, he put his car in park.

"You need to come in for a minute?"

"No, I, er, I want to ask you something, but I don't want you to feel like you have to say yes."

"Didn't we already decide we were boyfriend and girlfriend?"

He smiled, a little of the nerves he was presenting fading away. "Yes, but that's not what I wanted to ask. I know it's only happened twice, but I really enjoy the time we spend with my family. And at big gatherings, my older sister always brings her husband and Dan always has Marnie, and I know it's a couple weeks away still, and I didn't think you were, but I wasn't sure if you were going to buy a flight back home, and—"

"If—"

He pressed his index finger to my lips as a gesture for me to zip it. "Please don't beat me to it again. Do you want to have Thanksgiving with my family?"

I kissed the pad of his finger, and he pulled it away. "There isn't a place I'd rather spend it than here, in Boston, with you and your family."

He leaned across the seat and kissed me. "Thank you. I hope we can give you a good one."

With every adult Thanksgiving I'd ever celebrated having typically consisted of me being forced into some elegant gown and having to talk to father's business partners and Will's uptight colleagues who should've been spending the day with their families, there wasn't a doubt in my mind Thanksgiving with Theo would be the best one of my life; but I didn't burden him with that knowledge.

As usual, Theo waited until I was securely in my building before driving off. When I was by myself, I allowed the weight of all that I'd found out that morning settle in.

Of course Theo's dad was a lawyer. Of course he was a family lawyer. Of course I was in need of just such a lawyer. But I could never ask Theo or his father to help me. I'd never be able to pay him whatever his normal rate was, and I wouldn't allow him to charge me a lesser fee or nothing at all. And, if Theo found out about my legal situation, on top of realizing I'd been lying to him, he'd think I'd been using him. For some irrational reason I had this fear that he'd think I'd only stayed with him after finding out his father owned his own family law practice precisely because I'd needed a divorce attorney. The truth was that I wanted to be with Theo no matter what he had or didn't have. All I wanted was him, and to be his, fully and completely.

That was why I was glad I'd recorded the conversation I had with Will the same night I got my email from Katie. I was gathering my evidence against him. Even if I had to represent myself in trial, I was going to do anything possible to finally break all ties from him.

I sat at my computer and played the sound clip back, just to ensure it had recorded well. I didn't have it in me to listen to it back after the actual call from him.

"Hello."

"Hi, can I speak to Jules Buchanan, my wife?"

I remembered thinking, technically, no. Jules Buchanan doesn't exist anymore.

"What do you want, Will?"

"Enough is enough. This little phase you've had has to be over now. I've got your parents and my parents in my ear all the fucking time about how I need to take control of this relationship, and I'm sick of it."

"Then you should leave Savannah, like I did." I knew as soon as the words came out of my mouth that they'd only make him angrier; somehow, in the moment, I didn't much care.

"You don't understand, sweetheart." I hated when he used his condescending tone. "Our marriage solidified more than the bond between our families. It solidified the bond between our families' businesses down here, and you're not going to destroy that."

"Do you even hear yourself? It's 2017, Will. Families and businesses do not thrive on the marriages of the children of them."

"The people in our community don't seem to think so. Since you've been gone, we've become stagnant in our growth. People liked seeing the merging of two prominent families; they liked seeing the happiness we were selling them."

"You know, I couldn't have said it better myself. The happiness we were selling them. That's precisely it; after our first year of marriage, it was all fake, all a show. I won't be part of that anymore."

A frustrated growl preceded his next spewing of hateful words. "Yes, darling, you will. If you don't get yourself back down here soon, I swear to you, Jules, I will come up there myself and drag your ass back here where it belongs."

I again felt my heart leap into my throat. Will coming to Boston would ruin everything. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't have a confrontation between Will and Theo. When I couldn't think of a response as I was frantically thinking of how it was at all possible to avoid such a confrontation, Will kept talking.

"Good. I'm going to take your silence as a sign that you're finally willing to listen to me. I know this is hard for you, honey, really, I do, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a few more months up there to really get the rest of this out of your system. Say goodbye to your friends, give your boss your notice. Then, when you get your annual family Christmas party invitation in the mail, rather than ignore it like you did last year, you're going to RSVP that you're coming, and I'll even buy your one way ticket back to Savannah."

"I—"

"No, no, sweetheart. No more I. It's we again, and we have decided you're coming back to Savannah. Please don't make me have to come up there, Jules. You know I'm not particularly fond of flying, but I can assure you that father's private jet is all gassed up and ready to go."

There were no words. Trying to keep the tears in was sucking up all of the energy I had left from that day. When I heard my voice on the recording, I realized it had never sounded so broken.

"Is, is that all?"

"Well, there's also the discussion of us finally getting a baby in you, but that can wait. I'm sure this was enough for today." And he hung up, and then I started crying. The recording cut off in the middle of a heavy sob.

The guilt I felt in disappointing my parents was one of the most confusing emotions I've ever felt. How could I feel so badly about letting them down when they cared not an ounce about me?

I wanted to please them, I really did, and up until that weekend I spent with Theo, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Relistening to that phone call reminded me I had two important emails to send.

The first email was going to the attorney I'd first talked to in Savannah. I was going to go back at Christmas, and my gift to myself was going to be signing those papers. It wouldn't mean much of anything given that Will would never sign them, but it would mean something to me; it would also be the start of the contested divorce battle Will so often promised me should I ever make such a move.

The old Jules would have taken that phone call from Will and accepted it and rolled over right back into the life she worked so hard to leave. The new Jules was done with Will's threats because she found someone who was worth losing everything for.

The second email was going to Katie.

At church that morning, the priest spoke about forgiveness and understanding, and those two concepts were exactly what I needed to get across to Katie. I wrote her a letter that asked for her forgiveness, but at the same time it also asked her to understand the position I was in. I left out the fact that I was part of that accident; she didn't need that information added to her plate. I just hoped what I sent her was enough to convince her to come back to school; I didn't want her to be another woman running from her problems.

A/N: Hi!

My brain is fried. Literally fried. I hope that doesn't show in this chapter lol.

Stress and work and all the other things adults have to deal with have been circling my head like Jules' vultures and it'd be great if they could just fly away for a bit ☺️

Anyways, this gives me a bit of a reprieve, and I spent most of yesterday writing it, which was nice :)

Please vote and comment and chat with me to take my mind off the everyday stresses of being an adult. (Never grow up; it's a trap! Jk, I'm just complaining right now. Things can be far worse; I know how lucky I am to have the life I have ☺️)

I hope you have a wonderful week!

-L