Regret11 min read
"I Came Back for Work — He Came Back for Me"
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I sit in the corner and drink my soda.
"I said no more wine," Annie whispers beside me, but I keep my cup close to my lips.
The room is loud. Laughter and small screams swirl like confetti. My face is calm. My heart is not.
"Are you sure you want to stay?" Annie asks again.
"I said yes," I answer. "I can last one hour."
Annie squeezes my hand, then turns to wave at someone across the room.
Three men walk in like they own the night. Heads turn. Phones lift. The loud cheers feel like a wall closing in on me.
"Who's that?" Annie asks.
"Jackson Mahmoud," someone calls. "And his partners. They run half the city."
My breath freezes. I look, too.
Jackson steps inside slow and calm. He wears a white shirt and black jeans. He does not look around. He looks like he can swallow the room whole without moving his lips.
When he finally glances toward me, I feel my body betray me.
His smile stops like a switch being cut.
He drinks a can, taps his phone, then goes back to the crowd. He is quiet. He is everything I remember.
"He's married now," Brent says at our table. "Huge star. Big life."
"I heard he has a famous girlfriend," someone else says.
My hands are cold on the cup. I want to stand and go, or stay and watch, or run and hide.
"Do you want me to take you out?" Annie asks again.
"No," I say. "I will be fine."
Then Conway drags me to the center like I am a puppet. He pushes me in front of Jackson.
"Jackson, look—it's Evangeline," he says loud.
My name in his mouth sounds like a small alarm.
Jackson does not lift his head. He lets his phone lie dark in his hand, but then he presses a number and makes a call. Everyone laughs. Someone shouts, "Show us!" and they egg him on.
I tell myself to leave. I tell myself I do not care.
But I do. I have always cared.
"Go," Annie whispers. "Please."
I stand, pretend to smile, and make my way to the door. I put on my coat. I go.
"You can't leave like that," Conway says, and he drags my sleeve. "Tell him hi. We used to—"
"No," I say. "I have to go."
Jackson's voice stops me.
"This is Brent's night," he says without looking up. "If you want to be here to give me trouble, go ahead. If not, don't lie to me and leave."
I turn.
He says my full name in the same old slow way from our school years.
I feel the whole night split open.
I pick up my phone. I call my mother and say I have to go. I sit back down.
"Will you be all right?" Brent asks.
"Yes," I say, and I try to mean it.
We go on to other rooms. People sing. Drinks spill. The night goes on.
They bring me a bottle of wine and I drink more than I should. The crowd pulls at me and I count the hours until I'm outside alone. I go to the restroom and wash my hands, and there he is at the mirror—taller, colder. He passes by as if he doesn't see me.
He does not.
I laugh at myself in the mirror.
Of course he didn't come for me. Of course he did not care.
I leave.
I ride away in a taxi that smells like warm smoke. Jackson watches me walk away from the dark glass of the men's room window until the cab slips into the night. Then he lights a cigarette. He breathes out a number I know well.
"Three years, ten months, nine days," he says to no one.
I do not know he hears me say it later.
---
"It's not fair," Annie says the next day when I tell her the meeting was broken.
"What do you want me to do?" I say. "I cannot lose this job."
"Then don't beg him," she says. "You are better than that."
"I am not asking for pity," I say. "I'm asking for fairness."
Trey from my old team had arranged the meeting with Jackson's company long before I had returned. I flew home to sign a contract, to do my job. I never expected to see him.
But I see him everywhere now. He is a myth in town. He is sharp. He is cold. He is everywhere.
I go to the office the next day. I open the door to the N Era meeting room and find three men waiting—Jackson and his two partners.
"Welcome," I say, and I pretend I have not held my breath all morning.
Jackson looks up slowly. His eyes find me and everything tilts.
"What are you doing here?" he asks.
"I am here to sign," I say.
"Brent told me he was meeting a manager. He didn't say who," Jackson says. His voice is flat but the room hums.
"We have an appointment," I say. "The contract is ready."
He folds his hands. For reasons I cannot name, he says, "We will not sign."
I smile because my mouth must not tremble.
"You can't do that," I say. "If you cancel, the penalty is triple. If you break the deal, I will lose my job."
He smiles small.
"I have money," he says. "But I can make other things happen too. Lose your job. Lose your placement. Lose your chance to go back."
He says my name soft, like an accusation.
"Jackson," I say. "This is business."
"Business," he repeats. "Do you know why I will not sign?"
"Because you found someone else," I say.
He does not answer.
Instead he hangs up and leaves me with the smell of smoke and power.
---
I try every door. Everyone closes. The city is small and the news moves fast. A week of calls becomes a week of silence. The contract we arranged in M City is at risk. I cannot go back empty-handed. I call Trey from headquarters and he hides worry under calm.
"Don't tell them all," Trey says. "We can keep this quiet for now."
But small things grow teeth.
At the bar, a pig of a manager laughs and tells me I should go home if I want to sleep safe. Avery and Conway laugh in the corner and pretend not to listen.
Then a text arrives.
"If you want to end this now, meet me. We can finish what we started once and for all."
My hands shake.
I see a path, broken and raw. I decide to go.
---
I arrange the dinner. I try to be brave.
Valentina answers late. "I can come," she says. "But I'm busy. Be there."
I arrive early. Jackson arrives early too.
"She's not here," I say.
He looks like he has been expecting a betrayal.
"She is busy," he says.
"Then let's talk about the contract," I say.
He shakes his head. "Eat first."
We eat and the world seems ordinary. He glances across the plate at me and then away. He asks me one question and it hits like a punch.
"Why did you leave?" he asks.
"I told you," I whisper. "I don't love you."
He stares. The words I said three years ago return to my throat like stones.
"I said it then and I said it now," I say.
"Tell me the truth," he says. "I want the truth."
"I did not love you," I repeat, but in my own chest a page turns. This is the first lie told between us. The truth is heavier.
"Will you sign?" I ask.
He looks at the contract on the table. He slides it across with a pen.
"No," he says.
I breathe.
"No" becomes a wall between us. I lean forward and tell him everything I can.
"I left because I was afraid for you," I say. "Your mother—she asked me to leave. She said she wanted someone who fit the family. She said I would make trouble for you."
His jaw tightens. He looks older by a measure I can taste.
"You were afraid you would ruin him?" he asks, voice thin.
"I was afraid for you," I say. "I was afraid you would be punished for loving me."
He laughs low. "Punished how?"
"You don't remember then," I say. "You don't see them as I did. They are careful with futures. They are careful with names. I left so your life could be easier."
Silence sweeps the table. Jackson's cigarette smoke curls in the light.
"I made you vanish," I say. "Because I thought it was safer for you."
He looks at me and for one second I see the boy who used to tie his tie crooked in class. For one second he is fragile.
"I thought you hated me," he says.
"I hated making you choose," I say. "I thought you would be fine if you were free."
"And you?" he asks. "What about you?"
I could not say then.
"I lost three years," Jackson says. "You think I just moved on? I tried to hate you. I tried to forget. I failed."
He signs the papers quietly. He hands the pen back to me.
"Go back to work," he says. "You have your job. But stay in the city. It will be easier that way."
I close the folder. I stand. For a moment I feel like we have ended something ugly and begun to breathe.
"Thank you," I say.
He looks at me. "Don't thank me."
Then he leaves.
---
The contract is signed and life moves like a river. Work floods my days. Trey and I fight getting the campaign live. Valentina and I meet as partners. She smiles easy and kind. She is everything Jackson needs to show in public.
At the office, I place the flowers someone sent on my desk. A stranger drops them in the morning like a small miracle. There is no card. I smile. Liam drops by and says "Sorry I could not stay."
I accept the bouquet and I accept the day.
But Jackson is around. He is always near like a weather cloud. Valentina and he are careful, they walk together, they appear like two halves of a picture.
I avoid him as I can, but some things cannot be avoided.
One night, after a long day, I saw him outside the studio. He walks like a string pulled.
"Do you have time?" he asks.
"Not really," I answer.
He holds a small, rough paper in his hand. "Come to the old house," he says. "The place we used to call ours."
He says it like a test.
I want to refuse. I want to run. Instead I say, "Okay."
He drives us to the small white house by the gardens. The place is quiet and small and full of dust. Roses cling to the walls like a dream.
"Here," he says, and for the first time in a long time he calls me by the name we used to use.
"No titles, please," he says.
He calls me "Eve" in a voice small and soft, and my knees almost give.
Inside the house everything is the same and everything is not. His shoes still rest by the bench. My old cardigan rests on the hook. It is like a stage with a memory.
"I wanted you to come because we need to end this well," he says.
"End?" I ask. "End what?"
"Us," he says. "We were unfinished. I am tired of half-lies."
I feel cold.
He takes my hand and holds it. His fingers are warm.
"I will not let you vanish again," he says. "I will not let them make you go."
"Jackson—" I begin.
"Call me Jackson when we are not alone," he says then, softer. "But right here, right now, call me Jackson or any name you like. This house remembers."
We move like sheep to a familiar song. He kisses me and the memory hits like sunrise. I do not fight him. How can I? My head swims and the old warmth burns the new chill away.
"Why did you leave?" he asks at one pause.
"My family," I say. "They feared your family. They made me pick the safer path. I picked the wrong parts of safety."
He breathes out.
"Who told you about my mother?" he asks.
"You did," I say. "Her rules lived in the corners of your rooms. I saw them in your father's letters in the drawer. I read things that were not meant for me. They said I would not fit. I didn't know how to stay."
He squeezes my hand like he is holding thread that can break.
"You left to save me," he says. "You made yourself small."
"I thought the only way to love was to leave," I say.
"And yet you came back," he says.
"I came back for work," I say, and then I look at him. "I came back for you too. I couldn't stop myself."
He smiles, close and bright and wrong and right.
"You are going to make me pay," I whisper.
"I already did," he says. "Three years. It hurt me. I was stupid. I thought revenge would be a medicine."
"What changed?" I ask.
"You did," he says.
---
We spend the evening like two people repairing a fence. He listens to my small confessions. I watch him open up a shutter and find the sunlight he let in. He tells me he refused to sign the contract at first to get my attention, to make me fight, but not to punish me legally.
"I was cruel," he says. "I wanted to see you chase me and I wanted to punish myself and you."
"And did you feel better?" I ask.
"No," he says. "I felt worse."
We make small peace. He reaches into his jacket and hands me a small key.
"For the attic," he says. "I have kept your things."
I hold the key like it might be a live bird. I unlock the door and we enter the attic like thieves. Inside we find old notes, a notebook with my messy handwriting, a scarf he once bought me. We sit and we laugh and the house smells of tea and small truths.
"Promise me you will not run," he says suddenly.
"I promise," I say, though my voice trembles.
"Then promise me something else," he says. "If I choose you now, will you choose me too? Not because of danger or duty, but because you want to be with me?"
I look at him. The boy behind the man. The memory of his hand sliding across my palm on a bus seat. The night he gave me ten dollars for a drink and turned my life into a rumor. A boy who grew into a man who lost his temper and then himself.
"Yes," I say.
He closes his eyes as if to taste the word.
"Good," he says. "Then we start again. But you keep your job. You keep your life. We do this our way."
I nod.
---
News travels fast. Jackson's family stirs. His mother calls and holds her tone like a knife.
"Jackson, what are you doing?" she hisses.
He steps forward.
"I am choosing," he says.
"You can't just choose—our name—"
"I can," he says. "I already chose."
She says things that tried to make me small again. I stand and I listen.
"She left before because she was afraid," he tells his parents. "She chose what she thought would protect me. You do not get to hurt her for making a choice."
His mother blinks. The room grows silent like a glass dropped.
"You don't understand what I have to manage," she says thinly.
"I understand enough," Jackson says. "You don't manage my heart."
There is a small argument, a public scene, and an almost private collapse of her cool manner. People watch. They whisper. My phone fills with messages.
"This will make him pay," Brent tells me later. "He will be punished for losing a week."
"I don't want to punish him," I say. "I want him to choose me."
He does.
He stands in front of everyone and says my name. He takes my hand. He does not let go.
Later, he tells me how he sat in the study and counted the nights I was away. He kept a list of all the times he thought of me. He dreaded me moving on and also wanted to see if I could choose him.
"I wanted you to chase me," he admits, "but I was too proud to chase you back."
I look at him and I let the past fold into a future.
---
Days pass. Work goes on. The campaign launches and it is a success. Jackson helps. He helps so much that people whisper and call him my guardian angel. He stands by my work. I stand by his choice.
At a press event, someone asks if we are together.
"Yes," he says before I can think. "She is mine."
I feel them all look. Valentina smiles as if this is expected and loads of lipstick. She pulls me aside.
"I want you to be happy," she says with sudden honesty. "If you want him, take him."
I hold her hand. "Thank you," I say.
In private, Jackson pulls me aside.
"You are mine," he says again, but this time gentle.
"Not yours," I say, and I slide my hand into his. "With you."
He laughs and it is small and shaky.
"Do you still remember that first ten-dollar drink?" he asks.
"All the time," I say.
He drops down on one knee suddenly and I nearly drop my purse.
"What are you doing?" I laugh.
"I am testing," he says. "For memories. For the future."
"Don't be silly," I say.
He pushes my hand and his face is bright. "Eve," he says. "Will you be here with me? Not as a shadow, not as a favor. Will you be with me because you want to—"
I pull him up and kiss him hard.
"Yes," I say.
---
Months go by and each day is not perfect, but it is ours. He learns not to use power as a blade. I learn not to run.
One night at the house, on the small white porch, I take his phone and scroll through an old message—a line he said once and saved like scripture.
"Store my name, Jackson," I had said in a joke years ago.
He had done that long before. He had my name in the list of his most precious things.
He laughs.
"You did tell me to save your name," he says. "You told me to. I never forgot."
"I asked you to do a small thing," I say. "You did the impossible."
He pulls me into his arms.
"You did the impossible too," he says. "You came back."
We go home and I sit in our small kitchen. He makes coffee like he owns every morning now. He folds laundry in the way lovers find boring and necessary. His hands have a new softness when he touches me, and also a strength.
Once, when a reporter tried to stir a storm about my past leaving, he stood in the front and answered with truth and grace. He did not shout. He did not use his money. He told a quiet story of fear and choice. The room listened.
"You could have ruined me," he tells me late that night.
"I could have," I say. "But you did not let me."
He kisses my forehead and says, "I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never have to make that choice again."
I place my head on his shoulder. The house is quiet. Outside, a light wind moves the roses.
"Promise me one thing," I say.
"Anything," he answers.
"Don't let them push us into hiding," I say. "If something trouble comes, we face it together. No more running."
He nods.
"I promise," he says.
We sleep.
In the morning he smiles as if he has kept his word for a thousand years already.
It is not the end of all pain. Families still mutter. Work still hollows. People still whisper.
But each day the thought I have repeats like a small, sweet chant: I came back for work. He came back for me.
And that is enough.
The End
— Thank you for reading —