Whatever It Takes by JM Stewart

not once did you ever tell me you missed me, and I had to face the cold, hard truth. So, I filed for divorce because it was clearly what you wanted.”
    Jackson went eerily silent behind her, and Becca turned to him. He hadn’t moved. He stood beside the sink as still as stone, brows drawn together in concentration. His eyes glazed over, shifting, flitting about the kitchen at large, as if he’d drawn into himself and searched his thoughts.
    He turned his head as if in slow motion, and his gaze settled on her. The confusion and sorrow etched in his eyes stole the breath from her lungs. She opened her mouth, but he didn’t give her a chance to respond. In the snap of a finger, his expression went blank. His jaw set, he pivoted away from her and stalked from the room. “You’re right. I’m a thoughtless, insensitive jerk, and you’re likely better off without me.”
    He disappeared around the corner, his quick, heavy footsteps echoing down the hallway like he couldn’t get away fast enough. The pain finally came, like a steel belt tightening around her chest, making breathing impossible.
    There he was, the Jackson Kade she remembered, the one who left her so lonely the sensation had been a permanent ache inside of her. The man she left when she hadn’t been able to stand his distance anymore. She swore she’d gotten over that, yet there she was, reliving those days all over again. Except somehow, this time felt worse. Much worse. For a few, brief moments, she’d gotten a glimpse of what life might have been like had he been the man she thought she married.

Chapter Five
    Heart in her throat, Becca stepped out onto the back deck, easing the door shut behind her. Some twenty feet across from her, Jackson stood at the railing, elbows resting on the dark wood, wearing only his pajama bottoms and his slippers. It was two in the morning, and it was a clear night, the moon shining bright in an unusually cloudless sky, which meant it was also bitter cold. He had to be freezing, but he was as still and silent as the neighborhood around them. Like he didn’t feel the cold at all.
    She’d been tossing and turning for hours now, rehashing the entire day, when the telltale creak of the back door opening drifted down the hallway. Knowing Jackson used to come out here a lot to think, she’d gotten up and followed. Their argument earlier had gotten to her, and she’d made a tough decision while lying in bed tonight.
    As the door clicked shut behind her, Jackson’s back stiffened, but he didn’t look at her.
    “I’m sorry if I woke you.” Despite the quiet calm in his voice, as she came up behind him, tension radiated off of him. His keen awareness of her prickled in the air between them.
    “You didn’t,” she said, approaching the railing. “I couldn’t sleep.”
    When she stopped at his side, he finally glanced over at her. “Me neither.”
    She didn’t need to ask why. The reason, the words neither one of them needed to say, hung in the air, as thick and heavy as the tension. Dinner hours earlier had been awkward and silent. The only time in her life she could remember thanking God their daughter seemed to live in her own little world and had the gift of gab, like her father. Allie had babbled about her day, about Fred, while tension had blossomed between her and Jackson like a living, breathing entity. He’d sat stiffly, shoveling in bites of food. He’d eaten but hadn’t appeared to taste anything.
    He shut her out again, and she hated it. His subtle cocky arrogance she could handle. The way he touched her, in his innocent yet deliberate way, like he couldn’t help himself, she could handle. Even one of his wicked observations would be better. Those always made her blush and left her caught between the need to laugh and scream, but they were yards better than the silence. The silence reminded her too much of the last few months before she left. When they’d moved beyond arguing to simply ignoring each other.