It had felt good. Connecting with him again - even under the circumstances of thrown fortune cookies and uncertainty about their future as a married couple - it had felt right. They felt like them again, and in those moments, she remembered everything she loved about Jackson and why she had felt so drawn to him at that hotel room in San Francisco so many years ago. It felt really, really good.
Until it didn't.
Those seconds after, when the euphoria wore off and her mind started running a mile a minute again (because she just had to see eight sides to everything), she wondered what it meant. Was this break-up sex or make-up sex? Did he really still want her, or did he just want her to stop arguing with him? Was he regretting ever getting married in the first place? Was this all their relationship ever was to begin with? If Samuel hadn't died, would it have come to this, or would they be well and truly happy?
Why couldn't she just enjoy this without overthinking?
The sight of him being the first to get up from their (no longer really shared) bed snapped her back to reality for a second, causing her to fumble for her discarded tee and shorts and swiftly put them back on again.
When he turned to look at her before leaving the room, she couldn't help but feel small. Insignificant. Maybe this was a mistake, she thought, and she couldn't help but hate herself for thinking that, because it wasn't a thought she'd had regarding sex in years - not since they'd ran off from that tiny barn together and said 'I do'. It wasn't a thought she felt she'd ever had to deal with again, and yet, the look on his face told her what she'd been dreading for weeks: This is it. This is goodbye. It's over.
She'd wanted to at least end where they began. In a bed. In love. So why did it make her feel so awful?
When the tears in her eyes threatened to drop, she made her way to the en-suite bathroom, ridding herself of her pyjamas once again before stepping into the shower. It felt good, for a fleeting moment - feeling like the warm water was washing away all of her worries and cleansing her (if they were married, why did she suddenly feel so dirty?). The tears finally fell, and she prayed that the sounds of the jets were enough to drown out of the sound of her sobbing.