Free Not Since You by Jenna Jared

an asshole."
    "Okay." Carrie lifted her eyes to his face again. "I'm sorry, Zack. It must have been so hard for you both, Sarah's getting sick and dying. Can I ask…what happened?"
    He kicked at the ground with his toe. "Ovarian cancer."
    Carrie hissed. "I'm so sorry."
    "Me, too." He looked out across the ocean. Sailboats scudded over the dark blue water, their white sails reflecting pink in the setting sunlight. A few surfers caught the last few waves of the day farther up the beach. Flocks of seagulls settled on the sand for the night, moving only slightly when people jogged by. He took a deep breath. "Sarah loved being on the beach. When she got too weak to walk, she'd ask me to carry her here. I'd wrap her in a quilt and she'd sit on a folding reclining chair, just watching the water. She said it was funny how it changed all the time, yet never changed." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "She was so brave about dying. I was the one who fell apart when we learned she only had a short time left. It was hard."
    "You must have loved her very much, Zack."
    He turned his gaze to Carrie. Her hair, caught by the ocean breeze, blew in thin gold strands across her cheeks. He pushed them away with his fingertip, tucking them behind her ears, and he mused on how her looks had barely changed. How he'd dreamed of her. The curve of her small nose, her pink, kissable, pouty mouth, the long line of her neck… He still wanted to kiss the place where it met her collarbone. She'd always liked that—his mouth on her neck, his hand on the swell of one of her breasts, one hand on her hip. She'd always arched up into him when he nipped her there. It had been her secret hot button, and only he'd known about it.
    "Damn it, Carrie," he said. "I never loved Sarah, not like I loved you. Always you. That's why I fell apart. Because even as she died, I could never love my wife the way I loved you. I felt horrible. I felt guilty. Especially when I asked myself if I was happy she was dying, because maybe—maybe then I'd have my chance with you."
                  "That's a horrible thing to say." Carrie gasped and pulled away from his warmth, leaving herself feeling cold.
                  "It's a horrible way to feel." He nodded. "I wanted to love her the way I loved you. But I didn't. I couldn't ."
    She didn't want to believe it of him, but his eyes held the truth of his words. "Oh, Zack," she whispered, her heart clenching. "You didn't love her at all?"
                  He tilted his head and a lock of his thick, dark hair fell over his forehead, ruffled by the breeze. He shook his head, falling back onto the sand with his forearm over his eyes. He was wiping away tears, she realized.
                  "Sarah and I were friends," he said. "Get me right, we had a physical relationship too, because we were married and…well, we tried. But it was more like scratching an itch or fulfilling a need, but not a desire. After a while, we only did it because we wanted more children. A sibling for Samantha. Of course, we didn't have any children. When we went to a fertility specialist, Sarah's cancer was discovered. So we stopped having sex. We didn't discuss it or plan it that way, it just—happened. And neither of us missed it.
    'The weird thing is, we probably got along better than most married couples we knew. We had respect for each other. We loved each other, nothing romantic, just…comfortable. Like family, but not by blood. I don't know. Like cousins, or something." He peered at her from under his arm. "Sarah always felt bad. She missed you, you know. That's why she saved your articles. She was proud of you."
    A pain stabbed through Carrie's gut. She'd been such a witch. Maybe if she'd been older, she would have…no, she wouldn't have called Sarah. It took Nana's dying for her to come home. It took Nana's stupid dog for her to talk to Zack. She felt tears start forming in her own eyes. Sarah…
    "But she