I Choose Us

By Nicole Crystal

Can you learn from the past to protect the future, or are you always destined for goodbye?

Chloe Young has everything she set out to accomplish, a successful career, a loving husband, and two amazing children. But that’s only how it looks to everyone else. In reality, her marriage is falling apart and her career is uncertain. The last thing she needs is the return of the one person who changed it all. When fate reunites her with Jason, her college boyfriend from twenty years ago, she begins to unravel secrets from her past and present that tears her heart in two.

Surrounded by choices, will Chloe choose the life she’s created—the one she thought she always wanted—or a life that could have been? Jason can’t promise a future. She has a family. Are they destined for the same heartbreak they had once before? Will this goodbye finally be their last?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Apr 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781665739894

Nicole Crystal

Nicole Crystal is a career driven sales management executive and mother of two who has always aspired to become an author. She holds a bachelor’s in marketing from Valparaiso University and an MBA from Northern Illinois. Nicole resides in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two children.

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 Nicole Crystal.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3990-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3991-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3989-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904104

Archway Publishing rev. date: 04/13/2023

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For my husband, who left his first career so I could follow mine.

PROLOGUE

19 Years Ago, August

Eight words…eight words alter the course of my life.

I think we should go our separate ways.

Jason continues to further explain after stating them during our nightly call, as if I don’t already understand what he’s telling me. "I recently met a girl in town, and I think it’s best for us. Your job and your life is in Chicago, and mine is here in Charlotte…she is in Charlotte."

He no longer sees a future with me. I’m no longer good enough because of the distance between us.

I want to scream, but I can’t even find my voice. I’m in shock. I didn’t see this coming, not tonight, not from him.

Chloe? Are you still there? he asks when the silence lingers for too long.

I’m angry. I’m hurt. I have no words. Did he expect that I’d want to talk about it?

I respond the only way I’m able. I hang up, throwing my phone across the room and finding the scream that’s been building inside me.

I take a breath, trying to calm myself before my emotions overcome my actions. Another woman? How did we get here? How did we let the distance destroy us when we worked so hard not to let it? This was part of our plan. We were both going to focus on building our careers after college, and even though we’re in two different locations, we were going to make it work. We were going to be different than all of the others who’ve tried this and failed. We don’t fail. Jason was my soul mate, the one I was supposed to marry…the one who just betrayed me.

Where did we go wrong? Where did I go wrong? Did I do something to deserve this?

No. This was his choice. He chose someone else over me.

I never intended to start a relationship with Jason when we met in our junior year of college. I didn’t want to feel tied down. I had career goals, ambitions that I wanted to achieve. He and I were paired together for a group project. I hadn’t ever connected with someone else the way we did. He had a thirst for success, and a hunger that quickly included me. Even though I’d tried to keep our relationship casual, we fell in love in a way that I never knew was possible. He became part of my plan, and I thought I was part of his.

The February before graduation our senior year, I received a job offer as a sales manager for an advertising agency in Chicago. It was the job I was hoping to get. I’d loved the people, the atmosphere, and the location during my internship the summer prior. In April, a month before graduation, Jason received an amazing offer to join a small sports marketing agency in Charlotte, North Carolina. The agency specialized in auto racing, which had been a passion of his since he was a boy. It was a dream job for him and a role he desperately wanted to accept.

If you don’t think we can make it work, I’ll turn it down and find a job closer to you, he told me the night the offer came through.

I could never ask you to choose me over a dream of yours, I replied. It was a true statement at the time. How could I tell him not to accept the career he’d wanted for so long? As much as I wanted to tell him to stay, it wasn’t a fair request that he should give up his dream so I could have mine. Relationships are about sacrifice and patience.

I can picture the smile on his face, his blue eyes sharing so much appreciation and love for me. We can make it work. I’ll call every day, and we can visit each other on weekends.

I swallowed every doubt I was feeling. Of course, we can. We love each other. The distance can’t change that.

At the time, neither of us had ever had a long-distance relationship and we didn’t know the additional amount of effort, stress, and jealousy that it would exert on our relationship.

For more than a year we tried to make it work, each taking weekend trips every few months to spend time with one another. The weekends were full of dinner dates, sex, all the casual time together we missed out on in the months that separated us, but we could feel each other drifting away during the time apart. My job was going extremely well. He loved what he was doing in the racing industry, getting to attend racing events and host sponsors across the country. Our time together became limited by his weekend travels, and our careers became the focus of our lives.

At the beginning of our relationship, that’s what I had told him I wanted my focus to be on, and at the end, that’s exactly where it was. I just never thought that I couldn’t have both.

Reflecting on it now, I can see the regression. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t going to give up my career, and that he loved what he was doing. I knew there would eventually be an ultimatum. So why does it hurt so much?

My phone lights up on the floor. It’s a text.

Jason: I love you, Chloe. I’m so sorry.

They are the last words I hear from Jason. I leave all of the questions unanswered with that text. He broke my heart, but this didn’t have to change my future.

CHAPTER 1

Present Day, March 25th

Dear J –

Here I am, nearly twenty years later, traveling to Charlotte for the first time since we broke up. Instead of the meeting I have this afternoon, I’ve spent the entire flight thinking of you. They say your first real love will always stay with you. The feelings can change, and of course you can love again, but there’s something about that first true adult love that changes a person. It leaves an imprint you can never remove, no matter the scars that cover it.

I’m hoping, by writing this, I can feel a sense of peace and closure. That I can move on from needing to know the answers to all the questions I never got to ask. Maybe I’m going through some kind of midlife crisis. Or perhaps I’m just searching for the girl I wanted to become, the dream you helped me create. I often wonder what would have happened if you’d never left to chase your dream job. I wonder if our demise was inevitable, even without the distance to destroy it.

I’ve moved on. I no longer feel anger or hatred toward you for what happened. Maybe that’s a sign that I’ve forgiven you. It was heartbreaking to know that someone I loved so much could ever betray me, but I’ve healed and become a stronger person for it.

I wouldn’t change what we had, or erase our time together, if given the opportunity. A person deserves to know that kind of love. It’s the kind that’s so beautiful, it makes all of the ugliness worth it. The kind of love that stays with you forever, always remaining, no matter the time or distance that’s passed.

I’d love to reach out to you and hear how your life is going. I hope it’s everything you wanted it to be. Some days, I think about what it would be like to know you again, to be a friend, but I’m not sure it could work. I’m not sure that I’ve ever gotten over you enough to ignore any feelings that remain. Perhaps I should just trust our future to fate, as I always have.

Until then, know that I still think of you.

C –

62922.png

I sign my initial at the end of my journal entry. Only the initial, as if that creates some kind of secret code that only Jason and I will know.

Mrs. Young, can I get you anything else? The stewardess snaps me out of my thoughts, and I turn to look at her. We’re about to land. Can I get you anything else?

I shake my head, my mind still someplace else.

What is wrong with me today?

The businessman sitting next to me is busy working on his computer. I should be, too, but I can’t think about anything except my last trip to Charlotte. The last time I saw Jason.

I turn toward the window, catching my reflection. My facial features reflect someone completely different than when I was twenty. I now have the look of someone in their early forties, forty-one to be exact. My deep brown eyes peer back at me, but it’s almost as if I don’t recognize the person I see. On the surface, I have it all together. I have a career, a family, and a husband I love, and yet, inside, I’m just as broken as everyone else.

"Come on, Chloe, you are exactly where you wanted to be. You are who you wanted to be," I whisper to myself.

This trip is messing with my mind.

I peer down at the note in front of me, wondering why I felt like I needed to write it. Do I need him to know that I’ve forgiven him, or is there something deeper? What do I do with it now?

Wow. I sound ridiculous. This isn’t me. I’m not irrational or spontaneous. I’m calculated, deliberate, and levelheaded.

I don’t need Jason to know that I still think of him, that, as much as I love my husband, he’s always been the one that got away. I’m sure he’s never given me a second thought.

I contemplate looking him up on social media, but decide against it. It’s better I don’t know who he is now, who he’s become. I was twenty-two when he broke up with me. I don’t need to know if he’s gorgeous, successful, and single, or even married. The best case scenario would be if he’s someone I’d never want to be with, and I can be at peace that he left me. But knowing who he was, that doesn’t seem like someone he would have become. Either way, I can’t risk it. Any feeling I’ve kept for him needs to remain buried, and searching for him will only pull whatever remains to the surface.

After he broke up with me, I spent years rediscovering who I was, what I wanted. I continued to build my career, not focusing on relationships. Eventually, I met my husband, Christian. He was still in the early stages of a career in law, which took a lot of his attention, allowing our relationship to flourish at the speed I needed. He made me happy in a way I hadn’t felt since Jason, teaching me it was possible to love another person with as much passion and adoration as your first love.

I close the notebook, sealing all of the thoughts of Jason with it.

It’s amazing, when I pictured how my life would look at forty, this is how I always pictured it. I’ve got the career and family that I dreamed of…the only difference is who I’m married to.

The announcement bellows from the intercom that the flight attendants should prepare for landing, and it snaps me out of my thoughts. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, I shift my attention back to the reason I’m here. I think about the upcoming client meeting, mentally run through my sales pitch, and leave the concerns about my personal life buried deep in my heart.

62925.png

Incredible job today, Chloe, my boss, Luke, says to me as we meet for dinner at the hotel.

I’ve had some great mentors, I reply. I feel my face flush and I hope he doesn’t notice. I didn’t mean for my comment to come off as flirtatious as it did.

I’ve worked for Luke for a little over three years since joining Odyssey as their vice president of sales. Luke has quickly become one of my best mentors, even though he’s only three years older than me. He’s had a variety of experiences across multiple industries, and he’s always open to sharing career advice. At twenty-five, he started his own business, sold it by thirty-two, and then spent time with multiple consulting firms, until landing his current role as our chief customer officer when the company was launched. He had previously done work with Alex, our company founder, and was recruited to lead our customer agenda when Alex started the company.

I called Alex and gave him a recap when we got back. He’s excited to see what happens, Luke tells me. Alex personally requested Luke and I handle the sales call today. It was an initial proposal for what could be our largest client. Luke and I haven’t done an initial pitch together since my team expanded last spring, so I knew it was a big deal. I’d forgotten how good of a team we make.

We decided to have dinner, together, tonight since neither of us is returning home until tomorrow. Luke lives in Dallas, I’m still in Chicago, and I haven’t seen him in person for probably six months. I do remember what dinners with him are like, though. They always include at least one bottle of wine, and typically a second after good sales meetings. Tonight is definitely a second-bottle night, which usually means I end up talking way more than I should, and making comments that I shouldn’t. Apparently, I haven’t learned that I need to stick to my limit of two glasses or less, especially when I’m speaking with my boss.

Since our conversation has turned into a spontaneous performance review, I allow the waiter to refill my glass for the third time.

Thirty minutes later, Luke is pouring the remaining wine into our glasses, emptying the second bottle. Does that make four refills?

Ugh. I’m definitely going to have a headache tomorrow.

I’m so glad you decided to join us at Odyssey. It’s been incredible working together, Luke shares.

You make it easy, I respond. My cheeks are hot, and I’m not sure if it’s the wine or the company. I take a sip of the wine, wondering why I thought that would be a good response. Did that sound flirtatious? I’m talking with my boss. What the hell is up with me today? It’s got to be this city.

I’m not surprised Alex wanted both of us here, together, for this, Luke tells me.

His voice is different, almost inviting. In the dimly lit restaurant, I can feel the warmth that surrounds him. I find myself drawn to his deep green eyes. After three years of working together, I’ve never noticed how they soften when he’s completely engaged in a conversation.

Are you sure you didn’t just want to spend more time together? I say.

Damn. I need water. Did I really just say that? I wanted my statement to come off sarcastic, but it didn’t. It definitely sounded flirtatious. I need to stop talking.

Luke leans in closer to me, smirking, and I can see a gleam of playfulness flash in his eyes. He looks as if he wants to say something, but stops and takes a drink from his glass, thinking better of whatever it was he was about to say. Luke isn’t married, so I don’t believe my comment was offensive, just not a topic worth elaborating on—given our business-driven relationship.

I look down at my glass, swirling what remains, trying to figure out why I’m thinking about Luke, about Jason, about anyone else but my husband. I’ve never had feelings for Luke. Why am I flirting?

Can I share something with you? Luke finally asks, breaking the moment of silence between us.

I nod.

When I realize he’s waiting for me to look at him before speaking, I feel the color draining out of my face. I don’t need some kind of confession I’m not prepared for. My eyes meet his, and there’s a strange excitement in them. I hold my breath, not sure what he’ll say next.

I shouldn’t be telling you this yet, but I think you have a right to know. He looks around, almost as if someone were watching us. I feel my heartbeat pounding in my chest. Odyssey has exceeded all of our expectations.

I let out the air I’ve been holding, and feel my body relax. We’re going to talk about work again.

Yes, it has, I say, not following where Luke is going, but appreciative it’s about the company.

The reason today has been so important is that, if we can secure the agreement, I believe Alex will sell, he whispers.

Oh! I didn’t know Alex was ready for that yet, I exclaim, slightly shocked by his statement, but more disappointed in what I thought he was about to share. I feel so stupid, thinking he was going to confess his feelings for me, when all he was struggling with was whether or not to tell me why we’re both here for the meeting. I down the remaining water I have, hoping it will magically cure whatever the wine has done to me.

I don’t think he was, but the deal on the table is more than we expected. I’m not sure it would be smart to turn it down. His lips tighten, probably realizing he’s said more than he intended. It’s just really exciting.

Can you share any of the details? Who is purchasing and do they want to absorb it into a larger company, or maintain it a separate entity? I know I shouldn’t ask, but I have so many questions.

I’m shutting my mouth now, he responds.

I laugh. He must have the same problem I do.

He smiles at my reaction, but it’s not his usual. It’s a grin that curls at one side, as if he’s inviting me into a secret. "I just want you to know what could be on the horizon. I think it could lead to another opportunity for us."

Us. What does he mean, us? Surely, he means the company and not me and him.

I don’t know that I’m ready for it all to end. I’ve enjoyed working for you, and watching the progress we’ve made, I respond.

I look at him, trying to match his excitement, but unsure of what he’s really telling me.

Chloe, he says softly, his eyes flickering with a strange new intensity, I’ve never worked with someone so amazing. His eyes never leave mine as he speaks, and I wonder if my own eyes are deceiving me. Is he coming on to me?

We think so similarly. I only wish I’d met you years ago. His last words linger in the air, and I am stunned into silence. Between the wine and the look in his eyes, I’m speechless. My eyes study his, trying to decide if he’s referring to working together years ago, or something else entirely.

I simply nod in agreement, feeling a sudden change in the air between us. I can’t breathe. I look away, needing to break the connection, needing to find the air in the room that doesn’t seem so hot and heavy. I should leave before I say or do anything else I shouldn’t.

I’m going to head up to my room, I tell him, standing up from the table. A rush of dizziness and exhaustion hits me as I do.

Agree. I’ve got an early flight tomorrow. He stands up and walks with me toward the lobby.

When we enter the elevator, we both reach for the button to our floor, our fingers touching briefly as we both push twelve. We quickly pull our hands away, standing awkwardly next to one another.

I’m staring at the door, not wanting to make eye contact with Luke, when I feel his hand brush against mine. His touch sends shivers through my body. It’s brief, and I wonder if it was intentional or accidental. Either way, I’m confused by the desire I have for him to do it again.

The doors open to our floor, and I walk out first. Luke follows me, catching up so we’re side by side by the time we reach the intersection of the hallway where our room directions differ.

I turn toward him, our eyes finally connecting. The next minute happens so fast, I don’t have time to process it. I feel Luke’s hands slide around my back, pulling me against him. His lips crash against mine, shocking me. Even though I’m unsure how to respond, my body reciprocates what my head cannot make sense of. His lips feel so strange and unfamiliar to me. They’re soft and wet as they welcome mine, wanting more from me.

My mind catches up to the actions of my body, and the ramifications of where this could lead hit me.

I pull away slightly, so we’re merely inches from one another, his hands still around my neck and lower back. I can’t, I whisper to him.

I know. His voice is heavy, and I can sense the confusion as he wrestles with his next move.

Goodnight, Luke, I say, taking a step back and signifying that I am drawing the line.

He nods his head, his eyes and movements expressing an awkwardness that I’ve never seen in him before. Eventually, he turns in the direction of his room and walks down the hall.

I do the same, hurrying into my room. I close and bolt the door behind me, finally collapsing on the bed. I touch my lips, remembering the unfamiliar feeling of Luke’s against them, a sour pit forming in my gut with guilt from the entire encounter. I haven’t felt the touch of another man since before my first date Christian fifteen years ago. Every touch of Luke’s felt so foreign, different, and mysterious. At the same time, it was exhilarating, which is what concerns me.

I take a melatonin pill and attempt to sleep, spending much of the night tossing and turning, guilt and confusion keeping me awake.