Page 21 of Balancing Act (Soulmate #1)

EIGHT

JAMIE

Crisp October air filled Jamie’s lungs as her arms pumped, propelling her forward. The chill mixed with sweat cooling on her skin was sharp and invigorating.

“Look who finally caught up.” Amanda bounced on the balls of her feet, ready to go again, as Jamie approached, still trying to catch her breath. Amanda had always been filled with endless energy; Jamie, on the other hand, not so much.

“I’m tapping out,” Jamie said, clutching at her side. Yeah, she was out of shape.

“You know, you really should move back here solely to get your ass back in shape,” Amanda teased, nudging her with her elbow. “What exactly have you been doing down in Oregon?”

Jamie didn’t answer her. She glared as she dabbed sweat from her brow with the hem of her shirt.

They walked back toward the gym in contemplative silence as Jamie’s mind tried to make sense of her thoughts. She stooped down to tie her shoe, purposefully not meeting Amanda’s eyes. “Can you stop with the moving-back talk?”

“What?”

Jamie didn’t answer right away. Instead, she took her time with her laces, buying herself a minute more.

The little quips Amanda had been dropping about moving back to Seattle had finally got to her, and her annoyance bubbled over.

“The moving-back talk. You mention it, like, every other day, and it’s getting old, especially since I’m never doing it—I’m never moving back here.

” The words left her mouth with an unintended bite.

Indignation spread across Amanda’s face, and Jamie felt the mood shift between them. She stood, squaring her shoulders.

“I’m sorry for suggesting such a terrible idea.” Amanda rolled her eyes with a huff of frustration. “Is it so inconceivable that I missed having my best friend around? You up and moved away out of the blue to go what, hide in Oregon?”

“I haven’t been hiding.” Her words were half-hearted, giving herself away.

“What else would you call disappearing without saying anything and moving to a remote location where only a few people know how to get in touch with you?” Amanda tilted her head, her hands on her hips, waiting for Jamie’s response as her question hung between them.

Jamie was quiet for a few moments. Amanda wasn’t wrong.

Amanda slipped her hand into Jamie’s, gently squeezing her before letting go.

“I’m worried about you.”

Bright green eyes bore into Jamie, and she felt a heaviness descend on her, the weight of the last seven years sitting on her shoulders.

“I just...” She stopped in her tracks, suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of her throat constricting.

Damn it. This was why she didn’t like talking about her feelings—because she always ended up like this.

Like she, tough-as-nails Jamie Lyons, could actually cry.

“You have no idea what I went through,” she choked out.

Amanda gave her a sympathetic look but didn’t back down.

“I don’t?”

Yeah, Amanda was definitely annoyed now.

Jamie glanced down at her feet again. “Jamie, I’m the only one who knows what you’ve been through, because I’m the only one patient enough to push past your emotional walls.

” Frustration coated her words as Amanda continued, her fiery tendency taking over as Jamie stood in front of her, taking it.

She deserved that much. “And thank God I did, because if I hadn’t, I don’t think you would’ve ever told me—your best friend, Jamie—that you had gotten diagnosed with fucking breast cancer, or that you weren’t planning on trying to fight it.

Do you know how that felt? Knowing you didn’t think I was worth leaning on?

” Amanda’s voice cracked as her chest heaved, and she wiped away her tears. She had always been an angry crier.

There it was, after seven years—a conversation that had been long overdue. Finally having been said out loud, the words hung heavy in the open air between them.

Jamie had never planned on telling anyone about her cancer diagnosis. She had never planned on trying to beat it.

A tightness filled her chest, and she felt like her heart was being squeezed too tight.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

She wanted to run, to get away from this conversation and this feeling.

No, correction. She needed to get away. She felt her fingertips twitch against her thigh where she had been holding it unnaturally stiff.

Amanda’s face softened as she looked at Jamie, and the intensity of her previous statement faded.

“Jamie, I love you, but it’s time for you to come home. Come back to Seattle and start living your life again.”

That word. Home. Did Jamie even have a home? It had been so long since this place had made her feel any sense of that word. Her skin prickled with her discomfort, and she glanced to the side.

Amanda flashed her a knowing smirk. “How badly do you want to take off running right now?”

“More than anything,” she responded hoarsely, “and I hate that you know that about me.” Jamie’s voice shook slightly with the threat of tears.

“Someone has to know you like that, Lyons.”

Amanda took a step toward Jamie and wrapped her tightly in a hug. It took a moment before her shoulders relaxed into her friend’s arms.

“You deserve to have people know you,” Amanda said softly, “but no one can do that if you don’t let them in.” She pulled back, keeping her hands firmly on Jamie’s shoulders. “You’re one of the best people in the world, and nobody but me knows. It’s tragic.”

Was she, though? Or was she old news? A washed-up Olympian, the once-great Jamie Lyons, America’s golden gymnastics girl who had let down her entire country with one single social-media post.

She wiggled free from Amanda’s hold and spun around, wiping at the corners of her eyes to conceal the tears that were stinging and making her vision blurry. “Fuck feelings,” she groaned.

“It’s okay to cry, Jamie.” Amanda touched Jamie’s shoulder, rubbing small, comforting circles.

“I don’t cry. You know that.” She turned back around. “And besides,” she said, her overly chipper tone sounding so unnatural, “there’s nothing to cry about. We’re good.”

Amanda didn’t say anything. Green eyes searched Jamie’s face, trying to read between the lines of what she wasn’t saying.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Her response was, once again, too quick to be believable.

They were silent again, Amanda’s gaze never leaving Jamie, who had suddenly found herself very interested in a patch of dirt beside her left shoe.

“Does this have anything to do with what’s happening between you and Beth?” Amanda asked quietly. Jamie’s eyes snapped up, words leaving her mouth before she had time to think.

“There isn’t anything going on with me and Beth.”

Amanda’s lips cracked into a smile. “Yeah, okay.” She laughed, bumping her shoulder into Jamie’s.

“Can we not do this right now?” Jamie groaned, running her fingers through damp curls and twisting them back into a topknot as they started walking back to the gym.

“I have eyes, you know,” Amanda pressed. “I can tell you two have it bad for each other.”

“We do not!”

“Yeah, you totally do.”

“We’re just friends.” Jamie echoed the lie she’d been trying to tell herself for the last few weeks—that she and Beth were friends; that there were no lingering feelings between them—but she knew that wasn’t entirely true.

If it were, Jamie wouldn’t have vivid fantasies of Beth flashing through her mind daily.

She could feel it in every interaction with her.

How her body responded in little ways, like how she felt her cheeks heat when Beth’s beautiful blue eyes were on her, or how her heart rate spiked slightly when she talked to Beth.

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, babe.” Amanda smirked.

“But that dopey, lovestruck puppy look you get whenever you’re in the same room together?

That says a lot.” She clapped a hand on Jamie’s back as they moved into the parking lot of PGTC.

“Can I be totally honest with you for a sec?” Amanda’s voice was hesitant—a rare occurrence for her best friend, who was always assured and confident.

“If I said no, would that stop you?”

“Absolutely not.” Amanda faced her, her head cocked, causing a thick curtain of red waves to hang to one side.

“You fought so hard to kick cancer’s ass, to do what?

You spend most days alone playing video games or hiking.

You have an occasional one-night stand when you’re feeling lonely, and you see me every few months.

Is that the life you’ve always wanted? Is that enough for you? ”

“I do more than that,” Jamie said dumbly, caught off guard by Amanda’s blunt observation. “Sometimes I do yoga.” She tried to hide her discomfort at being called out by Amanda in a joke, her go-to defense mechanism, but she knew Amanda saw right through it.

What had she been doing for the last few years?

She’d beaten cancer but hadn’t figured out how to live afterward.

That part had been harder than she’d expected.

Her life had become so small—no career, no family, not even a plant to care for.

She told herself she liked it that way, but lately, the lie felt paper-thin, already fraying at the edges—especially when she thought about Beth.

“I don’t know, Amanda,” Jamie said genuinely.

“Well, there’s no time like the present to figure it out.” Amanda shot her a look that said It’s about fucking time to figure it out before continuing. “I love you, Lyons, but I can’t keep sitting quietly watching you waste your life away. You need to find your fire again, whatever it is.”

Jamie scoffed. Amanda had always been good at knowing when to show tough love, and as much as she’d pretended to hate it, she loved her for it, even if it meant Jamie occasionally found herself on the receiving end.