“Or maybe there isn’t.” Her voice was small, defeated.
“Maybe not. But I need to try, Leigh. I need to know we did everything we could before we give up.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay. We tell them. This week?”
“Next family dinner. We’ll tell them everything. That we’re together. That we love each other. And that we don’t know how to make this work.”
“Okay.”
We held each other for a long time after that, neither of us speaking. Both of us thinking about logistics and distance and impossible choices.
But I was also thinking about something else.
About what I’d be willing to sacrifice for her.
About what home really meant.
About whether the life I’d built here was the life I actually wanted, or just the life I’d fallen into because I thought I didn’t have a choice.
The thoughts terrified me. But they also gave me something I hadn’t had before.
Hope.
Maybe there was a way. Maybe it would require sacrifice. Maybe it would mean letting go of things I thought I could never let go of.
But loving Leigh was worth it.
I just had to be brave enough to figure out how.
Later, lying in bed with her, listening to her breathe as she finally fell asleep, I stared at the ceiling and let myself imagine it.
Walking away from the garage.
Selling the house.
Leaving Willowbrook.
Starting over somewhere new.
With her.
The idea should have felt like dying.
Instead, for the first time in years, it felt like living.
Chapter 22
LEIGH
“You’re nervous.”
I looked up from my camera bag where I’d been rearranging lenses for the third time in five minutes. Mom was watching me from her spot on the bed in my room at Jasper’s house, that knowing expression on her face that all mothers seemed to have.
“I’m fine.”
“Leigh.” She set down the book she’d been reading. “I’m your mother. I can tell when you’re lying.”
I sighed, abandoning my futile attempt at organization. “Okay, yes. I’m nervous.”
