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A lone tear slipped down my cheek as I tried to be thankful that I’d made it through, and started the countdown over again.
Fourteen more days.
Chapter 5
Harlow
Present Day—Richland
AFTER THANKING THE barista for my coffee, I began walking out of the coffee shop, only to stop. I didn’t want to go home yet. I didn’t need to start making Collin’s dinner for four more hours at least, and sitting in that house would only have me anxious and paranoid for that time.
Turning back around, I walked to one of the large chairs and sat down, ignoring the dull ache in my torso as I did. It’d been three days since the not-so-surprise negative pregnancy test, and while the bruising just got worse, the pain was getting more tolerable all the time.
Setting my cup on the table in front of me, I pulled my mini iPad from my purse and smiled to myself when I found there was still a charge. I set an alarm on it to know when to leave in case I was able to escape my reality for a little while, grabbed my coffee, and gently sat back in the chair as I tried to get into the book I’d been reading last week on my Kindle app. I had more than enough time to read during the days; that wasn’t the problem. It was whether I could push away my real life enough to let myself enjoy the fairy tale.
More often than not, I ended up staring blankly at my iPad long after it had shut itself off from lack of use as I thought about whatever was going on with Collin, or my own fairy tale that I’d given up.
Like now, I realized, when I noticed my screen was black again. I didn’t even know how long I’d been sitting there just staring at it. I took a deep breath in, preparing for a silent sigh out.
My breath caught in my throat when a body next to me blocked the sun, and a deep, fluid voice asked, “Why would anyone waste their time only loving someone to the moon . . .”
. . . when they could love them to the stars?
He didn’t finish, and I didn’t say the words out loud. But everything stopped around me for several heavy seconds. The rise and fall of my chest halted; I no longer heard the background noise, music, and voices in the coffee shop . . . All time seemed to stand still as I sat there trying to assess whether I was dreaming or not.
“Harlow Evans,” he said softly, and I let out a shuddering breath as everything came filtering back in. “The last person I thought I’d see when I woke up this morning was the girl I’ve been waiting seven years for.”
My head snapped to the left, and my soul ached when I looked at Knox Alexander for the first time in four and a half years. Time had changed him in amazing ways—and at the same time, nothing about him was different at all. Those dark eyes began to lock on mine, and I quickly looked away from them. I didn’t want to see what they would tell me; I didn’t want to know what they would find.
I knew I still hadn’t said anything, but at the moment I couldn’t even force my mouth to open, and my vision was blurring as tears filled my eyes. I’d dreamed so many times of seeing Knox again, and every time I was much more composed than I was now. But to have him there—really there—in front of me had the last four and a half years of my life flashing through my mind and wishing I could have done it all differently.
“Not Harlow Evans . . .” he said quietly, the pain in his voice clear as his long fingers barely trailed over my wedding ring.
My head bowed and shook back and forth. I willed the tears to stay back but wasn’t able to stop them.
“Hey,” he said gently, and suddenly he was crouching down next to me. His fingers went under my chin to tilt my head back. “Why are you crying? What’s going on?”
“I never thought I would see you again,” I managed to choke out a minute later.
His full lips tilted up in the faintest of smiles, but his eyes showed he wasn’t finding anything about this amusing. “You thought you’d never see me again? I thought you would go back to Seattle after you graduated from Whitman. And now you are sitting in a coffee shop in Richland, twenty minutes from where I live, and just a few from where I work. It’s safe to say, Low, that I thought I would never see you again.”
“I’ve been in Richland for years,” I admitted.
Knox’s eyebrows rose in shock, and a mix of frustration and pain showed on his face for a second before it fell. “Years,” he stated dully. “You’ve been here for years? Why? And why didn’t I know?”
My jaw trembled as I slowly held up my left hand. Knox didn’t look at it, but his dark eyes hardened. “I never graduated.”
“Years,” he said again. His voice held no emotion, and though it hadn’t come across as a question, I nodded my head anyway. “Then it’s safe to assume he was . . .” he trailed off.
I didn’t answer, I couldn’t. Because if I did, I would say things I shouldn’t. That I’d made a mistake, that I’d married a monster, that I dreamed of Knox almost nightly, that I’d dreamed of this right here. He must have seen the answer in my eyes—known Collin was the same guy I’d chosen over Knox—because he smiled sadly at me.
“I see.” My tears fell harder at his acknowledgment, and Knox cupped my cheek with his hand. “Low . . . why are you crying?”
As much as I’d longed for this moment, I couldn’t let it continue. As much as I wanted to fall into Knox’s arms and never leave, I needed to get away from him. This was dangerous.
“I’m sorry, I have to go.” I slipped out of the side of the large chair, and he rocked back from my sudden change in position.
“Harlow, wait!”
