“Wait, I just want you to know that whichever choice you make, my love for you doesn’t change. I’ll never regret this or us. But you have to choose, Ash. You can’t be one foot in and one foot out with us. You have to get in the car with me and drive, or you have to take the sidewalk. Otherwise, we’re going to go nowhere. But if any of this is just because you’re scared of loving me...”
“I’m not afraid of loving you, Karla,” I confessed, feeling my emotions sitting at the edge of my eyes. “I’m afraid oflosingyou. Seeing you the day after my birthday in so much pain terrified me. Then seeing you in a hospital bed terrified me even more. I was so scared that we wouldn’t have more of us. I got spooked, and I’m sorry for all of it. I’m sorry that the voices in my mind got so loud that I began to drown again.”
She sighed and moved in closer, taking my hands into hers. She kissed each hand and looked up at me. “I’m just glad you made it back to shore.”
I leaned in closer. “So does that mean we can get back to falling in love?”
She playfully grumbled, “Yes, I suppose. You’re lucky I believe in second chances so much that I opened a bookshop named after them. But that also means you don’t run when things get scary, because it’s called Second Chance, not one hundred chances.”
“If you let me, I’ll spend the remainder of our lives apologizing for this.”
“Good,” she said, dropping her defensive stance. She brushed her lips against mine. “Because I really missed your kisses.”
I took that as an invite to wrap her into my arms and kiss her. Just like always, she fit perfectly against me. The week without her felt like the longest week of my life. I was a dumbass who almost lost the one thing that made life feel like heaven because I let fear clog my brain. Maybe that was the real devil in humans’ lives—fear. I wondered how many people lost the loves of their lives, or their dream careers or passions because fear crept in and fed them lies.
But sometimes, love surpassed the fear. That was when life truly began.
52Karla
Two Years Later
The past two years were two of the best years of my life. Ash and I grew closer and closer with each passing day. Whenever life got hard, we locked in with each other. We didn’t run away from anything; instead, we leaned into us.
I loved loving Ash. He was the greatest joy in my life. My favorite part over the past two years was watching him come back to life, too. He’d been in therapy for over a year. He even began to see the positives in his job more and felt as if he was finding his footing. His mom also moved back to Chicago to be closer to him. She didn’t want to waste any more years being away from her son. I knew how much that meant to Ash.
Over the past few years, I could see how much lighter he felt as a whole. He wasn’t running away from life anymore; he was diving into it. He now laughed with sparkles behind his eyes, not the same pain he once held. His healing was beautiful, and I was happy to be a witness to it happening.
The love story of Second Chance Bookshop was shaping up nicely, too. We were onto our third year, and business was still booming. I even bought out the space next door to transform it into a bakery and book café called Second Bites. Did my rich father help with that purchase? Yes. Was I going to pay him back someday? Yes. Every cent. After I sold a million croissants.
Daniel was now the store manager at Second Bites, wherehe met Emilie, a customer who loved the way Daniel made her lattes. She showed up each day for his drinks, and after a few weeks, he started drawing hearts in her lattes. It didn’t take long for the two to fall in love. It was great seeing him find his person. I never knew Daniel could laugh as hard as he could until Emilie came around. It was the most beautiful thing to witness.
Sweet Joanna also published another novel, and we held another book event for her—this time without any fainting grandmothers.
The family was doing well, too. Grandma Claire had joined a knitting class, and we had no more health scares, thankfully. Though, she still hated turkey bacon. I didn’t blame her—it was disgusting. Dad and Ellie were about to take a vacation for their anniversary, so in a few days, Lorelai would be staying with Ash and me for a while. She’d just turned seventeen, and she was still quite a handful. She didn’t have much direction in life, but I hoped she’d find her way the same way I had.
Before we had a teenage guest, Ash and I decided to have one more dessert-and-cocktail night on the rooftop. The dessert of the night was chocolate chip cookies. I was already prepared to eat at least five.
Ash sat beside me, facing the billboard that glowed directly in front of our faces. “I bet you can’t name all the ads,” he said, nodding in the direction of the automatic billboard. I’d been staying at his house for the majority of the time, so I didn’t have quite the same amount of time I used to have to study the billboard. Still, I felt confident in my abilities.
I turned my back toward him and shut my eyes. “OK, wise guy, give me the first ad,” I said.
“Larry’s Law Firm.”
I puffed out a breath of air. “Larry’s is followed by ChickNDip,ChickzNDics, Honda’s summer sale ad, then Nissan’s summer sale ad, ending with a Bible verse asking if you’ve talked to Jesus lately, then we are right back to Larry’s Law Firm.”
I smirked. That was easy.
“Nope,” Ash stated. “You got the last one wrong.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn—” I started to say as I pushed myself around to glance at the billboard. The moment my eyes landed on it, my words trailed off. Ash was right. The billboard wasn’t a Jesus quote. It was another quote that read, “Karla, will you marry me?”
I looked at the billboard, then at Ash, who was kneeling down on one knee. In his hands was the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen—my mother’s ring.
My eyes instantly teared up as I realized what was happening in front of me. He was only a few steps away from me as I stood from the ground. I walked toward him.
