Suddenly a form filled the doorway. Too big to be Nic this time.
It was Cade, his breath coming out in gasps, his chest heaving. His face looked exhausted, his expression wild. Drops of water dripped from his golden-brown hair, darkening it to more fully brown.
He clutched my letter in his hand. When his eyes locked with mine, he released a giant exhale.
“Baby... please don’t scare me like that again.”
His eyes roamed my face as if looking for exposed wounds. My stomach flipped.
He’d called mebaby.
Surely just an old habit. No use getting my hopes up. Sure, he’d wanted to hang out tonight like old friends, but I’d be foolish to hope he could ever want to try for more with me again. But he came...
“I got your letter,” he said softly, interrupting my mental spiral.
Every word I tried to process felt like it scraped against my addled brain.
I’d had it all planned: he’d read the letter at the reunion, and then we’d talk. I’d give him the explanation he’d been waiting for for years. He’d forgive me—or he wouldn’t.
I didn’t foresee the many complications to the plan that this night would end up bringing. Now that the moment was here, nothing was going the way I’d planned.
Frustrated and overwhelmed with exhaustion, I rolled over in the hospital bed, tears welling up and sliding down my cheek to land on the itchy white pillow. All this work on myself, and when the time came, still the words stuck in my throat.
Cade came to my bedside and clutched my hand.
“Shhh . . . I’m here. I’m here.”
He kissed my forehead.
“Why don’t you just give up on me, Cade?” I choked out, between tears.
He shrugged.
“You’re worth waiting for.”
He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and I realized then that no one had ever or could ever love me as deeply as this man. He climbed in the hospital bed with me and held me and let me cry.
42
CADE
“Can we talk about your letter?” I asked gently when she awoke a while later. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but there was a clarity and awareness back in them now. The IV had pumped her full of fluids, and with that and the pain medication, she was clearly feeling a bit better.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m ready now.” Her face looked like she was bracing for my response, and I wouldn’t leave her in suspense any longer.
I spoke softly but directly.
“Brooke—I’ve been trying to take care of you since I was seven years old and you scraped up your knees in my driveway. What makes you think I wouldn’t want to take care of your bruised and battered heart?”
Her tears slowly began to fall again, but I went on, wiping them from her cheeks.
“I know you. I know how badly you wanted to learn calligraphy in ninth grade. I know you want to go to Africa and how much you love sunflowers. I know your competitive streak. I know your terrible attempts at a dirty sense of humor.”
She gave a wet laugh.
“I know the look you get in your eyes when your brain is telling you to shut me out. I know that beautiful brain of yours likes to beat you up sometimes, to tell you that you’re too broken, that you’re not enough. But I’m telling you—you are. You’vealwaysbeen enough for me.”
I grabbed her hand in both of mine.
