Page 137 of I Never Stopped Loving You

“Ditch lilies. The ones we used to pick while walking up and down this very road.”

“You got me fifteen bouquets.”

“One for each year I had to live without you in my life.” My voice sounds about as broken as I feel right now.

“You really searched for me all this time?” she asks.

Her fingers slide up from my chest to my jaw. It’s as if she’s touching me for the first time and truly seeing who I am.

“I have, Little Rabbit. I tracked down anyone who was involved back then. Family. Your parents’ friends. Grandparents. Everyone. No one knew where you were, but I still never gave up hope. I never stopped searching for you.”

“Why?” she asks as she stares into my eyes.

This is it. This is where I lay it all out, and if she rejects me…Fuck. I don’t even want to think about that.

I cup her face and wipe my thumb under her eyes, wiping away her tears. I bring my forehead to rest against hers and let my hand move from her cheek to the back of her head.

“Because I never stopped loving you. I’ve loved you since the day I met you. You are my soul mate. My forever. You’re all I’ve ever wanted or will ever need. I love you, Little Rabbit.”

I reach into my pocket to pull out the thing I brought. A small gasp leaves her lips as she finally sees what I’m holding.

A stuffed rabbit. His fur was once white, but is now faded with age. I scrubbed him so many times until I got the blood to almost completely fade away. One marble eye is cracked from where her dad or someone else had stepped on it, but I glued it. One ear was ripped, but I sewed it back together. The once bright blue ribbon tied around his neck in a bow is now more of a dark, mottled color from age. But it’s him.

“Mr. Snuggles?” she asks as her tear-filled eyes look back up at me. “You kept him all these years?”

“Of course I did, Willow. He was your little rabbit. And you’re mine.”

CHAPTER 62

NOAH

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

The sounds of sirens had filled the cold air throughout the night. My mom had to hold me back as I fought to run down the road to Willow’s house. I begged and cried and screamed for her to let me go.

My dad came back a while later with a sad look on his face, and that’s when I knew something horrible had happened. Something worse than any of the times she came to school with cuts and bruises.

That was three hours ago. The sun is barely starting to peak over the horizon, and the rest of the world is silent. The police are all gone. The reporters who kept flying up and down the road have all disappeared. Because we live in the middle of nowhere, my dad said that the crime scene team wouldn’t be there until the morning.

Crime scene…What happened? Where’s Willow?

My mom and dad went to bed about an hour ago after my mom sat with me in my room to make sure I didn’t run away. I pretended to fall asleep until she finally left my room, then I pulled on my shorts, a sweatshirt, and my shoes. I ran all the way here through the woods. Branches snapped and scraped leaving cuts along my face and legs. I think I ran through poison ivy, but I don’t care.

I just needed to get to Willow.

My father wouldn’t tell me what happened. He just said that the police would be coming in the morning to talk to us. I cried and begged him to tell me if Willow was okay, but all he kept saying was that he didn’t know.

I’ve been standing in front of the back door to their house staring at the yellow police tape covering the door. I could easily open the door and bend under the tape to get inside, but I decided to go up to her room as I’ve always done.

I climb the wood pile and lift myself up onto the roof that covers the back porch. The sun is a bit higher now, casting long shadows from the birch trees along the back of the field. It’s eerily quiet. I hate it.

I slowly open her window before climbing inside. The room is a mess. Her pillow and blanket are gone, and so is Mr. Snuggles, the little white rabbit I got her for her birthday. Her backpack isn’t here either.

Her door is wide open, and I can’t hear a single sound coming from anywhere in the house.

No one is here.

“Willow?” I call out, hoping to hear her somewhere.