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“Besides a few select families—like Dallas’s single mom and friends of hers—the majority of the town sided with my father. They deemed it an unfortunate accident. Tried to even paint Dallas’s mother as the guilty party. That she shouldn’t have let a ’little boy with a handicap’ be walking the road. A road without a sidewalk.” His top lip curled up into a sneer. “Dallas was hit in broad daylight and the shoulder was eight feet wide, and it was a fucking straight-away.”
All Rayma could do was blink.
“Mrs. Rochester lost her only child that day. And six months later, still ravaged by grief she jumped off the local bridge. While my father spent all of three months in prison for what he did, because the judge was his old fishing buddy.”
Rayma’s heart rate had slowed right down, along with her breathing. The tears had stopped and all those black spots in her vision and mind were gone.
“I can’t go back to Charlet Heights. I’m a pariah for what I did. My parents hate me, think I turned on them, so does the rest of the town. Aiden and I haven’t spoken in years because he blames himself for not double-checking if our dad had a spare set of keys, and that I was the one who found Dallas and reported the incident. His guilt consumes him and has become the obnoxious, unavoidable third wheel in our relationship.”
“Jordan …”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Dallas. Think about what I could have done to prevent that tragedy. Maybe, if we’d forced my dad into rehab, or removed the battery from his car… a million different scenarios run through my head on an endless, exhausting loop. Dallas’s ghost haunts me, and not in a creepy way, but I always feel him. I see him wave at me from across the street, then when I look again, he’s gone. I hear his distinct, jovial voice yelling, ‘Hi Jordan! How’s it going?’
“I never had a normal childhood or a normal family. My mother made excuses for my father’s behavior from day one, but they were the only family I had. And even though Aiden is just slightly less of a pariah than I am, and we both want nothing to do with our parents, our relationship has been a casualty of our father’s selfishness. And that just cuts the unhealable wound deeper.”
Opening his eyes, he pinned that soul-deep green gaze on her and she sucked in a sharp breath from how strongly it hit her in the solar plexus. From how tight it made her chest and her heart begin to hammer against her ribcage.
“I just didn’t want to burden you with this, too. Not when you have your own demons to battle, your own caustic parents. It wouldn’t have been fair. I thought I was doing you a favor. I thought I was protecting you from my past. Frommydemons. But I think … just like how I ghosted you, I was actually protecting my own heart while convincing myself that I was protecting yours. I don’t talk about it because I’m trying to forget it. I’m trying to forget that entire chapter of my life. But you have a right to know.”
He stepped toward her, uncertainty and sadness clouding his eyes. Even his steps held hesitation. His lips were turned down, and he gave her an imploring look. Searching her face for even a modicum of forgiveness.
“I should have known better that you don’t need protecting. Not a strong, amazing, badass like you. But I don’t have the strength that you do, and I don’t think I could have stayed friends with you while we were apart only to hear about you going on dates, getting a new boyfriend, and possibly, eventually one day falling in love again. It would have killed me. But like a coward, I claimed that I cut off contact to protectyou. Just like I refused to tell you about my family to protectyou, but it was really to protect myself from having to dredge up the pain of the past. I thought that by opening up that part of my life to you I was then making it your problem, too.”
He continued to search her face.
She’d remained fairly stoic, allowing him the floor to spill his guts without interruption or judgment. But now she was wondering if perhaps she should have done a bit more active listening and not just sat there like a stunned guppy. He needed to know that his admission was appreciated, and welcomed and that she never wanted him to shut her out or shut down again.
She reached out for him and hope blossomed in his eyes as he took her hand in his warm one. She tugged slightly and he invaded her breathing space. She was still sitting down on the stool and parted her knees so that he could stand between them.
She tilted up her head to look at the man she’d never stopped loving for even a second. The only man she’d ever loved and the only man she everwouldlove.
“I’m sorry for everything, Rayma. For not believing in you enough to know that your strength is enough to carry both of our pasts, even though mine isn’t always. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. You—this family—brought more peace and joy to my life than I ever thought possible. I didn’t think I’d ever find love, let alone one like this, and I … I got so caught up in protecting that love, protecting my heart that I ruined everything.”
Blinking through the tears, she smiled up at him and cupped his jaw with her free hand, lacing the fingers of her other hand with his. “All I ever wanted was for you to show me your soft, squishy belly, Jordan. Let me see the good, the bad, and the ugly like you’ve seen of mine.”
He nodded. “I know. And I fucked it all up.”
She smiled. “Have you?”
“Are you saying …”
She shook her head. “You’ve given me what I asked. And I’ll never love anybody else the way I loved you and still do love you. But please, don’t ever shut me out again. When you do, it feels like you’re giving up on me and—” Her breath stuttered. “My parents already did that. I couldn’t handle it if you did, too.”
He released her hand and framed her face with his palms. “I will never, ever, ever give up on you. Not on us. Never again. I swear this to you, Rayma. You are it for me.”
Tears fell and he swept them away with his thumbs. “You’re it for me, too. Even if you get transferred again, I’ll go with you. We’re a team. School is over, I can get a job as a social worker almost anywhere. You’re not leaving me again.”
“Never,” he said, shaking his head. “Never again.” Then, after what felt like far longer than three years, but more like three lifetimes, he pressed his mouth to hers and finally, at long last, Rayma’s world righted on its axis once more.
Wrapping her arms around his waist, she pulled him tighter against her, lost in the intoxicating feel of his heat, his strength, and his touch.
But just when she thought they were going to take it further and reallyget back together, he pulled away.
Still cupping her face, he dropped to a crouch in front of her, and the seriousness that burned in his eyes sent a frisson of unease trembling down her spine. “You arenota mistake, Rayma Young. You do notfuckeverything up. You do notruinanything. You make things better. You makepeoplebetter. You are meant to be here. Meant to be in this world, in this family, in my life. You have made me a better man and I will spend every waking moment of my life trying to make sure you know how deeply you are loved, wanted, and needed in this world. Promise me, you’ll never say things like that again. That you’ll never question your existence and call yourself a colossal mistake. Baby, you are not a mistake. The only colossal thing about you is your heart and your kindness and your ability to love and see thegoodin people. Never, ever doubt how much you are wanted, please, promise me that.” He pressed his forehead to hers and swept more of her fresh hot tears from her cheeks with his thumb. “I love you, Rayma.”
“I love you, too,” she blubbered.
“Promise me.”
