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“Hey,” he said, slipping an arm around my waist. “How are youfeeling?”
“I’m fine. I just had a good talk with Trina,” I replied. “How aboutyou?”
He rubbed his jaw with his free hand, brows furrowed as he looked down at the wreath with his sister’s necklace on it. “I’m okay,” he finallysaid.
“I know you still miss her a lot,” I said softly, stroking his arm. “You can talk to me about it whenever youwant.”
“I know.” He nodded slowly, eyes still on the wreath. “I can’t imagine there ever being a day where I won’t miss her. But at the same time, now that the truth is out, I feel a lotbetter.”
“Like you’re more at peace with the wholething?”
“Yeah. I used to be so fucking angry all the time. It was like I was stuck in limbo or something. But now…” He rubbed his jaw again and looked over at me. “Now I feel like I can finally start to move on. I don’t mean I want to forget Lindsay, or anything like that. But I can be happy again without feeling like I’m betrayingher.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said, smilingfaintly.
He looked back down at the flowers. “This will probably sound weird,” he said. “But I don’t just miss Lindsay. I miss Adam and my dad, too. Not for who they turned out to be, but for who they used to be. Before I knew what they were reallylike.”
“That makes sense,” I replied, noddingslowly.
“I dunno. It feels weird,” he muttered, looking down at the marble floor. “But I guess it’s not black and white. They both had good parts as well as the bad. And that’s what I miss. All the goodparts.”
“I get it. Sometimes I find myself missing things about my dad,” I said. “Like the stuff we used to do when I was a kid. I think it’s prettynormal.”
Hunter looked at me again, brows raised. “Do you ever wish you could go back?” he asked. “In time, I mean. Before you found out he was such a piece ofshit.”
I gnawed at my cheek as I considered his question. “No,” I said, shaking myhead.
“Whynot?”
“Because then I wouldn’t haveyou.”
He smiled down at me and leaned closer. “I wouldn’t do it either,” he said. “I could never risk losingyou.”
“I’m glad,” Imurmured.
“I love you, Laney. I love you so fuckingmuch.”
A thick ball of emotion clogged my throat as I looked up at him. “I love youtoo.”
Tears stung my eyes and threatened to roll down my cheeks as Hunter leaned down to kiss my forehead, but they weren’t sad tears. They were warm, happytears.
Maybe a cemetery wasn’t an appropriate place to cry with joy, but I couldn’t help it. My happiness was overwhelming me, along with the pure love I felt for Hunter. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he felt the same way for me,too.
If I ever told anyone every single nitty-gritty detail of how we got started together, I had no doubt they’d be horrified. Our relationship was forged in darkness and anguish, but in the end, that only made usstronger.
I’d fallen for Hunter even when his pain made it seem impossible for him to give or accept love, and I knew now that he was so much more than his worstmoments.
He was strong and protective, and he was capable of feeling love like everyone else. He just needed to find the right person to help him unlock it and let it all out. So did I, and for me, he was that person, in the same way I was forhim.
That sealed it for us. We belonged to each other, and we always would. We didn’t need everything wrapped up in a pretty pink bow—we just needed eachother.
I knew most love stories didn’t start out with hate, but neither of us were normal, conventional people. Our love wasn’t conventional either, given how it originally took root and blossomed between us, but it was stilllove.
Raw, passionate, can’t-be-without-each-otherlove.
That was all thatmattered.
Epilogue
