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“I’m okay,” she said, closing the door. “Small headache, but I’ve been taking the medication the doctor prescribed.”
I looked around her small living room, noticing the roses I’d gotten for her sitting on the side table. I went to turn back to her, to apologize for what I’d said to her the morning after we’d slept together, when she surprised me by wrapping her arms around me.
“Thank you,” she mumbled into my chest. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share what happened between you and Polly, and thank you for still caring enough to come out and find me.”
I slowly wrapped my arms around her, pulling her small frame against me. “I was so worried. I knew almost instantly something was wrong. All I could think about was finding you, making sure you were all right.”
“How did you find me?”
I walked her over to the couch and together we sat down. “Honestly, I don’t know. I just had a bad feeling, so I came to see if you were home. You weren’t here, you weren’t at the shop, so I figured I’d just take a drive, in case you broke down somewhere. It was dark, the rain was just coming down, making it hard to see. I don’t know how I even saw your car. It was so far down into the ditch, it wasn’t possible to see it from the road. All I remember was seeing a flash of light, and I thought that, perhaps, your bumper caught the headlight of my truck,” I said, thinking back to that night, still unsure how the hell it happened. “Once I saw your car, I knew it wasn’t the light from the bumper because it wasn’t even visible from the road.”
“The ditches are so deep out there.”
I nodded. “I know. I’m still not sure how I found you, to be honest. When I finally left the hospital, I had a hard time finding the car for the tow truck, and that was in the daylight, with no rain.”
“Do you know where my car is?”
“I had it towed to my place. There’s a lot of damage to the front end, and I’m not sure insurance will repair it. I had someone from the garage out to look at it. He wasn’t very hopeful.”
Peggy nodded, then looked at me. “Thank you. Thank you for coming out there.”
“No problem. I’m just glad I found you. I don’t know what might have happened had I not of.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, then she scooted over toward me and curled herself into my side, resting her head on my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter,” she responded.
“Yes, it does.” My voice shook. My normal confidence was gone, because for the first time I was about to admit, with words, my feelings for her. I had to. I needed her to know how I felt, even if it wasn’t going to be returned. “Peggy, I was afraid that something was going to happen to you before I could actually tell you how I felt about you.”
Peggy looked up at me and placed her hand on my chest, fiddling with the button on my shirt until it opened. She traced over one letter of my tattoo and met my eyes. “You already did.”
I frowned. “No, I didn’t.”
She softly smiled. “You did. The red roses. I got the message through the meaning of the flowers.” Her eyes filled with tears. “It was a wonderful message to wake up to.”
My hand cupped her cheek, and I brushed away her tears with my thumb before I took her mouth with mine, kissing her hard. She was right. I’d forgotten about the meaning behind the flowers. I didn’t speak the language of flowers. Hell, I could barely speak the language of love with actual words. As our lips parted, her blue eyes met mine. “I’m almost afraid to say it…” she whispered, her voice shaking as well.
“You don’t need to say anything,” I said, pulling her in close. “Say it when you’re ready.”
Peggy rested her hand on my cheek. “I need to say it too because…I love you, too. I want you to know that. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to realize it.”
“Whoa, Peggy, don’t—” I didn’t want her to say it because she felt she had to.
She stopped me by placing her finger in front of my lips. “No, Ethan, it’s the truth. I know how you found me.”
I frowned. “How hard did you hit your head?” I joked.
“Just listen to me. The night of the storm, I stopped in at the cemetery before coming back home. I went to Darren’s grave so I could talk to him. You know I’ve been having a hard time because I’ve been blaming myself for his death. I’ve been blaming myself for many things, and it needed to stop.”
“I know…but you shouldn’t blame yourself. You need to let it go. Allow yourself to heal.”
“I have been. This was the last step I needed to take to let it all go. See, I said a lot of things to Darren that night, things I never meant, and after I said them, I rushed away in a hurry. I was angry. Only, I never got the chance to apologize, and I never got to tell him one more time how much I loved him.”
“You’ve been torturing yourself.”
“I have. But when I went there, I talked to him. You may think that’s stupid, but I asked him that night to give me a sign, a sign that told me he knew I loved him. I also told him about you. That I’d met you and that I thought I was falling in love with you. Maybe that is how you found me? Maybe he made it possible.”
I looked at Peggy, at the light in her eyes, at the possibility that perhaps she’d gotten the answer she’d needed. “Maybe it was him,” I replied.
She rested her head on my shoulder. “I want to stay,” she said, her voice low.
