AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why?”
“Because there are things that have been off-limits for us to talk about because we were... Whatever we were. And now I’m curious.”
“Are youreallyasking about my first boyfriend? Or are you asking me about my first sexual partner?”
“Are they not the same?”
She shook her head. “I decided to get it over with. After some bonfire party that I would never normally go to. You’d taken the boys camping and I was sort of...drifting around not knowing what to do. I was...” She grimaced. “I was feeling silly. Because I’d gone through all of high school without ever dating. Because I was hung up on you. And so I decided that I was going to have some fun. So I found a guy that I liked well enough from high school, and I basically dragged him into the back seat of my Camry. It was not fun. I did not enjoy it. Then I met Chad a couple years later and decided to give it another try. I thought maybe I needed a relationship. And Ididlike him. But it still wasn’t great.”
“So Chad was actually your firstboyfriend.”
“Yes. I really wanted it to work. I guess I didn’t realize how much of myself I was holding back.”
Silence lapsed between them. “Can I ask you... Can I ask you some things about Anna? Only... I lived through you losing her. I remember it obviously really well. But we never talked about it. For the same reasons we never talked about this. My stuff. But I want to think now that we are more on the same level than we were. And...”
He nodded. “Yeah. I can talk about her. I talk about her with the boys all the time. I guess I probably don’t talk about her much in front of you. But I tried. I tried really hard from the beginning to make sure her name never turned into some kind of sacred taboo. Because I know that once you start doing that you can’t come back from it.”
“Oh,” she said. “Why do you know that?”
“I was raised by my grandparents,” he said.
She blinked. She’d had no idea. All these years and they hadn’t talked about that. “What happened to your parents?”
“They...had issues. Drug problems. It was never really a huge feature in my life, because I had a stable environment. But my grandpa died. When I was seventeen. And my grandma just could never talk about him again. Andwenever could. I missed him so much and there was never a place to discuss that. I never wanted that for Carter and Sky. I wanted to be able to talk about her easily. That was a hard one. But Anna was wonderful. She was sweet and funny, and she wouldn’t want every mention of her name to be this somber funeral. She would want to know that her boys could talk about her. Think about her. It took a long time for them to be able to do it.”
“They do, though,” she said. “Casually. They mention that their mom loved a certain movie or a song. And considering how old they were when she died, I imagine that some of that is you telling them those things so that they don’t lose them.”
“I don’t talk a lot about when she died, though,” he said. “I try to talk about when she lived. How she lived.”
“I get that.”
“But the truth is, part of it is that I haven’t had anyone to share with. My life is pretty small, Frankie. It’s this house. Those boys. You. I don’t have a whole host of friends. I have cows. And...”
“It’s not a small life,” she said. “It’s... It’s everything.”
He closed his eyes. “I know it is. I would’ve died that night. I swear to God I would have. If not for those kids. If you hadn’t shown up, I don’t know what would’ve happened. I actually can’t remember those days right after. I don’t know how I got up. I don’t know how they got fed.”
Emotion expanded in her chest. She just loved him so much. It didn’t hurt her to hear him talk about the love he’d had with someone else, the grief he’d had after. She’d fallen in love with him without expectation. She’d fallen in love with him through all of this.
She hadn’t known Anna well—she had babysat for them a few times for two years while Anna was alive and had talked to her but hadn’t been friends with her or anything. But Anna was in many ways a foundation in Frankie’s life.
When she was sixteen, in the weeks following Anna’s death, she’d whispered a promise to her, sitting on the couch holding onto Carter and Sky. She’d promised she’d care for Anna’s boys, and she had.
Anna wasn’t here to do it, so Frankie did. Not in the same way, but with everything she had, just like she knew Anna would have done if she’d lived.
She had more than an acceptance of Anna’s place in their lives. She had mattered. Frankie didn’t need Anna to not matter. She didn’t resent her.
Frankie had her own place in Walker’s life. Because she’d come into it fully when everything had been devastated. Destroyed. She’d been part of rebuilding, and that might not have made the original foundation, but she’d made sure the walls had stayed up. That the house stayed safe, and cozy and full of love.
It had been a lot, but she never thought of it that way. Because for her, it had been as natural as loving them. As easy as that.
She kissed his cheek. “I remember them. You don’t have to. I’ll keep them for you.”
She put her hand on his. He looked at her, and a wave of profound connection washed through her.
“The boys were all right,” she said softly. “I don’t think they understood. And I think by the time they did, by the time it really sank in, you were good. You were able to be there. And in that gap, I was.”
“I don’t know how you were. You were a kid.”
