AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But Freddy is important, and I don’t want to upset him.”
“Yes, but you can see whoever you want for however long you need.” I lean down and kiss him again, my beautiful son that I thought I was going to lose. “This love we have, all of us, it’s complicated. It’s messy and it’s going to take hard work, but if we trust each other, then we will all be okay. In truth it’s some thing that’s just ours, and maybe we aren’t supposed to understand it, just love it.”
I get that now. It’s so clear to me. Love isn’t meant to be easy, and our love never has been, but real love, the true love that I feel for both my boys in that room will survive anything.
Freddy steps up and grabs both of our hands, turning my band of two into a family of three. “Isaac, can I borrow your mum for a moment?”
Isaac scrunches his face. “Ugh, sure, go kiss somewhere else.”
With a roll of the eyes, Freddy pulls me for the exit. “Not like that.” He laughs.
“Where are we going?” I ask, as our fingers naturally slide together.
“Just a long-standing promise I have to keep.” He grins with his words, but doesn’t explain any further, pulling me this way and that down the hospital corridors.
I’m taken abackwhen we walk out into a courtyard garden. I’d completely forgotten it existed, but the moment we are through the doors, the memories of Valentine’s Day eleven years ago come flooding back. Another memory I’ve deprived myself of for too long. That was the day Freddy first got the slightest sensation back in his legs. It was the day that I felt hope in my heart that all would be okay. That day, heart shaped petals floated down from a cherry tree and filled my heart with joy.
Now, all these years later, I realise that everything did turn out okay, even though it took us a while to get there.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, followed by a screech, as Freddy pulls me up into his arms, cradling me to his chest.
“This is what I wish I could have done that Valentine’s Day, and I promised myself that I would.”
I look up into his ocean blues, watching the faint lines crinkle around his eyes, so different from all that time ago when we had youth on our side.
“You remembered that?”
“Amber, I’ve never forgotten anything about you. You’re in my soul, my heart, and mind.”
“Okay, put me down so I can talk properly.” His lips find mine before he releases me. It doesn’t ever feel like I stopped being kissed by Freddy Bale. The last ten years of being a single mum and then being in the wrong marriage just don’t even exist when I’m with him. It feels like I never left; that Isaac and I had always been here, with him.
Freddy must be reading my mind. “You know, every day I wonder what life would have been like if you hadn’t gone. If I hadn’t turned up at that dance and tried to do the right thing, which turned out to be wrong. A couple of weeks later we would have found out about Isaac and our entire lives would have changed. We could have been everything.”
“Freddy, weareeverything, but that’s now, right now. Back then, don’t forget that I thought my parents didn’t love each other because of me. I would have panicked whether I had been with you or not. You are not to blame for what happened. It’s life. What is, just . . . is.”
I lean into him and find his mouth, kissing him firmly, showing him everything that I’m feeling. When we pull away, his eyes are on me again, still trying to read me.
“What you said in there about this love, did you mean it?”
I look up at the tree and watch the petals spin in the breeze. Hues of pink and red, all the colours of love. Our love.
“I meant it.” I squeeze his fingers, and the tips of his gently twist the ring on my own.
“I know you have the ring, but I do still need to ask. I could scour the earth looking for a place better than this and never find it.” Freddy lowers to his knees, a minor wince making me bite my lip to stop from smiling. “Amber French, will you spend eternity with me?”
I pretend to think. “Have you asked my dad?”
“Better. I asked our son.”
Tears well up and spill from my eyes. “Well in that case, yes.”
In a fluid moment, Freddy steps from the floor and pulls me into his tight embrace, and we start our eternity together with petals of hearts falling down onto us, cementing our love forever more.
Our love.
This love.
