“Bailey—” It was all he could manage, but she cut him off quickly.
“But that little girl made a mistake—the most unforgivable mistake, and she destroyed the only man she’d ever loved and had ever wanted to love.” Her breath hitched, and then she let out a sob. Just one sob that she couldn’t rein in.
But that’s all it took for him. “No! She didn’t screw up. He did.” He closed the space between them, dropping to his knees beside her and pulling her face to look at him. “I did.” He was looking for her understanding. “I did. Me.” He stared at her as he waited for something, but she just looked back, her tears falling to her cheeks.
When he sat down facing her side, he pulled her onto his lap to straddle him. His hands found her cheeks again, and he held her still, looking at her, pleading with her to understand what he was saying. “Stay.”
“Darren. . .” She shook her head, and his guts clenched.
“Stay.”
“I can’t.” Her voice was hitching.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think you want this for the right reasons.”
“I love you. What’s wrong with that reason?”
“You don’t love me.”
“I. Love. You.”
“No! You used to love me.”
“I love you still. I love you again. I just love you. I’ve always loved you.” He was speaking passionately, and he wouldn’t release her cheeks.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Yes. This is not some memory. I’m not reminiscing. I loved you then, and I’ve fallen completely in love with you all over again. Stay. Please. I’m begging you to give me a chance.”
“Darren . . . I’m scared you’re going to hurt me.” She was sobbing, and the words she spoke were the most painful words he’d ever heard in his life. His insides knotted in desperation.
“I know you are.” His voice was the one lurching and stuttering in barely stifled emotion this time. “I’ve withheld what you’ve needed most from me, and I’ve been so wrong to do it.” She watched him, her brow furrowed, and her lips pursed. “I forgive you.”
He studied her eyes, and she shook her head. “No, you don’t. You can’t, and I understand—”
“I forgive you. I do. And I will do whatever I have to do to convince you of that. I will never let our past stand in the way of our future. I promise you. Whatever it takes.” His own tears were threatening to fall, and he watched as her shoulders shook as she cried. He pulled her body to his, clutching her in his arms. “I forgive you.” He kept repeating it, thinking it had to sink in. She had to understand. And when he pulled back to look at her face, her stunning eyes glistened, and she touched his lips, but he had more to say. “There was a moment, the day you stood on my second-floor landing, and you showed me just how ugly I’d become. And in that moment I was so ashamed of how I’d spoken about you, and I realized I hated the person I’d become, and more than that, I didn’t feel any of that—not one ounce of the cruel things I said were a reflection of how I felt about you; it was a reflection of how I felt about me, about who I’d become, about my life, about everything . . . everything but you. I’ve figure something out, and I’m not going to forget it. I’m allowed to forgive you. I know that now. It just took me some time to figure it out.” He tried for a smile, but as his cheeks tightened, a tear fell down, and her lips trembled. It was a start.
Her fingers trailed gently over his lips again, and he waited. They were sitting on top of the world with the beautiful hills and lake and trees surrounding them. It was their world, and they belonged in it together.
“I love you.” She whispered it as she looked at his lips.
“Then stay.”
She swallowed, and her brow flinched. He could feel his lips trembling, and his cheeks were wet with his own tears. But then she nodded, and her head sank to his shoulder. His arms tightened around her, and he breathed deeply for what felt like the first time in years.
Part IV: Finding Peace
Epilogue
Most couples don’t start out their relationship in therapy, but it was exactly how they started out theirs and quite intentionally. Every week they would meet with a counselor together. He was long overdue in coping with the loss of his sister, and she was long overdue in forgiving herself just as much as he was. He never once went without her, and she never went without him. They certainly had their own personal needs, but there wasn’t an ounce of what he struggled with that he didn’t want her to know about and be a part of.
Months and months of talking, laughing, remembering, forgiving, and loving one another, and he still felt like he learned something new about them constantly, and he loved the added depth that came with time. What he also learned was that there was no question that he belonged to her, and she belonged to him too. She always had. He always had. His love wasn’t something that could fade, and there was no threat of his anger and his pain destroying them anymore. He worried at first, and he knew she did too, but with time came peace.
He’d learned he was more than capable of being furious with her and not going or even wanting to go to his past to find ammunition to hurt her. She’d made the mistake one day, six months after she was officially a Savoy resident again living with him, of stopping her bike on the side of a winding bend in the road to look for a doe that had darted in front of her. She’d only just hopped off her bike and taken a few steps toward the woods when a truck flew around the bend, driving entirely too far on the shoulder of the road and smashing into her bike.
She hadn’t even bothered calling him, likely knowing he’d be upset that she put herself at risk, and when he’d seen the mangled mess of metal sitting by their porch stairs when he returned from work, he’d panicked. She was inside, pacing nervously back and forth. He yelled for ten minutes straight, and she’d watched him, breathing deeply and calmly. Perhaps yelling was wrong, but what wasn’t wrong was why he was upset. He was upset for the right reasons, and he didn’t go looking in their past for a reason to be angry. He never wanted to anymore. He spent the rest of the evening making up with her and thoroughly enjoying every second of it.
They were still gawked at occasionally when they were seen together, and since they usually went everywhere together, it was a regular occurrence. He didn’t like the cloud that hung over her in this town, but they’d decided they’d stay for a few more years—at least until she was finished with parole. Instead of spending his time worrying about the odd onlooker who liked to study them, he preferred to give them a show. Grabbing her ass in public was a good way to raise a few eyebrows, but his favorite was a passionate kiss in the middle of the sidewalk. As it turned out, people found it hard to stare directly at a woman when she had a man’s tongue in her mouth.
A year after she moved in, he was ready. Or perhaps to say he was ready wasn’t quite the right word. He’d always been ready to marry her. What had changed was that he was at a place where he trusted himself with her completely. He knew he could give her what she needed, and he knew she believed in him too. They sweated their asses off on a run to the outcropping, and when she was walking in circles trying to catch her breath, he pulled the ring from his pocket. It was the most appropriate place he could think of to ask her. It was where he’d given her what she needed to stay, and it was where he’d given himself what he needed to heal. Forgiveness.