9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Hailey
The drive home feels twice as long as the drive to Oakside yesterday.
My phone sits silent in my cup holder.
There have been no messages from Walker since our fight.
I'd left him standing there in his living room, hurt swimming in his eyes.
I pull into my driveway and for a moment, I sit in the darkness, listening to the sound of a quiet Tennessee night, wondering how everything went so wrong so fast.
As I walk up to my front door, something catches my eye. A piece of paper under a rock. I bend down to pick it up and find it’s an envelope with my name on it. I recognize the handwriting. It’s the same one on the letters I’ve spent all this time reading.
Once inside, I drop my keys in the bowl, the sound echoing through my empty house. Going to my living room, I sit on the couch holding the envelope, fingers trembling. The envelope is damp at the edges. It’s been sitting overnight and soaked up the morning dew. How long had it been there?
I sink back into my couch, tearing it open with clumsy fingers.
Hailey,
I've been staring at this blank page for an hour.
Words used to come so easily when I talked to you, but now I'm afraid anything I say will only push you further away.
The truth is, I've spent years trying to outrun my past. Years pretending I could start fresh if I just moved on.
But the thing about ghosts is they follow you, especially when a beautiful nurse moves to town and starts making you believe in second chances.
My breath catches. I pull my knees to my chest, the letter trembling in my hands.
Riley was my best friend.
I called her Red, and she called me James, always has since we were in school together.
She was my high school sweetheart and my biggest supporter when I joined the military.
We got married young so she could follow me wherever I was stationed.
We made it through our first deployment, and then we had Olivia.
She grew distant, and caring for a newborn was a lot, especially since I couldn’t be there like I wanted due to training.
Then we deployed again.
She moved in with her grandma here in Big Wood, so she had some help.
Still, the letters were slow, and I knew she had a lot going on.
Then the letters stopped.
I knew things were good because her grandma was writing to me all the time and giving me updates on Olivia.
But she started mentioning Riley less and less.
When I got home from deployment, I realized it was because she had been cheating on me with one of our friends from high school, Jeremy.
The night she died, we'd been arguing. She was complaining I didn’t love her like I did before Olivia came along and I said she was right. I hated her right then, thinking Olivia might not even be mine due to the timeline she had told me.
She stormed out and drove off to her boyfriend’s place. I could have stopped her. Should have. When the police called three hours later, they said she and Jeremy had been in a car accident. He was driving, and he'd wrapped his car around a tree.
They were both dead on impact.
His parents blamed me.
Said if I hadn't picked that fight, he wouldn’t have been in the car with Riley that night. They weren't wrong.
I press my hand to my mouth, tears blurring the words.
All this time, I'd been so focused on the mystery of Walker that I never saw the weight he was carrying.
At first, I was still so angry I didn’t grieve the way I should have. I didn’t give Riley the obituary she deserved as Olivia’s mom. Someday. I will have to explain that to her. It took Riley’s grandma begging me to do a paternity test, and it coming back that Olivia was mine for me to snap out of it. I was six months from the end of my military contract, and with the help of Riley’s grandma and this town, we made it work.
Olivia became my whole world until you moved to town. I had set my past behind me and it was almost like that guy was a completely different person.
When I saw you were reading those letters, letters I didn’t think still existed, my past came crashing back. I was terrified you would see that I'm broken in ways I don't know how to fix.
I should have told you everything from the beginning. About Riley and what happened. I was afraid if you knew the real me—all of me—you wouldn't want me anymore.
But that's not fair to you. You deserve someone who trusts you with their whole heart, not just the pretty parts.
I love you, Hailey. I think I've loved you since the first time you made Olivia smile and told her about your mom’s cat.
Remembering that day, I laugh through my tears.
I'm not asking for forgiveness. I just wanted you to know the truth. All of it. Because even if this is goodbye, you deserve that much.
Walker James Ellison
I lower the letter, my cheeks wet. The silence of my house presses in around me. All this time, I'd been angry because I thought Walker had been playing games with me.
But he'd been drowning in guilt, convinced his past made him unworthy of love.
Of my love.
I think about the man who wrote those letters. The man who showed up at my door with the thank-you card from his daughter. The man who looks at his daughter like she hung the moon. The man whose hands shake when he talks about the war, but who still finds the courage to help others heal.
The clock on my wall reads 7:57 p.m. It's late and I know he’s getting Olivia ready for bed soon.
So I pick up my phone and text him.
Me: I got your letter.
We need to talk. I'll be at the diner at 8 a.m. tomorrow.
Almost instantly the bubble pops back up like he’[s been waiting for me.
Walker: I’ll be there.
I can’t sleep as I try to work out the words I want to say to him. I know I will only have one chance and don’t want to blow it.
Even though I didn’t get much sleep, I wake up only to find my car won’t start.
Pulling out my phone in a panic, I can’t help thinking maybe this is my punishment for leaving town the way I did.
“Becky, please tell me you are home,” I say before she gets a word out.
“I will be in about ten minutes. What’s wrong?”
I give her the short version of what happened and ask to use her car.
“Oh my gosh, of course! I’m pulling into your drive now!”
Breathing a sigh of relief, I meet her outside.
“Go honey! I saw his car at the diner when I drove by!” she says holding the door open for me. She hadn’t even shut off the car.
“Thank you. I owe you dinner this week!” I call over my shoulder.
“With the details!” she says.
“Deal!” I close the door and head down my driveway, glancing at the clock.
8:19.
Dammit. I sent up a silent prayer that he will wait for me. Not taking the time to even text, I just head straight to the diner.
When I pull in, I see him walking out. Hopefully, he is still willing to give me a chance.
I park the car and step out. Walker freezes when he sees me, one hand braced against his truck. He looks terrible. His eyes are red-rimmed, hair sticking up like he's been running his hands through it for hours.
He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"Hailey." My name comes out like a prayer.
"I got your letter." I say, walking toward him.
His throat works as he swallows.
"I shouldn't have dumped all that on you. It wasn't fair."
"No," I say, stepping closer.
"What wasn't fair was you carrying it alone all this time."
We stand in awkward silence, and I’m afraid to take my eyes off him. It’s as if the moment I do, he will leave.
"Let’s go in and get you some breakfast," he says, finally taking his eyes away from me.
"I didn't come for breakfast."
His eyes meet mine again, guarded but hopeful.
"Why did you come?"
“My heart broke for the man in the letters. But I fell in love with the man standing in front of me. The real man, with a past and scars and a daughter who thinks the world of him."
He takes a step toward me, hesitant. "Hailey, you don't understand. The things I've done—"
"Stop," I say, closing the distance between us. "I understand more than you think. You lost someone you loved and you blame yourself. You think that makes you unworthy of happiness."
"Doesn't it?"
"No." I reach for his hand, twining our fingers together. "It makes you human. And humans mess up, they grieve, and they try again."
His fingers tighten around mine. "I should have told you everything from the beginning."
"Yes, you should have." I don't sugarcoat it. "But I understand why you didn't. Fear makes us do stupid things."
"Like what?"
"Like running away from the best thing that's happened to me in years because I was scared of getting hurt again," I say.
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "You think I'm the best thing that's happened to you in years?"
"Don't get cocky, Walker. I'm still mad at you."
He pulls me into his arms. "I can live with that."
I rest my head against his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. "I mean it, Walker. No more secrets. No more hiding the hard stuff because you think I can't handle it."
"I promise." His voice rumbles against my ear. "From now on, you get all of me. The good, the bad, and the seriously screwed up."
"That's all I ever wanted."
He pulls back, looking down at me with those eyes that see straight through to my soul. "Can I kiss you now? Because I've been thinking about it since you stepped out of that car."
Before he finishes speaking, I'm already rising on my tiptoes.
His lips meet mine, gentle at first, then with growing urgency. I wind my arms around his neck, pressing closer, wanting to erase any space between us. He tastes like coffee and promises, and I want to drown in him.
“Come back to my place. I have a lot I want to tell you,” he says when we break apart.
When we get to his place, we curl up together on his couch, and he tells me more about Riley. About the good times, not just the tragedy. About the pranks they pulled in school, the way Riley could make anyone laugh, even in the worst situations.
I tell him about my last relationship, about the way I'd let it make me cautious, afraid to trust my own judgment.
We talk until our voices grow hoarse, and the sun starts to set, and he has to go get Olivia. Until all the walls between us have crumbled, leaving nothing but truth.
"I love you," he says, his fingers tracing patterns on my palm. "I think I have from the beginning."
"Even when I was holding up paint colors, and you were telling me they were the same color?"
"Especially then," he smiles.
I swat his arm, but I'm smiling. "I love you too. Even when you're being an idiot."
"So, most of the time, then?"
"You said it, not me."
He laughs, pulling me closer. This is a new us and this time, we're facing life together.