Chapter 46
VANNA
W hat began as a cool, late-spring morning with a slow breeze rustling the leaves of the old oak towering over us is already heating up by midmorning.
Humming gnats buzz in our faces while Ace and I collect fallen twigs around the farmstand.
I toss another armful of brittle limbs into the burn barrel near the picnic tables between the farmstand and the strawberry patch, hoping the smoke will drive the annoying insects away.
It’s Sunday, so I don’t expect any locals to show up for at least another hour or so.
I watch the smoke twist upward into the blue sky for a few moments.
I’ve already swept the cement floor three times, reorganized the baskets, and even straightened every jam and honey jar label with Ace’s assistance until they were all lined up perfectly.
Busy work. Repetitive. But it’s been keeping my hands full, keeping me from thinking too much about what happened the night before last.
Ace is sitting at his art table beside the register, a box of worn crayons dumped out in front of him. His adorable little tongue sticks out the corner of his mouth while he draws, laser-focused and unaware of my pacing and reorganizing.
Whenever I stop for too long, I begin to feel the shame of what happened like a stone in my chest.
I grab the rake from the garden toolshed and begin dragging dead leaves from where they’ve accumulated behind the thick row of Madeline’s rose bushes along the side of the farmstand. I rake until my arms ache and sweat prickles down my back.
The rake slips between my fingers and hits the ground with a dull thud when I hear it…low and familiar. A motorcycle growling down the road, and it isn’t the louder, more throaty sound of a Harley… It’s his bike…
Ace and I won’t make it back to the house before he reaches us…
Dean might come home for a lunch break soon, but soon isn’t now…
My heart is racing so fast it might come up my throat.
The motorcycle rips around the bend in the road and pulls into the gravel driveway leading directly to the small lot in front of the farmstand.
Ace is by my side, excitedly waving to Legend .
He kills the engine of his bike and quickly dismounts, boots crunching on the gravel with every step he takes toward us.
Instinctively, I push my son behind me. The tormented expression in Legion’s eyes when he removes his black-shielded helmet nearly steals the breath from my lungs.
He looks haunted…
The helmet slips from his fingers and hits the gravel with a thud a moment before his knees do.
V anna takes a half step back, one arm protectively moving in front of her son, and my chest feels as though it’s caving in on itself.
She’s afraid of me.
After everything I’ve done…this is the first time she’s looked at me like I’m dangerous…like I’m a threat to her …and it destroys me.
I drop to my knees before her, and the gravel bites through the denim straight through to my bones. But this is penance, and penance should hurt.
“Ace, sweetheart, go back to your table and finish your drawings,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine. When he lingers, she nudges him gently. “ Go on now .” He finally obeys. Tiny sneakers pad back through the entrance, leaving us with the weight of everything I’ve shattered.
Maybe it’s because I know this is it…but she’s never looked more heartbreakingly beautiful or more unreachable.
The words that have been burning a hole in my throat since I left her rasp out of me on a desperate breath. “ I didn’t touch you… But I wanted to ,” I confess, hating the sound of my own voice. “I stopped myself before I went too far.”
“ Too far?” Her quiet voice sounds as strangled as my own. “Everything you’ve done has been too far!”
“I never wanted to hurt you…but I did… I broke something between us.” My voice cracks, raw with a guilt I’ve never experienced. “You were the only person who ever saw me… You trusted me. And I spit on it. I let jealousy and obsession twist and mangle what we did have… What we could have had…”
The silence between us buzzes like static. I can barely look her in the eyes, but desperation drives me to search them for any minuscule sliver of understanding…or forgiveness.
“You were just going to run…” she whispers, distraught.
“ I only made it seem that way , so I could return to you and?—”
“And what?” Her voice quivers with hurt and rage. “You actually think there’s anything left between us to salvage? That you haven’t ruined everything? Every moment I thought was real…was just a manipulation…”
The weight of her words crushes me…
“I did wish you well the day of your wedding. I wished for your happiness and safety. I want you to have everything you desire in this life. When I left, I was glad to know I wouldn’t be around to see him give it to you.”
I swallow the painful lump in my throat.
“What I’ve done is unforgivable… But before I cut myself from your life, know this…
From the moment we met, you stole the remnants of my heart.
Not a day has passed that I haven’t felt the pangs of regret.
Everything I’ve ever had has always been ripped away from me…
It’s my own doing this time. You deserve peace and happiness…
You’ll never have either with me in your life.
I’m here to say goodbye, my love. I’m sorry, and goodbye. ”
She takes a step forward like she wants to strike me, and I wish she would. When the question falls from her lips, it sounds like a plea, a wound still bleeding. “ Why wasn’t my friendship enough?”
Her question hits me like a punch to the gut. There’s still fire behind her eyes, holding all the rage, betrayal, and loss of what we had.
“Why wasn’t it enough?” she asks again, quieter, as if resolved not to receive an answer.
For once, I don’t have one. The truth is crueler than anything else I can give her. It was enough…her friendship, her trust, her light. And I destroyed it anyway.
“Damien?”
“Because I wasn’t.”
She slowly shakes her head, tears welling behind her eyes until they spill, twisting the knife I plunged in my own heart, deeper.
“The second you looked at me like I was worth something, I needed all of you… I needed to possess it, to burn it into my skin, to fill some hole in my soul I can’t even name.
But I’m beyond redemption. I’m lost… sinking…
drowning in darkness… There’s so much in what I thought was just a hollow cavern in my chest…
It was all stagnant for so long until you… Now there’s only grief…”
She touches my shoulder and I recoil, unworthy of her touch, her sympathy, her kindness. But also because I know the innocent gesture won’t curb the pain. It will only make me crave it more.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I should have forgiven you sooner. I was selfish, too. A part of me thought you would leave… I see now that it would have been best if you did. I don’t want to keep hurting you.”
Hurt is fleeting. Obliteration is more like it, but I’ve done that to myself…
to her. She’s shown me nothing but kindness.
This is all on me. Grief and pain are simply consequences of love…
unspent, unrequited love. I think all I’ve ever really wanted was love without having to beg for it…
but I’m not a good person. I deserve to choke on these emotions, to swallow down these burning words whenever I’m around her.
I should have… Yet I lack the will and decency even now to stop myself from telling her a selfish truth.
“ I will always love you more than what will ever be acceptable.”
She brings her hands to her face to hide her own grief as silent sobs rack her body.
I hear it first. The rumble of an engine rolls in like a storm. And he is. We both know it.
She drops her hands to her chest, breath catching, eyes wide with sudden terror at the realization of what’s about to happen next.
Keegan’s close. Just past the bend beyond the pecan orchard down the road.
I don’t move. I don’t look away from her. I earned this. Every brutal second of it.
“ Legion…” she gasps.
“I won’t break this promise,” I say quietly.
She blinks, confused, then horrified. “No! Go!”
“I mean it.” My voice is low, steady, already bracing for what I’ve got coming to me. “We both know I deserve it, and your knight deserves to avenge you. I won’t fight back.”
“Please, just go!” she begs, voice breaking. When I don’t move, she rushes to the farmstand, shutting the doors on Ace before Keegan arrives to deliver the justice I’ve earned.
Tires crunch on the gravel behind me. The engine winds down to an idle. She rushes past me to her husband, already pleading for my wretched life.
I reach for my smokes and light up.
Might as well enjoy one more…
The engine dies.
Boots hit gravel.
I pull a long drag and let it out slow…
T he roar of Serene’s engine sends my heart into my throat. I turn fast, rushing back to the farmstand. Ace is still at his art table, little fists wrapped around crayons, working on something bright and messy. The moment he looks up at me, the sound of his father’s bike registers, and he smiles.
“Ace, you keep working on your pictures. Mommy will be right outside,” I say, breathless.
His little smile falls, and he stares at me with curious worry.
“I’m so sorry, baby. Stay here. I love you.
” Before he can ask any questions, I shut the barn-style doors, praying I’ll be able to prevent what is about to happen.
I whirl back around. Legion is still on his knees in the gravel like some shattered offering. He isn’t going to fight back. He isn’t going to run. He’s just going to take it because this is what he thinks redemption looks like… ruin.
“ He won’t fight back!” I shout before I even reach my husband. When I do, there’s no stopping him. I’d have an easier time jumping in front of a train. “Dean! He’s not going to fight you!”