Chapter 13
NATALIE
It was Steve.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said with a smile, before looking me over and frowning. “Whoa. That’s a face.”
I gave him a sheepish half-smile. “What kind of face?”
“The kind that says you need girl talk, chocolate, and maybe a small controlled fire in the woods,” he said, stepping back to let me in. “Possibly in that order.”
Despite myself, I let out a quiet laugh. “You’re not wrong.”
He ruffled my hair like I was still a kid. “Well, your mom’s in there with a mug of tea and terrible Real Housewives commentary. I was just headed down to see if MeMaw is hustling anyone in the lounge again.”
“She already took down a bridesmaid and a groomsman,” my mom called from inside .
His face lit up like a man who knew he’d married well. “I love that woman.”
Then he looked at me for a long moment, eyes soft, warm with that fierce kind of love only a dad—the real kind—could give. “You okay?”
I nodded. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the full truth.
He didn’t push—just wrapped me in one of those rib-cracking hugs, the kind that made you feel safe enough to fall apart if you needed to. Then he gave my mom a wink and headed down the hall with a casual, “If I’m not back in an hour, MeMaw’s won my credit card.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
And then it was just me and my mom…and everything I was finally ready to ask.
She sat on the bed, wrapped in a robe and a blanket, tea in hand and a Housewife mid-monologue on the muted TV, waving a champagne glass like it was a weapon. Mom looked at me, eyes warm and knowing. “What’s going on, sweet girl?”
“I just…” I tried to find a light version of the truth. Something casual. Something that didn’t feel like the world cracking open.
But all I could say was, “I couldn’t sleep.”
Even though I hadn’t exactly tried to sleep on account of the fact that I’d been avoiding anywhere that Easton could be after the whole Santa office thing this morning.
She turned off the TV and patted the bed beside her. “Come here, baby.”
I sat, curling my legs beneath me. We sat there for a moment in silence, and I could still feel the warmth of my dad’s hug wrapped around my middle. My mom waited patiently beside me, her fingers absently tracing the rim of her mug as if she could feel the weight of what I wanted to say.
I stared down at my lap.
“I think I push people away before they get the chance to leave me,” I began .
Her fingers paused mid-circle, resting against the ceramic like the thought had frozen them in place.
“I know, it’s dramatic. But it’s like—I get this warning siren in my chest the second someone gets too close. Like my heart’s yelling, Abort! Abort! Pull the ripcord before we crash .”
My mom didn’t interrupt. She just listened. Like she always had.
“It’s like I think if I break it off first,” I continued unsteadily, “it’ll hurt less. Like I’m somehow in control of the damage.”
“And does it?” she asked gently. “Hurt less?”
I shook my head, tears already stinging behind my eyes. “No. It just hurts longer. Quieter. And I still end up alone.”
Her hand reached over and squeezed mine. “You’ve always been strong, Nat. But somewhere along the way, I think you started thinking that being strong meant being alone. And it doesn’t.”
“I keep thinking about him,” I said after a long pause. “About my—about him .”
My mom didn’t need clarification.
Her expression didn’t change. She simply nodded, folding her hands in her lap. “Terry.”
I looked down at my fingers, twisting the hem of my sweater. “I haven’t thought about him in years, not really. But now…with Paige inviting him and the wedding in a few days, I don’t know. I feel like I’m a kid again. Waiting on the porch with mittens and hope, thinking maybe this year he’d come.”
Her eyes softened. “He didn’t deserve you.”
“Maybe not,” I whispered. “But that didn’t stop me from wanting him.”
My throat tightened. I hated that it still had power over me. The ache. The wondering.
She exhaled, and it was slow…probably full of memories. “Do you want to know what I remember most about when he left?”
I looked up, my voice tight. “What? ”
“You. Sitting on the stairs. Your face crumpling when you realized he wasn’t coming back. Crying so hard you couldn’t breathe. And I remember the way you looked at me and asked if he left because of you .”
I closed my eyes. “I was obviously deranged even at that age.”
“No. You were just a kid. And heartbroken. And already trying to shoulder blame that wasn’t yours.” Her voice was firm but not harsh.
I swallowed hard. “It just…It felt like maybe there was something wrong with me.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” She reached over, placing a warm hand on mine.
“There was never anything wrong with you. There was something wrong with him .” Her voice was fierce now, the kind of fierce that could punch holes through doubt.
“He was the problem. He was a coward. And he missed the best parts of your childhood.”
I blinked, and the tears that I hadn’t known were there slid down my cheeks. I swiped at them quickly. Because how dare they.
“He left,” I said quietly. “And I spent years convincing myself it didn’t matter. But now the idea of him showing up to the wedding like he belongs—like he deserves to watch Paige’s happiest day—it makes me feel…off-balance. Like I’m that little girl again.”
My mom nodded slowly. “I understand that.”
“Do you?” I asked, looking at her, my voice sharper than I meant.
She didn’t flinch. “More than you think.”
She brought the mug to her lips, took a sip, then set it back down. “When he left, I thought I would never trust anyone again. I was angry. Not just at him. At myself. For believing him. For loving him.”
I watched her closely. “But then you met Dad.”
Her lips curved gently. “Yes, then I met Steve. And I realized that loving someone isn’t what hurts. Loving the wrong person—that’s what leaves the bruises.”
I exhaled shakily.
“I didn’t love him right away,” she went on, her voice quieter now. “But he was patient. Kind. He didn’t push. He just…stayed. Through the hard days. Through the guarded silences. Through me needing to believe he wouldn't leave.”
She paused.
“And eventually,” she said, “I realized that love isn’t proven in the grand gestures. It’s proven in the staying. In the showing up. In the choosing to be there. Again and again.”
I looked down at my hands, her words stirring something deep and unsteady inside me.
“Does it still hurt?” I asked. “What he did?”
She thought for a moment. “Less now. But back then, yes. I thought it would break me. But then life gave me something better. Someone better. A love that made the pain feel like it had a purpose.”
My throat tightened. “So, you’re not mad Paige invited him?”
She sighed. “I wish she hadn’t, only because I don’t think she understands how deep that scar runs. But I also understand why she did. He’s her dad, too, even if he wasn’t much of one.”
I hesitated, then asked, “Do you think he’ll actually show?”
My mom shrugged lightly. “Maybe. Or maybe not. Either way, it doesn’t change what came after. He left. But that opened the door for someone better. For a man who loved you like you were his own. Who raised you with patience and pride and a fierce, unwavering love.”
Maybe . Or maybe not .
It was almost exactly what Paige had said earlier.
I wasn’t sure that it made me feel better.
I nodded slowly. “Remember how nervous Dad got before father-daughter dances?” I said, wiggling my eyebrows up and down .
She smiled, her eyes shining. “I definitely jumped him afterward.”
“Ugh. No. We can’t talk about that.”
She winked at me like scarring me for life was funny.
We both laughed, each of us blinking away tears, and then we sat in silence for a long moment.
“Are you thinking about Easton?” she asked softly.
I looked up, startled. “What makes you say that?”
She gave me the patented mom look—the one that said Please , child , I made you with my body and have known your soul since it was the size of a walnut .
“You look like you’re standing in the middle of the road trying to decide whether to leap or run.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“What if it ends the same way?” I asked. “What if I let him in, and he leaves, and it breaks me all over again?”
My mom reached for my hand again, her grip firm and warm. “Then you heal. Then you grow. But love doesn’t always mean pain, sweetheart. Not if it’s the right kind.”
I stared at her.
She smiled softly. “What if it doesn’t end the same way? What if it’s the beginning of the best thing that ever happened to you?”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“He’s not your father, Natalie,” she said gently. “He’s not that man. And you’re not that little girl anymore.”
My chest ached. I let her words settle around me, into me, deeper than I realized I needed them to.
“Easton was always the one who could make me feel everything. Back then, it felt too big. Too real. Like if I really gave into it, there’d be nothing left of me.”
“And now?”
“Now it feels even bigger,” I said quietly. “But not like it’ll destroy me. More like…if I don’t let myself have it, I’ll never stop wondering what it could have been. ”
My mom’s face softened. “That’s love, sweetheart. The real kind. It’s not supposed to make you smaller. It’s supposed to show you how much more there is to feel. How much more you’re capable of.”
I blinked hard, willing myself not to cry. “But what if I’m not ready?”
“Then go slow,” she said. “You’ll be scared. You’ll question it sometimes. But real love can take that. It can hold the messy parts. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be true.”
I let her words settle. Let them find the broken places in me and start stitching.
She smiled, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear the way she used to when I was a kid. “You know what Steve told me right after our first date?”
“What?”
“That he didn’t care how long it took. He just wanted the chance to be the one I didn’t have to be brave with.”
My throat caught.
“I hope you let someone love you like that, Natalie,” she whispered. “You deserve to be loved without armor.”
“You said love is proven in the staying,” I murmured. “But what if I’m not sure I believe in that anymore?”
My mom looked at me, her eyes warm and steady. “Then let someone show you it’s still real.”
I felt something shift then. A door cracking open. Not wide. But just enough for light to peek through.
“I’m not sure I know how,” I whispered.
She squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to know. You just have to try.”
Silence fell again, but it wasn’t heavy this time. It was full of something else—something like peace.
I leaned my head on her shoulder, and she rested hers gently against mine.
“You were never hard to love, you know,” she said softly.
I closed my eyes .
And for the first time in a long time…I tried to believe.
The hallway was quiet, wrapped in the kind of stillness that only settles in late at night—blurred at the edges, almost reverent. My footsteps were barely a whisper against the old wood floor as I walked toward the suite.
I stopped in front of the door, heart thudding a steady rhythm that echoed in my chest.
The key card was cool between my fingers.
I stared at the door for a long time, chewing on my bottom lip, the silence between heartbeats stretching thinner with every second. The words from my mom still echoed in my head.
What if it’s the beginning of the best thing that ever happened to you?
I swallowed hard, then slowly slid the card into the reader.
A soft click . A green light.
The door swung open with a whisper.
The room was dim, lit only by the warm glow of the bedside lamp. It smelled like cedar soap and the faintest trace of my perfume, clinging to the sweater I’d left thrown over a chair.
And Easton was there. In bed. Propped up on one elbow, shirtless, the blankets rumpled low around his waist. His dark hair was messy, his jaw shadowed with scruff, and his green eyes were heavy lidded but locked on me the second I stepped inside.
He didn’t say anything.
Neither did I.
We just looked at each other, the silence between us thick with everything unsaid. With everything we’d been. Everything we still could be.
After a long moment, he shifted, his expression softening.
Then, slowly, he reached for the covers and pulled them back, exposing the empty space beside him .
“Come here, Trouble,” he said, his voice low and raw.
It was just three words. But they pushed that door inside me open a little wider…the one that had started to crack the moment he walked back into my life.
I didn’t speak. I didn’t joke or deflect or run.
I walked.
I slipped off my shoes, crawled beneath the covers, and let him pull me into the warmth of his chest. His arms wrapped around me like they’d been waiting, like they knew how to hold all the pieces.
He didn’t kiss me.
He didn’t ask questions.
He just held me.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I let myself be held.
No armor. No walls.
Just me.
Just him.
And the quiet, trembling beginning of something that might just be real.