Chapter 31 Knox
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
KNOX
“Are you ready?” Lottie whispers in my ear, running her fingers through my hair.
I swallow hard—twice. Clear my throat—once. “I don’t know.”
Sitting on the floor of my loft, we’re surrounded by the remaining boxes of Walter’s things. The ones I haven’t been able to go through alone. The ones we were supposed to get through together last week.
“You don’t have to do this. We can just throw these out. Or put them in storage. You don’t have to read every single word written by your father. It—”
“There’s no way I would ever throw these out. And I’m definitely not going to read them all. But maybe I do need to read some. Because coming here has left me with more questions than answers.” My chest tightens, my breathing stutters. This is… much harder than I ever thought it would be.
“When I first got here… I didn’t really know him.
Or rather, I only knew this one side of him.
And then, of course, our last exchange being what it was…
And then he died. And he left me the store and this stupid loft with no explanation but—” I stop, and she waits patiently as I gather myself so I can keep talking.
“I just… Since being here, I feel like I’ve gotten to know him better through other people.
And I’m both happy and disappointed, you know?
Happy because I can accept he wasn’t the awful man I thought he was.
Disappointed because I didn’t get to see most of it. ”
“I get that.” She takes my left hand in both of hers and squeezes it.
“I’ve come a long way since first arriving to Ceres Cove. And I’m scared of what I’m gonna find here, you know? Like… What if it turns out he really is a dick? Or what if he regretted his entire life and how he left things with us? I don’t know what to do. Don’t know which would be worse.”
“You’re allowed to not read them, Knox.” Her voice is soft, enticing.
“Tempting. But I have to. For me. At least some of it.”
I take a deep breath, steel myself, and pick up a random journal from the box. And because Fate is a dick, it’s the one with the year of my birth foiled into the cover.
I burst out laughing. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
She peeks over, comprehension dawning on her.
“Whoa, okay. Maybe let’s start with something easier?
Save the year of your birth and… maybe the year you fought for last?
” “Or for never?” But I know deep down there’s nothing that will keep me from the temptation of reading the words I’m so scared of reading. I need to know what he was thinking.
I set the journal aside for a later time and, with a shaking hand, pull one from the bottom of the box this time. One from seventeen years ago. From when I first met him.
“Shit. None of this is going to be easy, is it?”
“No. But I’m here with you. We can do this. Together.”
I cup her face, choking back a sob. And... it’s fucking embarrassing. I feel like crying. Because I’ve lost my father. Because I never really knew him—not the way I wanted to. And because I’ve fallen in love with the most amazing woman. One who wants to walk by my side while I figure this out.
I love you, I’m dying to tell her. To ask her to stay with me forever. But I don’t want the first time we have this discussion to be when the moment isn’t about anything but us.
So instead, I lean over and kiss her. Just once.
Just enough to get my fill, some strength, before I tackle the first journal.
I flip through the pages, anxiously searching for entries around the time of my mother’s accident.
Finally, in neat, near-perfect cursive handwriting, my name pops out at me from a page.
September 16th
She called today. After ten years of not knowing where she’d gone or why she’d left so suddenly, Melissa called. After breaking my heart and leaving me to die, to rot in academia, she called me.
From a damned hospital bed, no less.
The tear-filled way in which her voice broke when she’d first greeted me… My heart dropped when she told me she had been in a terrible car crash.
“Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you. I’ll take care of you,” I’d said. It’s all I’d ever wanted. I didn’t care that she’d abandoned me all those years before. I loved her. I would always love her.
“I don’t need you, Walter.” Still, the same words over and over again from the day she left. “But our son does.”
Our son.
She had told me there would be no son. She had told me she was going to get rid of it. She had told me she didn’t want to be the student who had gotten knocked up by her professor during some torrid affair.
Her words, not mine.
I wanted her. I wanted us. I couldn’t wait until she graduated for us to be free to be together. Was even willing to quit my job for her. Anything. And then she’d said she was pregnant and it was bliss. For a few seconds, life had been bliss. Until…
“I’m getting rid of it,” she’d said. “And I’m leaving and never coming back.” She’d destroyed me. Left me bleeding. And now…
And now she was calling me to her, like some spaceship back to their home planet.
I leave tonight.
By tomorrow, I will have met Lennox.
My son.
I exhale, but it comes out choppy and I don’t know why. My face is wet—is the roof leaking or something?
“Shh, it’s okay.” Lottie is rocking me back and forth, arms wrapped tightly around my waist, face in my neck. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
The pages of the journal are shaking and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s because
I am. I’m shaking and crying and it’s—I’m in too much pain to even care.
I think it, but the words aren’t easy to push out. I think it, but it takes me a minute for me to be able to process it properly. I think it, but it isn’t until I focus on Lottie’s comforting caramel scent that I can finally speak the words: “He always wanted me. He never wanted me gone.”
She nods, lets me sit with it. Because she told me so. She told me she found it hard to believe he never wanted me. But why didn’t he make me believe it when he was alive? Why was I fed this random story?
“Where are you going?” she asks when I get to my feet, searching through my things for my cellphone.
“I’m calling my mother. Need to straighten this shit out now.”
“What? Knox, no.” Lottie comes up behind me, reaching around to pull my phone from
my hands. “Absolutely not. You are way too upset right now. And you’re only one entry into the journal. We don’t know anything. Obviously, you’re going to have to talk to your mother after this, but… I mean, does she even know you have these?”
“No. She knows why I’m here in Ceres Cove, obviously. She’s been… nervous about the whole thing. But we’ve never spoken about my dad directly before since being here.”
Her eyes widen at me. “You… You called him your dad.”
I shrug and look away, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
“Can you leave? Please? I—I need space.” I can’t look at her right now. Don’t want her to look at me. It’s… too hard to put up a front. She’s the queen of boundaries, so I know she’ll respect them if I—
“No.”
I can definitely look at her now. “What? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not leaving you alone like this. And I am certainly not leaving you alone so you can call your mother. Not two seconds after reading this entry. Not until you’ve had time to process it.”
“I cannot believe you, of all people, think you have the balls to—”
“Yeah, yeah. Call me a hypocrite—I don’t care.
I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not giving you your phone back.
You’re gonna have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
In fact, I might enter the wrong password enough times to have it be blocked for an hour so you can’t use it even then.
” My lips twitch at that. “You’re not doing this. ”
I just stare at her. Can’t keep my gaze off those vicious, chocolate brown eyes of hers.
She’s fierce, my love. A protector. I want to be hers, too.
“Okay. I’ll let you stay.” I pull her into my arms because I need her right now, and I don’t care who knows it.
She scoffs. “Let me stay? More like, can’t stop me from staying.” She burrows into my chest, inhaling my scent in that cute way she thinks is subtle, but absolutely is not.
We hold each other just like this. I never want to move.
“Are you up to reading more of them?” Her voice is cautious, quiet. Like I’m a baby deer she’s approaching in the middle of the forest.
I’ve never felt more ashamed of myself. Never felt so weak.
“Because, like I said, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I do want to.” I just don’t want to break down in front of you. But then again, I’m not sure I could make it through another one of these without her by my side.
“Same journal?”
“Yes. I want to see what he thought of me that first day.”
“Okay. But let’s move to the bed, shall we? Get more comfortable. Maybe it will… make things better.”
I smile. “The bed will make things better?”
“You’re underestimating the power being wrapped in a comforter cocoon has over the human psyche.”
I laugh softly with a pathetic sniffle. Together, we make ourselves more comfortable, slipping into bed, wrapping ourselves up in the comforter as per Lottie’s instructions, before moving on to the next page.
September 17th
Today was one of the worst days of my life. I met my son and—
I take another break. “The day he met me was the worst day of his life?”
“Stop. Keep reading. We don’t know everything else.” She takes the journal from my hands, and decides to read aloud.
September 17th
Today was one of the worst days of my life. I met my son and I have never been so crushed.
I will never forgive Melissa for what she’s done to me. For denying me the opportunity to be part of this boy’s life. I will never forgive her for not letting me get to be the father I could’ve been for the past ten years.
I feel like I have missed everything.
He’s… incredible. Lennox. Knox.
Knox is amazing. Smart. Creative. So brilliantly creative. And no one has noticed,
because his mother has been to busy working, trying to support them. From what he’s told me, they’ve moved too much for anyone at his schools to realize it.
But I’m not going anywhere. Not now, not ever. From now on, I will be here for Knox.
Melissa thinks I’m just going to help her through her recovery, but that’s not how things will go at all. I haven’t told her I resigned or that I’ve already put in an offer on an apartment in town. I have enough savings to hold me off while I figure things out.
I’m here for good.
And Melissa… Well, I can’t even look at her.
I thought there would never be any pain like that of losing her.
But this? Finding out I have a son she never wanted me to know feels like death.
It feels like finding out someone died and realizing they’re never coming back.
Those first ten years of his life I lived without knowing him.
Those first ten years of his life I could’ve experienced with him.
I missed so many milestones. So many big moments.
And she took that from me. She’s taken a piece of my life I’ll never get back.
But I’m here now. And I’ll be his father. And after only one day of knowing him, I know he’s already made me proud enough to call my son for the rest of my life.
“Jesus. I can’t. Stop, please.” I’m crying again. Because I failed him. He thought he’d be proud of me for the rest of his life, but then… “I disappointed him. He told me so. I let him down. That last time we talked—” I choke on a sob.
“Hey. That’s not true, remember? We found out it was never true. He constantly told his friends about you. That he was proud. Talked about you non-stop. What he said that day you fought, it must’ve been in the heat of the moment. Or a misunderstanding.”
“No.” I shake my head, heels in my eyes. “No, I let him down. I let him down. I wasn’t the kid he thought I was. I was a terrible son. And I disappeared.”
“Knox, hey. Hey, you need to breathe. Please.”
I can’t make myself stop hyperventilating. It’s like my lungs forget how to work. “I—I—”
“Knox, please.” And now she’s crying, too. Pulling me into her arms, wrapping me tightly against her chest. “Feel the rhythm of my breathing. Try to match it. Please. Focus on me.”
So I do. My true north. I close my eyes and listen to her breathing, trying to match my own to it.
I focus on the way her fingertips trace my skin softly, the way she runs them over the lines of my tattoos.
Her scent floods my lungs, and I welcome it with open arms, letting it soothe me like a balm.
“Lottie.”
“I’ve got you.” She wraps her arms tighter around me. “Just like you had me, I’ve got you. It’s my turn now.”