Chapter 36
TILLY
Hey,
I don’t know where to start. I’ve thought a lot about this and spent too much time trying to figure out how to phrase what I need to say.
You look happy in these photos. Your hair is lighter, too. And that stud isn’t in your nose. Did you take it out and let the hole close? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.
Look, hellcat, I don’t know much of anything anymore.
Not locked up in here. Whatever it is that you’re thinking, or that you think you’ve noticed is just .
. . your imagination. We’ve all been separated for so long that you’re searching for things to make you feel better until I’m free. That’s all this is. Your imagination.
You’re Ash’s twin sister. That’s why I did what I did.
If it had been Lacey in your shoes, I’d have done the same out of respect for him because that’s the kind of guy I am.
I solve my issues with my fists without considering the consequences so that nobody else has to. Trust me, you’re better off without me.
I’m sending your photos back. Maybe when I’m out of here we can talk about this properly. Or maybe not.
I’m sorry.
Rowe
The last letter I ever got from Rowe gutted me.
I knew when I’d sent mine that I was risking our entire friendship on a hunch.
I’d been confident enough to do it, and in the months that followed, I’d regretted it to the point that I wished I’d never met him at all.
It was the young, na?ve little girl inside of me who’d hoped for some sort of miracle romance to happen simply because I wanted it to, and it was that part of me that suffered in the aftermath.
She flaked away bit by bit until I forgot what it had ever felt like to pine and yearn and crush on a boy the way I had with Rowe.
For the years that followed, I found my mind slipping back to the Polaroid pictures he’d never sent back.
In the dark, when I’d stumble home drunk after a night out with a hand weighed down by a diamond ring, or later on when I’d roll away from my ex-husband in bed, I wondered if he kept them.
Did he rip each one into tiny shreds and let them fall through the bars of his cell door? Were they flushed down the toilet?
All of the photos I had of us were in the basement of my parents’ house, trapped away from everyone. I thought that if I’d boxed them up and left them behind, his memory would have stayed there too. Only it didn’t.
I carried on with my life, and no part of me regrets leaving Oak Point.
The choices I made were right at the time, and I grew more in the ten years I was gone than I would have if I’d stayed.
I needed the fresh start without the weight of every decision I’d ever made hanging on to my back.
Happiness found me in Mahone Bay, even if I’d still sometimes felt a broody, grey gaze clinging to me in the shadows and rough, calloused hands brushing my skin when I let my guard too far down.
Ethan may have lit our marriage on fire, but there was a time when I loved him.
When we met on my short trip to Nova Scotia, I was a shadow of myself.
I was clinging to the memory of a man I’d known my entire life and a few friendly letters we’d exchanged.
Then, my heart broke, and I was officially moving to that same beautiful, salty-aired town and taking back the jagged pieces of myself that I’d given out too freely.
As much as I wish it wasn’t true, Ethan helped me lose the sad, heartbroken woman I’d brought across the country and find a new sense of happiness, regardless of how fleeting I knew it was.
I was still myself, but without the nasty wave of depression that had me losing my sense of self before I’d left.
Every day that I was gone, I thought less about the boy who’d once been my best friend.
I didn’t notice when I began placing bricks over my old personality, creating a new one.
It felt good to build something new, and my husband became the centre of my world.
Everything came together for me until it fell apart again. Only the second time didn’t affect me as deeply as the first.
Maybe it was always some prewritten plan for me to come back home.
I can’t say that being here right now feels anything but right.
There’s a sense of wholeness that wasn’t inside of me before.
Every brick I’d placed in Mahone Bay has been chipped away, and the wounds I’d hidden beneath them have healed, leaving smooth scars in their place.
The rough feel of facial hair rubbing the side of my neck has me coming back into my body. I twist on the thick thighs beneath me and lean further into Rowe’s chest. He lingers with his beard leaving a tingly burn on my skin and takes my hand, using it to bring my beer to his lips.
I watch him drink the foamy liquid, my eyes trailing down his face to stare at the way his lips press firmly to the glass. When he pulls the bottle away, his mouth’s glossy, and I waste no time in licking the beer clean off.
“You don’t share for shit,” he murmurs, chasing my retreating lips long enough to steal a single kiss.
My eyelids droop as I smirk, using a flat palm to push him back against the flimsy fabric of the camping chair.
His arm remains anchored around my back, and he uses the hold to haul me with him.
We’re far too heavy together for this chair to last much longer without ripping, but there’s nothing that could make me get up right now.
I notch my head into the crook of his neck. “I didn’t know my beer was for the both of us.”
“Between you and Millie, you’ve left the rest of us with nothing.”
“I didn’t take her for such a beer lover.”
“Does that make you like her?”
“You’re just asking me that now? I’ve been around her plenty already,” I drawl.
The truth is that yeah, I like the pink princess. She’s sweet, but not in the way that usually chafes. The woman is soft-hearted, but she’s got some fire in her. That makes her fit in around here just fine.
He makes a noise of acknowledgment in his throat and takes my thigh into his hold, tugging it higher over his lap until I’m sitting sideways, completely draped over him. Conversation over, then.
There’s not an inch of space between us, and it’s taking far too much effort not to fall asleep. With the fire blazing in front of us and our friends talking amongst themselves about things I couldn’t care less about in this moment, I’m content to stay here forever.
The last time we were all here like this together, it was the night the boys got the group text that changed everything. I stiffen slightly at the unwanted memory, and Rowe’s hold tightens instinctively, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking about.
His words are spoken tightly, twinkling with darkness. “I found him a few years ago.”
“Who?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Ezra.”
The breath in my lungs burns. “And?”
“And he was up on the rigs in Fort Mac; probably still is. He’s got a wife and kid in Edmonton that he hardly ever comes home to see.”
“Why bother looking him up? Did you get some sense of closure from knowing his life sucks?”
“No. I don’t deserve closure for what happened. But you do.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and palm his cheek, craning my head back enough that I can meet his lowered gaze. The guilt eating away at the soft grey is entirely wrong. Rubbing the tension away from between his brows, I sigh.
“I’ve already found closure. It happened so long ago now, and other than the three of you, nobody ever saw the video. You kept it a secret and protected me from what could have happened if it had gotten out. The worst part of all of it was losing you.”
“Your privacy and trust was stolen from you. That shit was never supposed to happen.”
“But it did. And I’m the only one who gets to decide whether or not I’m truly over it.”
I watch as he digests that. Years upon years of pain linger inside of this man, all stemming from that fucking night, and I need to be the one to take that away.
“It’s time to let go of the resentment you have for yourself because of it.
There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop him from recording me or from sharing it to get revenge.
You can’t go back in time and hit him one less time.
He’s a low-life loser who’s long gone. The year he got was better than nothing,” I whisper, ignoring the bite of resentment that sparks when I think back to the day we learned he’d only been sentenced to a year in prison.
Rowe’s fingers grip me tighter, digging deep into my flesh like he’s scared I’m going slip from his hold.
I don’t so much as blink as he takes what he needs.
We may be still learning about who we are now in the present, but he’s still so much the same as he used to be.
Down at his roots, he’s the same boy I used to look at and wished would stare back the same way. All loopy-grinned and heart-eyed.
“I want to keep you.”
My palm grows clammy against his cheek as I stare into his suddenly clear gaze, hot-chested. I stumble over my words as my neurons fire in double time to try and think of the right ones to say.
“What?”
Really? That’s the best I can do?
Unbothered by the question, he glides his thumb along the length of my bottom lip before pressing down on it. Warm breath blows across my nose as the fire crackles.
“I want to keep you here, Tilly. On my ranch and in my bed,” he repeats, a slight growl clinging to the words. “I want a do-over.”
My entire body is on fire. I go from shocked to turned on to blisteringly happy in the time it takes a single word to plop out of my mouth. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“When you drop something like that on a woman, you need to give her a minute to let it sink in,” I reply, swallowing the pointed rock caught in my throat.
“Right.”
I drag my fingers up the back of his neck, pressing hard to try and hide the tremble in them. “What exactly are we doing over?”
“I should have let you visit me when you tried. If I had, maybe it would have been easier to accept the words I read in your last letter. You were supposed to be there waiting for me when I got out, and I’ve hated myself for hurting you bad enough that you weren’t.
Even if we had ignored every single thing we’d shared in the letters and went back to being good friends, I just wanted to see you there. ”
“Are you planning on going back to jail, Rowe? If not, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about us having to schedule conjugal visits or what time I should be in the parking lot to pick you up.
” I sound bitter, but it’s not anger that I’m feeling.
It’s hurt and a bone-deep regret that laces through my middle like a red-hot poker.
The fear of repeating the same mistakes fills my lungs like poison. I feel it spread through my ribs and down into my stomach, forcing it to clench as I look past him. It’s dark beyond our campsite, the trees appearing more black than green as a soft breeze rustles the leaves on their branches.
I can’t hear our friends anymore, but I think they’re still talking. My ears are buzzing as this sudden panic rolls through me in endless waves. Can they hear us? Does Rowe know how fast my heart is beating?
He wants to keep me.
That’s what I’ve wanted from the time my tits grew from a B to a C cup and I realized boys stared at my ass when I wore shorts cut high.
I used to leave my phone unlocked around him just so he’d be able to see the boys from school who would text me, asking to take me out.
He always got so pissy when he did, and I think I got off on the power it gave me.
Anything and everything I could do to try and gain even a second of his attention, I did.
Rowe’s love and affection fills all the tiny cracks in my chest and makes every scar disappear.
But it’s that tiny, no-good voice in my head that reminds me he’s responsible for more than a handful of both.
And if he could hurt me so badly all those years ago after nothing more than a few traded letters and a schoolgirl crush that was never officially acknowledged, then what could he do to me now?
I hold him tighter with one hand around his nape and the other pressing down on his shoulder while our eyes remain locked.
If he knows how badly I’m freaking out, he isn’t showing it.
Despite his open gaze, there’s nothing within it for me to see.
Everything he’s telling me sounds honest. It feels like it too.
So why don’t I believe him? What’s stopping me?
“Run, hellcat. Run and see how far I let you get this time,” he dares, his tone curling at the end, dripping with promise.
Inhaling, I release him and let my hands fall between us. “I’m not running.”
“Looks like it.”
“I just need . . .” I can’t finish my statement because I don’t fucking know what I need right now.
Everything we’ve been doing these last few weeks has led to this.
It isn’t sudden. I’ve just been offered a future with him on a silver platter, and I’m hesitating to take it.
The roles have reversed, but that’s not something I’ve ever wanted.
My head’s a jumbled mess so full of that irritating voice and its pathetic advice that I can’t even think.
A muscle twitches in his jaw. The shadows from the fire dance across the sharp lines of his jaw and slightly crooked nose.
A spark lands on his shoulder, singeing the fabric of his shirt before I flick it away.
Suddenly, my weight feels too heavy on his lap.
There’s a pressure building between where our chests brush that forces me back, creating a distance that turns my stomach upside down.
I gasp when his hand shoots forward and takes me by the side of my throat. It’s hardly a ghost of a touch, but I lean into it completely, allowing him to tug me close once more. I taste his breath when he brings his lips to the corner of my mouth.
“Go, then. Get whatever answers you need, but when I find you again, you need to know what you want. No more games. We’re all in or all out. Your time starts now.”