37. chapter thirty seven
chapter thirty seven
love's never lost when perspective is earned
T he panic set in my bones and solidified the second I heard my dad yellingdownstairs.
The sound of it sent a shiver through me, and before I could stop myself, I was rushing down the stairs, the urgency of it overwhelming. My heart pounded, my steps quickening with each one I took. Addy was just a few steps behind, but I didn’t slow down. My eyes locked onto the shadows of our parents in the kitchen, their voices rising, and for a moment, I stood there, bracing myself for what came next.
“What the hell is going on?” Addy called from behind me, as sheplaced her hands on my shoulders, pulling me back into her chest.
Both their heads whipped towards us, but it was my mom who cameup to me and tore me out of Addy’s grip, pulling me into her and wrapping her arms around me.“Oh, my girl.” She mumbled into the top of my head.
I craned my head back enough to look into her teary eyes. “Mom,what’s happening?” I asked, before dad caught my attention as he neared us.
“Did you know about Tristan?” He asked, his tone calmer than it wasbefore, but still carrying some bite.
I shook my head as I slipped from my mom’s hold. “Know what aboutTristan?”
My parents looked at each other, their faces plagued withsomething I didn’t know what to call. It was part anger, part regret, and I had no idea what Tristan had to do with any of it.
My dad dropped his phone into my hands before he growled something underhis breath and walked away. I picked the thing up without a second thought, and my eyes glazed over as I read the article that was lighting up the screen.
With every word I read, another crack in my heart formed, deeper than the onesthat came before it.
And I know that what I was reading should have made me question things; itshould have made me deny it all, because the person they were ripping to shreds between the lines was not the boy I knew.
But something was making sense. The way he was so insistent about telling mehe didn’t feel good enough to be here, be with me, it made sense. If what this article was saying was true, it would make sense of everything I’d been second-guessing about us.
But before I could fully process it, my dad’s voice boomed through the house, drowning out my thoughts. He was yelling, his words sharp and frantic, ranting about how, despite trusting me, they knew the world was too cruel not to catch up with me eventually.
I felt Addy slip away from my side, her footsteps soft but determined as she moved toward the kitchen. Her voice joined theirs, though it barely registered amidst the storm of their argument.
Then, suddenly, the sound of the front door creaking open cut through the noise, pulling all our attentions in an instant.
I felt like I was seeing the world in slow motion as my dad nearedthe door, stealing his phone from my hands as he stormed past.
“Is this true?” Dad barked at Tristan before he’d so much asstepped through the door.
“What?” He stuttered, his eyes all wild, not knowing where to look as my dadneared him.
Dad pushed the phone at him. “This. Is this true, you little asshole?”
“James,” Nate warned, stepping further between the two of them.
“I’m not talking to you; I’m talking to this fucker right here.” Dadyelled at him again, still deaf to Addy and my mom’s yells.
I think I finally caught up in that moment, my conscience snapping awake andjolting me back into what was happening.
“Dad, stop it!” I cried, emotion welling up in my lash line, my voice crackingas I did.
Tristan’s eyes bolted for me, and my heart cracked as I watchedhim follow the lines my tears were making, and how pained and heartbroken his face was.
"Read it." Dad demanded, nodding his chin at him, his voice low andcontrolled, laced with a kind of anger I hadn’t heard from him before.
Tristan held the phone in his hands as best he could, his handsshaking so bad that even I could see it. I watched with intent as his eyes flew from left to right, growing wider with each word he read.
It’s okay. I know, and it’s okay.
I said the words in my head over and over, as if saying them inthere loud enough would make him hear them.
His head fell forward as he finished reading, and I felt the tips ofmy fingers start to tingle, itching to move closer and pull him towards me, protecting him from what I knew was coming.
“Care to explain yourself?” Dad asked, crowding Tristan andsnatching his phone back off him.
My mom stepped forward. “James, just calm down.”
“No!” Dad snapped his head around, startling me, before he twisted back to Tristan. “Is this just what you do? Lure girls like my daughter and push all those bad habits on to her?”
Tristan’s defeated eyes bolted towards my dad. “No, sir.”
I dared a step closer towards them. “Dad, that’s not what ishappening here.”
Tristan looked over to me, checking me over, before staring back atmy Dad. “Sir, she’s right. I swear to you—”
“Then explain this.” Dad said with a soft anger, as he crowded Tristan, and for a second, it waslike the man he promised us all he’d be from now on had never once seen the light of day.
Addy walked past me and placed a hand on dad’s shoulder. “Dad,please, just calm down and leave them alone.”
“Are you all insane?” He turned around and asked us, devoting asecond to stare at us all individually, before he locked our eyes and stayed there. “I thought you’d know better than this, Marigold. Why the hell have you allowed someone this toxic to take over your life and ruin your future—”
“Because it’s my life!”
It felt like the eyes of the world were on me in that moment, butthe only ones I cared about were Tristan’s.
I glanced at him before I carried on, my heart sinking to the beautiful oblivionin my body when I saw the corners of his mouth peak for the first time, and the glisten in his eyes start to glow.
“It’s my life, okay?” I looked back at my dad. “I stopped being your businesswhat I did with it along time ago, Dad. Who I spend my time, who I let into my life, and who I fall for, will never, ever be your business.”
I couldn’t help but glance back at him, and I felt my heart start tosoar again when I saw his smile, how it was the only thing I noticed about him.
My dad stepped towards me, stealing my attention. “Marigold, I getthat. I do but...” he looked back at Tristan, his eyes darkening before they fell back onto me. “You’ve got to wake up here. What do you think is going to happen? You think if you carry on down this road of falling for him that he’ll suddenly change? People don’t do that—”
“You did.” My dad’s face whitened. “Well, I thought you did,” Ishook my head slightly as I took a step away from him. “But now I’m not so sure.”
“Goldie, we changed. Okay? We let you go and chase your dreamsbut this?” Dad titled his head at me as he placed his hands on my shoulders. “You’ve got to see where I’m coming from.”
I shook myself free of my dad’s hold. “Well, I don’t! Because youhaven’t been there with me. You don’t know the things that I know about this boy. Things that he never lets anyone but me and our friends see.”
Dad opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off, my voice shaking but strong. “You think you know Tristan from a headline? From a mistake? He’s not that person, Dad. He’s kind. He listens. He’s been through hell and back, but he still chooses to be good. He’s there for people—more than anyone’s ever been for him. And I don’t care what the world says about him. I know who he is. He’s a good person.”
I could see the surprise in Dad’s eyes, but I wasn’t backing down. Not this time.
Without thinking, I walked over to Tristan, swerving around Nate until Tristan’s hand was in mine. “And I’m not going to let you take this from me too, not when you’ve already taken so much.”
It was then that I felt all my energy return, enough so I could pullmyself and Tristan away from everyone and out of the front door. We escaped out onto the porch and I closed the heavy door behind us, my heart beat skipping like it never had before as I turned around to face him.
It was an easy decision for me to cup his face and pull his mouth down ontomine, even if it was only for a second, but it was a second we both needed. A distraction from what had just happened, reminding us that there was still some good left in this night.
The kiss was probably my favourite one we’d ever shared.
After a few more moments of ignoring the world and kissing under theMontana stars, we pulled away, and I let my arms drape down his until his warm hands were back in mine.
But his mouth remained parted. “Goldie, I don’t even know how to—”
“I don’t want to know anything, Tristan.” His starlit eyes were stuckon mine. “I don’t want to know anything until you’re ready to tell me.”
He huffed a laugh, one that I could still trace the pain in. “You knowwhat happened.”
I shook my head at him, my hand back resting along his jaw as mythumb skated across his skin. “I’m not going to pay attention to someone else’s version of your past. But just know that when you do want to talk about it, when you’re ready... know that no matter what you tell me, I won’t be going anywhere.”
Tristan shook his head before crashing his mouth against mine again, and thistime I was kissing him because I wanted to, not to distract us, not to prove to other people that we were serious.
No, this kiss was for us and the stars.
He pulled away a moment later, resting his forehead along mine as a smilespread across his lips. “I’ve been keeping this from everyone since the moment I landed Gold’s, and part of me is just happy not to have this weighing down on me anymore, regardless of what happened and how it got out.” He held my head in his hands. “I didn’t want to lie to you anymore, and I want to be honest with you about why I’m here.”
I felt the corners of my smile touch his thumbs that were skimming my cheeks.“What kept you? From telling me?”
His lashes fanned me as he pulled one side of his smile higher. “I was scaredthat once I did, you’d only see me as the idiot I used to be.”
I shook my head, not breaking our stare. “Well, that’s impossible. Because Iknow now, and the only thing I see when I look at you is someone who was trying their best to do the right thing, and the only thing that makes me see you as, is honest.”
What sounded like a laugh mixed with a sob left his mouth, relief coating hisentire being. It broke my heart that it sounded like that was everything he needed to hear, everything he wanted to hear to carry on.
My thumb skated across his jaw as I reminded him, “I’m falling for you, too, Tristan.”
And I meant it. I meant every single word. Because Tristan Harper in my eyeswas and forever will be a good guy, and I hoped that now he’d see himself as that too, knowing that I’d fallen for him, even though he didn’t show me all of him.
Even now I knew those parts he kept in the shadows; I only felt the love I felt for him grow.
I let my hands fall around his waist and pulled him towards me, holding him astightly as I could as he rested his head on top of mine. The warm glow from the porch lights lit us, along with the stars that shone sporadically around us.
I felt his chest fall in as he took a breath, before his hands smoothed outmy hair. “For what it’s worth, I think everything I feel for you goes beyond just loving you. Seeing you reminds me that home isn’t a place; it’s a person, and every time I find you, I feel like I’m walking up the path to my front door.” He pulled me away from him and dropped his hand to my chin, tilting it to the sky. “I don’t think telling you that I'm simply falling for you is enough anymore, Gold’s. It feels planned—how much room there is in my heart for you. It feels like I was born with that space already there and waiting for you.”
“I feel the same,” I muttered, before both of us cracked a smile.“And I wish that sounded as poetic as yours did, but I’m not like Addy and I don’t know how to make pretty words, or like you with your songs and the metaphors that I know are about me, but I didn’t want to say anything because I was nervous and on the off chance they weren’t about me, I didn’t want to look like an idiot.” I delighted in the way Tristan’s head fell back, and he smiled with his entire body, before I brought his eyes back onto me. “Was it about me? That song?”
His eye roll was beautiful. “You know it was about you.”
I sank my bottom lip between my teeth. "Yeah, I knew.”
His laugh broke free and rattled my bones, but as it settled, his eyes wanderedback over to the door, as did mine as I craned my neck round, before twisting it back to face him.
“It’ll be fine.” I promised him.
He looked down at me. “Do you want to head back in?”
I shook my head. “I think I want to stay out here a little longer.”
“Me too,”
Tristan told me about the swings that he and Nate had foundbefore and began to lead us to them, but the snow kept seeping into my slippers and soaking my feet, to the point where I slipped and sank into the thick blanket of ice. All Tristan and I did then was laugh, and after a moment or two, he joined me, lying down next to me and casting our eyes up to the stars.
Our hands found each other as we lay there, the cold chilling my bones, but I’mconvinced that a snowstorm could have overtaken the town and we still wouldn’t have moved. And when Tristan opened his mouth and sighed, I knew this was where I wanted to exist.
“It was July 12th when it happened.”