Chapter 30
30
[Vale]
H e was lying.
He was also scared.
But I was pissed.
After another blissed-out lunch break, Cort pushed me away, and at first, I couldn’t leave him behind fast enough.
But by the time I’d returned to work, I’d had time to reflect on what he’d said.
The emotion and anguish in his tone.
The pain of what he’d done twenty-plus years ago and the unforgiving nature of its aftereffects.
Cort’s sudden absence was like a vacancy in my heart.
He hadn’t reached out to me after making his bold declaration and I didn’t want to appear like a heartbroken woman, desperately clinging to a fling.
However, Cort never felt like something flimsy and fleeting.
Maybe he wasn’t forever, but we were more than sex.
We had history, and we were maximizing the present.
On Monday, I called in sick.
Something I rarely ever do and then played hooky from life.
It had been too long since I’d gone on a hike in the area surrounding Sterling Falls, the namesake of our town, and I longed to be outdoors.
I could have been mothering my bees, but I’d spent time checking on the hive over the weekend, and being home wasn’t an option if I wanted to skip out on life for a little while.
Once I reached the forest park, I quickly found the trailhead leading to the falls.
A variety of routes existed to reach the glistening destination.
An easy walk around the water.
A steep climb up the nearby boulders.
Or a moderate hike through the trees and along the river’s edge a few feet above the shallow canyon.
On one side of the lower river was a notch of space that wasn’t particularly deep but rather tall.
A foot path proved that others had frequented the trail to the natural grotto.
I was hopeful that on a Monday morning the space would be vacant, and I could just sit and meditate, and attempt to regroup.
Far too much time has passed since I’d done something like this to center myself.
Thinking about Cort was not an option.
I didn’t want to focus on how angry I was, feeling tossed aside once again by him.
I didn’t want to lean into this negative energy swirling in my gut and clawing my heart.
With each step I took, I tried to separate myself from my thoughts, giving my concentration to the sound of falling water and the soft rush over large river rocks.
Embracing the whisper of the trees and the speckled sunlight filtering through the canopy over my head.
Up the narrow incline, that barely allowed for the width of one person, I hiked among the mystique of nature, anxious for the magical destination.
With each placement of my feet, I felt lighter.
Until I round the large rock formation and stumble upon a familiar-looking man.
He’d been standing just inside the open space, his hand widespread and bracing him against a boulder.
His head is lowered as if he is praying.
I make a quick note of where he stands, as if I am looking from the outside into my past. At the spot where he pressed me face-first toward those boulders and entered me from behind, shielding my body from the possibility of a rogue hiker seeing us, filling me with his lust and momentary desire.
“Cortland?”
At the surprised call of his name, Cort drops his hand and spins to face me.
My first inclination is to smile.
To express relief in seeing him.
To question the strange destiny of stumbling upon him in the place we shared history together.
But the stricken look in his eyes and hard clench of his jaw reminds me that he’d told me he was done.
“Cortland.” I cross my arms, displeasure in my tone; like he should have known I’d be here, and he shouldn’t be.
Cort rubs his thumb and forefinger across his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose for a second before sharply lifting his head and staring back at me.
“Vale.” He steps toward me, and I’d take a step back, but I don’t have anywhere to go.
The wrong footing and I’ll be sliding down the embankment into the shallow waters below.
Instead, I hold my ground.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
I could ask the same of him, but I don’t.
Even way back when, I’d been open to forgiveness.
I’d been willing to make amends.
Back then, I’d asked Cort how he was, knowing about his recent injury, hearing about his impending divorce.
He’d been hurting, and he hadn’t even had to tell me.
I felt it in the way he spoke.
Seductive and sad. Maybe even shock and spite.
If he taunted me, I’d turn tail and run away.
Only, I’ve never been afraid of Cortland Haven.
And now, I don’t answer him.
Instead, I turn my back and stare out at the water falling from a higher elevation.
Mystery surrounds this place.
Rumors as well. Some say you can see the face of a maiden in the water.
Others mention a couple hidden behind the falls.
Destined lovers, unnecessarily killed by a perceived enemy; each other’s family.
Very Romeo and Juliet .
Knox once told me if you drink the water from the Falls, your true love will be revealed.
He’d also told me how he had sex on the higher ground near the river’s edge and almost gotten eaten alive by bugs.
The story was probably supposed to be a precautionary tale.
It failed. I’d had sex here once.
With the man behind me.
His presence is suddenly closer to me.
His breath against the side of my throat.
I close my eyes.
“Vale,” he whispers.
The last time we were here, he cried in the space between my neck and shoulder.
He was so broken, and all I wanted to do was fix him.
Hold him together. Promise him things would get better.
Instead, he walked away and never looked back.
And I hate how I’ve come to realize I might have always been waiting for him to return.
To me. To us.
Shaking my head, I straighten my shoulders and force my eyes to stay aimed at the water rushing over the rocky edge above and plummeting to the shallower river below.
If ever there was a metaphor for love?—
“I didn’t want to marry her,” he begins behind me, as if picking up where he left off last week.
“I didn’t love her, but it felt like the right thing to do after so many wrongs.”
I close my eyes to the devastation.
Stone’s girlfriend and his best friend cheated on Stone with each other.
A man who was prepared to propose to his girl.
A man who desperately needed his friend.
His brother from another.
Yet, the three of them were irreparably torn apart through a poor decision and reckless hearts.
They fucked up—Bailey and Cort—and in their wake was my twenty-two-year-old brother, saddled with six younger siblings when he needed them most.
“The marriage was shit from the start,” Cort continues.
I never liked Bailey, but my brother loved her and later admitted he never could have asked her to join him on the path he took.
Guardian to siblings.
Giving up a career. Changing the course of his life.
“Things were . . . volatile between us. Hostile.” His voice trembles, anxious and hesitant, while I’m suddenly holding my breath as if sensing the worst is still to come.
Wanting him to continue but also wanting him to stop.
My eyes stay pinned to the opposite side of the river.
Cort exhales behind me.
“You mentioned touch aversion.” He pauses a beat.
“Bailey is the reason.”
I feel the hard pinch of my brows.
The confusion at his admission.
“She wasn’t loving or nurturing. No compassion. No comfort. She preferred . . . submission. Abuse, actually.”
I spin to face him.
My mouth falling open with a thousand questions, and yet, none tumble off my tongue
“She’d scream and yell. Insult.” He closes his eyes a brief second.
“Throw punches.”
“What?” Fists form at my sides, while my mind races in circles.
“Bailey hit me.”
At first, I can’t see it.
Cort is bigger than her.
He’s stronger. Surely, he would have held her off.
Or fought back. But Cort doesn’t strike me as the kind of man to harm a woman.
The anguish in his eyes confirms it.
The confusion. The frustration.
The struggle he must have felt between keeping her at bay and hurting her.
Men can be victims of domestic violence, and I know this.
I’m a little ashamed of myself that I hadn’t thought of it.
Most people believe a big, burly man couldn’t possibly be abused by his smaller wife.
A sense of implausible, when it’s very possible.
It’s a reason there is a stigma and shame attached to such behavior.
My heart breaks for Cort in an entirely new way.
“When I didn’t do what she wanted, didn’t say what she needed—” Cort flinches like he can feel the effects of her hand on his face.
“God, I felt so weak at times.” He hangs his head, again the conflict weighing on him.
“She drank. A lot.” He lifts his head again but stares over my shoulder.
“And I’d made too many excuses for her, enabling her. I let it go on for too long.”
He eventually looks back at me.
“How could I teach my son to be a fighter, to know his worth, when I didn’t know how to respond to his mother’s behavior? While he witnessed her act in such a degrading manner? How do I teach him to respect women, while equally teaching him to stand up for himself? But don’t fight back. Don’t touch her.”
I don’t have an answer for him.
Cort shakes his head.
“Bailey and I fought constantly. Sometimes, she’d even toss Stone in the mix. Tell me how he was a better man. How she lost him because of me. She even blamed Josh.”
Cort snorts, incredulous, as if an innocent baby was ever to blame for adult decisions.
His gaze latches on my face, imploring me to understand.
“So, you left her because of what she did to you?” I confirm quietly.
Of course he did. Whatever strength he needed to finally walk away, he found.
“I left her because of what she did to Josh.”
“No!” I gasp, while shaky fingers cover my mouth.
No, no, no, no . Not his son.
Cort gazes over my shoulder again.
His eyes distant and glassy, and full of regret.
“I never had a clue how rough he had it. I mean, I knew she said things, and I didn’t like them, and we’d fight about her words toward him as well, but I never really knew the truth until he had a bruise on his arm.”
“Oh my God, Cort.” I step forward, reaching for him, but then halt, retracting my hand and forming fists at my side again to prevent me from touching him.
“He was only eleven,” he chokes on a strangled sob.
The same age as Hudson.
The same age as his entire twelve and under baseball team.
Cort crosses his left arm over his chest and taps at his right shoulder.
“She stabbed me when I told her we were leaving.”
“Cort, that’s just . . .” What word describes it best?
Awful isn’t strong enough.
Deranged doesn’t cover it.
“The season had just finished. I was on the IL without a decision on whether I’d play again or not. I’d been sticking things out for Josh, thinking I was providing a good life for him, doing the right thing for him. I didn’t want to separate a mother and her child.”
He exhales, the sound raspy and rough.
“Then I’d learned she’d been smacking him around for years, and he never told me. He was fucking afraid of her. My boy scared of his mother, and he never mentioned it to me.”
A heavy sob leaves his throat, but he quickly coughs to clear it.
“I’ve been so selfish.” His head lowers for a second, shaking it side to side before whipping it upright, gathering inner strength, forcing his voice to steel.
“And I tarnish everything I touch.”
His friendship with Stone.
His marriage. His poor son.
“I won’t do that to you, Vale. I can’t.”
Unable to stop myself, I reach for his left arm, the one I drew on, and now bears a permanent mark.
With my thumb, I swipe lightly over the bee.
“You did what you thought was best for Josh, both at first and then later on.” It’s all we can do as parents.
The best we know how in the moment, until we learn more, or better, or accept what’s best for our child.
“She’d already done so much damage.” Cort’s voice cracks.
Bailey probably had.
Recalling where I was at twelve, even at ten, so much irreparable harm had happened and the trauma was buried deep within me, yet I’ve carried on.
Persevered. And from what Cort has told me about Josh, he’s moved on as well.
Perhaps never forgetting, but making peace with his past, focusing on his future.
“Where is Bailey now?”
Cort glances over my shoulder again.
“After the divorce, she had no legal claim to Josh, handing over full custody when he was still young. She had a restraining order placed on her. She wouldn’t come anywhere near Josh or myself ever again. The last place she’d visit is Sterling Falls. I don’t have any idea where she is now.”
After a heavy sigh, Cort glances back at me.
His face wiped of all emotion other than weariness and drain.
“I’m sorry I never told you. It’s embarrassing.” He hitches one shoulder.
“I should have told you all this the first time we met here. But I wasn’t in a good place. And I never should have taken advantage of you.”
“Is that what you think happened? That you took advantage of me?” I’m taken aback by the thought.
“Didn’t I?” His eyes peer at mine, full of contrition and fear.
Apology and regret.
“I didn’t stop you. I didn’t even complain,” I remind him.
I could tell him I liked it, and I did on some level, but I’ve already admitted to him that it wasn’t an equal experience.
Honestly, afterward, I was too confused to give the moment deep thought, other than accept disappointment and chastise myself for putting false hope on Cort and failing at orgasms again.
“I forgive you, Cort. I forgive us.” For what happened twelve years ago in this very spot.
For being impulsive and reckless, and making a decision.
Right or wrong. Good or bad.
We need to live with the consequences.
Live being the key word.
Something tells me Cortland Haven hasn’t been living.
He’s been existing.
He’s had decades of regret and remorse, isolated and lacking in love.
The suffering comes from never forgiving himself or moving on from the pain of the past. Never accepting he made a huge mistake.
Or rather, accepting it and living his life anchored by it.
Cort lowers his head again, slowly nodding while watching my thumb stroke over the bee inked on his arm.
The memory of me. The reminder of us.
In a different time, at a different place, making a different decision.
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Cort.” At the very core of me, I believe that.
“We all falter and fail and then we dust ourselves off and start over.”
Dust off the rust. That’s the Haven Hitters motto.
Look beneath the tarnish for strength.
Find steel underneath .
“You know, every spring, I awaken my bees. Re-assemble their hive. The first year or two, I was afraid of them.” I’d been scared to death I’d get stung.
“But bees remind me it’s okay to be a little bit scared. Of change. Of new beginnings.”
That a little sting isn’t going to set me back.
Big pain shouldn’t either.
Hearts heal. I believe that as well, but only if we move forward.
“Sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone and into something new to really live.”
Not that Cort is comfortable with his past. His mistakes are strangling him, holding him in a chokehold.
He needs to let what’s behind him go and forgive himself.
For Stone. For Bailey.
For Josh.
“You did what you could,” I remind him.
“For Josh.”
One of the most important things we can do as parents is admit our failures and then move on, righting wrongs the only way we know how, until the next time we falter.
“But did I?” He stares at me, his eyes glistening.
“You loved him, more than anything. And that’s the greatest thing we can do for our children.” He left an abusive marriage to save his child.
“You gave him a place to start over. A second chance. Perhaps it’s time you give yourself that chance as well.”
“I just don’t know, Vale.” His eyes are cloudy as he stares at me.
“I know,” I whisper.
As a survivor of an abusive father, without protection from my mother through no fault of her own, I know that what Cort did was in the best interest of his child.
My knowing can cover the both of us.
With that, I step forward, tugging Cort to me and wrapping my arms around him.
At first, he doesn’t respond, just lowers his head to my shoulder and presses his weight against me.
But eventually, his arms loop around me and he tugs me tighter and tighter, until I almost can’t breathe.
I inhale, catching my breath on the sharp scent of balsam fir and man coming off him.
Perhaps this round, my hug is the one he hadn’t known he needed.