Chapter 35 #2
I give her a stern look, but I’m also secretly grateful for the slight comic relief.
“You had a funnel cake with ice cream and split a bag of zeppoles with your uncle, Emma.”
“It was a very trying day,” she says, suddenly looking worn out and weary, and I can’t help but let out a laugh. “I bet I could convince him to let me.”
I smile. “You’re on.”
Then we both leave her room, and when Jesse gives me a questioning look, I give him a subtle thumbs-up. And even though the look of introspection doesn’t leave Jesse’s face all night, we do have cookies.
The next morning, I wake up with the sun barely creeping into our room, but I do it to an empty bed.
Sitting up, I look around the dim room but see no trace of my boyfriend.
Rolling out of bed, I blink tiredly as I slip a pair of sweats under the oversized T-shirt I slept in, then quietly pad to the kitchen.
Relief floods me when I spot Jesse holding a mug of coffee and staring out the kitchen window.
“Morning,” I whisper, knocking him out of his daze. He turns to me, but when I catch sight of him, my stomach sinks to the ground at the blank look on his face.
“Morning,” he says, setting his mug down, then moving to the coffee pot on autopilot, grabbing a mug, and pouring me a cup. I watch as he moves to the fridge for my creamer and tops it off. “Want to drink on the patio?”
I lift a shoulder but nod, and he tops off his mug before we move through our room in silence with our coffees. It’s cool but not cold in the early morning, but the birds are up and singing as the sun creeps up over the trees, and I can’t say it’s not a perfect morning.
Except, of course, for the look on Jesse’s face.
We sit in silence for a bit before finally, I set my coffee down. “You gonna tell me why I woke up in an empty bed this morning?”
It was the first time I could remember waking up that way since we told Emma about us, and I didn’t like it, if I’m being honest. Now, mixed with the look on his face and his introspective silence, nerves are coursing through me.
“I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want you to wake up from my tossing and turning,” he says, and I try not to point out that he always wakes up before me, but he never leaves the bed before me.
“Something on your mind?” I ask. A deep sigh leaves his chest, and he looks out over the woods. Silence spans, and I think I’ll have to say something more to fill in the gap, but finally, he speaks.
“I did that, you know.” I don’t speak, unsure of what to say or what he means, but eventually, he continues. “To Kim. I did that. I fit her into my vision of a picture-perfect family when Emma was born and never took her into account.”
My heart breaks, realizing that this is what’s been weighing on him since yesterday.
“Jesse—” I start, but he keeps speaking.
“I did. I found out she was pregnant, and I made a plan. I barely involved her in those decisions. I decided we’d live near campus until we graduated, then move to my parents’ property.
She said she wanted to be a singer, but she was getting a marketing degree.
I told her we could figure out what she wanted to do once Emma was a bit older, and she agreed.
After that, she took on raising Emma, and I took on making the money we needed to survive.
We were young, and I was scared, and if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t regret it.
I did what I had to do to make a stable life for Emma.
At the end of the day, I think at some point, it would have ended the same regardless.
But my part in it, the way I forced her into that life, that was my fault.
Sometimes I think if I didn’t, she wouldn’t be so adamant to stay away from here, from the town I chained her in.
She might visit more and might have more of a relationship with Emma. ”
“She was an adult, Jesse. Did she tell you that wasn’t what she wanted?
” He shakes his head. “That was her responsibility. You can’t read minds, much less when you’re unexpectedly raising a child and trying to keep a roof over everyone’s heads.
I’m not saying you were perfect, but she is just as much at fault.
Your relationship with her does not explain or cancel out literal years of her ignoring Emma and neglecting being her mother.
” He sits back in his chair but still doesn’t look at me.
“What if she’s right? What if I’m doing it all over again?”
For a moment, I pause, unsure of what he’s saying, but then it clicks: he means with me.
Her nasty words come back to me then, asking if he found another woman to con into raising Emma, and I realize that those are the ones that stuck deep for him.
“With me?”
“I decided I wanted you to be mine, to be ours, and I shoved you into my life. You make dinner, and you clean the house, and you watch Emma—”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at him.
“All of those are things I do because I want to, Jesse. In fact, I was doing those things before we were even together.” Finally, he looks to me, and his conflicted look nearly takes my breath away. This is eating at him.
“I’ve seen your vision boards. You have dreams. You want to travel, you want to see things, and you want to go places.” I remember the look on his face when he and Emma were going through my vision boards, and nervous energy creeps in on a cool breeze, chilling me to the bone.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You have dreams outside of this.” He gestures around the property, and somehow I know he means him and Emma.
“But all of mine have always been here. The farm, growing it, building it. One day, I’ll take over, and it’ll be mine.
I’ve always wanted that—to have a family and build it at Three Kings, to give my kids the childhood I had.
Travel and bucket lists and new hobbies and passions were never in that plan, but they are for you. ”
I shift then, moving to the edge of my seat and reaching out to grab his hand. He stares at our twined fingers, but when I speak, his eyes go to me.
“My entire life, Jesse, I’ve had one consistent dream.
I’ve made a dozen vision boards, and they’ve always had one thing in common.
” I reach my other hand up to cup his face, brushing my thumb along the edge of his mustache and over his cheek, his hazel eyes soft as he stares at me.
“All I’ve ever wanted was to have a family.
To find someone who will love me, who I can chain to me, and make it hard just to leave.
I have that here, with you.” I smirk then.
“Unless you have some kind of exit strategy I don’t know about.
” My joke doesn’t land, and he shakes his head.
“I’m less worried about wanting to leave you and more worried about not fulfilling you. I’ve fit you into the life we already had, Hallie. I don’t want you to look back in a year, two, or four and realize it’s not what you wanted, that you gave up everything you wanted to stay here.”
“That won’t happen,” I say with complete confidence.
“You can’t know that.” There’s a hint of panic in the words, his eyes wide and pleading for me to understand, and I wonder for a moment if this is what I looked like months ago when I was terrified to take that step with him.
What would he have done in this situation? He took baby steps, doing what he could to ease me into things and reassure me. Made a plan.
I can do that.
I can be that for him, the same way he is for me.
“I do know that, but I know that’s not something you can know.
We’ll figure it out. We can do check-ins weekly, monthly, or whatever we need to make sure you feel secure in this, and that I do too.
We can go to therapy, or journal, or make a yearly bucket list, if that helps.
But right now, I’m happy. Right now, there’s no other place I’d rather be. Right now, we’re good. Right?”
He hesitates, and my heart pounds with that hesitation.
“Right,” he says finally. Another moment passes, silence filling the space before he lets out a heavy breath and leans down, pressing his lips to mine. Relief washes through me, and when he breaks the kiss, he presses his forehead to mine.
“I want all of your dreams to come true, Hallie. You’ve changed everything for me, made me realize what my life was missing, but I’m terrified that in five, ten, fifteen years, you’re going to look around and realize you’re now the one missing things."
“In five, ten, fifteen years, am I going to have you?”
“That’s the plan,” he says.
“Then I’ll have everything I need. If I have you, and I have Emma, and I have this life we’re building, I’ll have the whole world, Jesse.
” He stares at me, and my pulse races when I don’t see the understanding or acceptance I thought would cross his face.
Instead, I continue to see that battle, that doubt on his face.
I open my mouth to speak—to try and continue to reassure him, though I have no idea what I’ll say—but before I can, Emma’s voice trails through the door, and my head turns toward it.
“Dad? Hallie?”
“Be there in a sec, babe,” I call through the door. When I turn back to Jesse, he’s already standing, grabbing both of our mugs and moving toward the doors.
“I’ll get breakfast going, but I have some errands to run later. Will you two be good today without me?”
My brows furrow in confusion as I stand, following him through the door, sliding it shut behind me.
“It’s Sunday,” I say.
“I know. I’ll be done by dinner, but I spent a lot of time this week helping out Wren and moving you, and I need to catch up.” He doesn’t catch my eyes as he speaks, and that unease continues to move through me. He’s almost at the bedroom door when I reach out, grab his arm, and stop his retreat.
“Are we okay?” I ask, anxiety running through me. His face goes soft, and he wraps his free arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him.
“We’re good, Hallie. Sorry, I’m just in my head.”
I nod, though it’s half-hearted, but when he dips his head, softly pressing his lips to mine, some of the nerves melt away.
Though they manage to creep back in throughout the day when I don’t hear from him at all.