1. Billie #2
I grabbed my purse and the bag of medical supplies I'd brought from the office.
Resistance bands, a goniometer for measuring joint angles, some topical pain relief cream that worked better than anything the hospital would have given him.
Tools of my trade that would remind me who I was in this equation.
Billie Schulster, physical therapist, not Billie who'd once daydreamed of becoming Billie Farrington.
And as I stepped toward the front door, I lied to myself that I was only here for the job, for the patient, and those old feelings meant nothing anymore.
The front door opened before I reached it, and Reece appeared with a warm smile and concerned eyes. She'd been part of the family for over a year now, Booker's anchor and the woman who'd helped him learn to trust again. If anyone understood complicated family dynamics, it was Reece.
"How are you holding up?" she asked, pulling me into a quick hug. "This has to be surreal for you."
"That's one word for it," I said with a shaky laugh. "How is he?"
Reece's expression grew thoughtful. "Hurting. And not just physically. He keeps apologizing for everything. For being here, for needing help, for existing. It's heartbreaking."
That sounded like the Gage I remembered, the one who'd always carried guilt like other people carried wallets. Even before Regina’s actions had driven him away, he'd been too quick to blame himself for things that weren't his fault.
"The others are giving him space," Reece added gently. "Trace and Delaney wanted to be here tonight, but they thought it might be too much all at once. They're giving him time to settle in. Seeing Cade is going to be difficult."
I nodded, emotion tightening my throat. That made sense.
And it was probably smart. But I knew Gage.
I knew he would take their absence as confirmation that he didn't deserve their forgiveness, that even now, they couldn't bear to be near him.
That kind of assumption, I suspected, would hurt him more than any of his injuries.
"Xander's already laid it all out for him before they came home," Reece continued quietly. "About how they know she manipulated him into helping separate Trace and Delaney. How we've all been searching for him to try and bring him home. But he can't seem to accept that he was a victim too."
My heart clenched. I'd heard bits and pieces of the story over the last year.
Regina had orchestrated Delaney's departure from Willowbrook by somehow convincing Gage to help her.
But hearing that he was still carrying that guilt, still punishing himself for choices he'd made as a confused teenager under the influence of a master manipulator. ..
"He's in the living room," Reece said gently. "We're all pretending this is just a normal family dinner, but everyone's walking on eggshells. Maybe you being here will help."
Would it? The more I thought about it, the less convinced I was.
I'd certainly thought I knew him better than anyone back then.
I'd been so sure I could read every expression, understand every silence.
But if that had been true, wouldn't I have seen the signs that he was planning to leave?
Wouldn't I have known something was wrong before that final night at the swimming hole?
Wouldn't I have been enough to save him from all this pain for so many years?
Maybe I'd never known him as well as I thought I had.
Taking a deep breath, I followed Reece into the house.
The familiar sounds and smells hit me immediately.
Blake's laughter from the kitchen, Val running up to greet me, her tail wagging and her tongue drooping out her mouth in a way that always looked like she was smiling.
It was the comfortable chaos of a large family gathering.
Or at least, it should have been comforting, but instead it made my nerves spike higher.
Because somewhere in this house was the man who'd shaped my understanding of love, who'd set the standard by which I'd measured every relationship since. The man who'd disappeared from my life without warning and left me wondering if I'd ever been enough.
"Billie's here," Reece announced as we reached the living room doorway.
The awkward sounds of a house full of people unsure what to do suddenly fell silent. And there he was.
Gage Farrington, sitting in Booker's favorite armchair with his left leg elevated and a cast that ran from his ankle to his thigh.
Eleven years of hard labor had transformed the lean teenager I'd known into something altogether more devastating.
Broad shoulders straining against his shirt, forearms corded with muscle, his jaw sharper and more defined.
Fresh scars from the road rash marked his face, but they only seemed to emphasize the rugged masculinity that had replaced boyish features.
But his eyes, those storm-gray eyes that had haunted my dreams for a decade, were exactly the same.
Those eyes found mine across the room, and the world seemed to tilt on its axis.
He looked like he'd seen a ghost. Hell, maybe he had. Maybe we both had.
"Hello, Gage," I managed, my voice steadier than I felt. "Welcome home."
The silence stretched between us, loaded with eleven years of unspoken words, unfulfilled promises, and a love that had never quite learned how to die.
The air in the room seemed to thicken, crackling with an energy that made my skin feel too tight, my heart beat too fast. Around us, conversations faltered and died as one by one, his family became aware of the tension radiating between us like heat from a fire.
I heard the soft scrape of chairs being pushed back, the murmur of voices making excuses about checking on dinner, needing fresh air, suddenly remembering something urgent in another room.
Within moments, we were alone. Two people who had once been everything to each other, now separated by a chasm of hurt and terrible choices that couldn't be undone.
My entire focus had narrowed to the man in the chair, the one who'd once been my everything and might still be my undoing.
He was looking at me like I was salvation and damnation wrapped in one package, his storm-gray eyes dark with something that might have been longing, might have been regret, might have been the same desperate love that was clawing its way up my throat.
The professional in me cataloged his injuries with clinical detachment.
The way he favored his left side, the careful positioning of his leg, the barely perceptible tightness around his eyes that spoke of pain he was trying to hide.
But the woman in me, the girl who'd once believed in forever, was drowning in the reality of him.
The way his hands gripped the arms of the chair like he was fighting the urge to reach for me.
The way his breath seemed to catch when our eyes met.
The way he was looking at me like I was the answer to every prayer he'd never dared to speak.
And that's when it hit me. The devastating realization that crashed over me like a wave, threatening to pull me under.
This feeling, this bone-deep, soul-destroying love that had shaped every relationship I'd had since he left, this wasn't enough.
It had never been enough. Because if it had been, he wouldn't have left.
If I had been enough, he would have stayed.
He would have fought for us instead of disappearing into the night like a coward.
I'd spent eleven years carrying a torch for a man who'd chosen to walk away rather than fight for what we had.
Eleven years measuring every potential relationship against the memory of a boy who'd ultimately decided I wasn't worth the effort.
Eleven years of wondering what was wrong with me, what I'd lacked, what I could have done differently.
But standing here now, looking at him, at this beautiful, broken man who'd rather destroy us both than believe he deserved to be loved, I finally understood. It wasn't about me not being enough. It was about him being too much of a coward to try.
The knowledge should have been freeing. Instead, it felt like dying.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Swallowed hard. Then tried again.
"Billie," he said finally, and my name on his lips sounded like a prayer and a plea and an apology all rolled into one. "I… Thank you. For agreeing to help. You didn't have to…"
"Yes, I did," I interrupted, because if I let him finish that sentence, if I let him start apologizing for existing in my world again, I might lose what little composure I'd managed to maintain. "You're hurt, and I'm a physical therapist. It's what I do."
He nodded, but his eyes never left mine. In them, I could see echoes of the boy I'd loved. Vulnerable, grateful, trying so hard to be strong that he'd forgotten it was okay to be weak sometimes.
And despite every wall I'd built, every defense I'd constructed, every promise I'd made to myself about keeping this professional, I felt something fundamental shift inside me.
Not my heart cracking open. That would have been a mercy.
Instead, it was something harder, more final.
Like a door slamming shut on the girl I'd been, the one who'd believed that love conquered all.
Because some loves, I was beginning to realize, were never meant to survive.
Some loves were just beautiful mistakes we made when we were too young to know better.