Chapter Twenty-Four
Truett
I t was a monumental decision, but it wasn’t necessarily hard to make. I desperately wanted Gwen back in my life—whatever that took. She was right; that house was my coffin. And over the last few weeks, it had felt like it was collapsing in on me.
Sitting on that couch, pouring out my deepest darkest secrets to her, had felt like a road marched barefoot over broken glass. Yet, still bleeding and broken, I would have followed her anywhere.
She’d patiently waited for me to change into a pair of jeans and slip my shoes on, and then together we picked up the toppled-over bags of groceries she’d brought over for our “date.”
I’d thought things had changed after she’d bought the restaurant. Then again after our kiss. And most definitely after she came calling my name. But in the short time since she’d walked through my front door to the moment we walked to her car, it felt like we were two totally different people—or, more accurately, it felt like we were one singular unit again.
As we drove, I started to feel like she was more nervous than I was. She never let go of my hand, and at every stop light, she’d peer up at me and whisper, “Are you good?”
I was with Gwen, she’d told me she loved me, and she was giving me the chance I so desperately needed to hopefully win her back. It was safe to say I was the best I’d been in nearly two decades. I hadn’t asked where she was taking me, because honestly, I didn’t care, but roughly ten minutes later, as we pulled into what appeared to be a sleepy golf course community, I assumed we were headed to her place.
She parked in the driveway of a two-story brick home. It was new and nice, everything mine was not. I sat there for several beats, studying the front of her house. Her yard wasn’t large, but the grass was freshly cut and the sidewalk that led to the front steps was lined with colorful flowers. The deep porch held two rocking chairs on one end and a bench swing on the other. Flanked by two large white flowerpots, overflowing with an assortment of plants, the door was a dark blue that matched the shutters.
It looked well taken care of, cheery, and most of all, peaceful. I imagined it was a place where laughter flowed freely and love filled every space inside and out, because before our worlds had been flipped upside down, that was exactly how our house had always been.
She cut the engine. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
I looked over at her and told her the God’s-honest truth. “I don’t know. But I love you, and if this is where you are, there is nowhere else in the entire world I’d rather be. Not even the past.”
Her face softened and she leaned across the center console, pressing an all-too-chaste kiss to my lips. “If that changes, you let me know. No more suffering in silence, okay?”
I offered her a tight smile. “I’ll do my best.”
Carrying the groceries, I followed her up the steps and waited as she typed a code into the front door. The deadbolt robotically unlocked.
The minute that door swung open, I was struck by a wave of nostalgia—the familiar scent of lavender with hints of vanilla filling my senses. I remembered when our house smelled like that. When I’d come home from work after a long day, and Kaitlyn would run over, launching herself into my arms. As she walked over to kiss me, Gwen would smile so big it was like she hadn’t seen me in weeks rather than hours.
It smelled like home.
But not my own.
Our home.
God, I’d missed that smell.
Misreading the shift in my mood, Gwen reached out and took my hand. “Hey, I’m right here.”
I dipped low and touched my lips to hers. “I’m okay, seriously.”
She nodded, so unconvinced it almost made me laugh.
She entered first, tugging on my hand as if I wouldn’t follow. A pack of rabid dogs couldn’t have stopped me though. As I walked inside, my attention was immediately captured by at least a dozen square canvas pictures arranged above the large gray sectional. There were shots of Gwen holding Nate as a baby, her eyes tired but shining with pride. I scanned the rest, following the progression as he grew from a chubby toddler into a wiry little boy.
The photo of Kaitlyn in a pink tutu, grinning with bright-red lipstick smeared on her face, stopped me in my tracks. In that instant, I was transported back to the dance recital she’d talked about for months only to get stage fright and refuse to go out with the rest of her class.
I walked closer to the wall of photos, noticing that images of our daughter were equally dispersed among the candids of Nate. My chest got tight as I took the time to examine each one, reminiscing over when and where they had been taken.
I froze—heart, body, and soul—when I came across a certain picture in particular.
With a front tooth missing and a mess of untamed brown curls covering an eye, she had her arms wrapped around the golden neck of Gwen’s parents’ dog, Jazzy. He was licking her face. Her head was thrown back, and her mouth was open in a giggle that I swear I could still hear.
“That’s one of my favorites,” Gwen said as she stepped beside me, placing a hand on my lower back. “Jazzy was so good with her.”
“I’ve never seen this one before.” My mouth was so dry it came out as a rasp.
“I took it when we were staying with my parents right after you filed for divorce.”
Guilt swelled in my throat.
She rubbed my back, soothing me as only she could.
“I have a lot of pictures you’ve never seen of her.”
My gaze snapped to hers. “Really?”
“Yeah. After Nathanial died and I was faced with how fragile life could be, I went out and bought one of those fancy DSLR cameras. I think I took more pictures of her over the next few months than I did in the entirety of her first six years.”
“Can I see them?” I rushed out.
Her grin stretched. “Hang on. Let me go get the albums.” She was only gone for a minute before she came back holding four large photo albums.
She set them on her square wooden coffee table and gave my arm a squeeze. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be in the kitchen, starting dinner.”
While I was still raw and reeling from the day, food was the last thing on my mind, but I thought she was attempting to give me space. I’d had space though—years of it. What I hadn’t had was her.
I scooped up the albums and followed her into the large open kitchen. There was a granite island in the middle with stools surrounding two sides. “You mind if I sit in here with you instead?”
Happiness twinkled in her eyes. “I’d love that.” She walked to her stainless-steel refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of wine. “You okay with Sav Blanc?”
I shook my head. “I don’t drink anymore. But I don’t mind if you do.”
“Good for you,” she praised. She put the wine back in the fridge and asked, “Can I get you anything else to drink?”
I patted the photo albums. “Nah. You’ve already done enough.”
She sighed. “After what I saw today, I’m not sure I have.”
“Don’t say that.”
She leaned her hip against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I should have checked in on you. Through the years. I was just so angry and hurt, but I never would have let you stay in that house.”
In two long strides, I moved to her. With my hands on her hips, I lifted her to sit on the counter, bringing us eye to eye. “Nobody let me stay in that house, babe. Least of all you. My doctors hated it. Therapists fired me over it. My brother’s a psychiatrist and couldn’t convince me to move. And trust me. He tried a lot. He once threatened to have me involuntarily committed. But I wasn’t delusional or a danger to myself or others. I just wasn’t ready to let go.”
She looped her arms around my neck and opened her legs, drawing me closer. “That’s the thing though. You don’t have to let go, Truett. You just have to move forward. That house is not what keeps her memory alive.” She tapped my temple. “Because she will always be alive in here.” She moved her hand to settle over my heart. “And in here. She existed. She’s ours. She will always be ours. The stuff in that house is just that— stuff .”
“It’s her stuff.”
“It was her stuff,” she corrected. “Do you really think that even if she was still here today she’d be living at your house? Sleeping in a twin-sized bed with pink sheets and coloring pictures on the floor? If we were lucky, she had maybe six more months before she outgrew those sneakers you keep by the door. Those toys? They’d have been discarded and sold at the family yard sale the minute she discovered eyeshadow and lip gloss. Truett, you do realize she’d be twenty-four now, right?”
My chin snapped to the side. Had it really been that long? Yes, I mean, logically, I could do the math, but my baby? Twenty-four? “Jesus,” I mumbled.
She smiled, leaning to the side to recapture my gaze. “I see you’re starting to get it. When I was her age, we’d already had and lost her. She’d be a woman now.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t fathom a world where Kaitlyn was all grown up. What would she look like? Probably like her mother; she’d always been her clone. Would she still have loved animals? Would she have gone to school to become a vet? Would she have a husband or a family? Holy fuck, would I have had grandkids? I smiled at the thought.
Yes, smiled.
But then again, I was with Gwen. I shouldn’t have even been surprised anymore.
I rested my palms on either side of her on the counter, a million thoughts and scenarios ricocheting in my head. “Do you think we’d still be living in that house?”
“No.” She replied so fast it was downright offensive.
My lips thinned, but it only made her laugh.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she teased. “If I’d let you, you would have filled every room in that house with a baseball team of kids. It would have been busting at the seams. Plus, we were lucky you got stationed at the base nearby, but the Army wasn’t going to let us stay there much longer. Though, with or without that house, I know we’d still be together. Somewhere out there, still bickering over putting down the toilet seat and the temperature on the thermostat.”
That sounded incredible. All of it. The kids, the family, but most of all, the together part. “I miss that life,” I confessed. “The one we had and the one we never got.”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “But would you rather stand still in what could have been?” She swayed toward me, nipping at my bottom lip. “Or move forward with what we could still have?”
I didn’t have to think.
It wasn’t even a question.
I’d known from the minute she dropped the rings at my feet that, if I ever got the chance to get her back, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her. “I just want you.” I spoke between peppered kisses. “I. Just. Want. You.”
She slanted her head, taking the kiss deeper. It wasn’t desperate despite the way I hungered for her. Our tongues slid against each other with the slow rhythm of comfort and longing—promises being made without the use of words.
I was lost in her until she broke our connection all too soon. “I want you too,” she whispered, holding me tight. “But not like this. That whole ‘love conquers all’ thing is a beautiful thought, but we know better than most that love doesn’t always win. You need help, Truett. More help than I can ever give you.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, dread filling my stomach. It was everything I’d feared when she’d walked into my house.
“But!” she amended. “If you can work on yourself, I’d love nothing more than to work on us again.”
I nodded, hope spiraling in my veins. “I’ll do whatever it takes. I promise.”
“Then I’m here, but let me make this clear. I’m not going back to that house.”
As I stood in her kitchen, staring into the eyes of the only woman I had ever loved, with pictures of our daughter on the wall and a future full of possibilities, I suddenly didn’t want to go back, either.
“Can I stay the night with you?”
She smiled, so much damn pride in her eyes it leaked into my chest, filling me too. “Absolutely.”