CHAPTER 43 johnnie NOW
johnnie
NOW
No. No. No.
I don’t want to die.
I’m so sorry.
No. No. No.
Flashes—
His eyes looking right through me.
Mom’s tears.
Dad’s panicked expression.
Get them out. Come on. Come on.
No. No. No.
I don’t want to die.
“Johnnie.” His voice is soft, laced with worry. “Johnnie, it’s okay. Open your eyes. Look at me, baby.”
I’m sweating, or maybe that’s tears? I don’t know. My face is wet.
Everything is dark and I want to open my eyes to see him—hear the comforting words I know are coming from the safest place, my home.
They won’t open.
One, two, three, four…the pills. I have to count them.
I don’t want to die.
“Johnnie, shh.” His soothing arms wrap around me, bringing me down, calming me.
Finally, my eyelids slowly separate. It’s still dark, but I can see the glow of his face. The light catching on the ends of each caramel strand—backlit like an angel. My angel.
My eyes dart around, mind trying to break free from the confusion.
Gentle hands wipe my face, they’re slightly rough, yet the most soothing thing I’ve ever felt.
“Baby, you were dreaming. You’re okay.”
My rampant heart and erratic breaths begin to ease, composing themselves.
Collins. His house. His bedroom. His bed.
I’m here.
He’s here.
My arms reach out instinctively and wrap around him. Warm, safe.
“I’m so sorry, Collins. I’m so sorry.” I squeeze my eye shut and nuzzle into his bare chest. “I know now, that there’s no way I could have known whose baby it was.”
I clear my throat, and attempt to clear my mind. Pushing the sleep haze and nightmare hangover to the side, I attempt to continue.
“I was so consumed with the most blinding darkness. I couldn’t see anything past the pain. I would have sworn I was going to be stuck there forever. And nothing mattered. Except trying to grasp onto whatever would make it hurt less.”
I feel his arms gather me more tightly, and a tepid breath on my cheek.
“I was broken into a million pieces, so incredibly haunted by what happened to me, it took over everything, dominated my thoughts, my emotions. It lingered, shaping everything after.”
His thumb grazes the skin beneath my ear as the rest of his fingers wrap around the back of my neck—saying everything that needs to be said without saying a word.
“And then there was the guilt of what went through my mind. What I thought about doing. About ending my pregnancy willingly. I was disgusted with the person I was. I hated myself…and the one person I loved more than anything in the world, didn’t love me back the way I thought he did—or so I thought.
I was irrevocably destroyed. I wanted to die. So…I tried.”
He flinches at my words—physically flinches, like I assaulted him.
Then the reassuring warmth of him dissipates as he sits up, and slight panic wretches through me.
What’s he doing?
It’s hard to see in the near darkness, but he reaches over beside him, and I hear the lamp on the nightstand click on, color coming to life around the room, and it’s a sudden jolt to my eyeballs.
He’s too far away from me, as he scoots back against the pillows, adjusting them between his back and the headboard.
I don’t know what to say, I can’t judge the emotion radiating from him, and it scares me.
“If only I would have known.”
His voice startles me, carving its way through the silence.
“I should have been there for you, Johnnie. If you’re saying what I think you’re saying. I could have lost you forever. Did you try to kill yourself? Please tell me I’ve misunderstood.” He turns to me, pain seeping from his soul, it’s clear in his eyes.
“I’m better now.” That’s all I manage to say. It sounds weak, weaker than I know I am.
So, I clear my throat and try again.
“I got that letter from you right after. I think it saved me. My parents really stepped up after that, too. They got me the help I needed. I started going to therapy. I read your letter over and over. Every day. And slowly, very slowly, I climbed my way out of the darkness.” I try my damndest to sound as strong as I now feel. “I’m okay.”
Based on how he reacted before we fell asleep, I was sure he was angry with me—quietly, deeply angry in the way that doesn’t need to be spoken to be felt.
I told myself I deserved it. That there was no version of this where he forgave me.
No version where I didn’t lose him. He laid beside me, but it felt like he was miles away.
Like his body was here, but the rest of him was lost somewhere I couldn’t reach.
I could feel it in the silence, in the way his breathing never quite settled, like his mind refused to rest.
And yet…this doesn’t feel like that.
Nothing between us feels sharp or punishing like I thought. It’s something else completely. Hopeful.
Maybe…
Just maybe, there’s still something left to hold onto.
Hope flickers, fragile and uncertain, but alive.
He didn’t tell me to leave. He didn’t turn his back on me.
Collins pushes up now, situating himself in front of me. The movement pulls me fully into the moment, my chest tightening as I stare at him, unsure of what’s coming next.
“You’ve been through more shit in your lifetime than any person deserves.”
His voice is rough, thick with something that sounds a lot like pain. Not anger. Not anymore.
Understanding.
“No wonder you left,” he continues, quieter now. “No wonder you stayed away.”
Each sentence lands heavier than the last, squeezing my lungs until it’s hard to breathe.
“Every single question I’ve had for the last decade suddenly makes sense.”
A decade.
Ten years of confusion. Of wondering. Of filling in blanks with the worst possible answers.
He inhales deeply, like he needs the air just to keep going. And when his eyes lock onto mine, really lock this time, it steals whatever breath I had left.
Because I’ve seen that look before.
I’ve seen it on the worst day of my life. The day everything broke. The day I almost didn’t come back from the edge.
“You’ve punished yourself long enough. It ends here. Do you hear me? My biggest regret is not knowing the truth. I should have pushed harder, I should have never given up on demanding answers. I would have held your hand through all of it. Through everything.”
My eyes start to water, spilling over the crests of my eyelids immediately.
“You interpreted so much of what happened in the wrong way. Have you ever thought that maybe someone was trying to save you? God, the universe, a higher power…whatever it is that has a hand in all this.” He points a finger upward and circles it in the air.
“Whoever or whatever it is knew your heart.” He takes his palm and places is on my chest, the warmth seeping through and warming my heart.
“Knew that you could never live with yourself if you went through with an abortion. So, instead of making you have to make a decision like that, it was made for you. Maybe the baby wasn’t meant for this earth because it wasn’t created from love.
Or maybe it was created from love but the timing was all wrong.
And when you were pregnant five years later, and you lost that baby…
maybe it’s because divine intervention knew that the only baby of yours meant to walk this earth was one you make with me.
Because that’s the truth, John. We’re meant to be together.
I knew it then, and I know it now. You want a baby?
I’ll make a million babies with you. Or I’ll die trying. ”
I bite my bottom lip in an attempt to stop it from trembling.
“There isn’t an ounce of you that’s anything other than good. You’re as pure as you’ve always been, you just got dealt a really shitty hand. And I’m prepared to spend every day for the rest of my life—from here on out reminding you of that—making you believe it, if I have to.”
Coming up to my knees, I throw myself into his waiting arms, and it’s the most complete I’ve felt since I was seventeen years old.
“I had to walk through so much hurt, Collins. But I did it and I’m better for it.”
He wraps me up tight and presses a kiss to my head.
“I don’t want to go back to Texas. I don’t want to ever leave you again.”
“I’m so proud of you. You’re my hero, John. Don’t leave me. Stay here. This is your home. We can figure everything out in time. Just, please. Please be with me. Stay.”
I have no time to come up with any sort of response before he’s laying me down gently, head hitting the pillows.
His hands don’t leave my face except to grab my hip, urging it up and draping my leg over his.
And he kisses me. Slow, so slow I can feel the brush of his lips all the way through me, until it pierces my heart.
I grab onto both sides of his face, like he’ll melt away if I don’t grasp hard enough.
We kiss and kiss until both our heads fall limp and sleep takes over once again.
Just when I fall under the depths of consciousness, I hear the words that make everything I’ve been through worth it, just to end up right here, right now.
Safe.
Not judged.
Forgiven.
“I love you.” His whispers travel, echoing through time and space, landing on a part of my soul that only one person has ever touched.