Chapter 33 #2
Lou stands a few feet away, her arms wrapped around her waist, watching me closely.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Mrs. Barrett finally gets out. “I guess I wanted to hear your voice.”
Regardless of anything else, I do need to tell her what I’ve been waiting seven years to say. “I want you to know how deeply grateful I am and will always be for the gift you gave me.”
“Lyla was . . . She was everything. Losing her was the worst thing that happened to us.” She is hard to understand through her tears. “But if losing her saved another mother from having to endure this pain . . . it helps . . . a tiny bit.”
My stomach churns. I can imagine her pain all too well. But I’ve also seen Hunter’s pain—I’ve witnessed the deep, invisible wounds his parents inflicted on him. A hot coal of anger ignites deep within me, but I will it to go away. That isn’t my fight to fight.
“Why now?” I ask. “You didn’t want any contact after the transplant. What’s changed? And how did you find me?”
“Hunter told us about you—when he called to ask for the letter you wrote us.”
“You talked to Hunter?” I ask, my heart in my throat.
“Imagine the odds. The transplant recipient ending up being my niece’s roommate.”
My mind is spinning. He talked to his parents. “You talked to Hunter,” I repeat. “Did you . . . did you make it better with him? Did you fix it?”
“Excuse me?” Her voice goes cold.
“With Hunter—did you make it better with him?”
“I don’t know how that is any of your business.”
Lou’s eyes are wide. My heart races. But I can’t stop. I don’t know why, but the words are tumbling out of my mouth, and I can’t hold them back. “It’s my business because I care about him. Because he’s hurting, and he blames himself. He can’t forgive himself, and he never will—not unless you do.”
“He killed our daughter. He killed her! You think that’s something that can be forgiven?”
“She was not your only child! He is your son. He loves you both, and he loved Lyla. He made a terrible, horrible mistake, and he will suffer for the rest of his life because of it. How does holding it against him—rejecting him and choosing to be childless make any of this any better?”
Lou’s mouth drops open, but she nods at me, reaching out to take my hand, clutching it tightly in support.
“How dare you! I can’t believe my sweet daughter’s heart is beating in such a foul person’s body!”
Her accusation can’t penetrate the fury that has taken hold of me.
“Your daughter is horrified that you have treated Hunter like this. Yes, I have her heart, and maybe that’s why I came to love Hunter so quickly, because her heart remembers her brother.
I can’t explain it, but I do know she loves him, and she has forgiven him.
I don’t know how I know it, but I do. I also know that if you can’t find a way to help him, to love him, she will never forgive you.
” I don’t wait for her to respond. I hit End on the call and then stare at the blank screen, my chest rising and falling.
I don’t know where the words came from. I don’t know why I said them.
But I feel the truth of them, all the way deep into my heart—into my and Lyla’s heart.
“So that was . . . amazing,” Lou says.
“I can’t believe I just did that.” And then I burst into tears. “I love him,” I sob. “Oh my gosh, I love him, and I pushed him away like everyone else in his life.”
Lou doesn’t say anything. She just wraps her arms around me and holds me while I cry.
Lou offers to cancel her date with Chris to stay with me, but I refuse to let her do that. Before she walks out the door she says, “He’s not over you, Liv. You can still make this right.”
And then I’m left to myself, my thoughts a whirling mess in my head.
I have the day off at the bakery since I’ve worked extra hours all week, but now I wish I would have been assigned a shift—to have something to do.
I make myself take a quick shower, then I pull out our flour, sugar, butter, and everything else I need to start baking.
I don’t know what I’m baking; all I know is that I have to bake.
I have to make something. I have to lose myself in the routine and familiarity of measuring, stirring, kneading—anything to calm my mind.
I need magic.
As I mix the batter for cherry chip cupcakes from scratch, the morning loops through my head on repeat. The conversation with Hunter’s mom plays over and over. What was I thinking, snapping at her?
But it’s not just that.
It’s the second Lou said it was Hunter’s mom on the phone. The moment my heart dropped, convinced something had happened to him. That’s the part I can’t stop replaying.
I’ve never once felt the type of hollowed-out terror I did in those moments when I grappled with the reality that he might be gone—thinking I didn’t care about him.
I love Hunter.
Just the mere thought clamps tight around my ribs, painful in its possibility.
I don’t want to push him away. I want to be like Farmor and choose him—choose us. I want to face the storms of life together, whatever they might be. If he’s able to forgive me. If he even wants me.
So many huge ifs. My hands are trembling as I put the cup-cakes in the oven to bake.
Am I too late? Is the damage too irreparable?
Lou said I can still fix things . . . but she’s also said he hasn’t talked to her about me since I ignored his last text.
For all I know, any feelings he had for me have turned into hatred.
Especially now that I stuck my nose in his business and probably made everything with his family worse.
I start the buttercream frosting for the cupcakes when my phone buzzes with a text. I glance at the screen. It’s from Talia.
I’m bored. Want to go to the gym with me?
I’m currently making frosting for cupcakes.
You’re BAKING on your DAY OFF?? What. Happened. Tell me.
I can’t. It’s bad.
You HAVE to tell me now!
You can come help me eat all this, and I’ll tell you in person. Maybe.
Be there in 20.
Knowing Talia is coming calms me. She will tell me what to do. She’ll help me fix this colossal mess. And if he rejects me, she’ll help me eat all two dozen cupcakes and hold me while I sob for the next eight months.
The cupcakes are finally cool enough that I can start frosting them when Talia knocks at the door. I set the piping bag aside, rinse my hands off, and hurry to answer.
“Sorry it was locked. I was—” My words die in my throat because it’s not Talia at the door.
Hunter stands on the porch, holding a bouquet of peonies and a familiar envelope.
“Hunter.” His name is a strained gasp.
His gaze is searching, traveling over my face. “Can I come in?”
I open the door wider, stunned speechless by his presence here, now.
He comes in and hands me the flowers. “Lou said these are your favorites. I hope she’s right since I keep getting them for you.”
“She’s right,” I confirm. Longing, bright and sharp, blazes through me, like a star streaking across a sky that has been dark for far too long.
“You’ve been baking,” he says. “What happened?”
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry that he knows me so well. “Why are you here?” The question is tremulous, faltering under the weight of sudden hope.
His fingers tighten on the envelope. “Are you still mad at me?” he returns rather than answering.
“I’m not—I was never mad. I’m . . .” A sob rises, and I clench my teeth to trap it. I do not want to cry again. That’s all I do these days. Cry and bake. Bake and cry. “Why are you here?” This time it’s a hoarse plea.
Hunter holds up the letter with my familiar handwriting on the front.
“I read it. But I didn’t need to.” He holds my gaze, and I shiver, somehow feeling laid bare.
“I know you, Liv. I’ve watched you wrestle with the guilt of being alive because someone else isn’t.
I didn’t need to read this to understand that.
You’ve pushed me away because you—-incorrectly, by the way—think you’re saving me. ”
I clutch the flowers he gave me, my heart in my throat.
“I also knew you were hiding a little hellcat inside you, but I didn’t expect your claws to come out like this.” His mouth twitches at the corners.
“What?”
“I heard about what you said to my mom today. And I . . .” He pauses, clears his throat. “After Lou called me and told me what you said to her . . . I had to see you. I had to thank you.”
I wince. “I wasn’t very nice.”
“So I heard.” He smiles, but it fades as he takes a hesitant step forward. “I also came because I have to know the truth: Did you mean what you said to her?”
I swallow past the pounding of my heart and nod.
“All of it?”
“All of it,” I say thickly. Fear beats in time with the love I have for him. The love I announced to his mom. He’s here. He came to me. Please let him forgive me. Please let him want me.
He lifts one hand to brush his knuckles across my cheek, then his hand opens to cup my face.
“I don’t know if I can ever completely forgive myself for Lyla’s death.
And I’ll always hate that she’s gone. But I will forever be grateful that because of her, you’re still here.
She couldn’t have given her heart to a better person. ”
The tears in my eyes spill out onto my cheeks.
Hunter tenderly wipes the wetness away, his gaze gentle on mine. “Please, don’t push me away. Because I love you, Olivia Karlsson. I love you, and I don’t want to spend a day of my life without you ever again.”
My heart—my and Lyla’s—feels like it could explode. “I love you, too, Hunter Barrett. And I’m done pushing you away.”
Hunter slides his other arm around my waist and then lowers his head, tenderly pressing his lips to mine. His kiss is so gentle and soft it makes me ache. I’ve never experienced anything like it. This kiss is forgiveness. It’s love. It’s coming home.
It’s choosing us.
When we break apart, Hunter rests his forehead against mine. “I love you, Liv,” he murmurs, his voice rough. “But I’m still scared. Scared of falling.”
“Me too,” I whisper. “But life without you scares me even more. We’ll catch each other, right?”
“Always,” he vows.
“Besides, some guy told me once that none of us have any guarantees in this life. Maybe we choose to be grateful for every day we get together and go from there.”
“Some guy? Now I’m some guy?”
I laugh and hug him tighter, hardly able to believe he’s here—that he loves me. That I’m allowed to feel happiness like this. Joy as exquisite as my pain was excruciating.
Slowly, our laughter fades, and I inhale deeply, breathing in his scent as his arms encircle me in the comfort of his strength.
I don’t know how long we stay like that before Hunter lifts his head, eyes locking on mine. “Can I listen to it?” he asks softly. “To your heart?”
I nod, gratitude, grief, and wonder tangling in my chest. “It’s both of ours,” I murmur, the words catching in my throat. “Mine and Lyla’s.”
Tears brim in Hunter’s beautiful hazel eyes, the green flecks glowing like shards of emerald. He brushes a final, tender kiss to my lips before kneeling before me. With quiet reverence, he wraps his arms around my body and presses his ear to my chest.
I can feel it beating, strong and sure and full of love for him as he holds me, shaking with silent sobs.
Lyla’s heart loved him before it came to me.
And now it will always love him.