73. Willow
WILLOW
Noah takes my plate from me and carries it over to the couch. I follow with both of our coffees and sit next to him. My heart is already starting to race at the thought of what’s coming next. I have to tell Jenna everything.
Noah must be able to sense the tension in my body.
His hand moves up my spine and settles on the back of my neck before his thumb rubs small circles against the tight muscles.
I can feel the tension in my body starting to relax.
This man is amazing. And to prove that point even more, he leans over and kisses my cheek before pulling me closer.
“It’s all going to be okay, Willow. I’m here,” he whispers before releasing my neck to pick up my plate and hand it to me.
“So…What happened last night?” Jenna finally says as she sits on the other section of the couch and curls up against the corner with her coffee cup.
“I think I have to tell you the other stuff before we get to last night.”
She stares at me for a moment before sitting up correctly.
“Whatever it is, just know I love you no matter what, babe. Whatever skeletons are in your closet can’t be half as bad as the ones I found in his last night,” she says, pointing a finger at Noah.
All of us laugh, and I can feel the mood lighten in the room. She’s right, my skeletons really aren’t that bad. Just dangerous.
“Well, to start off, my name isn’t Willow Bennett. It’s Willow Parker.”
“See. Small skeleton,” she teases.
I take a deep breath because this is the part that scares me. I’ve only ever had to tell my therapist what happened that night. My adopted grandparents knew from the police. I never had to tell them and see their raw reaction or deal with the shock of the truth.
“Remember when I told you I went to a family member's house the other night? It was actually my family’s home when I was a child. I used to live up near Lexington until I moved to Texas when I was eight.”
Noah places his hand on my knee and gives it a gentle squeeze.
“My dad was an abusive drunk. He would beat my mom and me whenever he drank, which was pretty much all the time. I constantly had to wear long sleeves and pants to hide the bruises and marks.”
There’s a knot growing in my throat. I still don’t remember a lot of my childhood, but I remember the rage from my father. The pain when he would hit me. And the fear of watching him hurt my mom.
“When I was eight, my mom had finally had enough. I don’t remember what happened to finally make her decide to leave, but it was the worst decision she ever made.
My father caught us trying to leave in the middle of the night.
I remember my mom trying to fight him off.
He had her pinned to the wall by her throat…
” My voice trails off as I feel the tears starting to burn my eyes.
“Jesus, Willow. I’m so sorry,” Jenna says softly.
“I tried to save her. I grabbed a knife from the dish rack and stabbed him in the back of the leg. He dropped her to the ground and she quickly picked me up and ran. We barely made it into the kitchen before he grabbed her by the ankle, and we fell. I smacked the back of my head on the floor, and they think it’s why I don’t remember much of my childhood.
Over the years, I’ve gotten back bits and pieces, mainly through nightmares.
Going back to the house helped me remember a lot. ”
I lean against Noah for a moment, and he kisses the top of my head.
“Oh my God…” Jenna says, covering her mouth with her hand.
“I don’t remember much before I lost consciousness except for my mom trying to protect me. My dad pinned her down and stabbed her to death. He would have killed me too except she curled her body around mine blocking the stabs except for the cut on my forehead.”
I can see the tears flowing down Jenna’s cheeks. When she said she knew there was stuff in my past I kept hidden, I don’t think she thought it would have been anything close to this.
“They never caught my father. He must have taken off before the cops got there. There’s a group of people who basically help women and children escape from domestic violence.
If the cases are bad enough, they basically put the victims into hiding.
That’s who my mom was taking us to that night.
The group still took me in, and my grandparents were actually a couple in the program who ended up adopting me and changing my last name.
My information was locked away, and no one knew where I was. The world thought I was dead.”
I can feel Noah’s body tense next to me. He never thought I was dead. He always knew that one day he’d find me.
Jenna wipes her tears away as Jeremy wraps an arm around her shoulder. She leans into him and slowly shakes her head as she looks over at me.
“So…Your dad’s just out there somewhere?” she asks.
“Yeah. That’s why I never told anyone else about my past except my therapist. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“Except Noah,” she says, sounding slightly offended.
“No. Noah already knew who I was.”
She looks at me confused before glaring at Noah.
“So you were stalking her?!” she snaps. “You motherfuck…”
She starts to stand to go toward Noah, but Jeremy stops her.
“Let them explain, Jenna,” he says as he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her back down to the couch.
“I wasn’t stalking her. But I have been looking for her for the last fifteen years,” Noah says proudly.
“Wait…Fifteen years? No fucking way.”
Jenna’s mouth drops open as she leans back into the couch.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You just so happen to end up back in her life after she’s been gone all this time? Like fucking magic?” she says accusingly.
Her eyes are narrowed at Noah, and if Jeremy’s arm wasn’t around her right now, I swear she would’ve jumped up to gouge Noah’s eyes out.
“I call it fate,” Noah replies as he wraps an arm around my shoulder.
Jenna sits up straight, clasps her hands together, and rests her elbows on her knees. She points her clasped hands at Noah and begins her interrogation.
“Let me get this straight. So you knew her back then, but she disappeared. You had no clue where she went, but you kept looking for her even though, according to the world, she was probably dead?”
Noah nods as she pauses to take a breath before turning her focus to me.
“And you had zero memory of him from your childhood? You didn’t even remember his last name or anything? So it’s legit just fucking magic that you decided one day you wanted to work for Andersons’ and Sons, then boom, you run into him?”
“Yeah. I remember bits and pieces of it, but never clear faces or memories. It’s weird,” I answer, causing her to tilt her head.
“So, Mr. Anderson. When you first saw my client at your place of business, what was your initial reaction?” she questions Noah.
Jeremy has a shit-eating grin on his face, and Noah’s smirk is growing.
“Why am I being interrogated?” Noah asks.
“I’m asking the questions here, fucker. Did you know who my client was when you saw her?” she snaps.
“Yes.”
That seems to shock Jenna.
“Why didn’t you say anything to her about who you were?” she asks.
“I did. When we got into the office, I told her my name,” he says smugly as he rests back against the couch, letting his hand run down my back and slip under the shirt to touch my bare skin.
“How did you know it was her?” Jenna demands.
“Her eyes. I’d know Willow’s eyes anywhere.
When she applied for the job, I looked her up, but there wasn’t much information other than her resume stuff.
From the few pics online that I saw, it looked like what I thought she would look like at this age.
But when we were in that elevator, I knew it was her,” Noah says proudly as he pulls me against him.
“How? She has green eyes. There are a lot of women with green eyes.”
“Deep forest green eyes, strawberry blonde hair, and she still wears the same scent of perfume she would always put on as a kid. It was her mother’s. Plus, when I was near her, my heart started racing, and I finally felt alive again.”
When Noah says this, it causes me to turn to him. He said he knew it was me, but he never really said how he knew it was me.
“You remembered the perfume?” I ask quietly, not wanting the emotion to show in my voice.
“Fifteen years, Little Rabbit. That vanilla body spray has haunted me. You’d steal it from your mom’s room all the time to spray on your pillows and your clothes. I’d randomly smell it, and my mind would go to memories of you. I’d never forget you, Willow. No matter how long we were apart.”
“Oh, my God. How the hell can this be real? You’re literally living in a fucking fairytale. Ughh!” she huffs as she leans back against the couch. “So unfair. You never even believed in this kinda stuff. You always teased me.”
She stops suddenly and looks at Jeremy before looking back at me.
“When I used to show you sappy romance movies that I loved, you said it wasn’t real. That you’d never meet your soul mate or one true love,” Jenna groans.
“That’s because she had already met me. She just didn’t remember,” Noah says as he pulls me against his chest and kisses the top of my head.
A few tears escape my eyes and fall onto his shirt. He can feel the dampness and holds me tighter.
“I love you, Willow,” he whispers.
“I love you, too.”
“So wait, that doesn’t clear up last night. What happened? Jeremy said everything seemed fine before he left to come see me.”
“Everything was fine until I decided to go snooping in the case files on the table after he left.”
“Fucking hell. I’m sorry, Willow. I should’ve locked everything away. I was just so excited to go see her and…Shit. I’m so sorry,” Jeremy pleads.
“No. Really, it’s okay. If I hadn’t seen the crime scene photos, it might have never caused my memories to start coming back as fast. It forced me to go back to the house,” I assure him.
“Wait, can I ask one more thing before you tell us about last night?” Jenna asks.
“Mhm.”
“When did you find out Noah was from your childhood?”
“Last night,” Noah and I say in unison.
“Oh. Well, carry on then.” She smirks as she leans back against Jeremy’s arm.
“So we drove up to the house, and I went in first. I decided I was going to burn the place to the ground.”
“You were just going to let her do that?” Jenna cuts in.
“Yes,” Noah says as if it’s the sanest thing in the world.
“I didn’t tell him, but I think he assumed so from the amount of high-proof alcohol I bought.
Anyway, when we got there, I went in first. I wanted to grab any family mementos or photos before I burned the rest down.
Noah came in and was standing behind me when I was looking through photos. Hold on.”
I quickly stand and rush back into the foyer where the box of photos and keepsakes is sitting on the bench. I bring them back in and start flipping through the photos as I continue my story.
“So, Noah was standing there, and the last few photos were from my birthday before my mom died. Here.”
I hand her the few photos and watch as she flips through them.
“Oh my gosh! That’s such a cute rabbit. You got her that?” she asks as she looks at the photo of us together with the rabbit.
“Yep. That’s Mr. Snuggles,” I say, laughing at the childish name I gave him.
“Aww. What happened to him?”
She looks up at me, and I look over at Noah. Her eyes fall to Noah. She pauses for a second before she rolls her eyes and sighs.
“Don’t even tell me you kept the rabbit all these years?”
“Yep. I went over there after the cops had left that night and found the rabbit. I knew she wouldn’t have left him behind on purpose, so I took him home, cleaned him up, and fixed his ear.”
“His ear? What happened to his ear?”
“It looked like someone ripped it, so I sewed it back together. It’s not perfect but…” Noah says, but I cut him off.
“Yes, he is perfect,” I snap. “You never gave up on me, Noah. Not even when I came back into your life and didn’t remember you.”
“No, he never gave up,” Jeremy laughs.
“Wait, did you know too?” Jenna asks Jeremy.
“I knew. Sorry. I was sworn to secrecy. I did tell him not to fuck with her head like he was doing,” Jeremy says as he glares at Noah.
“Fucking with her head? How?” Jenna demands.
“The flowers,” I answer for him. “They were my favorite from when I was a kid. We would walk up and down the road and pick them together. Fifteen bouquets…”
“For every year you were missing…Holy fucking shit. Yep, it’s official. You win. You officially have the Prince Charming all girls dream of having,” she sighs.
“Hey, you could get your happily ever after, too,” Jeremy says, wrapping his arm back around her.
I see the corner of her lip tilt up in a smile before she quickly shakes it away and turns her attention back on Noah and me. For some reason, she seems to be fighting this.
“So, after he told you who he was, then what happened?”
“We went out and stood in the snow making Molotov cocktails and launching them into the house.”
“Holy shit. You actually burnt down a house? That’s a felony, Willow. You’ve never even had a parking ticket.”
“It wasn’t a felony because I own the house. I only have to pay a small fine because we didn’t involve the local authorities with how big of a fire it caused. The cops, EMS, and firefighters all showed up,” Noah tells her.
“Hold on. Are we just going to brush past the fact that you said it was your house?”
“I bought it. I finalized the purchase Saturday,” Noah says, laughing.
“Excuse me? You didn’t tell me you bought a fucking house. Shouldn’t you have cleared it with me?” Jeremy says with irritation.
“I started the process the first day I saw her. I didn’t have time to consult you.”
“Wow,” Jenna says. She throws her hands up as she flops back against the backrest of the couch. “Welp. I guess there’s only one last thing to ask.”
“And what’s that?” I ask her.
“When are you guys getting married?”