CHAPTER 30 #2
Rain clings softly to my coat and my boots sink into the wet winter grass. I stop a few feet away, wanting desperately to see whose grave we’re at, but a little too chicken to take the plunge. Instead, I say, “Percy said you wanted to see me.”
Julian nods, but his eyes remain fixed somewhere beyond me before finally settling fully on my face. “Needed to see you is more accurate. You weren’t responding to my texts.”
“I didn’t think there was any point,” I say, trying to harden my voice and my heart, but not quite succeeding. We’re in a cemetery and it plays a big part of this story.
“Well, thank you for coming. You deserve to know the truth of why I disconnected from you.”
Slowly, Julian turns toward the tombstones beside him and fear courses through me. I’m getting ready to learn truths I’m not sure I can handle. The instinct to flee back down to the car is so strong, I lock my legs in place. Helplessly, my eyes drift to the engraved markers.
Kylie McMurray Langley.
The name on the boat. Kylie. Kylie Langley.
Before I can parse out the significance of this person to Julian, my eyes move to the second stone beside it. “Benjamin Langley,” I murmur out loud.
Julian’s voice comes rough and low beside me. “My wife and son.”
It’s like a bolt of electricity has punched through me, starting in my chest and radiating outward from my spine to reach every nerve in my body. My gut tightens and my head spins at those four words.
Wife? Son? “I… you… you had a wife and son?”
For a second, he says nothing as rain falls gently around us. The umbrella is keeping me dry, but water runs in rivulets down his face.
Julian exhales slowly, the sound laced with years of grief. “Six years ago, we were driving home after Christmas Eve dinner.”
Dread creeps into me as I inhale deeply.
“The roads were icy. Visibility was bad.” His jaw twitches. “There was a car coming in the opposite direction, driving too fast. It lost control and spun out. I tried to avoid it, but I couldn’t and we were hit head-on.”
My heart plummets and tears form in my eyes. I can’t help the gesture, stepping forward and lifting the umbrella over his head to cover him. My free hand grabs his and I hold tight.
Julian’s eyes remain fixed on the gravestones while he speaks. “Kylie died on impact.” Pain and anguish emanate from his face. “Ben survived, was in the ICU for a week before…” His voice goes hoarse as he fights off emotion. “Before he passed too.”
“Oh, Julian. I’m so sorry.”
“Meanwhile,” Julian says, a bitterness entering his voice, “I didn’t even have a scratch.”
I glance down the hill at Percy waiting in the car. He’s giving us privacy while remaining close enough to intervene if needed.
“I thought the grief would eventually ease,” Julian says after a long pause. “Everyone tells you it gets easier with time, and yes, it definitely became manageable. Most days, I can think about Kylie and Ben and be filled with happy memories and I’m grateful for that.”
His eyes drift toward tombstones, and he nods at the spot beside them. “I bought that plot for myself,” he continues. “I had it all planned out. Someday I’d be buried beside them.”
A chill moves through me, leaving behind emptiness. This is why he disconnected. This is why we can’t ever be anything for the long term, because he has a life with his dead wife and son.
Or an afterlife, maybe.
I try to harden my heart again. I try to go back to the anger I was swimming in just an hour ago, because within that fury, I can keep the hurt at bay. I need to get back to that, because accepting the loss of Julian to a dead wife and son is devastation I can’t handle.
But I simply cannot be mad at a man who lost his entire world and within that loss, he’s stuck with an inability to move forward.
I give his hand a hard squeeze. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be able to understand why you were pushing me away, but I get it now. And I can’t be mad at that.”
Julian’s gaze moves from the empty plot to mine and he nods. “I knew you’d understand and I should have told you earlier. I should have told you after that first dinner date when I knew I wanted to see you again.”
“Well, you told me now and it really helps. Thank you for sharing that, and…” I glance back down the hill at Percy, assuming he’ll give me a ride home. My gaze returns to Julian and I release his hand. “And thank you for the time we spent together. I’ll always cherish it.”
Julian frowns slightly and shakes his head.
“But I’m not done.” He reasserts his grip on my free hand and envelops my chilled fingers.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking… soul searching, really.
” He swallows hard, then looks at me. “And what I’ve realized is that I’ve been living each day of my life as if I’m preparing for the day I die. ”
Emotion swells in my chest. “Oh, Julian,” I whisper. “I think that’s a testament to how deeply you loved them.”
He nods. “Yes, that’s true. But I think I’m realizing that love, no matter how great it once was, should never affect your current life negatively. And I was letting it do that.”
“I wish I had known,” I say more quietly now. “I wish you would’ve told me.”
Julian looks down toward the graves again. “I didn’t want to burden you with this.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“But I… I let it destroy us instead.”
The honesty of it hits me hard enough that tears sting my eyes again.
“There’s something else you need to know,” he says.
“I had a dream… A few nights ago.” I stay completely still, listening. “She was there… Kylie was. We were on the yacht in the Bahamas watching the sunrise. And then she brought you to me. She told me you were there for me, that she brought you there.”
Tears blur my vision.
“I woke up terrified,” he admits. “That was the morning you found me on the balcony.”
“It’s when you started to withdraw,” I say, thinking about how I could sense it deep in my bones.
“I think that since having you in my life, it’s started to feel real enough and important enough that I could lose you too. And instead of handling that fear properly, I pushed you away.”
That he did, but it makes sense now.
And it’s… forgivable.
“Harper… do you get what I’m saying?” he asks, urgently.
“Yes. You’re apologizing and explaining why you can’t commit—”
“No,” he exclaims, his hand going behind my neck as he peers down at me from under the umbrella.
“I know what I want now… I want you, Harper. I think I’ve wanted you for longer than I even understood myself.
” A broken laugh escapes him. “You walked into my life and somehow made me start imagining a future again.”
“Julian—”
“No,” he says softly, stepping closer now. “Let me finish. For a long time, I convinced myself loving Kylie meant I could never love anyone else again. But that isn’t true.”
Tears slip freely down my cheeks now.
“I will always love them,” he whispers. “Always. But that doesn’t change this.
It doesn’t change the fact that somewhere along the way…
” His thumb brushes shakily across the back of my neck.
“I fell in love with you too. And I’m done letting guilt and fear and grief dictate the rest of my life.
I’m done punishing myself for surviving. ”
Julian steps even closer still until there’s barely any space left between us.
“I love you, Harper Hawthorne,” he says, his voice both devastating and beautiful. “And I’m not letting fear of the future or fear of the past stop me from loving you properly anymore.”
My head spins. Hell, my entire world spins. “You love me?”
“Yes.” He stares at me with such intensity that my heart gallops within my chest. “Madly in love and I am not letting it go. Say you forgive me for being an asshole and say that you’re willing to give this another chance.”
I stare at him. “I don’t think I want to say that.” Julian’s eyes widen, unsure of what to do. I let him off the hook quickly, though. “What I will say, though, is that I love you too.”
A breath whooshes out of him, a sign of relief, and then he kisses me.
The rain falls softly around us while his hands slide into my hair and I kiss him back with everything left inside me.
And down the hill, I catch sight of Percy watching us through the car window… and smiling.