18. Chapter 18
Cate
Present
We followed the curve of the lake path toward the parking lot, our steps unhurried but restless, like neither of us was ready to go home yet.
The water glinted through the trees, catching the last of the afternoon sun. Families were packing up picnic blankets. A couple of joggers passed us, earbuds in, oblivious. Life continuing at a pace I hadn’t agreed to.
I spotted a car that looked just like mine.
The Lexus sat near the edge of the lot, clean and expensive and unmistakably out of place among the dusty sedans and pickup trucks. I could still remember when Trevor picked mine out himself. He said he wanted something reliable and safe. Something that wouldn’t leave me stranded.
I slowed without realizing it.
“Still not used to driving one of those, huh?” Amy said gently, following my gaze.
I exhaled. “It still feels weird. I drove a Civic for ten years.”
She smiled. “You drive a Lexus now.”
I nodded, but the knot in my chest didn’t loosen. The car wasn’t the point. What it represented was.
“He didn’t just do that for show,” Amy said. “You know that.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
We walked a few more steps before she spoke again.
“You remember what happened after that week at the lake, right?”
I stiffened slightly. Of course I did.
“How could I forget?”
Amy stopped walking and turned to face me. “Cate… John was a mess after that night. He scared himself. He scared you. And when he finally sobered up, do you remember what he did?”
I swallowed. “He apologized.”
“Yes. And then?”
The answer rose up whether I wanted it to or not.
“He talked to Trevor.”
Amy nodded. “Not just talked. He asked him something.”
The memory came into focus, John’s voice, serious in a way it rarely was. The weight behind his words.
I looked away toward the water. “He was grateful. He asked Trevor to look out for me, if-if anything ever happened to him.”
Amy’s voice softened. “And when something did happen?”
I didn’t answer right away.
Trevor stepping in. Trevor fixing what he could. Trevor showing up quietly, consistently, without asking for anything in return. Trevor being there when the world had gone silent.
“He did exactly what John asked,” I said finally.
“Yes,” Amy said. “He did.”
We stood there for a moment, the air heavy between us.
“And Trevor… You know he didn’t do it out of obligation,” she continued. “He did it because he loves you. Because he’s always loved you.”
I felt the familiar tightening in my chest. “I know he loves me.”
“Do you?” she asked gently. “Because sometimes it sounds like you think that love should only count if it hurts.”
I flinched. “That’s not fair.”
Amy sighed. “I’m not trying to be cruel. I’m trying to protect you. You’re marrying a man who has proven, over and over again, that he will choose you. And you’re still measuring him against someone who left.”
Her words felt like a slap to the face.
“He didn’t leave me,” I said immediately. “That’s not the same thing.”
Amy hesitated. “I know you want to believe that. But Cate… he’s gone.”
“I didn’t stop loving him just because he…” I said, my voice shaking despite my effort to steady it. “And Trevor didn’t replace him. He stepped in after.”
“That doesn’t make his love lesser.”
“No,” I agreed. “It just makes it different.”
Amy studied me for a long moment, her expression torn between frustration and fear.
“I just don’t want you to destroy something real because you’re waiting for answers you may never get,” she said quietly.
I turned back toward the lake, the memory pressing in.
“I wasn’t waiting,” I said. “I’m not waiting. I’m trying to move forward. I really am.”
Amy’s voice softened. “Then why does this still hurt?”
Because loving John had never been about certainty.
Because the last thing he’d done, the thing that mattered most, had been choosing me, even when I made it impossible.
I closed my eyes.
“Because John loved me too.”