Epilogue
Charlotte
The hydrangeas were heavy and blue along the Cliff Walk, bowing under the weight of a summer that had finally turned gentle.
Sutton walked beside me with his hand in mine, and I had been quiet for too long. He kept glancing over, waiting for me to say whatever I needed to say, giving me space to find the words.
“My mother called me this morning.” I watched the ocean stretch out below us as I said it. “She hasn’t really spoken to me since I walked out of that church. Not once in all these months. And this morning she called like nothing had happened.”
He slowed his pace but didn’t stop. “What did she want?”
“She wanted to tell me that Baron called my father yesterday.” I pulled my hand from his and moved to the edge of the path where the bluff dropped away. “The debt is gone. Every dollar my father owed, paid in full. She said a friend of mine handled it.”
He came to stand beside me, looking out at the water instead of at my face. “I should have told you before I did it.”
“You paid off my father’s debt to the Smiths.” I turned to look at him. “You spent millions of dollars fixing my family’s mess without saying a word to me.”
“I didn’t want Reynolds to have anything to hold over you.” He met my eyes now. “I didn’t want your parents to have a reason to push you back toward him. As long as that debt existed, they could use it against you.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.” My voice came out harder than I meant it to. “You promised you would stop doing this. You promised you would talk to me first.”
“I know I did.” He reached for my hand and I let him take it.
“I couldn’t stand watching you carry the weight of their choices.
Your father borrowed that money. Your parents decided you were the payment.
None of that was ever your fault, and I didn’t want you to spend the rest of your life paying for it. ”
The wind came up off the water and I stood there feeling it on my face, trying to hold onto the anger, trying to keep the wall in place.
“You should have asked me.” I squeezed his hand even as I said it. “Even if I would have said no. You should have asked.”
“You’re right.” He stepped closer and put his other hand on my waist. “I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“I don’t know whether to be furious with you or relieved.” I looked up at him and felt the fight draining out of me. “My parents have nothing to hold over me now. The Smiths have nothing. Reynolds has nothing. For the first time since I was twenty years old, nobody owns a piece of my future.”
“That’s all I wanted.” He pulled me closer. “I wanted you to be free of them. I wanted you to walk into any room in Newport without wondering if someone was going to throw that debt in your face.”
“You could have just told me that.”
“I could have.” He smiled, just barely. “I’m still learning how to do this without making you want to kill me.”
“You’re getting better at it.” I put my hands on his chest and felt his heart beating under my palms. “Slowly. But better.”
He kissed me then, with the ocean going on below us and the hydrangeas nodding along the path. I leaned into him and let the last of the anger go, let the last of the fear go, let everything go except the feeling of his mouth on mine and his arms around me and the solid ground beneath my feet.
When he pulled back, he kept his forehead pressed to mine.
“I love you.” His voice was quiet. “I’m going to keep making mistakes. But I’m going to keep showing up too.”
“I know you will.” I kissed him again because I could. “I’m counting on it.”
We stood there on the bluff with the whole bright season stretched out ahead of us, and for the first time since a wedding I never went through with, I wasn’t waiting for anything at all.
THE END