Chapter 29 #3
“I need to get this out,” he pleaded with his voice and his stare. I gave a brief nod and remained silent while he continued.
“I’ll never be able to apologize enough.
If I could go back and throttle eighteen-year-old me, I would.
But I can’t. I can only say I’m sorry, words that are never goin’ to be enough for what I put you through.
For what you had to endure all alone. It breaks a piece of my soul to read those words, but it also helps put the missing pieces back together.
I know that doesn’t make sense, but ever since I found out about Luke, I wanted to know everything.
I had so many questions about him, but I didn’t want to bombard you with them all.
If I’d just been open-minded and listened to your pleas, I’d have known everything all along,” he said through trembled lips.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing, Leo. I know how sorry you are. We can’t change the past. You can’t keep beating yourself up about it. I could’ve come back. I could’ve done so many things differently. We just have to move on from it.”
“How? How do I move on from knowin’ I failed him? I failed you too.”
I wanted to hold him through his pain.
So, I did.
I sat on the backs of my legs and held out my hand which he reluctantly grabbed. I pulled him forward so he was on his knees in front of me. Even sitting like this, he towered over me.
“Come here,” I whispered with my arms wide open.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and burrowed his head into the side of my neck. He sighed after he took a deep breath in.
We stayed wrapped in our embrace, neither saying a word, until my knees ached and I had no choice but to pull back.
He laid back in his spot on the truck bed, his arm thrown across the pillow I’d had my head on. I smiled down at him as I crawled on my knees over to him, before laying down with my head on his chest. The familiar beat of his heart beneath my head soothed me.
The tips of his fingers ran up and down my arm as we lay there.
“Can you forgive me?” he whispered so softly I thought I’d misheard him.
“Can you forgive me?” I countered. I should be the one apologizing.
I turned to my stomach, my hand on his chest above his heart, and rested my head on my hand as I looked up at him.
“I’m sorry, Leo. I’m sorry for breaking us all those years ago. I’m sorry I didn’t come back to Haven Valley when I found out I was pregnant. I’m sorry for everything,” I told him, hoping he could find it in his heart to forgive me.
“I forgive you, cara,” he said as he brushed his fingers through my hair, pinning it behind my head as he leaned forward and brushed a gentle kiss on my forehead.
My throat clogged with emotion as tears filled my eyes. I blinked rapidly to keep them from falling, but they fell anyway. I didn’t move to brush them away. I stayed in the moment with him and cherished the sound of the nickname falling off his lips on repeat in my mind.
His lips lingered for a beat before he laid back against the pillow.
He removed his hand from my hair and the tip of his finger traced the outline of my cheek before he rested it on his chest beside my hand.
Our pinky fingers touched on the sides, and I lifted mine to wrap it in his, the way I used to do.
The sound of the nickname I longed to hear stayed on repeat in my mind long after I settled on his chest.
“Can you forgive me?” he repeated.
“I forgave you a long time ago. Can you forgive yourself?”
“I’m working on it,” he said with a break in his voice.
“Do you think you can ever trust me again? I feel like we’re moving in a direction, but I don’t know if you reciprocate those feelings,” I asked, almost too scared to know the answer, but my need to know outweighed my fright.
“Do you plan on leaving Haven Valley?”
He had every right to ask that after everything I’d put him through.
“I’m not going anywhere, Leo,” I promised. Now I just needed him to believe me.
“We still have a lot to work through, but I want to work through it by your side. I want us to raise Luke together and be a family. Maybe have more babies someday. I want it all. And I want it all with you,” he whispered as he stared into my eyes.
“That sounds perfect to me,” I replied with a smile.
The sun had fully set as I settled my head on his chest, the place I’d claimed so long ago. I pulled the necklace from underneath my shirt and toyed with the rings that dangled in the center, my heart full and happy for the first time in a very long time.
We laid there in silence; crickets chirped in the distance, and I moved to sit up in the back of the truck bed. As much as I wanted to lay out here all night, we should probably head inside and check on Luke.
Leo looked up at me and whispered, “Stay.”
My lips trembled at his plea as I laid back down. He felt around the back of the truck beside me and pulled the blanket he’d laid there that I hadn’t noticed, and covered the both of us.
I laid there all night long, wrapped in his arms, and stayed.