Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
THREE MONTHS LATER
This morning I awoke in Will’s bed.
It’s normal now. The smell of him. The weight of his arm draped over my body. His breath tickling my ear. The rhythmic tick of his ceiling fan.
Now, we’re in his truck on our way to visit Margie at the facility where she’s staying for another week. Mom will already be there. She’s always there these days, watching Margie’s physical therapy, helping remind her who she was, sitting with her when she’s forgotten.
She’s coming back to us, slowly. She’s learned to sit up again. To sit on her own. To stand. To speak.
For the first few days off the ventilator, she was a shell of a person. Quiet. She rarely spoke. She cried all the time.
There were times when she looked right through us.
It scared me—I can admit it now, though I refused to then.
But finally, her fire is back. She’s determined to reclaim her old self. Determined not to let him win.
Banks is out on bail awaiting trial. His arrest shocked our town in ways we’re all still coping with. A lot of people don’t believe it. The ones who do have kept quiet, waiting for proof.
We’ve learned a few things since he was arrested, like the fact that it was him at Margie’s house the night Mom saw lights, hoping to catch one of us. Cory. Me. Will.
If he’d had his way, we’d all be dead.
Margie will stand witness against him, as will I. And Will.
George hasn’t agreed to testify, and I don’t think I can blame him. The attorneys say he’ll be subpoenaed anyway, so that’s something.
Then again, he posted Banks’s bail, so I really don’t know what to expect.
Family is complicated.
Things with Mom still aren’t perfect. It’s like something underfoot has shifted, making us a little off kilter in a way that feels irreparable.
I’m trying, I really am. But there’s a pain inside my chest when I think about Ruth, when I see Margie.
I know Mom isn’t fully to blame, and I know she’s not perfect, but it still stings to have to face the fact that she’s a hundred percent human and flawed after all.
She’s always been the one who made things better.
When Will and I arrive at the hospital, Margie beams at us. She pulls us into a hug together, and Will sits down on the bed next to her. I cross the room and hug Mom with stiff arms, taking a seat beside her in one of the chairs along the wall.
It’s not that I feel like punishing her—I think we’ve all been punished enough. It’s just hard. Her betrayal cost us all so much.
We’ll get there someday. I know we will.
Time, I’m realizing—as my scars finally fade—truly does fix most things. But it won’t bring Ruth back.
As if she’s read my thoughts, Mom looks over at me with a sad smile. She opens her purse. “I brought you something.”
After a moment, she holds out a small, black box. Bigger than a ring box, but I suspect there’s jewelry inside.
My mouth goes dry.
“What’s this about?” I raise the lid and stare down at a delicate gold heart resting on a thin chain.
“It was Ruth’s,” Mom says, and when she does, I recognize it at once. She didn’t wear it often, only on special occasions, but I’d know it anywhere. She takes the box from my hand and unspools the chain. “She’d want you to have it.”
Tears sting my eyes. There’s a tickle in the back of my throat.
“You were the daughter she never had,” Margie says, and when I look over, her face is crumpled with tears too. “And she loved you, Opal.” She squeezes Will’s hand and reaches for Cory, who’s been lingering in a chair in the corner. “She loved you all so much.”
“And it will never not hurt that she’s gone,” Mom says, bitterness in her tone. “And we will never not miss her. But she’d want you to have this. And she’d want you to be happy. Wherever you go. Whatever you do.”
I realize then what she’s saying.
What I think she’s saying, anyway.
She thinks I might leave. She was the reason I came home, and now things aren’t the same. Even though Will and I are together, she still worries I’ll run away from all of this. Protect myself from the pain of it if I can.
Maybe it’s what the old me would’ve done, but that girl feels distant now.
Scary in a different way.
She missed out on so much.
I let Mom wrap the necklace around my neck, lifting my hair so she can clasp it. Her hands tremble more than they used to.
Mom looks at Will. “I know you’re usually the gift giver today, but I hope you don’t mind if I take this one.”
Today.
I check my watch. The date.
I almost forgot.
Today’s the anniversary of Dad’s death. I’ve been so distracted I nearly…
Hang on.
My mind goes fuzzy with radio static. I stare at Will, then Mom. “What do you mean? Will never gave me gifts on the anniversary. You did.”
When I glance back, Will’s pinning Mom with a look I don’t quite understand. “You knew,” he says, his voice powerless.
“Well, it wasn’t the tooth fairy,” Mom says simply, her expression softening.
“Of course I knew.” She gathers my hands in hers.
“And I should’ve said something sooner. I let you believe all those years of gifts were from me.
And I shouldn’t have, because they weren’t.
I would’ve admitted it if you’d asked, but I should’ve just corrected you anyway.
I could never quite find the right way to bring it up. Your dad, this day, any of it.”
“You were the one.” My eyes find Will’s again, slowly, as the pieces come together in my mind.
He holds my gaze. All the years I thought Mom was trying to comfort me in the only way she knew how.
I thought she wanted me to know she was there, even if we could never actually talk about Dad and how badly I wish I’d gotten to know him better.
And all along, it was Will.
The boy who was always looking out for me.
“In college?” I study him. Banks, too, let me believe the gifts were from him. “The bracelet.”
Will’s expression is uncomfortable. Soft. Like he’s worried I might be mad. He cocks his head to the side, draws in one corner of his lips. “I…just wanted you to be okay.”
“You were, what? Five? Six? We were kids when it started. You remembered the date and bought me gifts every year? And you never said a thing? Will…”
Still not quite confirming it, he just stares at me with these gentle eyes that feel oceans deep. Like I could swim in their depths, get lost in their secrets.
“The first year it was just flowers from the yard,” he says, one hand picking at the corner of Margie’s blanket.
“And…you saved them for months.” His gaze lifts slowly to find mine again.
I hold his eyes completely, his heart with both hands.
“It meant everything to you. And after that, I had chore money.” A corner of his mouth ticks up, relinquishing the last of his worry.
His shoulders aren’t hard. I’ve said everything he needs to hear with just a look.
“And a crush on a little girl next door, who got a little sad one day a year.”
His mouth curves entirely at the memory, eyes shining.
I don’t even realize I’ve crossed the room until I’m in his arms. He turns, taking my weight, his hands meeting my waist and holding me close like he’s done a thousand times now. It’s the most natural thing in the world.
“You’ve always been here,” I say, awe softening my voice.
“Waiting.” He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear.
“And so have we,” Margie adds with a little hmph.
“Impatiently.” That’s Mom, and when I glance at her, her smile trembles at the edges. Her face is a watercolor portrait of pride, regret, and gratitude.
“Seriously,” Cory says. “You guys are insufferable. And you both owe me fifty bucks.” He points a finger at Margie, then Mom, moving it back and forth between them before he winks at me. “Finally.”
My eyes meet Will’s. “I love you.” My voice chokes with tears as I rest my face against his shoulder.
The words scrape out, raw and unpolished.
Because it’s the truth. Because he’s Will, and I’m me, and he’s my constant, even when I didn’t know it.
My fingers twist in the back of his shirt. “I’m so sorry it took me so long.”
He shrugs one shoulder. His hand flattens against my back, pressing me closer to him on instinct. Neither of us has to think about it anymore. Being close. There’s no longer a threat of running.
“Just a few years,” Will says. He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Thirty? I would’ve waited at least fifty.” His tone is light, teasing, but there’s a thread of something warmer, too.
Relief, maybe. That he never gave up. Even when the waiting felt lonely, pointless. Even when he wasn’t sure it would matter.
I pull back enough to look at him. Really look.
There are lines at the corners of his eyes that weren’t there when we were kids. A tiny scar near his lip from Banks’s attack. I can detail every mark time has given him.
Our history intertwines at nearly every point.
Slowly, his mouth brushes mine, smiling against my lips, not caring that we have an audience.
He kisses me, his lips soft, and rubs the place next to my jaw where my stitches have healed.
His thumb lingers there for an extra moment, careful, reverent, like he’s counting all the ways I could’ve been lost.
“Thank god you didn’t have to,” I say, looking into those deep-blue eyes, eyes that have always been looking back.
In photos, in memories—all my life.
In the background of every version of me.
He nods his head, his face saying so much. Everything. We’ve never needed words. “Thank god I didn’t have to.”
Behind us, machines hum. Margie laughs at something Cory says. Mom wipes her tears and pretends she isn’t.
Outside this room, Banks is still breathing free air.
A trial waits.
Testimony waits.
Truth waits.
But we don’t have to anymore.
We survived, and now we get to live.
I rest my hand over the small gold heart at my throat. It’s warm already, like it belongs here. A piece of her. A piece of me.
Ruth is gone, and nothing I can do will change that.
But we’re still here—her family.
Margie is fighting. Mom is trying. I am healing.
And Will? The boy who has been loving me quietly my whole life doesn’t have to be quiet anymore.
For the first time, the future doesn’t feel like something to survive. It feels like something to step into. To reach for. And so I’m reaching.
And this life we’re building, this love, it wasn’t the lightning I expected. It was a tide. Inevitable. Patient. Strong.
Like Ruth.
We are her legacy. Her living, breathing history. Someday, if we have kids, we’ll pass along her stories and her memories, her math lessons and her love of Halloween.
She’s still with us, even if it’s no longer the same.
I lace my fingers through his, and later in the afternoon when he says, “Let’s go home,” I know exactly where that is.
Because my home was never a place.
It was always these people. Always him.