Chosen
RILEY
Easton stops at the gate, and I lean across him to key in the code.
It still works. That makes me smile because it’s been a year since I’ve been home.
No, it’s worse than that. All the time I was with Preston, I never spent more than twenty-four hours at my parents’ place. He made it a ritual to drop me off and pick me up, only when we had important family functions… and he did it so well, too.
Everyone thought it was charming. My mom doted on it. On us. My dad… he saw Preston as the ideal man for his daughter. He thought I was pampered, treated like an egg. In his words ‘this is the only man that’ll treat you better than me, honey.’
If only he knew.
The gates draw back, slow and silent, and Easton takes us up the drive between the row of Italian cypress my mother had trucked in from somewhere the year I turned fifteen.
He pulls into the turnaround and cuts the engine.
My eyes immediately dart to his, and my heart rate spikes. I’d been so sure I wanted this. But now, I’m having cold feet.
“Sweetheart…” Easton leans across, tucking a stray strand behind my ear. His fingers caress my cheek, and then drop to where my hands are squeezing the hem of my dress.
He separates them and slides his fingers against mine, lacing them. “I’ll be here all the time. And if you need me to come in with you, I can do that…”
He’s so soft-spoken, and it’s all the reassurance I need to do this.
“Ready?”
I nod.
He leans in and presses his lips to mine for a minute. We stay that way until he pulls away.
“Go.”
I don’t wait to hear it again. I open the door and get out of the passenger seat. My mom is at the door when I look up.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her in what? Two months? Three?
Has it been that long since I ran away?
Her face is a mix of relief, grief, and hope. But her smile is what catches my heart. All at once, she moves, and so do I. The distance closes. She reaches for me, and I do the same. We embrace, and a sob breaks from my lips.
“Oh, Riley…” She pats my back gently, and I hear her own sob. “Honey… I’m glad you’re back.”
We pull apart, and I smile.
“Me too, mom. I… I’ve missed you, and Dad too.”
She hugs me again and kisses my cheek.
“Come.” She takes my hand and leads me in. I steal one last glance at Easton, and he winks.
I look at my mom. She hasn’t yet acknowledged the car, or the man inside, but I know it’s coming.
My father is in his chair in the living room. He stands when I come in.
“Riley.” A pause. “You look thin.”
I smile. Typical dad.
“I’m fine, Dad. I promise.”
My mom lets go of my hand, and I meet him. He hugs me without hesitation, burying his nose in my hair.
“God, you scared us. Don’t ever pull this stunt again.”
I laugh.
“Can’t say…”
“Riley…” He glares at me, and I chuckle.
“I’ll be more open next time. About everything, before it gets this far.”
The look in his eyes… All I see is a man who’s been worried for his little girl. That’s how he’s always seen me.
I pull away and look around, exhaling. I’ve missed home. I’ve missed being here, just to spend time with them. I’ve missed all of it. The life I had before Preston. But now, I’m here to get it back.
I sit on the couch across from him. My mother perches beside me, close, her hand finding my knee. I let it stay there.
“Mom, Dad…” When I see I have their undivided attention, I proceed.
“I’m sorry for running away. At the time, it was the only way I could pass the message that I no longer wanted to be with him.
I know, I chose the wrong time to do that.
I should have said something when things began to get out of hand, but I didn’t think you’d believe me.
Preston… he’s… he’s so charming to everyone, a-and I don’t…
” I drag in a deep breath and look at them.
I see the confusion on their faces.
They still don’t understand it.
So, I start at the beginning, which is not the wedding. The beginning is years before that.
I tell them about the friends who became, one by one, problems Preston had reasonable-sounding concerns about, until my phone stopped ringing and I told myself I’d simply grown out of people.
I tell them about the photography I put in a box in a closet because he called it cute, and how a grown woman can be talked out of the one thing that’s hers so gently she doesn’t feel the hands doing it.
“He never yelled,” I say. “That’s what you have to understand. There’s no bruise. There’s no screaming match you’d have heard about. He explained me out of my own life so patiently that for six years I thought I was the one who kept getting things wrong.”
My mother’s hand tightens on my knee.
I tell them about the cheating. Not just the hallway on the wedding day—the first time, a year and a half ago, when I found nothing I could prove and asked him anyway, and he sat me down and told me how worried he was about my anxiety, and by the end of the week, I was the one apologizing.
I tell them how he called them that time.
How he framed it as concern. How he took me to Cabo, and I came home grateful.
My father shifts. “Riley, engaged couples go through—”
“I’m not finished.”
He stops. I’ve never said those words to him. I watch them land.
I tell them about the money. That every card I have runs through an account in Preston’s name, that I ran out of that wedding with a dress and one shoe and no way to buy a cup of coffee without him knowing which corner of the city I bought it on.
I watch his face contort with realization.
“You gave me to a man who made sure I couldn’t leave,” I say, not unkindly, because it isn’t an accusation. It’s just true.
Then I tell them the part that still makes my hands shake.
“Forty minutes. That’s how long it took him, after I ran, to put out a statement saying I was unwell. That I’d had a scare. That I needed privacy and understanding for my mental health.”
My voice doesn’t break, which surprises me. “He didn’t call me. He didn’t text me to ask if I was safe. He called a publicist. His first instinct, before he knew if I was alive in a ditch somewhere, was the narrative. That’s the man you want me to smooth things over with.”
My mother makes a small sound like a sob, but I don’t look at her. My eyes stay on my dad. I need him to see the truth.
“And now,” I say, “he’s threatening the person who helped me.
Someone who did nothing but open a car door for a stranger.
Preston went to his workplace and told him, very calmly, that he has friends who decide what stories look like, and that this friend’s whole life could become a different story if I don’t return to him.
That’s what he does. He doesn’t fight you.
He rearranges the world until leaving costs too much. ”
The room is quiet.
I take out my phone.
“I want to show you something…”
I pull up my page. The photographs. The arena shot with the light coming through the glass. The orchids in the greenhouse. The city dropping away from a turnout in the hills.
I turn the screen toward my mother and scroll slowly, and I watch her face as she goes through weeks of my life told in pictures I chose to take.
“I started again. The same thing he called cute. I have a client now. A real one. Someone’s paying for my photography.” My throat goes tight. Tears well up in my eyes.
My mother is crying properly now, and it’s different from the sob at the door. She takes the phone from my hand and holds it close and scrolls back to the beginning to look again, and she whispers, “Riley, these are beautiful.”
My father is quiet in his chair. When I look at him, his eyes are wet too, which I did not expect. My father doesn't cry. My mom has handed the phone to him, and he’s looking at the photographs.
“He always seemed—” He stops. Starts again. “He was good to this family, Riley.”
“He performed being good to this family.”
“People say things in a hard moment. Marriages have hard—”
“Dad.” I keep my voice restrained. “There’s no marriage. I didn’t marry him. I ran before I did, and it’s the smartest thing I’ve done in six years.”
He looks down at his hands. And I see it—the war in him, the part that’s moved by his daughter sitting in front of him, alive and lit up from the inside, fighting the part that still hears Preston’s voice explaining everything logically.
He’s not all the way out of the spell. Maybe he won’t be for a long time. Maybe never.
At this point, I know playing the recording will don'thing to save him. He still doubts me. He’d rather believe Preston than my experiences.
Tears spring to my eyes, but I don’t call him out.
“I'm not coming back to him,” I say. “Not in a month, not in a year, not to make anything easier for anyone. I’m going to build a life where I’m the one who comes first for once. I’d love for you to be in it. But I’m doing it either way.”
I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life than I am at this moment.
My dad stares at my phone screen once more and returns it.
My mom drapes an arm around my shoulders and leans in, resting her head on mine.
“I believe you,” she says.
Three words.
I don’t know how much I needed them until she said them. My father doesn’t say them. But he doesn’t say anything either, and from him, that’s a door left open.
We sit in silence for a while. My mother’s hand stays on my shoulder, like she’s afraid I’ll run again. And then, because she can’t help herself, her face perks up as she asks about Easton.
“And this young man… The one helping you. Is he... good to you?”
I don’t think about it before I respond.
After an hour of choosing every word like my life depended on it, I finally stop guarding my mouth, and the truth just walks out of it.
“He’s sweet,” I say, smiling before I can stop it. “He’s… amazing. He got me a camera. Encouraged me to chase my dreams, and… He looks at me like I’m not a mess to be handled. He never makes me small. He’s the kindest man I’ve—”
I stop.
Because I hear it. The warmth in it. The way I’m singing his praises. It’s not real.
It’s fake—an arrangement with terms we set on his couch.
She’s watching me with an expression that’s gone soft and knowing all at once, and I feel my face go hot, but I don’t correct it. That’s the worst part.
I could say it as it is. He’s just a friend, it’s not like that. He’s only helping me.
But I can’t make myself say it, because it would be a lie, and I’m so tired of lies I’ve been telling myself that I can’t add a fresh one on top of the day I finally told the truth.
“He sounds lovely,” my mother says gently.
“He is,” I admit, quieter, and leave it there.
I hug them both before I go. My father holds on a second longer than he means to.
My mom walks me to the door. By now, Easton is out, resting on the hood.
“Is he the one?” my mom whispers, and I nod, fighting to hide my smile.
She crosses to him without waiting for a response, and I see the way Easton’s smile grows, and I can’t help smiling. My mom hugs him and whispers something to him that I don’t hear before I get there.
“I love you, sweetie, and I’ll be here whenever you’re ready to return home.”
“I love you, Mom.” I hug her one last time.
When we get in the car, my mom waves, and Easton turns on the ignition, and the engine roars to life. He pulls out of the property.
“You okay?”
“They didn’t fully believe me,” I say, sinking into the seat. “My dad still doubts me, and I didn’t bother to play the recording. He’s…” I swallow the lump that’s beginning to form in my throat from the reality. “There’s no point.”
He reaches across and places his free palm on my thigh, squeezing softly. His eyes meet mine for a second before returning to the road.
“My mom…” My voice catches. “My mom heard me. That’s enough for me. For now.”
He links his fingers to mine and raises them to his lips for a kiss.
“Proud of you, sweetheart.”
I nod, unable to say any more words, and he doesn’t press. Silence settles in the car, and I let him drive us home, as I watch the house I grew up in get smaller in the side mirror, and for the first time in six years, I don’t feel like I’m leaving anything behind.
I feel free. And strangely… chosen.
By the man beside me. The one I was never meant to fall for.