Chapter 45
The morning sun soaks in through the thin curtains and reflects off the mirror over the dresser.
Light refracts all over the room, catching every little metallic thing in the four walls and illuminates them.
A breeze drifts in from the open window where a mourning dove coos.
I peer over at my bridesmaid dress which is a piled heap on the floor, then gaze around the room.
It’s empty. Like the bed.
My heart aches for Winnie. How will I ever survive her staying with Ethan? How can I spare a moment with her for his sake, when I can hardly stand when she spends a single night away from me?
I roll over and let out a sigh from deep in my lungs.
Then I hear it. The humming. The crackle of country music.
The smell of bacon and coffee. The smell of home.
I sit up and grab one of his flannels and follow the sound.
The creaking floors and stairs must not give me away because he stands at the stove in a pair of boxers with a towel over his bare shoulder.
My heart picks up to its usual pace whenever we’re in the same room.
I settle into every inch of this moment.
The softly billowing curtains, the splattering grease in the cast iron pan, the way his muscles pull across his tanned back as he goes between pouring two cups of coffee and the stove.
I cling to it, not because I’m afraid of losing it, this time, but because I want to remind myself that I get to stay.
I step closer and spot the little pinkish spot on his shoulder that I left last night. One that is already bruising.
“Good morning,” I say as I wrap my arms around Tanner’s torso.
His body instantly eases as I kiss his back and then press my cheek against his warm skin.
“I was going to bring you this in bed,” he says.
“That would have been a mess.” I laugh and let him turn to face me.
“You’re such a mom.”
“Ha ha.” I roll my eyes as he presses his lips into my forehead. We rock there for a moment.
“There’s always next month.” His presses his lips against mine then turns back to the stove. “Two eggs or three?”
“Three. Please.”
He plucks the eggs from the little metal basket placed on the counter next to him and cracks them next to the bacon.
Last night, after getting my bag and shoes, and spotting Sebastian approaching a lonely looking Gwen at the head table, I found myself running down the moonlit gravel road toward that damn green truck.
I expected Tanner to have been in the driver’s seat, ready to leave.
But instead, he was standing, back leaned against the passenger side, watching me catch my breath there in the middle of the road under the dim streetlight.
His arms were crossed, his dress shirt was unbuttoned with his tie hanging undone on his shoulders. My chest heaved with heavy breaths as the music back at the reception faded to just a low thumping thud of a beat that matched my heart.
“What if I stay.” Though, it was phrased like a question, it didn’t come out that way. “What if I stay and you change your mind. Tanner, you’re my best friend. I can’t lose you, but I feel like maybe I already did. And I think it’s actually killing me.”
He stood there, solidly against the car door.
Unmoving. “Hannah, I should have kept fighting. I had been fighting for two years, but I thought you had made your decision. I thought you changed your mind and I wanted to respect your decision even if I hated it.” He pushed off the truck and met me in the center of the road.
“If you want to go to the courthouse first thing Monday morning, I’m in.
If you want to wait a couple years, I’m still in. ”
“Did you talk to my dad?” I teased, but he didn’t smile.
“I asked him if I could marry you in that high school auditorium right after I saw you at Winnie’s recital. I actually asked your mom and sister and Rhett too. The only person I haven’t asked yet is Winnie. But Hannah, if you’ll have me, she’s my next phone call.”
If there is one thing I realized in that moment, it was that him standing two feet away from me was way too far away and anything further would be unbearable.
So, I let myself believe what he’s been showing me for months.
Years. And I let my heart take his words with what weight they held and stopped letting the whispers of my past tell me they weren’t true and that I didn’t deserve them.
Tanner loves in actions, and touches, and in home cooked meals.
Tanner loves in helping me out of chairs and helping Winnie into hers.
He loves in an offered hand when Winnie climbs the fence, and when I am alone at a party.
He loves in planting seeds and watering them and showing up for them, again and again and again.
Even when you aren’t sure they will ever bloom.
Especially, when you aren’t sure you’ll ever bloom.
Now we’re sitting at his kitchen table, drinking coffee, and eating breakfast. Winnie and my parents are coming by later so they can meet the animals and so I can tell Winnie that we are going to move to Green Branch and make this our home.
If I want to teach her anything, I want her to know that it’s not always the ground under your feet you call home, sometimes the people are the place you call home, too.