Chapter 7 #2
The soft rustle of leaves drew my gaze to the tree line and the darkened abyss, which felt safer to face than the feelings tightening in my chest over the reality of our truth.
“Some stories aren’t meant to have happy endings.”
“Not ours, Lily, not ours.” His gaze silently pleaded for a beat before my silence allowed doubt to creep in. “Unless you no longer share the same dream?”
The pain in his voice was crippling because I knew he’d let me walk away if that were what I chose to do.
But I couldn’t do it.
Not again.
“No. No, I want—” My voice cracked. “I’ve always wanted a forever with you. That feeling, the yearning, desire, it’s never left. I promise you, but—”
“That’s all I needed to hear. For you to give me a shred of hope that we can have another chance to be together.”
“It feels wrong accepting your kindness.”
“When it comes to you, Lils, I don’t know another way to be.”
Jaxon shifted his weight from beside me, lying back briefly, allowing himself to casually swing a leg over my head so he could settle behind me on the swing. His legs framed mine while he wrapped his arms around my waist.
“I need you to know that I would have never left your room that morning if I had known what awaited me once I returned home.”
“I know,” he whispered next to my ear.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you. I know your heart; you always put others’ needs above your own. Your family’s disappearance was why I changed professions despite firefighting being in my blood.”
“Really?” I looked over my shoulder at him as he nodded in affirmation.
“I felt powerless and in the dark. I thought that if I joined the police force, it would give me the resources I needed to help me get answers, and in a roundabout way, my training offered me perspective. It forced me to look back at your life differently, analyze the facts through a different lens.”
“Do you regret your choice?”
“To become a cop over a firefighter? No, not for a single second. I was born to be on the front lines, helping others, thinking on my feet. Policing still gives me that adrenaline, but it also gives me purpose that extends past the job.”
“I can’t imagine Sutton River is exactly a mecca for crime.”
“You’d be right, but we’ve still got our fair share of drama from time to time.”
“So what did you piece together about me?” I asked curiously.
“I started journaling anything and everything I could remember. No fact was insignificant. Details you mentioned, things my parents and brothers remembered. I even interrogated Arizona.”
“What? When?”
“Don’t worry, it was years ago, definitely nothing recent. She never once let on that you were back; Arizona’s a trustworthy friend.”
“She tried so many times to get me to come back here, but just the thought of it was petrifying. I couldn’t shake the fear of how you’d look at me.
What you’d say, or worse, what you wouldn’t.
” And the truth was, I was still fearful, but I had too much respect for Jaxon not to face whatever would come my way head-on.
“Over the years, I’d built a story in my head that you’d hate me once you learned the truth.
Carrying that belief was one thing, but standing in front of you and seeing that hatred in your eyes?
Feeling it? I knew it would break me in ways I wouldn’t survive. ”
“I’m sorry you felt that way.”
“Please don’t apologize, that’s on me. I’m a work in progress.”
“So why New Year’s Eve of all the nights? I know your landlord texted about the emergency repairs needed at your place, but did something else happen?”
Instinctively, my body tensed, and I cursed myself internally, knowing he had to have felt it.
“I know you were in fight-or-flight mode. I recognized the signs.” His words weren’t accusatory; they were honest and spoken out of genuine concern.
“Can we save that story for another day? It’s not something I want to think about right now.”
“Of course, you’re in the driver’s seat here. You set the pace.”
“Thank you.” I leaned my head back on his chest. “What else did you piece together about my family?”
“You were six when your family moved here from London, England. But back then, that wasn’t relevant; we were just little kids, unaware of life’s hardships and challenges.
All my brothers and friends cared about was Nerf guns, building the ultimate Hot Wheels racetrack throughout the house, trading Pokémon cards, or what snack was packed in our lunchbox that we could trade.
” His voice was light and reflective as he listed off memories of his childhood innocence.
“Your mom made the best lunches.” A smile spread across my face at the memory. “Sandwiches cut in the shapes of dinosaurs, strawberries shaped like hearts, star-shaped cheese, and googly eyes making silly faces. I remember trying to do that when I played mommy with my dolls with Ari.”
“You did? How did I not know that?”
“You were off doing boy things just like you said, and playing house wasn’t exactly on that list, plus even if you saw the snacks I made, you wouldn’t have been able to tell because I wasn’t exactly allowed to use a knife, so I just pretended.”
“That’s cute. Life was so simple back then.”
“It sure was,” I echoed.
We slipped into a comfortable silence for a few minutes as we stared into the darkness that blanketed the property. Each of us seemingly lost in our own memories.
“That summer you moved here, my mom overheard you telling Arizona you didn’t like your new last name.
She said Ari was confused and asked you why you had a new one.
You didn’t know, just that you weren’t supposed to talk about it.
My mom was naturally curious but kept that information close to the chest and didn’t say anything.
People have their reasons, she told me later, because as the years went by, she saw nothing amiss. So she thought nothing of it.”
His grasp tightened around me, as if he instinctively was desperate to keep me near.
“It wasn’t until after everything happened that she remembered that detail.
It wasn’t a secret to me, obviously, that your dad was battling his demons our senior year.
I knew you wouldn’t just up and leave me without a word.
” His words lingered in the air, settling over me before he continued.
“I suspected your family might have been in witness protection. It was the only way I could rationalize in my head the way your family disappeared, like poof, like you never even existed.”
“We weren’t,” I said, swallowing the lump that had formed in my throat. “I suppressed a lot of memories from my early childhood. I didn’t even know my real last name wasn’t Bradshaw until a few years ago.”
The B in Bradshaw was why he called me Lily-Bee.
“Really?” I felt his body jerk in surprise behind me.
“Yes, it was quite a shock, let me tell you.”
“So what happened? Why did your family leave?”
I closed my eyes and could still see the image of my father, absolutely livid and unhinged, in the kitchen when I learned the truth all those years later.
It was that night that solidified the end of his reign over me.
Our relationship was over the moment I was on the receiving end of the threats he made while my mother just stood silently behind him.
Since that day, I tried in vain to bury the pain and loss, but was always unsuccessful. His actions bled into every aspect of my life that had taken me off course while the what-ifs ate me alive.
And as I sat on the swing with Jaxon under the midnight sky, lit only by the moon, I prepared myself to explain the why for the first time. I owed him the truth.
We didn’t just leave London. We ran.
Just like we did from here a decade ago.
With the weight of the words pressed against my lips, my heart thumped violently, as if it might burst free from my ribs. “My father was once a well-regarded surgeon back in the UK, not the handyman he pretended to be when we lived here.”
Jaxon ran his hands up and down my arms after an involuntary chill shivered down my spine, but stayed silent, giving me the time to find the words I needed.
“During what should have been a routine operation, he made a reckless decision that cost a patient their life. The hospital launched a formal review, and the patient’s family sued for wrongful death.
The Medical Council investigated and ultimately revoked his medical license.
His career was over, his reputation crucified in the press, and our family received death threats as a result.
Someone even threw a Molotov cocktail through our window. ”
“Jesus. Were any of you hurt?”
“No, thankfully, my dad was in the living room at the time and was able to extinguish the fire quickly before it spread and did any real damage.”
“Thank God.” Jaxon’s arms tightened around me. “Then what happened?”
“Rather than face the fallout, he moved our family here in an effort to avoid being sued in the civil suit that was about to be filed against him. I knew about the fire, but not everything else. My dad missed a lot of my milestones because of his work. He felt guilty and said he and my mom wanted a simpler life, at least that was what they said whenever I asked why I had to say goodbye to my friends.”
“Guess that explains why your dad was able to expertly stitch you up himself without going to the hospital that time when you cut your arm open after crawling through the window of Arizona’s mom’s greenhouse.”
“Yes.” The memory made me smile. “We were in our super-spy era.”
“Oh, I remember.” He kissed the top of my head. “You girls literally thought you were invisible and yet couldn’t have been any more obvious if you tried when you were spying on my brothers and me.”