by Chelle Bliss
I’m numb.
The shock of it all clings to me and shrouds my world in a fuzzy blanket that not even her touch can bring me out of.
“Forgive me,” she says as her hand sweeps across my cheek so softly I’d think it was the wind if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. “Jack. Please? Say something. I know you’re upset with me. I can explain. I can tell you whatever you need to know. Don’t shut me out, Jack. I won’t be able to bear it a second time.”
I blink again and try to find my words, but the only thing I can say is, “Evie.”
“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” she whispers to me with her head buried against my chest, her tears soaking through my T-shirt.
I know Evie, and it had to gut her.
And I wasn’t there to comfort her.
My heartache is so heavy it feels like there’s an eighty-pound weight pressing against my chest. But I’m sure it’s nothing in comparison to what Evie felt six years ago when she lost our baby.
I say the only words I can say. “I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, Evie.”
16
Evie
I gaze up in complete shock. The power of his words and ability to surprise me even after all these years has me reeling.
“You still love me?” I ask, swallowing down the last word because it sounds off in this moment.
For almost six years, I’ve lived with the burden of knowing we had a child and that I lost her. Jack never knew about her. Never got to experience the joy of holding Willow in his arms. It’s my fault, and he’s saying I love you?
“I’ve always loved you,” he says, staring down at me with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Evie. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for our little girl.”
My fingers brush away his tears, and suddenly the heartache is no longer my own, but ours. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry you never got to know her. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“Shh.” His finger covers my lips, and he wraps his arms around me, pulling me tighter against his chest. I melt into him, feeling that I’m no longer alone in the sorrow I’ve contained so deep inside me that it weighs on me every second of every single day.
He lifts me up, taking me with him as he sits in the grass in front of her headstone. The very one I picked out for her when I buried my mother. I carried her urn around Europe with me, showing her everything I could until I made it back home. There’s nowhere else I could leave her except for the very place she began. Ridge Hollow made her possible, and it’s where Jack and I began. I nestle against his chest and stare at her name while he cradles me. For a moment, the burden of the secret finally fades.
Jack strokes my hair, sitting in silence, and I give him the time he needs, allowing him to lead the conversation. I’ve had six years to come to terms with the death of our baby, but he’s only had a few minutes.
“Tell me what happened,” he whispers against my hair.
“I found out I was pregnant two months after I left. We must’ve conceived her the last time we slept together. I didn’t even think about being pregnant when I missed a period. I figured it was from the stress of moving and losing you.” I stop talking for a moment and choke back the tears that are threatening to fall. “I thought you moved on and forgot about me. I didn’t see the need to burden you with the news that you were a father.”
“How could I forget about you? I sent you hundreds of letters.”
I stare up at him, completely confused. “What? No, you didn’t.”
His hands tighten around me. “After you sent me the letter saying goodbye…”
My entire body rocks backward. “I did no such thing.”
“Evie, you did. I’d still have it if I didn’t read it so much that it fell apart.”
“I didn’t send a letter like that, Jack. You just stopped writing.”
“Your fucking father,” he growls. “He did this.” His fingers bite into my skin.
I gasp, the pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place. It’s absolutely something my father would have done. “I’m so sorry.” I apologize, but it’s neither my fault nor Jack’s.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Evie girl. We’re together now. He can’t hurt us anymore.”
“All the years wasted.” Tears are filling my eyes again.
“Tell me about her. Tell me about our Willow.”
I clear my throat and try to pull myself back together, but it’s impossible when thinking about Willow. “She was born on April fifth and weighed five pounds and ten ounces. She was a skinny little thing but long like her daddy.” I smile up at him, and my heart breaks a little more. “She had your dark hair and beautiful full lips, but my shade of blue eyes. She was a perfect mix of the two of us. I named her Willow because we always lay by the willow tree near the lake. I thought it was a perfect name for her.”
He holds me closer and rests his chin on the top of my head. “Tell me more about her.”
I hug him tightly, never wanting to let go of him again. “She was a perfect little baby. She rarely cried and slept through the night at only a few weeks old. I used to dress her up in the prettiest dresses and dance around the room with her and tell her all about her daddy and how much he loved her.”
“You told her about me?”
“I did.” I clutch his shirt in my hands and feel the tears begin to fall against him. “I used to show her pictures of you, and I swear she smiled every time.”
“She loved me,” he whispers.
“She did.”
“What happened to our baby, Evie? What happened to my little girl?”
“When she was almost four months old, I went to check on her one morning, and she was blue. I remember standing over her crib and screaming hysterically. My mother took her from the crib and performed CPR on her for what seemed like an eternity, but she wouldn’t breathe. She was gone, Jack. We couldn’t bring her back. I felt so powerless, and I failed her. I failed you.”
I break down, unable to speak through my tears, completely losing it. Reliving that day is something I rarely do. It’s too painful to think about. Even now, six years later, I can barely do it.
Jack rests his lips against my forehead and begins rocking me. “It’s okay, Evie. There’s nothing you could’ve done, baby. It wasn’t your fault.”
“She died alone, Jack. I wasn’t holding her. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me most.” I cry so hard I lose my breath and can’t make a sound.
“Sweetheart,” Jack says and turns me in his arms, so we’re face-to-face.
He cradles my cheeks in his hands and stares me straight in the eyes. “You did nothing wrong. Do you hear me? She loved you as much as I love you. She wouldn’t want you to be sad.”
I hear his words, but they’re hard to digest.
As her mother, I should’ve protected my child. I’ve felt shame since the day I found her in her crib, her tiny, lifeless body looking so helpless and frail.
I should’ve been there to save her, and I wasn’t.
She died alone without anyone telling her she was loved. I’ve felt like a failure as a mother for so long that I often forget about all the good moments I had with her in such a short amount of time.
Jack’s forgiveness is like hearing the words from Willow. It’s the one thing I’ve wanted since the day I found her. It didn’t matter what my parents said or what Evan tried to tell me. I needed to hear that I wasn’t an asshole from the person who created her tiny life with me.
I needed Jack’s forgiveness.
I needed his words to set me free and relieve the burden on my heart and soul—and to finally feel free to be happy again.
“You don’t hate me?”
He kisses my cheek softly and nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck. “I could never hate you. Not even after I thought you left me behind and forgot about me. I’ve always loved you.”
“I love you,” I tell him back be
cause I’ve never meant anything as much as I mean those words.
It’s always been Jack Nelson.
It’ll always be Jack Nelson.
There’s no one else in the world who makes my heart rejoice from a single touch and my skin tingle at the softest kiss. I never bothered looking for love again after I left and he forgot about me. Who else would love me like him? When you find the one who makes you feel alive, there’s no one else who can ever compare.
“What about your dad?” Jack asks.
“The service is over. No one came.”
“Then can we stay here for a while?”
“We can stay all day, Jack.”
Maybe things do happen for a reason even if we don’t understand them or can’t figure out how one event brings us forward, propelling us toward our destiny.
Willow was our link. But the death of my father, the man who tore our lives apart, was the catalyst that brought Jack back into my life and me into his. I don’t regret the sorrow I’ve had for the last six years. I just wish I’d had Jack with me to help share the burden of losing our child.
I regret not coming back sooner. Not tracking him down and finding out how he could forget about me so easily. I should’ve known my father had something to do with it.
When my father found out I was pregnant, he went off the deep end. It only solidified his opinion that moving us halfway around the world was the right decision. He was so mad I got “knocked up,” as he said, but when Willow was born, the anger faded.
Jack and I sit in the grass, wrapped around each other for hours. We don’t talk much, just hold each other and long for the time we missed.
There are no words that can be spoken to bring her back. No words to utter to take us back in time and give us back the years we lost. We are here. In the now. With only our future before us. But we have each other.
With him, I feel like anything is possible. Maybe I wasn’t destined to be alone. Maybe losing Willow was meant to happen to bring me back to Jack. If she were still alive, I might never have come back to Ridge Hollow. I never would’ve hit my head after Jack chased me through the midway at the festival. I wouldn’t be here in this moment, in his arms, against his body, and filled with so much love that I think I might burst.
“Don’t go, Evie,” Jack says to me when we start to walk toward his truck.
Evan drove back to the rental house on his own. He’s so good to me, and I know he understands I need to spend some time with Jack. All Evan has ever wanted is for me to be happy, and now I feel like I have a chance at finding joy with the man I have always loved.
“I’m right here, Jack.”
“No. Stay in Ridge Hollow…with me.”
“You’re staying?” I’m shocked, but I never thought to ask him. My plan always was to leave and never to be with Jack, but as with most things in life, I need to learn to stop planning and start living.
“I am, and I want to build a life with you.”
“But…”
“No buts. Just say yes,” he says with so much hope in his eyes.
“Yes,” I tell him. There’s nowhere else I would rather be than where we began, with the only man I’ve ever loved.
17
Jack
“Have you heard from Evie?” I’ve been waiting outside government class since the first bell rang so I could catch Renee before class started. Yesterday, I received a letter from Evie I never thought I’d get. I had to read it at least ten times before the words finally sank in. She doesn’t want me anymore. Told me to move on.
“Yeah.” Renee pops her gum and looks down the hallway and waves at someone who I assume is Jess. “She sent me a letter. Haven’t you talked to her?” Her eyes come back to mine as Jess slides in next to her.
They’re pawing each other, and Jess gives me a once-over before the typical macho chin lift. “’Sup?” he asks before nuzzling his face into Renee’s neck.
This used to be Evie and me between classes. Classes felt like they lasted an eternity, but now it’s been weeks since I’ve even laid eyes on her. “I got a letter too. I was just wondering what she said to you and if you thought she was all right.”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Renee is looking at me like I have two heads, while Jess’s face is attached to her neck. There’s a hickey on her collarbone that looks so trashy.
I lean back against the lockers and try not to push them apart. They’re on the verge of making me gag, but I guess this is exactly how Evie and I made people feel. “I don’t know. You’re her best friend. Just wanted to see if she told you anything I should know.”
“She’s made a lot of new friends and seems to be happy.”
Renee’s words are like an ice pick stabbing into my chest. “That’s good,” I lie to her and start to wonder if I’ve been replaced. The warning bell blares through the halls, and we have thirty seconds to get our asses in the seats. I’m sick of watching Renee and Jess making out, and I push off the lockers, walking around them and into the classroom.
The teacher starts talking about checks and balances, and I’m zoned out until a note lands on my textbook. I unfold it slowly, trying to be as quick as possible. I glance over at Renee who’s tapping her pencil against her open notebook with her head propped on her hand.
The note says, “What did she say to you?”
I debate about being truthful and clueing her in or keeping it to myself, but I decide to give as little away as I can. “She just sounded weird. I’m worried about her.” Carefully, I fold it back into the tiny square and toss it across the aisle just as Mr. Spencer turns his back.
Renee’s eyes move with each word and so does her mouth. She can’t read anything without sounding out the words. How she got to twelfth grade is beyond me. She starts to write, with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. She smiles for a second before folding it back up and hurling it across the row like a quarterback.
I catch it before it careens into Nancy Wagner’s head in front of me. When Mr. Spencer glances over his shoulder, I still and pretend to be paying attention like the rest of the class. His eyes roam around the room before he turns back around and continues to draw the Venn diagram of the three branches of government.
“She seemed really happy. She just kept talking about all the new people she met. She said she didn’t miss Ridge Hollow at all. But don’t worry, Jack, I’m sure she still loves you.”
I crumple up the piece of paper and drop it on the floor under my desk. It hurts too much to hear about her new friends after the letter she sent me. I can’t deal with the thought of never having Evie again, and talking to Renee is only making things worse.
“Jack, this doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Evie says, trying to pull me away from the Rusty Nail with every step. “We were kids. Renee should’ve told you that I was trying to get in contact with you, but she was a selfish asshole.”
I turn to face her, and she almost walks into me. “I’ve thought about nothing else except punching Jess’s lights out since the moment I found out they lied to me. Can you understand that?”
She peers up at me and strokes the top of my hand with her thumb. “Well, sometimes it’s best to let things go.”
“Let go?” I hear the harshness in my voice and take a deep breath. My anger isn’t directed at her but at the two assholes I know are inside the bar right now. Evie and I have avoided them for the last month since we’d recommitted to each other. “They took away the last six years of our lives, Evie.”
I’ve never been the type to let shit slide off my back. The last thing I’m going to do is pretend that Renee and Jess did nothing wrong. They’re vile people and never liked Evie and me together. As soon as they had a chance, they did everything in