“You’re right,” Laila said with alarming self-awareness. “I do care what people think of me. I always have. And I do want those I love to be happy, often at my own expense. But my life is not pitiful. I’m not locked in a cell because I couldn’t stop getting high long enough to take care of my own flesh and blood.” Laila reached in her bag for the picture Sierra had drawn of her mom sprawled across the couch. The one that reflected every horrific moment of Laila’s childhood. “And one day when my daughter draws my picture, it won’t look like this.” She slammed the colored page on the table and shoved it in Brianna direction.
The woman’s stony face faltered when she saw the image Sierra had recreated with startling accuracy. The image of addiction and neglect and heartbreak.
“You’re right, Sierra still loves you. She probably always will. And she will probably always hope and pray that you will one day be strong enough to love her more than yourself.” Twenty-seven years old and Laila still waited for that day with her mom. “Brianna, I didn’t come here to judge you or make myself feel better. I came because I held your little girl while she cried for the woman you once were to her. The woman I really hope you can one day be again.” With more confidence than she’d ever felt in her life, Laila rose to her feet. “Don’t let your time in here go to waste. You can change that image.”
And with that last piece of truth, Laila walked away.
She was still shaking when she reached her car, the adrenaline crash leaving her stomach in a torrential whirlpool. She gripped the steering wheel and closed her eyes, the words she and Brianna had spoken to each other still replaying over and over in her mind.
Beautiful, empty shell.
Had she become that? Had she really lost any sense of who she was or what she wanted? Deep down, did she believe people would reject her if she ever dared to really verbalize her needs?
Heaven forbid that the world doesn’t think you’re perfect, her mom had said.
Katie had warned her, There is no perfect life, Laila.
Even Ben had seen what she refused to acknowledge. I feel like I’m chasing a moving vehicle half the time.
And then there was Chad. The problem was I couldn’t have hated myself more.
All this time, she’d blamed him for his weakness. For not having the strength to walk away from the world they’d both grown up in. But was she any different? When they lost their child, when Katie walked away, when the bills and the hurt spiraled out of control, they both coped the only way they knew how.
He used substances. She used silence.
Was that what Kim meant when she said Laila was like Sierra?
Fumbling with the phone, Laila dismissed the two unheard voicemails and called the one person who would understand.
“Laila, hi!” Kim answered, surprise and affection in her voice. “How are you?”
“I’m okay.” She swallowed, fighting back the tears she didn’t want to shed. “I just left Brianna.”
“How did it go?” Kim asked, slowly processing the information. She’d known Laila planned to visit, but had likely hoped she would change her mind.
“Exactly how you thought it would go, but I gave her Sierra’s picture, and I saw a crack. I don’t know. Maybe it will have an impact.”
Kim’s sigh was loud through the phone. “Maybe. Thanks for telling me.”
“Kim?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you mean when we were at the park? How Sierra connects to me because I remind her of herself?”
Kim paused as if searching for the right explanation. “Well, I suppose it’s that guard you put up. You’re personable and kind, but still very distant, and the minute that wall starts to falter, like at the park, you seem to panic. Sierra chooses to withhold her voice. I don’t know, I guess it feels like you withhold part of yourself too.” The line went silent, but Laila couldn’t find the courage to fill the void. Kim’s words had been too real, too insightful, and ones no one had ever cared enough to say to her.
“Honey, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Kim continued, her voice now ripe with concern.
Laila forced her heart to settle. “No. You’re right. Everything you just said is true.”
“You’ll find a way to heal, Laila. I know you will. I’ve seen it already.”
The strange thing was, she was starting to believe she might. Maybe part of her already had. “Kim, this may not mean much, but I want you to know, if Sierra is like me, then I think you’re doing the right thing with her. You’re loving her every day, and showing her every day that she can trust again.” Laila couldn’t stop the tears this time, especially when she heard Kim’s own sobs. “And as soon as Sierra knows you won’t reject her or abandon her like her mom did, and knows it’s okay to be flawed and still be loved, then she’ll open herself up to you. So don’t give up. Even on the bad days.”
Kim tried several times to speak, but her voice was broken up by her emotion. Finally, she calmed. “Thank you, Laila. I needed that today. I just prayed for strength right before you called, and God graciously answered.”
They spoke for a few more minutes before saying their good-byes.
Laila stared down at the black screen, knowing she needed to listen to Chad’s voicemail. Yet she couldn’t seem to make her fingers move. She closed her eyes and found herself whispering her own prayer for strength and wisdom. Something she’d failed to do since Chad had come home.
She’d been fighting all this time to stay in control. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe it was time to give all of herself to a God who had never rejected or abandoned her.
“Lord, please show me what to do . . .”
CHAPTER 28
Chad stared down at the sand beneath him, his phone weighing in his hand like a knife. He’d tried to call her an hour ago, and when she didn’t answer, he’d left a voicemail asking her to meet him at the beach. He didn’t trust himself to say what needed to be said in their house, with their bed only steps away. He needed to do this, and he needed to do it right.
This spot on the beach had been the first place he’d told Laila he loved her, and today, he would tell her again for the last time.
Closing his eyes, Chad thought of the duffel in the back of the truck, the scribbled note on Cooper’s counter letting him know he’d leave Betsy at the bus station.
Waves broke over the shore while misty drizzle pelted against his cheek. It would still be a couple of hours before the heavier rain pushed in, and he had no intention of staying that long.
He checked over his shoulder, scanning the bridge walkway. She could choose not to come, to ignore his offer to discuss what happened at Joe’s, but he knew she wouldn’t. That wasn’t how Laila functioned. She didn’t try to hurt people. Just the opposite, she spent her life trying to make peace with the most broken of broken souls. Her mom, Katie, him. It was as if she were a magnet for the undesirables of the world.
A shape appeared at the end of the bridge, coming toward him. He stood, not needing to see her face to know it was her. She had a distinct walk, a sexy sway to her hips that she didn’t even recognize. He briefly closed his eyes, already regretting his decision.
When she hit the sand, she removed her flip-flops and navigated the soft, warm beach until they were within speaking distance. Her steps were tentative, her expression solemn, as if she too had lived through a hurricane of emotion today.
“You got my message,” he said when she got close enough.
She’d worn her hair back in a clip, pieces falling around her face in unruly chunks. He ached to run his hand through the strands just one last time.
“I’m glad you called,” she said, tossing her shoes near his. “Last time we talked, it was . . .”
“Bad. I know. I’m sorry I lost control like that.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, not trusting them to stay away from her. “Will you walk with me?” Never did he imagine that he would be the one shoving Laila back into Ben’s arms, but he would never, ever, let
her end up like his mother. “I promise, I’ll behave.”
She silently nodded, as if she knew this moment was a turning point for both of them, and followed him down to the shore. White capped waves rippled together as cold, salty water slid over their toes.
“I’ve thought a lot about what you said at Joe’s.” He stopped walking. “It’s what you’ve been trying to tell me since I came home, but I guess I thought I could change your mind.”
“Honestly, Chad. My head is a little hazy right now. I don’t even know what part you’re referring to.” She turned to face the ocean.
He could see the self-consciousness in the tense line of her shoulders and felt a similar tension in the back of his neck. She seemed lost. Stricken somehow, and it made his stomach clench with knots.
“Laila, are you okay?”
“I went to visit a woman in jail this afternoon,” she said absently, still not looking at him. “She nailed me. In less than ten minutes, she ripped apart all my illusions.”
He wanted to step forward, embrace her, promise to be the partner she’d never truly had. But instead, his feet stayed planted in the sand, waiting.
Finally, she turned, and everything she felt was evident in her face: urgent hope, desperate fear, and the struggle to contain both. “Chad, did I make you feel like a failure? Is that why you hated yourself so much? Because I made you feel like I couldn’t love you if weren’t perfect?”
“What? No.” He shook his head, taken aback. “You did nothing wrong. It was me. Always me who screwed everything up between us.”
“No. It wasn’t just you.” A shadow seemed to cross her face. “When we lost the baby, I thought it was a punishment.”
His heart pounded in his chest, the pain of that time in their life coming back as if they were living it all over again.
“I was scared at first, when I saw those blue lines. I couldn’t help but think I’d made a terrible mess of things, all because I’d forgotten to take a few pills. It just didn’t feel possible.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “We were so young and we had no money.”
“Laila, everyone doubts at first. You can’t really believe your fear caused the miscarriage to happen.”
“Logically, no. But emotionally . . .” She wiped at her cheeks. “Instead of admitting how scared I was for our future, how uncertain I was of being a mother, of caring for a child . . . I just disconnected. And then your mom died, and I knew you were suffering; I knew you were struggling to cope, but still, I couldn’t find my way back to you. After you overdosed, I was so angry, but I never told you. I wanted to hate you. When you needed me most, all I could think was that I wanted to hurt you too . . .” Her voice cracked. “I’m so sorry, Chad.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” He pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder. “There’s nothing to apologize for.” She sobbed like he’d heard her do in the bathroom when she thought he wasn’t home, but never had she allowed him to comfort her this way. He whispered soft caresses in her ear and ran a hand down her back, until her shoulders stopped heaving and his shirt was drenched where her head had been.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” she whispered against his shirt. “We both walked into our marriage broken people. I should never have expected a fairy tale or blamed you when I didn’t get one.”
And with those words, he remembered why he’d called her here. Why, even though this moment felt like a breakthrough, he couldn’t deny her the kind of future she could have without him. “You deserve a fairy tale, Laila. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be with someone you can trust.”
Chad released her, slowly. A small patch of light cut through the thick cloud cover, making her skin glow olive and her hair shine like a beacon for the sun. His eyes met hers steadily. “I told you I wouldn’t lie to you, so here it goes.” He spoke with more certainty than he had since stepping off that bus weeks ago. “I could never live in Fairfield and not be with you. I know this about myself. Just like I know I would do anything to get you to love me again, and that’s not fair to you.”
He needed her to know he wasn’t leaving out of defeat. It was a choice. One made for her.
A larger wave crashed on to the shore, the water rising past their ankles, yet neither of them moved. He looked her in the eyes, saw those shining depths of blue that had loved him for so many years. “I don’t want us to be my parents. My mom was trapped. She loved my father too much to leave him. That relationship eventually destroyed her, and I will not do the same to you.”
“You’re not your father.” Her voice was thick with emotion, but her words only heightened his conviction.
“No, I’m not. And I’m not going be either.” He studied every feature. The tilt of her nose, the pale eyelashes dotted with moisture from the misty air. The slightly parted lips that somehow stayed a perfect shade of pale pink. Ever so slowly, he reached up, pulled the clip holding her hair back, and tossed it on the beach. Blonde strands tumbled over her shoulders and down to her waist.
“I love you,” he said, feeling his chest crush with the statement. “Enough to walk away. I didn’t want to hear it before—you asking me to let you go. To let you have a life free from the scars I inflicted. But I hear you now. And I promise I won’t mess up your life any more than I already have.” He ran his fingers down the soft strands near her cheek. “I called my sponsor, and my room is still open. I’m going back to Atlanta tonight.” Chad let his hand fall away and took two steps back. He could leave knowing that, for once, he’d sacrificed the way a husband should. “You should go to Ben. If he has half a brain, he’ll take you back in a heartbeat. I won’t interfere anymore.”
“What?” Her jaw clenched, and her obvious exasperation confused him.
“Your great new life, Laila. I’m giving it back to you. I’m putting you first.”
She paused for an agonizingly long time and then stepped forward, her body locked tight enough that he wondered if she might slap him again. “You’re not going anywhere, Chad Richardson,” she yelled. “This time I get to be the one who decides.”
Laila could see the bewilderment all over Chad’s expression, and honestly, she felt a little shell-shocked herself. She never spoke like this. Never raised her voice or demanded to be heard. But after years of bottling every emotion, she suddenly felt no capacity to pretend.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she admitted.
He flung his arms out in obvious exasperation. “I kissed you, and you said we can’t go back to what we were.”
“And I meant it.”
“Then what do you want from me?” he pleaded.
Why was it so hard to speak her mind? To admit her needs? Did she even know what they were anymore? “I don’t want you to leave, but I also want things to be different between us.”
His arms dropped, his hands slapping against his thighs as if he had no more fight in him. “I can’t be your friend, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ll never be okay seeing you with someone else.”
“I think the other night proved that would never work.” She chuckled. “You know, I came very close to a catfight with Charity.”
“You’re smiling. Why are you smiling?” His brows rose, and he took a step closer. “What are you telling me here?”
She could see the recognition flash. She wasn’t pushing him away. She wasn’t fighting against the attraction neither of them could deny. And then it finally hit her what had always been missing with the two of them. What she was most sad about losing with Ben.
“I want to date,” she said like an epiphany.
He stopped cold. “Date?”
“Yes. I want us to take it slow. Spend time together having fun without so much pressure and expectation.” Confidence swelled in her chest. Why hadn’t she seen it before? “We never did that stuff, Chad. It was intense, even from the very beginning. All-consuming.”
“That’s just how it is when you love someone.” He took her hand and tugged, but she held strong, not
moving until he truly heard what she was saying.
“It doesn’t have to be. That’s not how Katie is with Asher, and while I never loved Ben, I did see what it was like to be in a healthy relationship.” He dropped her hand when she mentioned Ben, but she grabbed it again. “You and I brought so much baggage into our marriage that we’ve never functioned like a stable couple. I want to try again, but I don’t want to go back to the roller coaster.”
He continued to stare at her with careful consideration. “But you’re willing to try? You’re sure? I’d never want you to feel as though I pushed you into this or manipulated you. I have to know that being with me is what you want.”
“It is.” She slid her hands around his neck and played with the hair at the nape. “Even when the pain was beyond what I could stand, and all I wanted was to forget you and move on . . . I never really did.”
Chad wrapped his arms tight around her, and tucked his head into the space between her neck and shoulder. She could feel his breath through her shirt, his heart erratically beating against her own. “I won’t fail you this time.”
His muffled promise came with a soft kiss to her neck. Then his mouth moved higher, behind her ear. She closed her eyes, and seconds later, they were lying on the sand, kissing furiously while thunder clouds rolled across the sky. She felt lost, consumed, as it grew dark around them.
It had been too long since she felt these sensations, too long since she’d been touched. His hand wove its way under her shirt, and her head fell back, her mind clawing to get out from under the fog of so much desire. But she had to be strong. She couldn’t let them fall back into old patterns.
“Wait. We can’t do this,” she choked out.
“It’s fine. No one is out here.” Chad crawled farther on top of her, his body pressing over hers, so beautifully masculine, so familiar.
Her mind cleared even more. “No, I mean sex. We can’t have sex.”
He stilled as if she’d splashed cold salt water over him, and eased off of her. “Why not? We’re married.”
My Unexpected Hope Page 19