Running her hand over my stomach softly, she is silent for a few moments. I’m confused about why she’s telling me all of this. First, I already know everything and second, Vi hates to talk about her dad.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m talking about my father, considering the fact that I normally try to avoid it. Here’s what I now know. I successfully pushed down and hid my feelings about him for years—but that didn’t make the feelings go away. They were still there, lurking. When someone in your family is crazy, it’s natural to be scared about what that means for you. Those thoughts always upset me, so I tried not to think of it too often.
When Dustin started showing signs of depression, it was like a bullet to the heart. He went through so much more hell with Daddy than Daisy and I did, just because he was older. He saw and had to deal with things that no child should ever have to. I prayed every single day that Dustin wouldn’t be affected in the same way that my father was, but none of those prayers were answered. He always felt things differently than anyone else- always was prone to getting upset. I knew he was having the hardest time, and I just prayed that he would listen to his doctors and take the medications that they were giving him. You know how they say wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which one fills up faster? That’s how I feel about Dustin. Wishing didn’t change a damn thing. When he took his own life… seeing him like that, realizing what he had done—I lost it.”
Running my hand over her shoulder, I try to comfort her by telling her the truth. “I knew that it hit you hard, and I understood that. No one should ever have to lose someone they love like that.”
The hitch in her breathing alerts me to the fact that she’s getting worked up, and my heart squeezes painfully as I feel her tears falling onto my chest. This? Right here? This is my hell. Even now, I’d lie down in front of a moving train to keep this woman from crying.
“Baby, you’ve got to stop cryin’. You know this isn’t good for you.”
I barely contain my groan of annoyance to myself. I should probably put my favorite pair of cowboy boots up my own ass at this point. I am such a jackass. Less than twenty-four hours with her back in my life and I’ve been inside of her and am now back to callin’ her baby.
Nodding against my chest, she’s silent for a long moment. Lifting her head, she looks me in the eye. “After everything that happened with Dustin, it was like the floodgates opened for me. I started having panic attacks and I’d cry for no reason at all. I had nightmares, I relived the moment I saw Dustin, I thought about seeing the trail of blood in the bathroom at my old house when Daddy tried to kill himself the first time and Momma sent us back here to live with granddaddy and ma-ma. It was like I couldn’t turn my brain off to those bad thoughts.
Then Daisy left, my mother went nuts blaming my father’s genes, and I felt so lost. I carry my daddy’s genes too. I was scared that what she was saying was true—that crazy runs in my family. I was terrified, Ry, all the damn time. The only time that I felt normal at all was when I was with you. I was the worst girlfriend last year. I felt like I was holding you hostage, forcing you to come to New York City almost every weekend…”
I stop her right there. Putting my fingers under her chin, I stare down at her. “Vi, that’s not true at all. I never thought of it as an obligation and I sure as hell didn’t feel like you were holdin’ me hostage. I wanted to be there with you, needed to be with you just as badly as you needed me there. I know for damn sure that there is no way that I ever gave you the impression that I was annoyed—I wasn’t.”
Nodding her head, she closes her eyes for a moment and takes a few quiet breaths. “I know that, but I was keeping things from you, Ry. Things that I was ashamed of.”
I’m pretty sure that my heart has just stopped beating. She promised me last night that no one else had been inside of her—was she lying? Fuck me, had she been cheating the whole time?
Sitting up, she straddles me and grabs either side of my face with her hands so that I’m forced to look at her. “No, Ryder! Not like that. I have never, not once, wanted someone other than you. You’re my other half, my one true love. What I have with you is magic, the kind of thing that people read about but don’t believe is real. I didn’t leave because I fell out of love—that’s never going to happen. I will love you every single day that I’m on this earth, and even when my time here is done, I plan to spend my eternity with you in heaven. I was, I am and I always will be yours, Ry. No hesitation, no desire for anything or anyone else. How could I want anything else when I have you?”
Liftin’ her up and off of me, I quickly scramble from the bed. Naked and angry, I stand before her and snap, “Then why the fuck did you leave, Violet? You saddled up and got out of here in the middle of the fucking night. Do you know what that fucking felt like? Do you care? You walked out of here like a thief in the night without a word of warning! You might have left the ring and that goddamn Dear John letter, but you took my fucking heart with you. How could you do that to me, to us?”
Her tears are falling so fast now, but she stands her ground and doesn’t crumble. Looking me straight in the eye, she gives me a look that seems like a plea for understanding. “I thought I was sick, Ry. I felt like I was going crazy.”
I can’t immediately think of a response to that, so I simply gape at her for a few seconds. Violet is the least crazy person that I’ve ever known. Finally, I manage to string together some words. “Vi, you’re not fuckin’ crazy—far from it. Why would you think that and why would that make you leave?”
She motions for me to come to her and then pats the bed for me to sit down. When I comply, she sits next to me and holds onto my arm. “When I got home from school, I immediately felt better just being back with you. I loved being out on the ranch and soaking up the sunshine, but I was also constantly waiting for another flair up of my anxiety. It was so bad there those last few months… It was terrible, Ry. When you weren’t there, I woke up every single night in a cold sweat feeling like I couldn’t get enough air. It got so bad that I couldn’t sleep unless you were there. I felt like I was losing it and I was terrified that what was happening to me was what happened to my father and Dustin.”
Clasping my hand, she squeezes tightly. “You can’t know how relieved I was to come home. You’re my safe place, Ry. My home. I felt better, but not one hundred percent, especially when it came to the size of the wedding, and that scared me. Every time I thought of all those people we don’t even know staring at us, I got anxious. I’d always dreamt of our wedding being small and intimate—something just for us, but it blew up to being about Momma, and I didn’t know how to call a halt to that. My grandfather, your grandfather, Daisy and Uncle Zeke were my biggest cheerleaders, and they kept telling me to grab you and take you out under our tree to get married with just them as witnesses. That’s what I wanted, but I was too scared of Momma’s reaction to make that happen.”
Clearing her throat, she stares at me for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. Giving her hand a squeeze, I silently encourage her to go on.
“My Momma had come to town for the wedding and for the first time in forever—for the first time that I can ever remember, actually—she was trying. She opened up and talked to Daisy and me about dad and we shared memories of Dustin. I felt like caving in, and that having the big wedding that she wanted had really made her happy, which made me feel like all the anxiety I felt was worth it after all. Finally, my mother saw the real me—a woman getting married to the man of her dreams—not the stupid girl throwing her life away to live in the sticks that she had made up in her head. After my last dress fitting, she took me to lunch.”
I can see her lip trembling, and my heart beats funny in my chest. Dress fitting day is the last time I saw Violet until yesterday. Whatever happened that day can’t have been good if it made her leave. I’d seen her in the morning before she left, and she’d been fine. By the time she came back, she had a migraine and wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t the firs
t time she’d had a stressed reaction to spending time with Greta, so I didn’t push her. Instead I held her in my arms and told her how much I loved her.
The next morning, she was gone.
Squeezing my hand again Vi continues, “She was being so open, it was like she was a new woman. She reached across the table, took my hand in hers and started to get weepy. She confessed to me that she had never really disapproved of you at all; she’d just been worried that I’d be like my father. When I asked her what that meant, she said…”
She hiccups as her lower lip trembles, and I can see that she is struggling. She takes a few moments to get herself under control before continuing.
“She said that she wouldn’t have married my daddy if she knew that he was going to go crazy, and that she wouldn’t ever want to stand by while that happened to someone else—or, in this case, you. She told me that she loved Dustin, Daisy and me, but that all the love she had for my father disappeared the further he declined into madness. She said what began as love became fear, and that having to watch her children for signs of mental illness made her hate him. She admitted to me that being married to him was a horrible burden and that, if she could turn back time, she wouldn’t have made that decision. Her exact words were that having the man that she loved go crazy was a fate worse than death.”
Shaking my head, I try to figure out where she’s going with this. “Baby, I get why you were upset—your momma had just laid a lot of serious shit on you. What I don’t get is why you didn’t just come home and talk to me about it.”
Standing up from the bed, Vi starts pacing. “I held it together during the rest of lunch, but by the time we left I was hyperventilating. The panic attack slammed into me like a runaway horse and I couldn’t even speak. I was shaking so hard, Ry, I couldn’t even stand up. Momma had to help me into the car, and it was so bad that I thought I was going to die. When it was finally over, Momma was white as a ghost. I tried to explain to her that I had been having panic attacks since Dustin died, but she said that wasn’t what it looked like to her—she told me that watching me like that reminded her of my father.”
Right now, every part of me wants to get into my truck, drive to New York City, and smack Greta on the back of the head. Mind you, I don’t hit women. The fact that I’m havin’ this thought at all is terrible, but Greta has been a damn thorn in my side forever. God love her, I guess she was tryin’ with Vi that day, but obviously she scared the shit out of her.
“So you came home and just decided to run away from life?”
Stopping in front of me, Vi shakes her head. “No. Momma offered me help, and I decided to take it. I was going to come home that day and tell you I was going to check into a facility, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unfair it was to expect you to live through hell with me if I was going to lose my mind. The thought of you ever looking at me the way Momma used to look at my father… it killed me inside. It hurt so bad Ry, to think of you hating me. I thought I knew pain when Daddy died, thought I felt the worst I could ever feel when I saw Dustin hanging there—but the idea of you looking at me with hate instead of love ripped me up inside. I didn’t want you tied down to a crazy person and having your life ruined. I knew you’d stay no matter what, even if staying made you miserable, and I made myself believe that I needed to let you go. It made me ill to think of you with someone else, but it made me sicker to think of you regretting every having married me. I left the ranch and Momma took me to a facility in upstate New York the next day.”
The suspense is killing me. “And?”
Twisting her hands together, Vi sits back down on the bed. “I wasn’t going crazy. Seeing Dustin opened the floodgates to things I’ve been ignoring for my entire life, and everything came rushing out. I kept reliving past moments with my dad, kept thinking about seeing Dustin hanging and I lost it. What I thought was crazy actually wasn’t. According to the doctors, I’ve been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
I’m frustrated as hell with her right now, but even still, her well-being is at the forefront of my mind. “Did the doctors help?”
Nodding her head, Vi grabs my hand and brings it to her cheek. “Yes. I spent the last ninety days in an intensive treatment center for anxiety disorders. They specialize in PTSD. It was painful as hell and there were days when I just wanted to bury my head in the sand or run away, but I stuck it out. I plan to see a therapist every other week for at least the next year, but I feel better—clearer—than I have since I saw Dustin for the last time.”
Rubbing her cheek, I let the feeling of relief that she’s going to be okay wash over me. “I’m glad you’re okay, baby. I’m glad you got help.”
Eyes on mine, she nods and squeezes my hand. “On the days that I wanted to quit, all I thought about was coming home to you. I left so that you wouldn’t be burdened, but once I realized that I was going to be fine as long as I did the work, I fought hard. I needed to come back strong, needed to be the woman that you deserve.”
I gape at her in shock, wondering what the hell she was thinking. She left me because she thought I deserved better? Jumping up from the bed, I glare down at her. “Goddammit Violet! You have always been the woman that I deserve! You thought you were losin’ your mind, so you decided for me that I shouldn’t have to deal with that? If you were to have the same mental problems your daddy or Dustin had, I wouldn’t love you any less. I’m not like your momma, Vi, and it fucking destroys me that you believed I would turn on you. Here all these years I thought you knew and believed in my love for you, but you don’t. When push came to shove, you threw your chips down and crapped out. That fucking destroys me.”
She’s shaking her head frantically, but I can’t take this shit anymore. I need to get away, need to think. Without another word, I walk out on her.
I don’t even pause once I get back into my bedroom. I keep right on walking and head into my shower, turning it on hot as I climb under the spray. Trying to reign in my feelings, I go through the motions of washing myself. As soon as I finish the task, I lose it. Turning my back to the spray of the showerhead, I lean against the wall and let myself go. I’m not a crier by nature, but since Vi left, I’ve cried more times than I can count. It’s fuckin’ depressing, is what it is.
I startle when the shower door opens and Vi walks in, the door closing with a soft snick behind her. I say nothing, but let out a groan when she wraps her arms around my torso and lays her head on my back.
“I hate that I’ve hurt you, Ryder. I’d give anything to be able to take that back, but I can’t. What you said in there was wrong, and what you’re thinking right now is wrong too. It’s not that I didn’t believe in you or your love. I believed one hundred percent that love would make you stay. I knew that, no matter what, you would be there. I was depressed and in shock, and the head space that I was in wasn’t right. I saw myself as a burden, not a life partner. I was so freaked out that I lost faith in myself. I needed help, but I went about it in the wrong way. I let fear dominate me, and by doing that, I let us both down. When I was in therapy and the doctors had me focus on my most positive memories—they were all about you, about us, and the life that we’ve built together. Every minute of every single day of my life since I was fourteen years old, I have been in love with you. You’re my everything, Ryder Jennings.”
I process her words in silence as my tears stop falling. She is silent, that uncanny ability of hers to know what I need seeming to have kicked in. For the first time in three months, my heart doesn’t break for me—it breaks for her. Realizing that she lost faith in herself and then chose to walk away from her own happiness in order to keep from ‘burdening’ me is gut wrenching.
Turning around, I stare down at her. “Vi, even if the worst were to have happened, I would still have chosen, freely, to live out my life with you, come what may. You’re carryin’ around my heart in your hands, and without you, nothing means anything. My heart could no more stop lovin’ you than it could
walk out of my chest and ride a horse. Some things are impossible, and bein’ without you is one of them.”
Her own tears are fallin’ now, but they aren’t sad tears. I can see her relief, mixed with her joy. Lookin’ at her now and seein’ this woman, my woman, happy the way she always should be melts my heart. Violet Hammond is my fuckin’ life, and as long as my heart’s still beatin’, it will be livin’ for her. Life isn’t a fairytale—bad things can happen, mistakes will be made, but—at the end of the day—I will always choose her. There is no question.
I need her to know how that I love her just as much as she loves me, need her to know that I want our future together more than anything in this world. Cupping her face in my hands, I kiss her gently before pulling back and sliding down onto one knee.
“Violet Hammond, will you be my wife? Not because it’s part of my granddaddy’s will and not because I asked before. For no other reason than the fact that I love you more than life itself, I’m askin’ you to share this life with me, no matter what. Good times or bad, I want to walk this road with you to the very end. You hold onto me, I’ll hold onto you, and no matter what, we’ll make it.”
I can see the answer in her eyes even before she drops to her knees and says, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES,” as she wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly.
We hug and kiss for several minutes, long enough for my dick to have turned to steel. Helping her stand, I wash her from head to toe, reverently, as I tell her over and over again how much I love her.
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