Half-Truths

by Randileigh Kennedy

  “You have no idea how thankful I am that my shorts stayed on this time,” Sawyer said excitedly as we surfaced. “I never would’ve found them in water this deep.”

  “I would’ve loved that walk back up the trail to the car.” I smiled.

  “More important, we should be thankful we’re not paralyzed. That was a much bigger drop than I expected.”

  “You sound like a doctor,” I teased as we swam toward the shoreline.

  “You’re welcome for caring about our safety,” he shot back playfully. “I may have researched it first just to make sure the water was deep enough. I’m not just leaping out of the sky without some Googling first.”

  “That may be the second most eloquent thing you’ve ever said.” I laughed. As we made it to shallower water where we could touch, he wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me into him.

  “At least you’re still listening to me talk,” he said softly in a somewhat serious tone. “I really am sorry, Whit. For all of it. I know it’s not the way things should’ve started for us. In every love story you’ve ever heard, there’s one beginning, and I ruined that for us. I know that. But the ending is the best part, right? That’s what makes the beginning and middle worth it. So let me make our story worth it to you, Whit. I promise you an ending worthy of everything I’ve put you through.”

  Sawyer pressed his lips against mine, and I believed his words. This story—our—story was the love story I’d written about endlessly in my notebooks. It was imperfect and had flaws, just like me. It was real and not necessarily beautiful all the time, but the emotion and effort behind it made it radiate as if it were the only love story worthy of being told.

  “I’m not a perfect man, Whit,” he said quietly. “I have sins to forgive and hurt to let go of and a part of my life to deal with that I can’t just wish away on a stupid birthday cake. But with you, I’m not afraid of those things anymore. I want to give you the best version of myself. I will fight every day for that, if you’ll still have me.”

  “You already carried me up a mountain, Sawyer,” I reminded him. “And it appears, since neither of us has shoes, you’ll be doing it again. I’m pretty sure you were right back then. You’ve essentially already claimed me.” He kissed me again, and I could feel his lips turn up into a smile.

  “We really don’t have any shoes,” he reiterated with a chuckle. “Shit.”

  “This sand is pretty rocky,” I mused as he led me out of the water. “It gets worse up the trail. It’s not going to be an easy one.”

  “Maybe we can wait for someone to come down and bring our shoes to us?” he suggested as optimistically as my mother would have.

  “It has to be past six o’clock. No one else is coming down here this late in the day.”

  “So we’ll stay the night. We’ll sleep under the stars.”

  “Every once in a while that answer doesn’t work, you know. We’re soaking wet with no towels and no change of clothes,” I said playfully. “We’ll freeze. Plus, I have somewhere to be, remember?”

  He ran his fingers through his wet hair, trying to come up with another solution. I threw my arms up in the air dramatically, waiting on his plan.

  “I’m throwing you on my back, aren’t I?” He grinned.

  “Yep,” I confirmed quickly. He bent down, and within seconds we were making our way up the path with me full-on piggybacking him. My wet sundress clung to my body and soaked his skin as we walked. We laughed along the way and reminisced about the last time he carried me up the trail. It seemed easier on him then, but of course he had shoes on that time. We finally made it to the rock structure, and he set me down to get his shoes on. Before I could slip my feet into mine, he scooped me up in his arms and started walking again.

  “I can make it the rest of the way.” I laughed, holding on to my shoes.

  “But why should you have to?” He winked. He carried me the rest of the way, and within minutes we were back in the parking lot. He laid out towels on the seat of the ugly rental car, and we started the drive to my house.

  “It’s no Jeep, I know,” he explained as we drove. “They were out of the cool cars. They had only a few vehicles left in the lot, and sadly this was the best one. The radio works, at least, so it’s not a total failure.”

  He switched it on and hit the seek button to find a station. After some static it stopped on a country station. It took me less than three seconds to recognize the song.

  I screamed.

  Chapter 23

  “Whoa, what’s going on?” he asked, a little freaked out by my reaction. “Do you want me to pull over?”

  I turned up the music and felt like I was going to explode. “This is one of my songs!” I squealed. This was officially the moment I’d been waiting for the last three years of my life. I sang along to it, and Sawyer watched me from the driver’s seat with a giant grin on his face.

  The song ended, and my entire body was shaking with excitement. “I can’t believe it finally happened!” I explained that a new artist named Rick Hudson had picked it up, and I’d instantly loved his musical arrangement for it. The process to get it released had been nerve-racking. I couldn’t believe I was finally hearing my words on the radio. It had been released online and was picking up some good activity, but this moment meant something else entirely to me.

  Sawyer’s face lit up, and I could tell he was genuinely excited for me. “So here it is. You’ve finally made it.”

  “I kind of did,” I replied with a scrunched-up, giddy face. I couldn’t contain my happiness. “I think this is what greatness feels like.” I clasped my hands together, fairly certain if I didn’t attach them together I would hit myself with them. I’d never been this excited about anything my entire life.

  “I don’t know—you kind of look the same to me,” he said playfully. “You’re all glowy and stuff, sure. But I’ve seen that before.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. That first night in the park when you told me about your family and what they meant to you, and later in the blanket fort when I realized what I meant to you. And of course every time I see you sitting on the dock at the cabin in the sunshine, writing in one of your notebooks . . . Your dad was right, you know. He said when you feel joy, when you love something, you absolutely radiate. You’ve had greatness in you all along, Whit. I see it all the time in you. This is just one more thing.”

  I loved the way he made me feel. He was never dismissive about how hard I was on myself but also wasn’t afraid to be forthcoming about how differently he saw me. We pulled into my driveway, and he reached over and squeezed my hand.

  “Go tell them.” He nodded toward my house.

  I flung open the car door and rushed in, wet dress and all.

  “I just heard one of my songs on the radio!” I squealed as soon as I entered. Warren, my mother, and my grandmas were all sitting in the living room.

  “That’s wonderful, dear. Why is your dress wet?” my mom questioned.

  “Mom, did you hear what I said? Who cares about the dress?”

  “That’s amazing,” she replied, still staring at my clothes. “But did you fall in the lake or something? How are your clothes wet?”

  “Maybe it’s raining,” my grandma Sally chimed in.

  “No, it’s not raining,” I said and sighed in frustration.

  “Windows down in the car wash again?” Warren suggested with a sarcastic tone.

  “I jumped in the lake. Big deal. The dress is not important,” I reiterated, trying to get them to focus. “My song, one that I wrote, was on the radio just now. This is the most exciting moment of my whole life. Will someone just be excited?”

  “I used to love one of the nighttime programs on the radio,” my grandma Sarah added. “Paul and I used to listen to it every night when you kids were younger. Do you remember that?” she asked my mother.

  “You guys are impossible,” I said, discouraged.

  “We’re just giving you a hard time, Whit.” W
arren laughed. “I already heard it yesterday. Mom made you a cake, but we weren’t going to show you until later.”

  “You guys are the worst,” I protested, throwing my hands in the air.

  “We are so proud of you, darling,” my mom added, standing up to hug me, wet dress and all. “Go get yourself changed, and we’ll have some cake before we leave.”

  I quickly threw on some jeans and a light sweatshirt, expecting to be cool tonight while waiting around the hospital and the transplant center. I packed my bag with an extra pair of clothes for the following day, unsure of how the next two days of my life would unfold. When I reemerged into the living room, Sawyer was talking to Warren. I smiled at the sight of them together, enjoying conversation. I passed them and went into the kitchen to talk to my mom alone for a minute.

  “Would it be weird if Sawyer came with us tonight?” I asked sincerely, unsure how she would feel about it. He obviously meant a great deal to me, but my family hadn’t spent much time around him yet. This was a big, personal, emotional experience, for sure, but all the more reason I wanted him to be with me through it. If things went well, as we all hoped and prayed they would, I wanted to have Sawyer next to me to share in that celebration. Of course if things didn’t go as planned, that would crush me, but I’d realized over the past couple of months just how much I needed him there for those moments too.

  “If he’s important to you, Whit, he’s more than welcome to join us,” she replied with a warm smile. “You know that. We welcome everyone.”

  I reached out and hugged her. That was just one of the many things I loved about my family. They were so accepting and full of love, even toward virtual strangers. I knew he was important to me; we’d been through so much recently, both good and bad. I realized even in the worst of it, I so badly preferred him by my side versus the idea of getting through the chaos on my own.

  Warren and Sawyer made their way into the kitchen with my grandmas, and my mom pulled out the cake. It was a very kind gesture, and even though it felt a bit awkward to be put on the spot, I was thankful for it nonetheless. We joined hands around the dining room table, and my mom said grace like she had a million times before. We ate cake and shared joyful stories and carried on for a half hour like there was some simplicity left in the world. As the clock moved, however, we were reminded with each passing minute that we had so much more to face in the next twenty-four hours.

  We eventually prepared to leave, electing to take two cars so we’d have some transportation options to and from, depending on how long my father was at the transplant center. As we neared the hospital, Sawyer squeezed my hand in the backseat, and I was grateful that he was able to join us for this journey.

  We made it up to his hospital room, a different one this time around, and everything looked clean and orderly. There were no suitcases or bags strewn about; this wasn’t his final destination. A team of doctors waited to load him for transport to the transplant center over the border in California, and nurses were holding charts and chatting among themselves about the plan for the night.

  Sawyer patiently waited for me outside the room as I leaned over my dad’s hospital bed, thankful to see he was alert. They allowed him to remove his oxygen mask for our brief visits, but cautioned each of us that we had only a minute or two before they would have to move him along.

  “I made you come back for me,” he said softly. His breaths seemed labored, and although he looked mostly the same, he had exhaustion in his eyes.

  “I will always come back when it matters,” I said through my tears.

  “No more crying. You’ve done enough of that,” he said warmly. “This is going to go only one of two ways. This transplant will be successful, these tears will be wasted on me, and we’ll be laughing together again in no time. That’s what I’m banking on. Or, like I told you before, if it fails and that’s it, I have had the most amazing life. You talked about greatness before, and I’m telling you, Whit—having people around you to love is the only way you’ll ever achieve greatness. That’s a hard truth, which means I’ve lived as great a life as anyone ever has. I get the sadness. It’s uncontrollable, I know that. But it’s all temporary. In no time you’ll be able to look up at the stars, the same ones we stared at in the backyard when you were growing up, and you’ll still know there is so much greatness and love left in the world, whether I’m physically present to remind you of that or not. People experience heartbreak and internalize it to mean they should stop loving so big, but it’s the opposite, my dear girl. When your heart hurts, you love more, and it heals you and cures the sadness. So love big. Find laughter and joy, and eat ice cream for breakfast for no good reason, simply because you are still a participant in this crazy thing called life. Come to terms with the fact that it doesn’t always make sense and doesn’t always feel fair. Love anyway. That’s all I want you to be absolutely certain of.”

  The tears streamed down my face. I had little to say back to him. His words would forever ring in my head, no matter what happened after tonight.

  “I love you, Dad,” I whispered, squeezing his hand. “I’ll see you soon.” My words were simple but completely true in this moment. Whether I saw him again after the surgery, smiling with a new heart that worked and loved as big as the one he was born with, or whether I would find him in some other way, up in the quietness and solitude of a clear night sky, those simple words—I’ll see you soon—were as true as any I would say tonight.

  ***

  One Year Later

  “I feel nervous,” I whispered to Brie as soft music played in the background.

  “All you’ve been through in the past year and this one single day makes you nervous?” she said in a mocking tone. “You’ve had three hit songs. You’ve been going to award shows and charity events and swanky parties, hanging out with celebrities . . . All these big events you’ve been a part of and this is what finally makes you nervous?”

  “Everyone will be staring at me.” I shrugged. “It’s uncomfortable.”

  “It’s not like you’re going on stage at the Coliseum,” she teased. “It’s a small venue, Whit, with an even smaller yet very agreeable crowd. You’ve got this.” The volume on the music increased, and Brie quickly turned and left me. A moment later, a very handsome man in a tuxedo opened the door, holding out his arm for me.

  “You look absolutely beautiful,” he said with heavy emotion in his voice.

  “Thanks, Daddy,” I replied, trying to hold back my tears. I gently lifted up the train on my wedding dress, hopeful it wouldn’t get caught on anything before we made it through the main doors.

  “You remind me of an old picture I have of you. It’s my favorite one. You’re real little, maybe two or three, wearing a white dress walking down the sidewalk. You looked just as much like an angel then as you do now,” he stated sincerely. Of course I remembered the picture. It was the same one he’d spoken of the night I thought I was letting him go.

  The music intensified, and I looked down the long aisle that stretched out in front of me. At the end of the white linen I could see Sawyer staring back at me. He didn’t look nervous at all. The joy on his face radiated through him, and I didn’t feel scared anymore. He smiled at me, and I knew that was it—greatness. I’d tried so hard to achieve it on my own, but I never quite hit the mark. Not until I had someone by my side through my very worst.

  Sawyer was right when he said the ending would be the best part of our love story. Maybe it didn’t start off perfectly, and we certainly had a lot to learn about each other along the way, but the way we came through it all together—he was right that it was all worth it.

  No one is promised a given number of days with which to love one another and find adventure and forgiveness and everything in between. It’s all greatness and tragedy and joy and heartache all intermixed, and we have little control over many of the cards we’re dealt. But having someone through it all, whether it’s simply a set of arms to hold you through your tears or someone who w
ill build you a fortress to tuck you away from it all for even a brief moment—that’s the stuff that actually matters when it’s all over.

  My father was right. Life doesn’t always make sense, and it doesn’t always feel fair, but choose love anyway. In the end, that’s the only whole truth that matters.

  THE END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Randileigh Kennedy grew up in Nevada and now resides in the Midwest. When she isn’t writing, she stays busy planning random theme parties and working on crafty DIY projects, which are featured on her blog at www.randileighkennedy.com. You can even find her (er, Whitley’s) songs posted there as well if you’re a music lover—although as you may have guessed from this story, they are merely “half songs” (only lyrics), but you probably expected that, right? :)

  You can also follow her on social media (Facebook: Randileigh Kennedy; Twitter: @randileighk), but expect more pictures of her mini pig Kevin Bacon than you’ll see of her human children and insanely handsome husband.

  If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on Amazon.com. Your feedback helps tremendously.

  Be sure to check out other books from Randileigh, including Ten Seconds of Crazy, The Falling Kind, and the Six Series, all available at Amazon.com. For more information, visit Randileigh’s Amazon author page at www.amazon.com/-/e/BooJHoFMQQ.