Hold the Forevers

by K. A. Linde

  And then I turned on my heel and fled.

  42

  Wedding Day

  June 15, 2019

  The first step outside was like a cool dip on a hot summer day. I gasped in all the air that my lungs could hold. All the air that I couldn’t breathe inside that stifling church.

  I couldn’t believe I’d done that.

  After all that bullshit about making a choice, I’d still run from them. I had to decide. I had to. I’d thought I already had.

  “Fuck,” I yelled on the hallowed grounds. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

  I was just so angry.

  So angry that I was even standing here.

  What would people say about me fleeing my own wedding? Only minutes from saying our I dos. I knew exactly what Ash’s parents would say. They’d criticize me, as they always had. They’d only put up with me because of Ash. And now?

  Could I even blame them for thinking of me as some covetous bitch who had ruined their lives? The city of Savannah would talk about this moment for years to come. I knew how they’d vilified Josie’s mom. I’d seen the condemnation of other women. I would be just like them. And maybe I’d earned it.

  My indecision had thrown us into this mess in the first place. If I could have put Cole behind me like I’d claimed I had. If I could have kept lying to myself that he didn’t matter. That it would get easier with time. When I knew it had never gotten easier with time.

  Ash was my first love.

  But Cole was the one who had put me back together after Ash shattered my heart into a million little pieces.

  It was impossible to separate them in my head anymore. We’d all hurt each other. Broken promises. Let loose our fury.

  It was why I’d walked away in the first place.

  Then I’d spent a year alone, thinking that it had taught me exactly what I wanted. That what Ash had said that day on Christmas Eve was true. That we’d always end back up right where we’d started.

  But was that the truth?

  Where we’d started was him lying to me about why he’d asked me out and then crushing me completely.

  So, maybe we were there, but the places had been reversed. Because I’d definitely lied when I said I was ready and taking that first step out of that church had surely destroyed him.

  “Lila!”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. That wasn’t the voice I’d expected to hear first out of that church.

  “Lila,” Cole repeated as he stopped behind me. “Before you get mad, please listen to me.”

  “Before I get mad?” I demanded, whirling around to face him. “Before I get mad? You think I’m not already mad?”

  “Yes, I know. I didn’t want to do it this way.”

  I laughed humorlessly. “Doesn’t change how it happened.”

  “It doesn’t. But you can’t marry him, Lila.” He ran a hand back through his hair, which was just a little longer than he normally kept it. It curled at the edges, like it used to do in college under his baseball caps. My heart twinged at the memory. “You’ll be miserable.”

  “Like I am right now?”

  “You’re not miserable. You’re confused.”

  I stomped away, but he followed me.

  “You’re confused because you’ve never had to make this decision. You’ve never had to choose between us. You settled on the first person who threw himself at you. And that person was always Ash. It always was. He was lurking in the corners, like a spider waiting to drop down from his web to snatch you up.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I whipped around. “You weren’t there. You weren’t there to know any of this.”

  “And isn’t that strange, considering I said that I would wait for you?” he said calmly. “I said that I’d wait, and I did. I waited, Lila. Because it was always you and me in the endgame. Always.”

  “You didn’t wait,” I insisted. “You were gone. You took a job to escape me!”

  “You asked for space and time. I gave you space and time. You can’t exactly vilify me for doing exactly what you asked me to do.”

  I closed my eyes against his words. They were exactly what I’d asked for. He’d done it. He’d given me the space to be alone. Ash had been the one to decide when I’d had enough time. When it was time for my isolation to be over.

  Cole pushed forward, as if seeing that he was getting through to me. “Then, you went and got engaged while I was away.”

  “How did you even find out?”

  “Josie called me yesterday.”

  “Oh God,” I whispered, realizing exactly where my bridesmaids had been before the wedding. “Did she know you were going to object?”

  “No. I tried to get back to see you before it started, but there was no time.” He sighed. “But that’s not the point. The point is that you went and got engaged and didn’t even tell me!”

  “That wasn’t planned.”

  “If I’d known all I had to do was propose to get you to change your mind, I wouldn’t have waited.”

  “What?” I squeaked.

  “I’d planned to propose on New Year’s.” He withdrew a box out of his jacket pocket for emphasis. My jaw dropped at the sight of the ring in his hand. “I talked to your mom and everything on Christmas. She gave me her blessing. Then … church.”

  My heart constricted, and I took a step back. “You never said anything.”

  “When would I have?” he demanded. He stuffed the box back away into his pocket. “You wouldn’t see me! You sent me away, had your mom give me my suitcase back, and didn’t talk to me for weeks. At that point, it would have been desperate to show you a ring you clearly didn’t want. So, yeah, I left. I took the job I’d always wanted that put me on the road forty-plus weeks out of the year. Because I couldn’t be in Atlanta without you or at work when I couldn’t see you, and knowing I’d been a week away from making you my fiancée, only to royally fuck it all up, made me want to die.”

  I stilled under those words. I hadn’t known. My mom had never even hinted at it. But of course, he was right. I hadn’t let him talk to me. I didn’t want anything to do with either of them for a year. Not until I endured a year of the worst dates of my life. And by then, Cole had been gone.

  “I didn’t know,” I whispered.

  “I know. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Everything that happened right here at this goddamn church was my fault. Ash might have instigated, but you told me to let it go, and I didn’t. I leaned into it. But I’m not that guy anymore.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “I didn’t just spend the year on the road, Lila. I spent the year trying to deal with all of my anger issues. I went to therapy and anger management. I figured out what the source of the issues were. It’s not gone or anything, but I have much more control over it. I don’t ever want to be the reason that you cry again. I want to be the man you always thought I was.”

  I was stunned into silence.

  Cole had been at therapy? All this time, I’d thought he was avoiding me, trying to escape my ghost. But I’d been so wrong.

  “This was what I wanted to talk to you about in Nashville. I tried to reach you.”

  “I couldn’t,” I said. “I couldn’t talk to you.”

  “Because of him?”

  I looked up at him, meeting those blue eyes. My heart on the line. “I’d made my choice.”

  Cole shook his head. “If it was a choice, then it implies there were two options, but I was gone. That’s not making a choice. That’s settling.”

  The words were like a bucket of water thrown over my head.

  It wasn’t a choice. I still hadn’t made the choice between the two of them. I’d followed along down the easiest path available and never come up for air to question whether it was the right one. I hadn’t wanted to consider it. But all of my panics and fears and worries made sense now. They all fit together like a puzzle I hadn’t known was missing a few pieces before starting.

  “That�
�s a great theory,” Ash said dryly.

  I jumped at the sound of his voice.

  I’d forgotten to anticipate him. Been so engrossed in my confrontation with Cole that I’d forgotten that we were standing on the steps of my wedding. That I had a decision to make.

  “This isn’t about you,” Cole snapped.

  Ash glared at him. For a moment, it looked like he was going to say something in response. But then he turned away from him.

  His gaze found mine. He held his hand out. “Come back inside with me. Let’s finish this. This is how it was always supposed to end.”

  43

  Wedding Day

  June 15, 2019

  I stared down at his outstretched hand and saw my future laid out before me. I’d take his hand, leave Cole behind forever, apologize profusely about the interruption, and say I do. I’d deal with Ash’s parents’ fury for the rest of my life and live happily ever after as the girl who almost ran out of her wedding, effectively becoming the source of town gossip forever.

  “Lila, please,” Ash said, a note of desperation breaking into his voice.

  “I just humiliated you and me and everyone else in that building. How can you want me to come back inside? How can you even look at me?”

  “Because I love you, and I don’t care about any of that other stuff. I don’t care what anyone else says. I’ve loved you since I was seventeen, and I want you to be my wife.”

  Despair welled in my chest.

  He really didn’t care.

  And he never had.

  Not about how his parents felt about me or anyone else’s reactions to our relationship. He just wanted us to be together.

  Even when it was entirely illogical, as it was in this moment, as it had been after Cole and I slept together in New Orleans. I’d never understood how he could compartmentalize his feelings.

  “This is the wedding you’ve always wanted,” Ash continued.

  Cole snorted. “That wedding? With hundreds of people in a giant church? You think that’s what she wants? Have you met her? Did you even ask her?”

  I paled at the question.

  How did Cole know me so well?

  It wasn’t the one that I’d hoped for. It was absolutely the wedding that Ash’s mother had foisted on me. But I’d been happy to concede the points to marry Ash. I hadn’t thought it sounded so terrible until it came out of Cole’s mouth.

  “Of course it is. She planned it,” Ash snapped. “You wouldn’t know anything about that because you’ve been miraculously gone since we started dating. Maybe go back to the hole you crawled out of and leave us alone.”

  “You still haven’t asked her.” Cole crossed his arms. “Lila, is that the wedding you want?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it. Looked between them like a rabbit in a trap. There wasn’t a right answer to that question. It wasn’t that simple.

  Ash shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  I jerked back at that comment. “What doesn’t matter?”

  “Anything that comes out of his mouth,” Ash said, gesturing to Cole. “He’s here to break us up. Just like he always has. We decided long ago to keep him out of our lives.” Ash looked at Cole. “That’s why you’re here, right? To fuck with her head? Make her think that she made the wrong choice? But we both know that she didn’t. It’s me. It’s always been me. You were just in the way.”

  “If you want to tell yourself that,” Cole said with a shrug. “You still haven’t asked her.”

  “I’m not playing your games,” Ash said. He held his hand out again. “Lila, let’s go.”

  “I’m not playing games,” Cole said. “Actually, I’m finally done playing your games. You’ll say whatever you need to say to get her to walk back inside with you. And I already know one thing that you don’t.”

  “What’s that?” Ash snapped.

  “She doesn’t want to.”

  “Cole,” I whispered softly.

  “Tell him, Lila. Tell him the truth. It’s clear you put up with all this shit to appease his parents.”

  “Please don’t,” I said.

  And he did something I’d never seen him do before. He nodded and backed off. Just like that.

  As if Ash weren’t even standing there.

  Like he’d really spent the last year working on himself and putting all of this aside. Of course, he’d probably never get over his anger about Ash, but that didn’t mean he had to act on it. And he’d shown that he could control it when he needed to.

  “I’m not here for him. I’m here for you. Just you, Lila.” Cole turned his back on Ash completely. “You didn’t tell me about all of this for a reason. You knew that I could change your mind.”

  Ash coughed. “Charming. The reason she didn’t tell you is because, like adults, we discussed what to do about you. And we agreed not talking to you was for the better.”

  We had discussed it. I hadn’t wanted to make the same mistakes. It didn’t change the fact that avoiding Cole all this time had been monumentally difficult. And now, it was coming back to bite us all in the ass.

  Cole didn’t even hear him. “If I’m wrong, then take his hand, walk into that church. I’ll never bother you again. If you don’t love me, then I’ve already lost.”

  I stared into Cole’s blue eyes. I heard the sincerity in his voice. The truth of what he’d said. That he’d worked on himself to be better for me. So that we could end up together. I’d never even imagined that he would actually do it. That he cared that much. When we’d last been together, he’d clung to his anger so strongly.

  Now, we were back here on the church grounds with the last decision. The very last decision.

  “Lila,” Ash said, drawing my gaze back to him.

  To the man who, minutes ago, I’d been willing to spend my life with.

  The two men in my life …

  I’d always known that I couldn’t have both. Even when I’d suggested it, I’d known it wasn’t possible. Now, I had to choose one.

  “If you don’t want to walk back in the church, then let’s go to the courthouse. I don’t care how it happens,” Ash said.

  “Your parents do.”

  “What my parents think doesn’t matter,” Ash snapped. “I don’t care about their opinion. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  I blinked at those words. It was an interesting thing to say because it was such a lie.

  “Then why was I forced to go along with everything they wanted for this wedding?”

  Ash clenched his jaw. “You planned the wedding, Lila.”

  “I did within parameters. Do you not even see how much you capitulate to them?”

  “I work for my dad,” he said with a shrug. “I can’t completely ignore their wishes.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, because if they had it their way, we wouldn’t even be here right now.”

  “Don’t you understand?” he said earnestly. “I don’t care. If they bother you that much, then we’ll do it all over without them. It doesn’t matter. Only we do.”

  “I believe that you think that,” I whispered.

  I wanted so desperately to be as blind as I’d been to all of this pain. But my eyes were open. They were wide open.

  Cole had known within moments of stepping into that wedding that this was all a disaster. That it couldn’t possibly be what I wanted. And how come Ash hadn’t seen me floundering through it? How hadn’t I admitted it to myself?

  More than twelve years ago, Ash had hidden me from his parents because he knew how they’d react. And that part of our relationship had never improved since then. Why had I thought that it would all get better? That our married life would be better?

  Now, we were here, arguing a moot point.

  This wasn’t possible.

  There was no coming back from what I’d done.

  There was no coming back from running out of my own wedding.

  “Lila,” he said, reaching for me.

  I stepped back, and he stilled completely.
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  I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and then looked back at him. “I can’t go back inside with you.”

  “Then let’s go somewhere else.”

  “I can’t,” I said, my voice breaking. “I can’t marry you.”

  Ash’s arm fell to his side. His face was stricken. “You … can’t marry me?”

  “I’m sorry, Ash. I’m so sorry.” My hands covered my mouth. I breathed deeply. “I can’t do it.”

  “Because of him?” he demanded, throwing his hand toward Cole. “Because of the bullshit he’s throwing at you?”

  “No. It’s not Cole.”

  “Fuck,” Ash said. “Fuck.”

  “It’s just … he’s not wrong.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  I bit my lip. “This isn’t the wedding I wanted. It’s the wedding your mother wanted. And I know I’m responsible because I didn’t stand up for myself. But … but you didn’t stand up for me either.” Ash’s eyes widened at my words. “And you never have.”

  “I’ve always stood up for you against them.”

  “Then why are we here right now?” I asked as tears came to my eyes. “I wanted fifty people in Forsyth Park. Somehow, I got this. And you didn’t even care.”

  “Then let’s do it over!”

  I shook my head.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “So, you choose him?”

  My gaze shifted to Cole. Steady and earnest and solid. He was right. He was right about all of it. I hadn’t told him for so many reasons. Not to spare his feelings, as I’d tried to lie to myself. But because I had known that he’d change my mind. I had known that we’d been walking toward this path together before it crumbled on these church steps. And that I loved him too much to tell him. I still loved him too damn much.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Cole broke into a smile at the same second Ash broke.

  Ash kicked a loose rock, swore, and then stalked away from the pair of us.

  “Ash, wait,” I said, taking a step toward him.

  But he didn’t wait. He didn’t slow down. He looked ready to put a fist through a wall. Not that I blamed him. Not after what just happened.