by Aly Martinez
I’d lied. Twice. That was the moment my heart stopped.
Oh. My. God.
“What?” I croaked, throwing a hand up to cover my mouth as I stumbled back a step, the guardrail breaking my fall.
“Shit. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought up the kids.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t at all why I was upset. “Your son had a heart transplant?” I choked out behind my hand.
He twisted his lips. “Well, not yet.”
“Why not!” I yelled, my chest aching at yet another tragedy Porter and I had in common.
His eyes narrowed. “He’s only been on the list for about six weeks. It’s why I’ve been so frantic to keep him well over the last few months. If he’s sick when that call comes in with a donor, we’re screwed.”
“Oh God. His pulmonary issues are because of his heart?”
“Shit,” Porter muttered, and then he pulled me into his arms. “Christ, Charlotte. It’s okay. He’s okay. He’s been doing better thanks to Dr. Whitehall. She even had the head of pediatric cardiology at TCH do a phone consult with our cardiologist last week.”
My chest felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. God, Porter had truly lived through hell. I still remembered that day at the doctor’s office when Lucas had been diagnosed. It had been the most painful moment of my life—at that point anyway.
I clung to his shoulders as if I could transfer my sympathies through body heat alone. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I—”
Using my arms, he shifted me away from his so he could see my face. “Sweetheart. He’s okay. My boy’s a fighter. He’ll get through this.”
“But what if—” I started, but that’s as far as I got.
“No. Don’t even think about it. I spend a lot of time in the darkness, but Travis’s health is not allowed there. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to get that transplant and live to be an old man. That is the only option. Therefore, it will be the only result. You got me?”
Just like with Lucas, I knew too much to believe that. But, if Porter wanted to pretend, I wouldn’t be the one to ruin that for him.
I nodded. “You’re right. He’s going to be fine.”
“Good. Now, we have other things to talk about,” Porter said, tucking hair behind my ear.
“What?” I whispered.
He swept his thumbs under my eyes. “You’re crying.”
I sniffled. “Crap. Sorry. This is your nervous breakdown, not mine.”
He grinned and repeated, “My nervous breakdown?”
I swung my hand out to the side. “We’re at the bridge. You’re going for a swim in the gross water. You think you’ve been dirty for three years.”
He chuckled and dipped his lips to my forehead. “I can pause my nervous breakdown. It’s been a terrible day and you haven’t cried at all, and then you find out my kid needs a new ticker and you burst into tears. Anything you want to talk about?” He paused. “Besides the obvious.”
I cut my gaze off to the side in time to see another car had breezed past us. “Besides the obvious? Nope.”
“Right,” he whispered. “We still pretending?”
I gave him my eyes back as they welled with tears all over again. Shit. “I—uh…”
He kissed my nose and didn’t make me finish. “Okay, then. Let’s get back to my nervous breakdown.”
I swallowed hard. “Wait. You aren’t really having a nervous breakdown, are you?”
His shoulders shook as he chuckled. “No.”
“Okay. Then yes, let’s get back to that.”
Leaning forward, he whispered, “I’m ready to let go. That guilt has been devouring me for too long. I did the best I could that day, Charlotte. Was it perfect? Fuck no. But I can’t change it. The old Porter Reese is somewhere at the bottom of that river. I’m ready to get him back.”
Motion at the ground drew my attention to his feet. He was stepping out of his shoes.
“I’m not sure you have to swim in the—Porter!” I yelled as he suddenly took off running down the rocky embankment.
He didn’t dive in, but he didn’t slow as he waded into the murky water. And then, all at once, he disappeared under the surface.
“Shit,” I muttered, toeing my shoes off just in case I had to rush in on a rescue mission, all the while scanning the area for alligators.
Less than a second later, his head reemerged, his voice echoing as he boomed, “Holy fuck, this is cold!” But he was smiling. Huge and completely unlike anything I’d ever seen him wear before, and that was odd because, when we were together, Porter smiled a lot—we both did.
But this smile, it was beautiful. It actually hurt to look at because it was so fucking genuine that it made me jealous. I didn’t have a nasty river to dive into in order to symbolically reclaim my life.
All I had was a son who was missing…
“Oh God,” I breathed. My mouth began to water as my stomach rolled.
My knees shook, and I literally could not force my lungs to fill with air.
I was bone dry and drowning on the banks of a river.
It was a somewhat out-of-body experience as I watched him climbing back up that embankment, his jeans leaving a trail of water across the dry rocks and dirt, his shirt clinging to his strong arms and his chest. His smile never faltering until he stopped in front of me.
Extending his hand, he said, “Hi. I’m Porter Reese.”
And that was when I fell, a strangled cry escaping my mouth. “He’s dead.”
* * *
The sound of her cry tore through me, slaying me as my mind struggled to process her words. I dove forward, catching her before her knees hit the ground.
“He’s dead. My baby’s gone,” she sobbed, reality slashing her with every syllable.
Water poured from my sopping-wet clothing as I held her tight against my chest, wishing I could do more.
Clearly, Charlotte was done pretending.
“I know,” I whispered, pressing my lips to her temple.
“This was supposed to be easier,” she cried, her hand shoving at my shoulder. “This was what I wanted. It’s not supposed to hurt like this.”
“I know, sweetheart.” I kissed her again, staring without seeing over her head as cars rushed by. The world still moved even as I desperately tried to stop it for her.
Her body bucked with sobs. “It’s been ten years, Porter. It shouldn’t hurt this badly. I should be relieved. I should be grateful that he hasn’t been suffering for all these years. I should…”
And that was when I broke every rule we had ever created.
The rules weren’t helping her.
They weren’t helping me.
They weren’t helping us.
The darkness was still the loneliest place on Earth, no matter how much company you had. Charlotte and I had been kidding ourselves. We didn’t share the darkness.
Together, we lived in the blinding light of day. It was an ugly, desolate place where horrible things happened to good people.
But love grew there.
I had known that first moment I’d seen Charlotte Mills.
And there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t do to hold on to that.
Even if that meant facing the jagged blade of reality.
I unwrapped my arms and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a gentle shake just to be sure I had her attention. “Stop saying how you should feel. There is no right way to feel when you find out your child is gone. I don’t care if it’s been ten seconds or ten years. You are allowed to feel. You’re allowed to hurt. Hell, Charlotte, maybe that’s the key. Pretending won’t change anything. The truth will always be waiting for you. You’ve got to let it hurt, sweetheart. Let that pain in. Let it light you on fire. Let it take you to your knees. Let the avalanche overtake you. Let it break every bone in your body until you think nothing is left.” I paused and lowered my voice. “And then let it go.”
“He was my son. I can’t let him go.”
“
No. You are absolutely right. But you can let go of the guilt from that day. Look, I can’t stand here and tell you that you have nothing to feel guilty about any more than I can look in the mirror and tell myself that same thing. But I can tell you that you have to let that shit go. It’s killing you, Charlotte. It’s going to be the most painful thing you have ever experienced. But you can let it go. And you have to. Because that is the only way you can move on.”
“I don’t want to move on!” she screamed, her whole body tense.
I made my voice soft and tipped my head down to rest my forehead on hers. “Yes, you do. I see it in your eyes every time you look at me. Every time you laugh at my stupid jokes. Every time you ask me that one single, solitary question about my kids. But just because I have a fucked-up past too does not mean I’m your ticket out of hell. You have to find that within yourself.”
She laughed without humor and stepped out of my reach, tears pouring down her face. “There is no ticket out of this kind of hell, Porter. And if you think that little dip in the river was anything more than you pretending to have found yours, then you’re worse off than I am.”
I blew out a hard breath and hated myself before I ever said the words. But she was about to go back into hiding, and this time, I feared she wouldn’t be coming back.
“He’s dead, Charlotte.”
She blanched, staring at me with feral eyes.
“I know you love him. And I know there is nothing you wouldn’t give up to have him back. But there is nothing you can do anymore. He will always be your son. Ten million years from now, that will still be true. But the opposite of love isn’t hate the way I always thought. It’s agony, sweetheart. And you’ve been living with that for too long. Let. It. Go.”
She blinked again, and then her whole face crumbled. “He’s my son.”
“And he loved you. Do you think—” I didn’t make it any further because her body turned to stone.
“What?” she breathed.
My eyebrows knitted together. “What, what?”
“He was a baby, Porter. He didn’t love me. He needed me. And I failed him.”
My chest got tight. Fucking hell. She didn’t know that her son loved her. I’d never forget the day Travis first told me that he loved me. Of course, I’d already fallen crazy in love with him. He was five and Catherine and I had been married for just over a year, but knowing he loved me had ignited something I hadn’t known existed inside me. Kids did that to you. They made you whole even when nothing was missing.
From that point on, Travis would always be my son. Maybe not by blood, but he was mine all the same. Love had bound us together. I’d asked Catherine that very same night if she would allow me to legally adopt him, and I’d never looked back.
And it cut me deep, knowing Charlotte never got that from her child.
“Oh, Charlotte.” I closed the distance between us and pulled her into a hug. Her arms remained slack at her sides, but I didn’t let it deter me. “Of course he loved you. You were his mom.”
Her breath hitched, and she stammered, “And…I failed him.”
“And he still loved you,” I whispered.
“He shouldn’t. I left him alone.”
“And he still loved you.”
Her legs wobbled and she circled her arms around my hips. “I chose to help a complete stranger over taking care of my own son.”
“And he still loved you.”
“Why?” she whined.
“Because, just like he will always be your son, ten million years from now, you will still be his mom. Nothing you did changes that.”
And then Charlotte Mills finally let it go.
Her knees gave out and the weight of ten years’ worth of guilt swallowed her.
She cried, mumbling unintelligible words. Some I assumed were apologies to her son. Some were apologies to me. Some were angry and aimed at the universe. Some were bitter and aimed at herself.
All of them wrecking her.
But, in some way, all of them healing her as well.
This wasn’t the end for Charlotte. It was very much the beginning.
And, no matter the cost, I was going to be there every step of the way.
After about fifteen minutes of standing, Charlotte sank to the ground. I followed her down and pulled her into my side, where she continued to cry for what seemed like an eternity.
I helplessly held her while unconditional love and guilt destroyed her.
And, during that time, I stared down at that river and let it all destroy me too.
We sat there for well over an hour. Holding each other. Grieving pasts we couldn’t change.
The same pasts that had brought us together.
And, ultimately, the same pasts that would tear us apart.
* * *
“No fucking way,” Tom Stafford growled, his hand shaking as he stared at the DNA results for the unidentified baby Johnny Doe. “This has to be some sort of mistake.”
Charlie Boucher uncomfortably rocked onto his toes. “No mistaking it. Now, before you lose your shit, I did discover a few things that I think you might find interesting.”
Tom jerked his head up and scowled.
“Right. Okay,” Charlie mumbled. “They got three different DNAs off the body. The first from the clothing. Definitely Lucas Boyd. The second from the body. Definitely not Lucas Boyd. And one from the lining of the bag he was discovered in. A woman. And this did not belong to Charlotte Mills. We got no hits in the database on it. However, the first bit I found interesting is it appears that the unidentified child is related to the unidentified woman. As in…she was his mother.”
Tom blinked, the wheels in his head starting to turn. “Cause of death?”
“It’s an old body, Tom,” he warned.
“We’ve done more with older,” Tom shot back.
Charlie shook his head. “There’s no clear cause as of yet—at least, not physically. They sent a few samples off, but it’s going to take a while to get the pathology and toxicology back.”
Fuck. He knew from experience that that shit could take forever.
Tom pinched the bridge of his nose and dropped the file on his desk. His sour gut turned downright toxic as he tried to figure out how the hell he was going to explain all of this to Charlotte. Break her heart all over again. Fuck. Why the hell had he told her before he had been positive?
Oh, right. Because he’d been so damn hopeful that it was finally over for all of them.
Himself included.
Tom knew he was a good cop. But he was too close to this investigation. He should have passed it off years earlier, when he and Charlotte had started getting close, but he hadn’t trusted anyone not to file it away as a cold case. He’d sworn to himself that he could stay objective. Look at the facts and not allow his emotions to rule his decisions.
Clearly, he had failed.
“You got anything else for me?” Tom asked through his frustration.
“Actually, I was just getting started,” Charlie replied downright cheerfully.
Tom gave him his gaze back and scowled again.
“Whoever this little boy is, dental suggests he was around twelve to sixteen months old when he passed away. But, for that to be interesting, I should have started with the fact that we got a set of prints. A woman.” He swayed his head from side to side. “If I were a betting man, I’d bet that DNA belongs to her.”
Finally, good news. Really good fucking news, Tom thought as he blew out a heavy breath and settled behind his computer, barking, “Who?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… Simmer down. Let me get to why it’s interesting.”
“Don’t fucking—”
“She’s dead.” Charlie spoke over him. “Killed herself a few years ago. Drove herself into the river with her kids in the car.” He paused. “Her son. Her only son got out alive.”
Tom’s whole body locked up. “So, if we got her only son in the morgue, who the fuck was the kid in that car?”
&nb
sp; Charlie leaned forward, settling his elbows on his knees, and whispered, “I’m guessing Lucas Boyd.” He picked the file up and flipped it open. “I vote we pay a little visit to the kid’s dad.” He scanned the page with his finger then glanced back up. “Porter Reese.”
And, with those two simple words, Tom exploded from his chair.
* * *
My eyes hurt.
My face hurt.
My lungs hurt.
My body hurt.
My brain hurt.
But my heart… It continued to beat in my chest.
Lucas was dead.
And I had to keep living.
Tipping my head back, I caught Porter’s blue gaze and whispered, “I think I’m done.”
His response was to dip low and kiss me, sad and slow. “How do you feel?” he asked as he pulled away.
“Like shit.”
“Is it wrong if I say good?”
I shook my head. “I guess I actually was having a nervous breakdown.”
“I think you were more than entitled.”
I nodded and looked out at the river. “I’m glad you didn’t get eaten by an alligator during yours.”
Porter chuckled and pulled me against him so he could kiss my temple. “So, what now?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Now, we go home and, I guess, plan a funeral for my baby.”
His face turned pensive. “I want to be there for you, Charlotte, but I know this is personal. So you have to tell me what you need.”
Pushing to my feet, I dusted the back of my jeans off. “I need a glass of wine. I need to call Brady. And then I need to figure out how to move forward with my life. And I want you there for all of that. However, I know you need some dry clothes and to go home to your kids.”
“Charlotte,” he whispered in apology, rising beside me to his full height.
“It’s okay. And that’s not me pretending.” I took his hand and intertwined our fingers, giving him a gentle squeeze. “Why don’t I drop you off now? Go home. Start on all of that crap—”