I press my palms to my hot cheeks the moment I close my back door and no longer feel Ethan’s gaze on me.
He never even stood up after I told him no.
After I told him I didn’t feel that way about him, that I couldn’t, and that if friendship wasn’t enough for him then I didn’t think we should continue to be in each other’s lives.
My hands slide down to my mouth and I let a finger trace my bottom lip, trying to bring back the memory of his kiss.
What would this one have been like? Nothing like the fumbling earnest moment in my tree house years before. Nothing like the way I’ve imagined countless times since he came back.
It would have been infinitely more bittersweet.
Sweet because I knew it was coming, that he saw me and wanted me the way I haven’t dared to let myself believe he could, and because it would have been perfect. That soft but firm press of his lips, the warmth from his hand on my jaw, that fluttery, fizzy euphoria that sparked from his touch along every nerve ending I had, even the ones I no longer felt...
Bitter because I couldn’t let it happen.
Sometimes I feel like Ethan can’t see past his own problems. But he’s also kind and self-sacrificing and he tries to do the right thing even when he doesn’t know what it is. He loves so fiercely it’s almost scary, scary because I think he might try to give me what I absolutely refuse to take from him. Something hot and sharp ignites at that thought.
How could he do that, try to kiss me and say all that to me? How could he forget the fact that I’m helping him find his mom so he can leave to rescue her again? He’ll go, just like he does every time, only now it’ll be his choice. Maybe he’ll have sweeter words than he has in the past, a goodbye kiss and an empty promise to return.
Or worse, he’ll stay. We’ll find her and he’ll rip himself apart trying to figure out which of us he has to halt his life for.
I brush the beginning of tears away, digging my fingertips in harder with each pass. It won’t be me. I promise that. I’ll never—
“Rebecca?”
“Um, yeah, it’s me,” I call out in answer to my mom.
I wheel farther into the house, then literally skid to a stop in the living room. My mom is there and so is John, in a suit. And about a million red roses. So many.
“What—” But I don’t finish asking the question because I see it then. Beyond the formal wear and the petals. The glittering diamond on my mom’s ring finger.
She glances away when my shocked gaze lifts to hers, her right hand twitching as though she wants to cover the left, but then John moves between us.
“I wanted to talk to you about this so many times, but then I realized I wasn’t just asking your mom to have me, I was asking you too.” He reaches back for my mom’s hand, the one newly weighted down with his ring, and brings her back to his side. “I want us to be a family, your mom and me, and you and Layla.” His hand slides into the pocket of his slacks and I feel a revulsion slam over me so fast I nearly throw up when he pulls out a black velvet box and hands it to me.
“I’m sure you could make something better, but Amelia said you liked opals—”
“You talked to Amelia about this?”
John nods and I open the box to reveal a pair of raw opal studs that match the ring I’d made.
A tear splashes into the box.
“You like them?” John’s grin is clear in his voice and he sighs, gazing at my mom. “I was nervous. Most guys just need one yes, here I am asking for two.”
“You said yes, then?” I’m still staring at the earrings, but my mom knows I’m talking to her.
“I did.”
All at once I see the future rush up and knock the wind out of me. I’ll be gone and John will be here to answer the phone when I call, and sign the birthday cards. Or maybe they’ll move, somewhere far away from me and the memories of what I took from her.
“Rebecca?”
I blink up at her.
“John wants to ask you a question.” She glances over at her fiancé and I die a little more inside.
“So, what do you say? Will you let me become part of your family?” His smile is so eager, so confident. He can’t begin to fathom the way I’m drowning inside. There’s no family to join here.
I don’t try to stop the tears, and he misunderstands them anyway, dropping to a knee to hug me when I nod, wet swimsuit and all.
But my mom knows. She has to.
“Can I talk to you for just a second? Alone?” I don’t wait for my mom’s response before turning toward the kitchen. She’ll come even if John’s the one who makes her.
“I thought you’d be happy for us,” she says, walking around to face me. Unlike her fiancé, she knows why I’m really crying.
“Is this what you need? Will he make you happy?”
She blinks at me. “He’s different from Dad, but I do love him.”
I glance down at the black velvet box. “I like him too.”
I’m not looking at her but I can feel a weight lift off her shoulders. “I know. I’ve never been—” she flounders for a word “—like Dad was, but John has that way to him.” She pushes her shoulders back. “And he doesn’t mind how I am, doesn’t see me as cold. He thinks I’m enough and he doesn’t mind filling in the gaps.”
“Like filling in the gaps with me?” I say, my voice sounding pained from squeezing it through my tight throat.
“I always try to give you what you need, what’s best for you. I don’t know how to be that on my own.”
She’s not expecting me to shake my head.
“What?” She catches herself and lowers her voice, coming closer to me. “What does that mean?”
It means that she never even tried after Dad died. And now with John, she thinks he can be her excuse not to have to.
“It means congratulations, Mom.”