“Hey. Miss me already?” I’d only left earlier that morning after I made sure she was satisfied and would feel me every time she moved for the next few days.
“You went to see Sawyer?” Her voice snapped over the line, and I could picture her cheeks flooded with angry pink, making her cute freckles stand out and her scar stark white in contrast. “What were you thinking, Huck?”
I chuckled as I climbed into the low-slung car. “Vernon ratted me out. I swear, that kid likes you better than he likes me these days.”
I heard Ollie huff out an annoyed breath. “No. Fisher stopped by to see the guys, and imagine my surprise to finally get to meet him when he was supposed to be with you instead. You lied to me, you asshole.”
Damnit. I was in such a hurry to beat her back home, it slipped my mind that I needed to call Fisher and let him know I needed him as an alibi.
I sighed and leaned forward to rest my forehead against the steering wheel. “I did. But I’m not sorry about it. I know you want to clear my name and take responsibility for the accident, but it wasn’t all your fault. Both Sawyer and I had a hand in it, and we’ve all paid the price. You were enslaved for years. Sawyer is in that chair and this institution for the foreseeable future. I had to suffer through that military academy on my own. All of those things are far worse than anything the legal system would put us through. I want Sawyer to admit what he did so you can stop being a martyr. I knew you didn’t want me to see him or my dad before you tried to get someone to listen to your confession, so I did what I had to do.”
She went quiet for a long moment, and while I could tell she was good and pissed, I also knew my words got through to her.
“I’m so mad at you, Huck.” Her voice was quiet, but there was a thin thread of tenderness throughout it. “You’re supposed to let me save myself from now on. And occasionally, it would be nice if you pretended I was saving you.”
“You can save yourself when I’m late and can’t get to you in time.” I let out a soft sound. “And of course you’ve saved me. If you hadn’t shown up, I would’ve kept living my life, jumping from one goal and achievement to the next. My life was moving forward, but I was stuck firmly in the past. I thought I moved beyond all the hurt and anger I harbored, but it was still there, taking up all the space where happiness should be. Everything I accomplished was empty. I needed you to fill my life up.” I smiled even though she couldn’t see me, but I figured she would be able to hear it in my voice. “You know, without Goldilocks, the bears lived a pretty boring life alone in the woods. They had each other, but they needed her to shake things up so they had a story to tell.” Ollie snort-laughed at my analogy, and if I was flexible enough, I would’ve patted myself on the back for lightening the mood.
Now that she seemed less like she wanted to strangle me, I told her, “Sawyer told me that you loved me before you knew what love was. I think the same was true for me. I loved you without knowing that’s what I was doing or how to do it right. That’s why it hurt so bad when you had to turn on me. Maybe what I was feeling wasn’t betrayal like I always thought. Maybe it was a broken heart. That’s why I could never let it go and why an apology never felt like enough.”
She made a distressed sound and I worried that I was going to make her cry while I was too far away to comfort her. I would have to give Vernon a call and tell him to go hug her for me.
“Don’t cry. I’ll be home before you know it. I’m going to stick around a day or two to make sure Sawyer does the right thing. If he comes through, you have no reason to come back here. We can move forward from here on out. For what it’s worth, I know I fully forgive you, Ollie. I really don’t need you to claim responsibility in search of redemption. You got that when you gave me a second chance to be with you.” Finally, the past would be put to rest, and the only thing that would remain from that night was the scar on her cheek. And even that could be removed if she wanted.
She made a hiccupping sound, and I could hear her pull herself together. “We’ll talk more about you running off without me when you get home, Huck. Stay safe and hurry back.”
“Will do.”
I didn’t tell her to wait for me.
I didn’t ask her not to run away while I was gone and couldn’t stop her.
I didn’t tell her I would find her wherever she went.
I didn’t ask her to forgive me this time because I wasn’t sorry for doing what had to be done.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. I’m so glad I found you after I lost you.”
It’d taken a long time for us to get together, for the stars to align, and for the scales of our fate to find the perfect balance. But finally, after a lot of ups and downs, back and forth, and a knock down fight between good and evil, things between us felt just right.
And I knew I was keeping this Goldilocks in the bed next to me from here on out. I was never going to give her a reason to search for a better fit.
“Are you sure you have everything?”
It was the fifth time I’d asked Huck the same question, but each and every time, he remained patient and replied that he had triple-checked his bags before he loaded them into the back of the shiny new SUV he’d bought himself as a graduation present. His new last name came with a trust fund, but Huck insisted he wasn’t going to touch a dime of it. He bought the new car with money he saved from his job for a down payment, and he was now looking at a loan payment every month like any other recent college grad to cover the rest. He remained determined to make it on his own with no help from his dad or the last name he never wanted.
Even after Sawyer came clean and admitted to his part in the accident, his father remained unforgiving and unmoved. I asked Huck how he managed to convince Sawyer to do the right thing, and he told me he simply used his brother’s tactics against him. He also alluded to Sawyer knowing that now my mom was gone, he had no hope to get me back in his life. He seemed surprised by the way it all turned out, and I couldn’t blame him. The last thing I expected after the showdown with Mrs. Richman and Huck’s uneasy reunion with his father and brother was for Sawyer to take accountability for his part in the accident. None of it changed the fact I was driving, but now, who would listen to me with both boys taking responsibility? All that mattered was that Huck’s name was clear. I wasn’t going to keep pushing since that’s what I wanted, after all.
I couldn’t believe how fast the summer flew by. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that today was the last day Huck and I would be living under the same roof. He’d gotten accepted to his first choice of post-grad law school, which was located in the same city where Fisher worked. He already had a job lined up and planned on living with Fisher for at least the first semester. He’d been busy packing up his part of the Victorian and making plans to move; I went back to work for Mercer and took a few summer courses so I could seamlessly transfer over to the Computer Science department next semester.
Huck asked me to go with him when he first got accepted to law school. We talked about it at length, and I’d been seriously tempted to agree.
Ultimately, I knew if we had any hope of a real future together, we had to stop living in the dark fairytale that had always been the story of our lives. A long distance relationship should be child’s play compared to what we’d already been through together. But that didn’t make the thought of not being able to see him, touch him, taste him, talk to him, and lean on him whenever I wanted bearable.