He dropped to his knees in front of me, taking my hands in his. “I don’t want to be off the hook. I never wanted to be off the hook. All I wanted was to never hurt you or our child like I’d been hurt.” He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped my hands tighter. Looking up at me with tears in his eyes, he breathed deeply, like those old memories revisiting him had almost broken him all over again.
“Never doubt that I wanted to have a baby with you. I still want that in a desperate, almost scary way. I know we’re not ready, but now I know we’ll never truly be ready. You being pregnant wasn’t the problem. My fear was the problem. Only now I see my real fear is living a life without you. I’ve done it. I’ve done it for too long and I don’t want to anymore. I can’t bear the thought of knowing you’re not coming home to me.”
“How do I know you won’t do this again? I need people in my life I can count on.”
“I know. There’s nothing I can say to make you believe this. But I can prove it to you every day.”
I shook his hands off mine. Running my hand over my forehead, I glanced out the window, half hoping Holden would come in insisting we needed to leave now.
Outside was a helicopter that hadn’t been there before. The interior was still lit up, and the pilot sat in the cockpit.
I whipped back around to Keyton. “How did you get here?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “The only way to make it from Philly to here in under two hours.”
“You got in the helicopter?” He’d trembled telling me about the helicopter incident. He’d barely been able to look at it when I’d gone up during SeptemberWeen.
“I needed to tell you how I really felt before you left. It was the only way. And I needed to give you this.” Out of his pocket, he pulled out a folded green bundle of fabric. It had a white ribbon around it.
I took it from him, my hands trembling.
Looking from him to the swatch of fabric, I tugged on the ribbon. It unraveled, falling over the sides of my hands.
Unfolding it, I cupped the soft green cotton in the palms of my hands and tried to read the words through my blinding tears. Screen printed on the front in white lettering was a little equation: “Mom + Dad = Me” with a little heart hanging off the “e”.
“Whenever this happens, I want it with you.” His fingers encircled my wrists. “There won’t be a day I don’t regret how I handled the news, even if it turned out to not be real. All I’ve been thinking about is how I could be the husband you deserve and could build a family with.”
I couldn’t rip my gaze away from the onesie. I’d dreamed about seeing a little, chubby, gurgling baby with his eyes.
But watching him leave—he’d run from that future, and who was to say he wouldn’t do it again, even after I’d given everything up to live our life together? The music was all I had left. It filled me enough to keep going, but not the brimming overflowing feeling I had with him.
My chest ached, each pound of my heart making it harder to catch my breath. I slammed my eyes shut.
He’d laid it all out for me. All the fears and worries. So many of them I shared. The unknown of the future was scary when someone else wasn’t running my life, when I let myself get close enough to him that he could hurt me in a way that rivaled the first time he’d rushed away from me in a hail of wooden splinters. Maybe the fears had always been there, like splinters, trying to work their way out of my heart to allow me to finally heal. To be the scared girl on the stage with the guitar, singing my heart out for the whole world, or for an audience of one.
Opening my eyes, I looked at the man who’d won my heart as a boy, had always been bound to my soul, and who was woven into the very fabric of my being.
The road we’d walked had been long and winding, traversing the spans of distance and time. Now that we were here together, this crossroads felt like one that would either split our story from here to eternity or forge it through the fire of past and present wounds.
But the question remained. How did I want to live the rest of my life?
Footsteps pounded on the stairs leading to the plane door.
Holden swung into the entrance of the plane. “Bay, sorry to interrupt, but we’re about ten minutes from missing our take-off window until tomorrow.”
I looked from Holden to Keyton, my pulse hammering in my veins. “I can’t.” My voice cracked. I scooted back, my nostrils burning with the building tears I couldn’t let fall.
His head dropped and he sat back, resting his hands on the tops of his legs. He sat for long, excruciating moments where I couldn’t be sure this was the right answer. I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t running by standing still.
“I understand.” He got off the floor and took two steps, bending, he pressed his lips to the top of my head. “I hope you find happiness, even if it can’t be with me. That’s all I ever wanted for you, was for you to be happy, but no matter what, I want you to know I love you. I’ve always loved you and I’ll always love you, TNG.” His voice wavered and I slammed my eyes shut and clamped my lips together.
An ugly sob tried to break free of my throat.
And then the warmth of him was gone. He rushed past Holden and the plane rocked at his thudding footsteps down the stairs.
“Bay—”
“Don’t.” I held up a hand.
He took a step back and gripped both hands together. “We don’t have to leave right now.”
I brushed the tears from my cheeks. “We’ll miss our window if we don’t.” It would delay everyone in London. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the solitary figure walking away from the plane when everyone else was walking forward.
This life was safe. This life was chaotic and crazy. This life was free from ever letting anyone close enough to ever hurt me again.
Emily and Eric, along with a few other people, walked into the plane. The engines powered up, forcing more heated air through the vents. The muted voices of everyone around me sounded so far away. A flight attendant came out to gather everyone’s coats and put them away. Eight hours over the ocean. In eight hours, we’d be a continent apart. In eight weeks, he’d shown me how different my life could be with someone I loved. In ten years, he’d proven there could never and would never be anyone I’d love as much as I had the broken boy watching me across our back yards.
The flight attendant walked down the aisle. “Could everyone please take their seats? We’re ready to taxi.”
37
Keyton
For a time, plummeting to my death in a helicopter had felt like the most terrifying moment in my life. But after kissing the top of Bay’s head, knowing that would be the last time I ever felt her again, I’d gladly have taken a fiery aircraft crash over the fire burning in my chest. It felt like the flesh was being ripped from my bones, and all I could dream of was the numbness to make this stop hurting so much. The pain almost brought me to my knees.
The sun set and the air went from cold to blistering on the wide-open tarmac with the jet turbines kicking up even more air.
I stared at the helicopter pilot across the tarmac and had no idea what to do next. How did I go on with my life without her? The engines to the jet powered up, and I locked my knees so I wouldn’t turn and rush back to her.