She was shaking her head back and forth, her eyes looking down as she continued to whisper “I’m sorry” over and over again.
Scooting closer to her, I grabbed her hand and waited until she looked up at me. I sent her a sad smile as tears filled my own eyes. “Stop apologizing, Charlie. We all, unfortunately, know how short and unpredictable life is. It took me a long time to realize what I was doing to the people around me and myself by clinging to what had been and what could’ve been. That’s why I’m treasuring every second of my life with your brother, and that’s why I want for you to heal and move on with yours. I learned very recently how to let go of the past, and it was the most freeing feeling when I did. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. It’s accepting, forgiving, and being emotionally ready to keep moving.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” she admitted. The pain in her voice was the same pain that had echoed through my own mind just months ago.
“I know it’s so much easier to get trapped in the past because you want to stay there, but it’s also dangerous, and you have to be the one to decide you’re ready to move on. I love you, Charlie, I’ve known you most of my life, and you’ve always been like a sister to me. I’m not letting Keith or what happened come between us. It’s in the past, and I’m willing to let it stay there if you are.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared off into space as she quietly nodded her head; so I hugged her tightly, and then stood up. When I got to the door, I turned around to look at her.
“Do you ever go to the cemetery?”
She slowly looked up at me, her eyes red and puffy. “No.”
“Maybe you should. Go talk to Ben . . . about anything. Yell at him, tell him everything that’s happened, whatever you want. But it might be good for you.”
“O-okay.”
“Jagger’s worried about you, and so am I. Come talk to us whenever, and bring Keith with you.” With a smile in her direction, I stepped outside and walked to Jagger’s car.
He stepped out as I got closer, and rounded the hood to pull me into his arms. “How’d it go?”
“Good, I think. I gave her a lot to think about.”
“You think she’ll be okay?”
“I do.” Pressing my mouth to his, I leaned back and tightened my arms around him. “And she’ll let us know when she is.”
“All right.” He glanced up at the house and took a deep breath; then he nodded and repeated, “All right. Let’s go home.”
Epilogue
Grey
December 24, 2015
MY FOREHEAD PINCHED together and I looked back into the bathroom I’d just walked out of before glancing at the empty bed again. I’d only been in there for a max of twenty minutes as I took a shower and got ready for bed; and when I’d gone in, I’d left a sleeping Jagger.
Making sure to make my steps as silent as possible on the stairs, I walked down to the first floor and rounded the walls of the room we’d added on to the warehouse about six months ago. I loved this room. It was large and broke up the space of the warehouse perfectly, all while hiding the stairs leading up to our loft.
I opened the door to the room and rested my body against the door frame as my chest warmed and a smile crossed my face. This was the best part of the room. It held our three-month-old daughter, Aly, and currently a sleeping husband on the chair with our sleeping daughter on his chest.
Stepping into the room, I brushed my hand against Jagger’s shoulder and carefully took Aly from him. Breathing her scent, I held her close for a few minutes before putting her back in her crib. I turned around to my half-awake husband and held my hand out to help him get out of the chair.
“She started crying,” he mumbled as he pulled the door until it was barely cracked open and followed me toward the stairs.
“I figured, since when I left you, you were out.”
“Liar.”
I looked over my shoulder at him and lifted one eyebrow. “You sure about that? You fell asleep midconversation.”
“No, I—” His barely open eyes glared up at me, then he nodded and put his hands on my waist to push me up the stairs. “Maybe.”
“Yeah,” I whispered on a laugh. “Maybe.”
Putting my hands over his, I gripped them tightly when we reached the loft and he released my waist, and led him to the bed. He crawled in after me and automatically wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. Sliding one of his legs between mine, he tightened his arms and kissed the back of my neck before murmuring something about crying babies and needing to make bottles of milk for all of them because there was a breast-milk shortage in the world.
I bit back a laugh and sighed as I got comfortable in his arms, wondering how much of everything he’d done over the last twenty-five minutes had been done while he was actually conscious. Hazards that came from having a toddler and infant in the house.
Jagger and I had found out I was pregnant a month after Charlie told us everything about her and Ben’s short time together, and the reactions from everyone had been mixed, to say the least. After getting over the initial shock, Jagger and I were beyond excited. We hadn’t been using protection anyway, so it was something we both knew could happen; and just like with everything else that had happened in our lives since we finally got together, it didn’t seem rushed. It was perfect—nothing else could describe the pace at which our lives were going.