He inhales and presses his face harder against my skin. “Sometimes,” he admits. “Sometimes, I’m haunted by the memories of her trying to cling to life.”
“I never got to say goodbye.” I exhale as the tears fall down my face, wishing I could’ve touched Mitchell’s warm skin one more time before he took his final breath. I cover Angelo’s hands with mine and rest my head back against his chest. “The day he left, our goodbye was short and quick. I never thought he wouldn’t come back.”
“The letter was his goodbye, Tilly. He knows how much you love him. A man knows these things deep in his bones. We don’t need to hear them in our final moments to know what we’re leaving behind.”
I close my eyes, sliding my hands up his arms to grip his biceps as I turn around. “There’s so much left unsaid, Angelo. I never got to say them to his face. I lay across his flag-covered coffin, telling him everything I wanted him to know before they laid him to rest.”
Angelo rocks gently, trying to calm me as I start to hyperventilate. “He heard you. There’s no doubt in my mind he heard every word you spoke to him that day. He just couldn’t talk back. He left you a letter as his final words, trying to tell you that he knew what you had was special.”
“It was the greatest love,” I whisper. “He was my everything. My protector, my best friend, my love, my world.”
“I know, baby. I know.” There’s nothing sexual in his tone. He’s comforting me in a moment and a way no one else has been able to since Mitchell was alive. “Marissa was like the brightest star in the night’s sky. She was everything I ever wanted. Even though I loved her and did everything in my power to protect her, I failed.”
I turn in his arms, peering up at his tear-filled eyes, and hold his cheeks in my hands. “You loved her fiercely, Angelo. You did everything you could to protect and save her. This I know. But sometimes, the world has other plans, and no matter how hard we try to change things, there’s no changing what’s meant to be.”
He rests his forehead against mine, hiding his eyes and his tears. “Marissa begged me to move on after she died. She couldn’t leave until she made me promise not to be alone for the rest of my life. In her final moments, she thought of me and the kids more than herself.”
“How were we so lucky to have them in our lives?”
He flattens his palms against the small of my back, and I crave his warmth. “I don’t know, Tilly. I ask myself that question every day.”
“You know why I haven’t dated?”
Angelo tilts his head up just enough to see my eyes. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to have to stop talking about Mitchell. He’s not an ex-anything, you know? I don’t want another man to feel he’s competing with him.”
“I understand completely.”
“But with you—” I wrap my arms around his waist, holding him tight “—I feel like I can say anything about Mitchell, and you won’t judge or feel jealous.”
“We were blessed with great love and cursed with even greater loss. If we can’t share those feelings with someone, it’ll never work. We’ll never be able to move forward and continue living.”
“Mitchell would’ve liked you, Angelo.” I stare up into his crystal-blue eyes. “He’d like your quiet strength, your kind heart, and your ability to love completely.”
“Marissa would’ve adored you too, Tilly. Your spirit is infectious, and you’re sweeter than any cupcake you could ever bake.”
I laugh softly, loving how he found a way to throw my cupcakes into the conversation. “Do you believe in fate?”
“I never did. I couldn’t believe fate gave me Marissa and then snatched her away.”
“It’s hard to believe in anything when you lose someone so important.”
“But if there’s such a thing, I feel like you and I were destined to meet. We were meant to be here, in this time, helping each other heal.”
I could easily fall for this man. His heart has an infinite capacity for love.
“Are we too broken to be together?” I whisper with my eyes locked with his.
He shakes his head and brushes his lips against my forehead. “I think we’re too broken for other people, but together, we’re whole.”
I close my eyes and tighten my arms around his waist. “I haven’t felt a moment’s peace before being with you.”
“I feel the same, Tilly.”
We stand like that, embracing and just being for so long, I lose track of time. I’m lulled into a sense of peacefulness listening to the steady beat of his heart thumping in his chest underneath my ear.
“Do you still want to go out tonight?” he asks when the tears have finally stopped falling.
