She looks surprised, hurt even, until I add, “We have one more stop to make.”
Her brows knit, but she doesn’t question me.
Hours later,the landscape outside the windshield shifts from lush coastal green to quiet, rugged mountains. Kamiyah fell silent the moment we turned onto the old forestry road—a path hardly anyone used now. The air grows colder. The trees are taller. More watchful.
I slow the car as we approach the clearing and hear her breath hitch. I feel her eyes flick to me, questioning.
“Caden…?”
“We’re here,” I say gently.
She stares out at the small brass marker partially hidden under shrubs, the single weathered bench nearby, the faintoutline of a memorial wreath long since claimed by the wind and weather.
Her hand covers her mouth. “No… Caden, why?—”
I reach for her hand and hold it firmly. “Honey, listen.”
She turns to me, tears already gathering in her lashes.
“You’ve been carrying this weight for years,” I say, every word steady, deliberate. “You keep blaming yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. For not being in that plane. Arguing with your parents—something all teenagers are guilty of. For surviving when they didn’t. Or for things no one should carry alone.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand?—”
“I do.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended. “Because I’ve watched you punish yourself over it. Every time you talk about them, every time you flinch when someone mentions the crash, every time you walk past their pictures at Haven Crest but never stop to look.”
Her tears fall freely now, silent and painful.
“Kamiyah,” I whisper, brushing one from her cheek with my thumb, “I brought you here because you deserve peace. You deserve to stop running from this place.”
She swallows hard, her lips trembling. “And because this is the only way you knew how to include them in our wedding.”
My breath hitches. She understood before I could speak the words.
“Yes.” I took both her hands now. “They should have been there to witness our vows. And I know it’s not the same…God, I know it’s not, but I want them to be part of our lives in the only way they still can be.”
A broken sound escapes her.
I pull her into me, holding her as tightly as she needs as she buries her face in my chest, sobbing in a way she’s never let herself before. I don’t speak. I don’t rush her. I just hold herwhile the wind whispers through the trees and the last light fads behind the ridge.
Minutes, or maybe hours pass before she finally lifts her head. Her eyes are red, her cheeks wet, but for the first time since I’ve known her, she looks unburdened.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I brush her hair back tenderly. “There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“There is,” she insists. “You gave me something I didn’t know I needed.”
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I kiss her forehead instead.
“Come on,” I say softly. “Let’s go home.”
We walk back to the car hand in hand. Before she reaches the car, she pauses once more to look at the marker and her grip tightens around mine. “I’ll come back,” she whispers. “Next time… with flowers.”
I nod. “Whenever you’re ready.”
We reached the car. I open her door, but just as she slides inside, my phone buzzes.
Ethan.
