With my gaze on his, I realized where the story needed to start.
“I wouldn’t be here with you right now if it wasn’t for your mother.”
And the water works began.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through this conversation but somehow I had to. My relationship with Huntley depended on it because I knew now that not only did he deserve more, but so did I.
Tears trickled down my cheeks. “I was two seconds from taking my last few steps off that bridge when your mom found me that night.”
Huntley pulled in a breath. “What do you need from me, sweetheart? Do you need me to hold you or to sit here and let you get it out? Just tell me and I will do everything I can to make this easier.”
I threw both hands in the air, palms out, warning him off. “I just need to get this out without you touching me.” It killed me to see his gaze cloud with a bit of hurt but it also shined with understanding as he nodded. “Then I pray you’ll still want to hold me after, and that I’ll let you.”
He shook his head, a determined look in his eyes. “There’s no question that I will want you River.”
The steel-like, titanium, conviction in his tone had me believing him for a second and then my mind started to drift to the past.
“I’m damaged goods,” I told him as sorrow ripped through me.
“Not to me,” he said softly, visibly swallowing. “Never to me.”
I let his words sink in, choosing to believe in my heart they were not only true in that second, but would be by the end of my story too, and then I started pacing again.
“When your mother found me, I’d hit rock bottom. I was done with life and everything it had to throw at me.” My body trembled even as I moved back and forth. “I remember thinking, would anyone notice if I disappeared, would anyone care?”
I stopped and looked Huntley in the eyes. “I neededoneperson.” I held up one finger, if only to emphasize how powerful that number was to me. “Just one.”
My feet were on the move again, trying to hold it all together because as hard as this was it was not the worst part to get through.
“You mom called out to me. She called me sweet girl and pleaded with me not to take those last steps. Valerie or Val talked me off the ledge that cold, dark night.” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t know her name then because I told her I didn’t want to exchange names.”
Something Huntley’s mom said struck me right then. I turned to him. “You know all this, don’t you?”
He’d told me how close he and his mother were, but she’d also said at the hospital that she told her son everything. It dawned on me then just what she meant.
Huntley looked uneasy when I met his gaze again.
“I’m not mad,” I reassured him.
How could I be, knowing that the woman who’d single-handedly saved my life was also the very person that had saved her own and her son’s once upon a time? What they had been through was awful and their bond was breathtakingly beautiful.
“She did tell me.” He nodded. “And you have to know she never forgot you, sweetheart. You werealwaysin her heart just like you will always be in mine.”
Huntley swallowed and his eyes glistened. Were those tears in his eyes?
“I am so fucking glad you’re here with me. I wouldn’t want to live this life without you.”
The emotion swimming in his voice as he said those words burrowed deep inside me. “I don’t want to live this life anymore without you either. But it still scares me.”
When he started to talk, I held up my hand. Not to be rude but somehow I had to finish. I needed to get it all out and know he still wanted me like he said he would. Huntley nodded in understanding, so I carried on.
“I never told your mom what happened that night to take me to the bridge but that didn’t matter to her. She could see it was bad. Somehow she convinced me to go to a cafe with her to get some coffee.”
Looking down at my feet, ashamed of myself, I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I was seventeen and I was plastered after taking shots of whiskey. Again, your mom didn’t care. All she was concerned about was helping me and giving me some resources I could use to get through the few remaining months until I turned eighteen.”
As I spoke, I pictured her lovely face and sincere eyes.
“Your mom was andissuch a remarkable woman. But you have to understand trust was not a word in my vocabulary. So, when she mentioned helping me further and giving me her number, I panicked. I went to the restroom and then slipped out without her seeing me leave.”
