I wept beside him, unashamed, heartbroken and unaware ofhow much time had passed.
“I knew you’d come around.” His voice broke through my cries, causing my head to shoot up. He turned his head slowly to look at me. “Hi, Lenny.” A soft smile tugged at his lips and it was possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
“I love you,” I blurted out, unable to keep my voice quiet and his eyes softened at my words. He shifted like he wanted to sit up, but even the smallest of movements caused him to suck air between his teeth.
“When you told me how you felt, I didn’t know how to handle it, so I pushed you away, and I’m so sorry.” I dragged my hands through the wetness under my eyes. “I thought... I thought you were dying, and the only thing that ran through my mind was I never got the chance to say it back.” He motioned to me to sit on the bed facing him, and he gently took my hands in his. He chuckled over my fretting as I tried not to bump him or crush any of the IV’s that he was hooked up to.
Then he looked up at me, and in those green eyes I was so desperate to see a minute ago was a look that I wanted to remember forever.
“I want you to know that I will never make you choose between being with me and loving Camden. I want you just the way you are, even if you think you’re broken, even if parts of you belong to him. I just want to love you exactly how you are,” he said, and every single broken piece of me was stitched back together.
Another sob escaped, but this time fear wasn’t the driving force.He loved me and finally he knew that I loved him.
He gave me a rundown on what happened, and I made him promise to never climb a tree again, no matter how good the photo might be. Nurses came in and out of the room to check on him and let him know they’d send his doctor over that he was awake.
When my adrenaline wore off, I laid my head back on the bed close to his hip while we waited for the doctor, his fingers threaded through my hair as I drifted in and out of sleep. When the door opened next, I made no move to get up. The nurses had been working around my new permanent position with no issues. It was only when I got a whiff of perfume that I lifted my head up to see who the newcomer was.
“Mrs. Beckett,” I exclaimed as I popped up from where I’d been seated. My eyes darted around frantically before she waved me back down and dragged a chair over to Theo’s other side. “What did I tell you about that? You can call me Melanie, seeing as I hear you are the newest Mrs. Beckett,” she said with a sly smile.
“Mom!” Theo exclaimed from his bed as his eyes bounced wildly from me to his mom back to me. I burst out laughing and dropped back down into my seat, thankful for the break in the atmosphere. Theo continued to wait for an explanation as I worried my bottom lip.
“I may or may not have told the nurse I was your wife in order to see you. Sorry,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.
I wasn’t sorry.
His shoulders relaxed as he took my hand again, his fingers absentmindedly rubbing over the spot where a ring would be. “Feel free to use that line to gain access to me at any time.”
“Don’t worry, I will.” I sat forward and brushed a kiss against his temple.
Six months later
“It. Won’t. Fit,”I grunted out, as I yanked on the zipper to my suitcase, trying to force it closed as Theo walked through our bedroom door. “Well, you have about five jackets in there. What did you expect?” he laughed out as he took over zipping while I sat on my luggage.
Theo was discharged from the hospital two days after I got there, we stayed in a hotel for about a week before he was cleared to fly.On the flight home, I told him he would be staying at my house once we got back. Not quite a demand—he could have gone to his parents’, of course—but he agreed.
About a month after his accident, he started taking on assignments again from work, still staying semi-local, and I would join him every chance I got for a long weekend getaway. Today, though, we were getting ready to head back halfway across the world. Theo had a meeting with Archie in Scotland, then we were off to France, where Theo was doing a shoot in Mont Saint-Michel, the abbey that sat on an island off the coast of Normandy.
“I have to bring this many. It’s going to rain practically the whole time we’re in Scotland and France,” I whined at him. He pressed a kiss to my lips before taking the suitcase out to Abby’s car.
I took a look around our room before heading out. My closet was empty of Camden’s clothes, with Theo’s shirts hanging in their place, and the spot that once held his catch-all dish had been replaced by the photo of Theo and I from our trip to Castello Di Amorosa. I swiped the photo the day I took Theo to pack his things at his Airbnb. Once we got back to the house, I marched straight into my room and placed it on the nightstand I call his. There were no objections on his end.
I’d be lying if I said making the changes didn’t hurt, but I finally realized that holding on to Camden’s things wasn’t the only way to keep him close. And Theo deserved his own space in my life, no matter how trivial it might have seemed.
Abby honked from the driveway, and I rushed to lock up and then hopped into her car. “Ready, you two?” she asked with a smile.
“Ready,” we replied in unison.
We made it to the airport, and Theo got out to grab our bags from the back. Abby leaned across the console and grabbed onto my hand before I could exit. “I am so happy for you, Lennon. This is what I’ve been wanting for you, someone who just makes you happy.” I tugged her in for a hug before jumping out and helping. I took a deep breath as I linked my hand with Theo’s, and we walked through the airport doors as one.
When Camden died, it felt like the air was stolen out of my chest. Every day was a constant battle to keep myself alive. I was breathing, but as if only through a straw. Just enough air to keep me alive, but not nearly enough to live.
Loving Theo, though, that was like learning how to breathe again. He was slow, tentative sips of air that would settle into the deepest parts of my lungs, causing them to expand further and further the longer I was around him. Months passed, and I realized the small inhales I had been living on for so long were deep breaths, bringing me back to life.
There were still days where it was a bit harder to breathe, and there would always be a constant ache in my chest, but I was learning to embrace the fact that it would never fully disappear. Because there would always be a part of me that would never stop loving Camden.
It was who I was, and I was okay with that.
I turned to Theo as we approached the security line when he pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. “So, my love, do you think we will have time to see some of the castles we didn’t get to during our first trip?” I asked, bumping my hip into his. He turned to look at me and uttered my three favorite words.
