“I need to tell her.”
“I’ll do it. I was heading back to the house anyway. You enjoy your date with Hannah.”
Marcus doesn’t look convinced. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Uncle Julien?”
Shit’s about to get real, and I have an ominous feeling that I may not be the last man standing when the dust settles.
“Let me talk to Elizabeth first. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.”
“Shit. Okay.Goddammit.” Marcus takes me in a back-slapping hug. “Thanks.”
“I will always protect your mom.”
Even if it’s from myself.
Chapter Twenty-Four
ELIZABETH
Ghosts of Love’s Past
With Charlotteand Christopher fast asleep and the house quiet, I half pay attention to what I’m reading while I wait for Fallon to come back and ponder whether to make a cup of coffee after I yawn for the tenth time. My shoulders and quads are starting to feel the effects of climbing the rope earlier. I’m getting too old to do stuff like that, but damn, it was fun.
I never thought my heart could beat like this again. After losing Ryder, I accepted the ache of loneliness as my lifelong companion, the kind that settled into my bones and made a permanent home there. Then Fallon comes barreling back into my life, igniting something inside me I thought had long been extinguished. Every second with him whispers in my ear that I’ve still got so much life left to live, and for the first time in years, I want to chase that promise.
With Fallon, laughter comes easy, and the world feels bright again, full of color and no longer filled with the gray of grief. He doesn’t ask me to forget. He doesn’t try to replace what I’ve lost or erase the past. Instead, he walks beside me, showing me the possibilities of where I can go while understanding where I’vebeen. I want to walk that road with him. I want to take his hand and step onto whatever path fate has paved for us.
Finding Elizabeth. That’s what Fallon called it when we traveled the world together. Now it’s time for our new adventure.Finding Us.
I will always love Ryder. That love is embedded into the fabric of who I am. Unshakable, unchangeable, and unbreakable. Moving on, letting myself love Fallon won’t take away from that. Life has given me another second chance. Some people never get that, and I’ve been lucky to get it twice.
I hear the rumble of an engine just as the beams from headlights sweep through the curtains and along the walls. I kept the living room light on so Fallon would know I was still up. With my heartbeat tripping all over itself, I get to the front door just as he knocks.
“You could have used your key?—”
The silver-gray eyes of the boy I used to love stare back at me, and my heartbeat no longer skips. It stops.
Jayson’s mouth kicks up at one corner in a lopsided, wobbly grin. “Hey, Princess.”
I have no control over my actions when my hand makes contact with his face, the sting as bright as the handprint I leave on his cheek. I slap him again. And again. Years of pent-up anger and heartache unleashing with every blow. Jayson stands there and takes it, not moving. Not saying a word.
“I hate you.” I’m shaking so hard, it feels like the world is crumbling beneath my feet.
“Not as much as I hate myself,” he harshly rasps.
We move at the same time, our bodies crashing together and our arms banding around one another so tightly, I can barely breathe. Jayson cradles the back of my head as I sob into his neck.
“I’m so goddamn sorry, Liz,” he chokes out.
A mess of ugly tears, I pull back and take his ravaged face between my hands. One side of his mouth is swollen and scabbed over, his left cheek crimson from where I slapped him. I count the freckles that bridge his nose, something I used to do when we were kids. Seven. Still my Jayson, even though time has chiseled its own story into him, one I was never a part of. It’s a recurring thought that always twists something deep inside me.
The weight of the past, our childhoods, and what we meant to each other strangles me with memories of shared laughter, whispered secrets, and the way we used to fit together like two halves of the same whole. But that was before. Before choices, lies, andthat nightcarved a canyon between us, and he became someone I barely recognized.
“You look awful.”
