There are too many feelings all trying to trample each other for a chance in the spotlight. Hurt and indignation box it out in the ring with no clear winner in sight. “No, I should’ve been quicker to say no. I was caught off guard, and my hesitation didn’t do either of us any good. And then I ripped you a new one becauseyouneeded time to process. I’m a hypocrite.”
He finally reaches out to touch my arm, and I surprise myself when I don’t flinch away from him. “I wasn’t running. I’d never run from you.”
I fail to swallow a sob, and my chest begins to heave uncontrollably as my vision turns to graphite. “I hate what Leif has done to you. I hate how he’s implanted this ridiculous notion into your brain that you’re not good enough. You are, Knox. Trust me, you are. You’re not damaged goods. You’re not a burden. You’ve had to endure horrific verbal abuse from the person who was supposed to love you, and that’s on your dad.”
It’s an automatic response when his knuckles come up to brush away my tears, even when his own sprint down his cheeks. I wipe his away too.
“You’re the only one who hasn’t thought of me as a burden.”
His ministration melts into a cradling of my jaw, and I lean into his palm, trying to clear my sinuses with each frame-wracking hiccup. “Humans are inherently messy. Nobody is perfect.”
“I love you so much that it shouldn’t be humanly possible to feel this range of emotion,” he whispers, just for the two of us to hear in our own bubble, the rest of the world smelting into one indistinguishable soundtrack of chaos.
“You love me?”
The words that leave the safety of his mouth aren’t hampered by second-guessing or second opinions. “Of course I do. I just wish it hadn’t taken me this long to tell you.”
“I feel it every time I look at you,” I respond, anguish withering away to make room for the love that has always been there, germinating just under the surface, waiting for resentment’s roots to shrivel up.
Without warning, Knox lowers himself to his knees. He holds me by the waist, his chin brushing my belly, and he looks up at me with a reverence that I could never forget.
Not even if time tries to tear us apart again.
A superlunary smile beautifies the moisture drying on his waterlines. “I’m going to marry you one day, Mrs. Mulligan.”
Mrs. Mulligan. He wants to marry me. He wants us to spend the rest of our lives together.
I laugh through the tears—it’s the only way I can handle such a life-changing sentiment. “Aren’t we a little young to get married?”
“I’ll wait as long as it takes. Spending the rest of my life without you will never be an option. You’re it for me. I knew it since the moment I hit you with my car.”
All of that seems so far away now. I can’t believe I thought my life was over when it was just beginning.
“I mean, you did sweep me off my feet,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
The movers still mill around us, placing thousand-dollar bouquets despite my mother’s frantic clucking at our increasingly shrinking acreage.
Knox moves aside the chiffon ruffles draped over my midsection to press a kiss to my stomach. “At least it’ll be a good story to tell the kids one day.”
I smile. “Kids? Already planning ahead?”
“Is it bad if I say yes?”
I never thought I’d find anyone who would love me enough to want to have kids together. Like every other teenage girl on this planet, I always dreamed of having my own family. I just wanted tomeansomething to someone. And Knox, he let me live out that longing that I had tried so hard to bury.
As if on cue, I begin tightroping over a ravine of uncertainty—a paradigm of my innermost thoughts. “What if something happens? What if we don’t end up?—”
Knox’s grip on my hips tightens. “Please, for the love of God, don’t you dare finish that sentence. You could never possibly understand how much you’ve changed my life. I was so wrapped up in hockey that love never mattered. It was never in the cards for me. It was hell, living my life as a cog in some grander machine just to get my father’s approval. But then you undid all his harm in a matter of seconds. That’s something I’ll never take for granted. I’ll find you, in every timeline, in every life we live thereafter, because it’s alwaysbeenyou.”
It’s always been me.
Even when I didn’t have my shit together and was obsessed with the wrong guy, Knox waited for me, knowing that there was no guarantee I’d reciprocate his feelings. God, I fucking love him.
I don’t tread lightly anymore. I don’t fear the outdated, ghost-whispered warnings that try and deter me fromunscrewing the bolts around my heart—of freeing it from layers of guarded precautions to finally give it to its rightful owner.
“You’re the first and only person who’s ever seen the real me. It feels like I’ve been invisible my whole life. I had convinced myself that I wasn’t worthy enough to be loved—that there had to be something wrong with me because nobody would ever look my way. But then you came along, and you were so…kind. It’s a low bar, I know, but it meant the world to me. You stuck by my side when I was figuring out my feelings, and you never once pressured me into choosing you. You covered my hospital bill; you wanted to help pay my debt. Nobody’s ever taken care of me like that before. I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life.”
Knox shakes his head. “Not indebted, Staten. Never that. Iwantedto take care of you. I still do. You and your mom have been on your own for so long, just barely scraping by, and I’ll never rest until the two of you can live comfortably.”
