The corner of my mouth lifted. “It usually boiled down to ‘it’s never as bad as you think it is’ and ‘everything will turn out just fine.’”
Ryan hummed in thought. “Do you believe that?”
I crossed my arms and found his hand, lacing our fingers together. “I used to.” A latent memory drifted across the breeze as we sat in silence. “Shep was a great storyteller. Whenever I was upset about something, he’d make up a story with rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks and make them go through what Iwas going through. He loved fables and thought they taught the best lessons, especially when we were outside. He even made up this little . . . I don’t know. I guess it was a jingle or something. He’d always say, ‘You and me, sitting beneath the willow tree. And I’m here to tell you that everything’s gonna be alright.’ He always said that willow trees go with the wind. They’re flexible when things get stormy. The roots are firm, but the branches stay soft. They withstand the storms with grace. Greater trees fall to the wind. Willows are more beautiful in it.”
“Is that where your pen name came from?”
“Yeah,” I said as tears streaked my cheeks. But I didn’t get a chance to brush them off my face. Ryan beat me to it.
His hands were tender as he cupped my cheeks and turned my head to face him so that he could wipe my tears away. “He’s right, you know. You’re beautiful, but there’s something about you when you get that look of determination on your face.” He smiled. “I saw it when we were running our mouths on the stage at Rom-Con. I saw it the whole time you were driving on the trip here. I like when you have that look because I know you’re going to do something great.”
I laughed. “You call getting stuck with me great?”
The corner of Ryan’s smile kissed the crinkled lines around his eyes. "Yeah, I do, cupcake. You just might be my greatest adventure.”
I shifted onto my hip so I could rest my head on his chest.
“Everything’s gonna be all right, you know.”
My eyes lifted to his lips, square and sure, at the exact moment his gaze flicked down and met mine. “I know,” I whispered as my heart leaped into my throat.
“Might take a while,” he murmured as he tucked my hair behind my ear. Ryan’s fingers lingered in my hair, cradling the back of my head.
I could feel his breath, laced with peppermint gum, dancing across my mouth and mingling with each staccato inhale.
“You should open the box,” Ryan said as he pulled his hand away from my hair and smoothed his palm down my arm. “I can go inside and give you some privacy.”
My heart plummeted. I didn’t want him to go. I wanted to stay just like that. I wanted him to keep looking at me in a way that made me feel utterly delusional for believing that this was real.
But it wasn’t.
The only reason Ryan was here was that he was as stubborn as I was and wanted to prove a point. I wasn’t going to fall for poignant lines and gentle touches.
I knew better than that.
Now if I could just remember that I knew better than that.
I let out a huff as I turned and sat on my ass and stared at the box.
“It’s not going to bite,” Ryan said.
“Dammit. I was hoping it would swallow me whole,” I muttered as I pulled open the flaps that had been folded on top of each other to hold it closed.
Ryan reached around me and held the sides down while I pawed around. On top were photos from my childhood. Ryan teased me mercilessly for my brown pigtails and missing front teeth. There were crafts I had made at school that said “World’s Best Step Shep.”
“I argued with my third-grade teacher until she let me make two crafts so I could give one to my dad and one to Shep,” I said with a sad sort of laugh.
There were movie ticket stubs and little league soccer trophies. He kept stacks and stacks of papers where I had written little stories in a barely legible childish scrawl, and drewpictures to go along with them. He had saved nearly every pipe cleaner creature, beaded bracelet, and scrap paper doodle.
The deeper I dug into the box, the more I smiled.
Shep had always made me feel seen. And something about knowing he had saved little pieces of paper just because I had written on them let me feel his love one more time.
I had nearly reached the bottom of the box when I pulled out an envelope. The seal had been broken and was yellowed with age, but there was still something in it. Carefully, I opened it up and pulled out grainy black and white photos.
“What?” I stared at the ultrasound photos and cocked my head.
“I thought Lisa said she'd never had kids,” Ryan said.
