It’s because that woman—mywoman—the woman who seemingly has everything, has never fully had the things that matters most.
Unconditional love.
Unconditional forgiveness.
Unconditional support.
Lucky’s watching me. “You okay?”
I press my fists into my eyes. “I’m going to New York. To help her. To be by her side for whatever the fuck she needs. And if you and your brothers aren’t coming with me to have her back, fuck you all. She’s a good—no, she’s thebestperson. She has all of the fucking money in the world. She has every resource, every advantage, every avenue open to her, every way she could’ve swooped in here and made your lives hell if you didn’t cooperate with whatever her plan was to take her father down, and the one thing she kept talking about was being a better person and not asking you for anything if it would hurt you. If you—if you’re not willing to give her another chance, then you don’t fucking deserve her.”
If I don’t give her another chance—if I don’t fight for her, if I don’t show her that I don’t want perfect, that I want her—thenIdon’t deserve her.
Sweat’s not just beading at my hairline. It’s streaking down my face.
My heart’s beating in absolute terror.
What if—what if I fly across the country, track her down, tell her I love her, tell her all of this—that I want to be by her side while she keeps growing and healing and finding her whole self, that I want to love her and laugh with her and cook with her and watch TV with her and make a life with her, flaws and insecurities and fears and all—and she still doesn’t want me?
What then?
But what if she does want me?
What if she does want me, and I’m too fucking scared to be her hero?
“You love her,” Lucky says.
“She brought me back to life.”
“How long—how long did you know who she was?”
“Almost from day one.”
“And she knew you knew?”
“From day five.”
He stares out into the woods surrounding the cabin. “You watched her when you knew who she was and she didn’t know you knew?”
“Wanted to—wanted to figure out if I could trust her. Like Decker asked me to. And she—she’s a good person, Lucky. The best person. You can’t—you can’t fake what she did. Who she is. She’s like your friends—doesn’t think she’s any better than anyone else. She’ll get down on the floor and help clean up a spilled tray of coffee because it fuckingmatters. And she didn’t have the advantage of growing up here, with people who loved her the way your parents and family and friends love you, teaching her that helping others, that being part of a community, matters. She had to teach herself.”
Lucky suddenly gasps as he looks behind me.
“What?” I spin and spot it.
The moose.
Margot’s moose.
“Holy shit,” Lucky whispers. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“It likes your sister.”
Thing’s too close.
Waytoo close.
It eyes me, then Lucky.
