Page 56 of Only Be Mine

“He did exactly what John asked,” I said finally.

“Yes,” Amy said. “He did.”

We stood there for a moment, the air heavy between us.

“And Trevor… You know he didn’t do it out of obligation,” she continued. “He did it because he loves you. Because he’s always loved you.”

I felt the familiar tightening in my chest. “I know he loves me.”

“Do you?” she asked gently. “Because sometimes it sounds like you think that love should only count if it hurts.”

I flinched. “That’s not fair.”

Amy sighed. “I’m not trying to be cruel. I’m trying to protect you. You’re marrying a man who has proven, over and over again, that he will choose you. And you’re still measuring him against someone who left.”

Her words felt like a slap to the face.

“He didn’t leave me,” I said immediately. “That’s not the same thing.”

Amy hesitated. “I know you want to believe that. But Cate… he’s gone.”

“I didn’t stop loving him just because he…” I said, my voice shaking despite my effort to steady it. “And Trevor didn’t replace him. He stepped in after.”

“That doesn’t make his love lesser.”

“No,” I agreed. “It just makes it different.”

Amy studied me for a long moment, her expression torn between frustration and fear.

“I just don’t want you to destroy something real because you’re waiting for answers you may never get,” she said quietly.

I turned back toward the lake, the memory pressing in.

“I wasn’t waiting,” I said. “I’m not waiting. I’m trying to move forward. I really am.”

Amy’s voice softened. “Then why does this still hurt?”

Because loving John had never been about certainty.

Because the last thing he’d done, the thing that mattered most, had been choosing me, even when I made it impossible.

I closed my eyes.

“Because John loved me too.”

Chapter 19

Cate

Halloween - Eleven years ago

Iwas bouncing on the balls of my feet in John’s kitchen like a child who’d been promised candy and then told to wait.

“Where are we going?” I asked again, because asking twice had worked for me exactly zero times in life, but I kept trying anyway. I slid up onto the counter, careful not to brush the pot of freshly brewed coffee, and crossed my arms. Then I added a pout for emphasis - chin out, lower lip exaggerated, the whole dramatic production.

John looked up from where he was wrestling with a travel mug lid and laughed like I was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

“Now, Cate,” he said, voice warm with that patient teasing that always made my chest feel… softer. “I told you. It’s a surprise.”