“Yeah, she looked great. There were photographs every fucking where and she seemed like a happy and well-adjusted child.”
“Then, there you have it.”
“I still deserved to know.” That was the thing sticking with me most.
“Answer me something, JC.”
I threw my hands up in surrender. “What?”
“You said you loved Kenzie when you went after her. If so, do you still love her now?”
“Yeah,” I openly admitted, not even needing to think about it. I’d been a shell of myself in recent weeks, and it still had everything to do with her.
“There’s only one thing left to do then,” he told me, and I looked over at him.
“And that is?”
“You, and only you, can decide if this is something you can get past. With Elsa, I wanted to banish her from my life for the lies and things she’d done, but she wasn’t herself when doing them. When I realized that, it was almost too late. If you love Kenzie, you must tell her, then find a way to work through these issues. If not, you’re going to be miserable, and it will get harder to shake as the bitterness hardens. Trust me. I’ve been there in my own youth.”
Anton had told us about his parents and brother, and we’d always admired his strength. He then had to relive the same nightmare with his wife after she’d lost their child. He’d blamed himself for making her think he valued anything over her, and I supposed I was doing the same to Kenzie.
“You’re not supposed to make so much sense,” I told him, then smirked. “But you’re right. I need to talk to her. She’ll never give me a chance now that I’ve fucked things up so badly once again.”
I had threatened to take Tori away as some sort of punishment to her, and I couldn’t do that. I just needed to get my head straight enough to make that decision, even though I think I had known what I would do all along. It’d been hidden deep inside beneath all the hurt and anger. It was a wasteland of emotion where secrets went to hide. The one about my step aunt had been one, and both my feelings toward and about Kenzie had been another.
“You’d be surprised what love can heal. It brought my wife back to me, and it very well might bring Kenzie back to you.” Anton then rose to his feet. “I need to stop by Caspian’s place to grab something. Do you need a ride somewhere?”
I shook my head, then rose to my own feet. I threw a few bills onto the table for my drink. “No, I’ve just had the one shot. I think it’s better if I go home and try to sort this all out.”
He clapped his hand on my back. “I hope it works out for you, JC. I knew one of these days you’d suffer the same fate as the rest of us. It’s for that reason that I should revel in your misery now, but I won’t. Love isn’t easy. It takes work and a shit ton of sacrifice, but when you’re lying in bed at night with the woman you love in your arms, it all seems worth it.”
“I hope to experience that again one day,” I replied, having only gotten a taste of it the night I spent with her in Phoenix. I wanted that back. I wanted to open my eyes in the middle of the night and watch the moonlight as it reflected off her long hair. I also wanted to feel the slight weight of her body on mine as we lay together with nothing between us. No lies. No secrets. Just an intimacy I had never known I wanted, and one I now couldn’t live without.
“Good luck, JC. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will,” I assured him, then watched him race for his car. A few flashbulbs went off, and I shook my head. How in the hell he dealt with the paparazzi all the time, I didn’t know. I was just glad they were focused on him and not me as I followed him out the door, but headed in the opposite direction to my car.
I needed to come up with a plan, and I just hoped I didn’t ruin everything all over again. It seemed to be par for the course where we were concerned, but as Anton and the other Titans had proven more than once, nothing was out of reach if we wanted it bad enough. I just needed to think things through and come up with a grand enough plan that she could do nothing other than forgive me. To do that, I needed to forgive her, too. As I slid behind the wheel of my car, I realized I had already done so. Now, I just needed to prove that to her.