The second I clicked my buckle, Jenna pulled out onto the street.
“This is so gonna wrinkle up my dress,” I said, another dose of that worry injecting itself in my veins.
“Don’t even start, Harley Hope. You look gorgeous. You’re gonna be the prettiest girl in the whole place.”
Funny how I’d never had stage fright for a second of my life. But this felt different. As if I was getting ready to let a room full of strangers view the most sacred part of me. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t incredibly honored to be invited.
To be a part of it.
I fidgeted with the skirt of my designer black dress, the one Jenna had dragged me out to some upscale boutique downtown to purchase for the event.
An event that was being held at Gingham Lakes Children’s Center.
The second I even let the thought enter my mind, moisture was threatening at my eyes. I fought off the tingly sensation that raced my throat.
This was definitely not the time nor place to get lost in that vacancy that echoed inside of me.
I only allowed myself it in the darkest hours of the night. When I was alone, and I was free to let the loss I was dealing with consume me. When I allowed myself to miss him. To ache for him. My body pleading and my heart begging for him through the silence.
I gave myself the time to feel it.
The pain.
The loneliness.
Let the what-should-have-beens cry out from my spirit.
Just for a little while.
Then I got up the next morning with a staggering amount of thankfulness.
Told myself, someday. Someday I’d find the man who was meant for me. The one who completed me.
The hardest part was Kale had fit every single one of those spaces.
Filled them perfectly.
I gave a little yelp when I was poked in the side.
“There you are, Harley Hope Masterson. Here I was, thinking I was gonna have to crawl around in that head of yours and rescue you from wherever you went. Because you sure seem to be going there a whole lot the last few days.”
I choked back the thick clot of emotion. “Just thinkin’.”
Clinging to the steering wheel, Jenna glanced over at me and then turned back to the road. “And just what are you thinkin’ about? Or more specifically, who?”
I gave her a shrug. “No one.”
It might as well have been a shout of his name from the rooftops.
Kale. Kale. Kale.
Because it was always right there.
An echo in my consciousness.
The man carved into me.
“Will he be there?” she asked.
Flinching, I shook my head. “No. I saw the guest list. He isn’t on there. I’m sure he knew it’d be too hard on us to see him.”
Her jaw clenched. “He owes me his dick, you know? Told him I was gonna cut it off if he hurt you. And that man hurt you.”
A crashing wave of it hit me from out of nowhere.
Covering me whole.
Hurt.
She was right.
Kale had hurt me.
A tear streaked free, and my voice cracked when I whispered, “How’s it possible to be so thankful for someone and devastated by them at the same time? It feels like I’m torn right in two, Jenna.”
“It would be wrong if you felt any other way, Harley Hope. He saved your son’s life, but that doesn’t give him a pass for walking out on you.”
I wiped the back of my hand across my dampened cheek, trying not to smudge my mascara as a shot of frustration took hold. “That’s the problem . . . I want to give him that pass, because he gave me back my world. I just didn’t know that, in the end, he’d leave such a huge piece of it missing.”
A heavy breath pulled from my lungs.
Weighted.
A thousand pounds of sorrow.
I looked at her. “Does that make me crazy?”
Her head shook. “Of course not. It makes you Hope. Who you are. I just wish he would have seen you for what you are.”
My attention shifted away, and I blinked out the windshield at the buildings whizzing by. “I’m not sure him walking out had anything to do with me. I just don’t think he could handle it. Seeing Evan that way . . . after going through it with Melody.”
A quiver rocked through me when the memories flashed.
Evan collapsing.
Kale right there. Fighting for him. Refusing to give up.
Saving him.
My son.
Emotion bottled high in my throat, and I choked around it. “I forgive him, Jenna. I forgive him, and I refuse to regret loving him. No matter what kind of pain he left behind.”
She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Then don’t. You don’t need to feel guilty for loving him. He’s the one who’s missin’ out.”
I glanced back at my son, who was drawing another picture of Captain America on his sketchpad.
He’d been doing it nonstop since he’d come home from the hospital eight weeks ago.