Page 148 of The Cost of Forgetting You

He’s quiet. Contemplative. Anxiety churns my stomach as I wait for him to make the first move.

He gathers a handful of sand and slowly lets it spill from between his fingers. When he finally speaks, his voice is raw. Weary. “So, Edgewood. That’s a swanky place.”

I focus on that sand rather than my words. Rather than his face, so guarded against what I might say. “I know. It’s— well, I never thought I’d be able to afford a place like it. But he deserves nothing less than the best. It’d be a lot harder to let him go if it were anywhere else.”

Guilt still weighs on me, pressing on my lungs like a vise. Knowing it’s the right thing to do doesn’t make it any easier.

As if he knows this, Truett nudges my shoulder with his. When I glance up, his gaze is soft. Full of understanding. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve helped.”

“I know you would’ve.” I purse my lips, studying a ripple in the glassy surface of the water. “And this is only a temporary solution. It gets him in, but I still need to figure out the long-term costs. He could live another decade, you know.” A decade. So long when it comes to costs, yet so short when you’re talking about a life. “But my grandparents left a good amount of money for me when they died. They wanted me to use it to have this big fancy wedding. The full-blown Southern affair that they never got to throw for my mother.”

Tru scoffs. “You’d hate that.”

“Right?” I widen my gaze, feeling vindicated. “I would hate that. I’d have done it for them, I guess, if they were still alive. But they aren’t. And that money would go to much better use to help me now, with Dad.”

“I don’t suppose your mom agreed?”

“Not exactly.” I swallow, trying to sink the stone weighing on my chest, but it won’t budge. So I go on, breathless. “After everything she’s done, everything I’ve learned… I know she was hurt. I can’t blame her for that. But she had no right to hurt me in turn, to make it my problem that her life didn’t go the way she planned. No right to lie and try to manipulate me into putting her first. I realized that if we were ever going to have hope of repairing our relationship, I needed her to show me that she could put those feelings aside and really listen to me. Trust me to make the right decision.

“I was running at first, Tru. You’re right about that. But I realized this was something I needed to do on my own. And before you object, I know that I don’t have to do everything alone. I get that. You’d be happy to know I let Alicia witness the entire conversation with my mom and only regretted it the tiniest bit.” I let my gaze float up, capturing the few clouds blotting out an otherwise clear sky. A billowing array of starlings burst from the trees to dance across my vision, putting on a show. Their distant calls to each other join with the babbling river to create the soundtrack of my revelation. “Dad and I, we’re so much the same. More than I ever realized. I think I needed to understand just how much in order to let go. To accept that it’s not my place to force him to stay at home. That this is a gift he’s giving me. One that no one ever gave him.”

A strong, calloused hand finds my bare knee. I’m still wearing the yellow sundress I had on for the tour. It’s riding up, exposing the length of my thigh. For a moment my gaze catches there, mesmerized by the sight of his skin against mine.

Tears blur my vision, stealing away that beautiful patchwork. All the places our edges match up. “I shouldn’t have cut you out like that. I was panicking. Thinking I’d fucked everything up because I dared to let myself cut loose for one night. I felt like I didn’t deserve him or you, if I could be so irresponsible.”

I blink, and a tear escapes. Soon my cheeks are slick with them. They fall silently, save for a hiccup of air passing over my lips every few seconds when I forget to breathe.

I don’t see him lean close, but I feel his breath on my ear. His lips on the hollow beneath as he whispers, “I’m proud of you, you know that?”

I turn to him, brows furrowed. He can’t possibly mean that. But he does. It’s there in his earnest gaze, his parted lips. In the way he releases my knee to stroke my cheek instead.

“How? Why?”

“Why not?” He lets out a breathy chuckle. He shakes his head slowly, lips curved into a soft smile. “You are notoriously selfless. To a fault, sometimes? Sure. But I love that about you. Love everything about who you are.” He snags his bottom lip and holds. Like he’s waiting for me to bolt because he used the word love, but it has the opposite effect. I can’t run because I’m growing roots. They’re sprouting from everywhere we touch, and everywhere we don’t. A life blooming in what is and what could be.

When I don’t object, he sucks in a breath and pushes on. “Helping your dad do this on his terms was exactly that. Selfless. But doing it the way you needed to? Standing up to your mother in the process?” He peers up at the treetops, where that flock of starlings has settled. His words fade to nothing more than the scrape of flint against steel, igniting a feeling in my heart that’s impossible to ignore. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You’re remarkable, Temptress. Don’t ever forget that.”

I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. It’s impressed upon my heart. Eternal.

Love is a lot of things. It’s reckless when you want to be careful. Gentle when the world is anything but. It’s choosing a life you’d never want for yourself, because you have a little girl on the way with someone you just met. It’s kissing your best friend beneath a willow tree in a quiet meadow in the forest. Taking them back there after life got in the way, only to find those feelings never really left.

Love is a cowboy with strong hands and a gentle heart guiding a new calf safely into the world. Holding his mother’s hand as she left it. It’s that same cowboy finding me when I’m trying so hard to be lost. Showing me the way back home.

Love is this moment, and every other we’ve shared. The threads that bind our years together. Our entire lives.

It’s the gift of the truth, so I say the truest thing I know.

“I love you, Truett. I always have, I think. Since that very first day when we rolled down the hill in front of your house.”

He holds his breath for a beat too long. I’m beginning to think I’ve entirely misjudged the moment when he chuckles quietly. “You managed to dodge the cow patties that time.”

“Because you didn’t have any cows yet! It’s hard, okay?” Laughter spills out of me in torrents, a rival to the rain of my tears. I lean into him, nestling my forehead in the curve of his neck. “You ruined me for everybody else.”

He angles toward me and threads a hand through my hair, holding me tightly. A heavy sigh rolls over his lips and onto mine, and his gaze settles there. “Is this the part where you rip my heart out by telling me you love me but you can’t stay?”

The pain in those words hollows me out. I cover his hand in my hair with my own and shake my head softly. “That’s the thing. I’m not leaving.”

He pulls away slightly, eyes widening. “You’re not?”

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