Page 63 of All The Happily Ever Afters

Ella whispers, “I don’t want to hide anymore.” And for the first time in years, I think it’s safe. I’m willing to risk it. I need her back in every way.

“Thank you for loving me,” I tell her as my throat gets tight with emotion, remembering how she said ‘I do’ at the courthouse. “For never stopping sending me letters.” The letters held it all together. I wouldn’t have known that she truly loved me without them. That she could look past the pain just to hold on to me.

“I told you I’d love you through the war. I know sometimes it doesn’t end just because you came home.” Her bottom lip wobbles and I know why.

“You know it was more than that,” I whisper to her. Only the second time I’ve dared to hint at the truth allowed. But it’s Ella, and she knows it was all for her. I would do anything for her.

She never told me what my cousin had done to her, but she didn’t have to. I could see it in her eyes that day.

He hurt her, so I hurt him back.

The Army taught me how to kill; love taught me the power of vengeance.

Burying my head in the crook of her neck, I hold on to Ella, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her small body into my chest.

“You know I love you. I could never stop loving you,” she whispers.

“For the rest of my life, I’m yours.”

Our love story is dark and twisted, haunted by a past we didn’t choose. But it doesn’t make it anything less than the purest of loves.

EPILOGUE

Ella

Some secrets are worth keeping. Just as is some love.

The day I found out who Aiden’s cousin was, as they sat together ready to enlist, is the day everything changed between us. He was my only, my everything, for years before. And in my heart, my first.

I’ve never told anyone what his cousin did to me, except the night it happened, but Aiden knew without speaking the truth. I didn’t tell him; I didn’t think he’d believe me. The way no one else had. Drunk at a party and underage with college boys, I should have known better. That’s what they said to me back then. I didn’t want Aiden to look at me the same way.

And so I never said a word.

The moment I saw his cousin, I squeezed Aiden’s hand and struggled to breathe as it all came back to me. I couldn’t hide my fear and shame.

Aiden left that week, the look in his eye changed and that day, I thought everything would be ruined forever.

I had no idea what would happen, or the man Aiden would be when he came back. I never stopped writing him letters, or worrying that he’d stop loving me.

He didn’t tell me what he’d done when he came home, but just as he knew my secret, I knew his when his cousin’s casket was lowered to the ground.

Neither of us could voice them and these secrets separated us. Almost broke us.

He struggled with the pain of what’d happened to me, but also what he’d done. He stayed away, not wanting to risk what would happen to me if we were together when his secret came to life.

I remember how he whispered in the dark when he realized I knew, “If they find out, I’ll never tell why. Promise me, you’ll let me take the fall and never speak a word.”When I promised him, I wouldn’t say a thing, and I’d stay his secret until the case was closed, I made a promise to myself as well, to never lie to him again.

But they never found out. No one knows and now he’s come back to me.

Love has a way of turning you into a person you never thought you could be.

It takes time and distance to recover. More than that, it takes love. I would never have stopped loving Aiden, before or after the war, before knowing how close our secrets were.

People wait for love.

People die for love.

People kill for love, too.

Some secrets are worth keeping. And I’ll keep his secrets forever, just as he kept mine.

But after tonight, no more secrets. I want our love back, to be his and for everyone to know it, always and forever.

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