Page 99 of On My Side

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“I didn’task. I’m going to keep hurting you, Ren, no matter how much I don’t want to. Because I’ll always be waiting for you to have enough and leave. I’m trying to challenge that belief, you know? I want more from life.”

“Hey.” I take the biggest risk of my life when I press my forehead to hers. “What if I stay? What if the people who abandoned you were the problem? What if that’s not how you deserve to be treated? And yeah, you can always wonder what happens if I leave… but what happens if I don’t? What happens if I stay? What happens if you let me be on your side?

“What if you’ve protected Piper so well that no matter what happens, she’ll be okay? Give me a chance, Aud. Let me prove I’m not going anywhere, that you’re worth wanting everything with. I’ll go as slow as you want to, I’ll do anything.” I’m well aware that I’m begging, and honestly I don’t care. I mean every word. “My life is empty without you and Piper, and I need…”

I’m cut off when she throws her arms around my shoulders and presses her lips to mine. Simultaneously, we exhale in relief as I pull her in closer to me.

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This is where I belong. With her, in her life.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers after breaking the kiss.

I brush a strand of hair out of her face. “I missed you,” I echo. “It felt like I was dying.”

“You’re okay going slow?” she asks anxiously. “I don’t want to push you away further.”

“Slow is good. Slow dancing, slow sex, slow mornings…” My hands trail down her sides, settling on her waist. “I want to take my time with you, Audrey Elise. I want slow.”

I bring her lips to mine, kissing her soft and slow and languid to prove this is what I want. That she’s what I want.

Chapter 32

Audrey

Playlist: Delicate | Taylor Swift

Ren comes over after the event, and I finally tell him everything about my pregnancy and raising Piper on my own. I tell him what it was like beingthepregnant girl my final semester of high school. How teachers and students alike suddenly stopped talking whenever I was near. How I ate lunch alone in the nurse’s office while she ignored me. How I took my finals in April and finished early, because Piper was due in early May. How when they sent my diploma, I threw it away. I tell him about the depression that plagued me after she was born, how I’d cry during the sleepless nights, begging her to latch or to sleep, depending on the situation.

I tell him what it was like working the front desk of the inn with a tiny Piper in a bouncer seat next to me. How she started showing autistic traits at a pretty young age, and I brought her to a psychologist to be diagnosed. I admit how ashamed I still feel for wishing she weren’t autistic at first. I tell him how I still struggle with how my body’s changed, and howguiltyI feel for struggling. I tell him about the encompassing grief that overtookwhen Aunt Liv died. How I felt numb when I found out she left me not only the cottage as promised, but the inn, too. How I planned on selling, but couldn’t go through with it.

And Ren… well, he’s Ren. He’s steady and comforting as he listens. He holds me when I sob, rubbing soothing circles on my back. He asks all the right questions about what Piper was like when she was younger, and wipes away tears when I tell the story of her first steps.

He stays until 2 a.m., or maybe even later. All I remember is commenting on the time, and waking up the next morning in bed, my glasses folded neatly on the nightstand with a glass of water and a post-it note next to them.

Thank you for letting me in. I went home so I wouldn’t be here when Piper comes back this morning, but that doesn’t mean I’m not staying. I am.

-R

For the first time, the idea of him staying doesn’t seem impossible.