Page 108 of The Last One You Loved
MADDOX
NOT TONIGHT
“I’m not ready to lay this down,
I’m too stubborn to quit you now.”
Performed by Steel Magnolia
Written by Lindsey / West / Pittman
Mila reboundedto her normal self in a way that spoke to the resilience of children…to her resilience. She spent the week chattering away about the damn gingerbread stories at school until I was seeing them in my sleep. She’d only had one nightmare since the incident. Her screams over the baby monitor had launched me into her room where I’d picked her up and carried her back to ours, settling her between McKenna and me where we’d both watched over her while she’d slept.
The tenderness on McK’s face when she looked at Mila these days about undid me. I might even have been jealous if both my girls hadn’t looked at me in the same way?with adoration and love. It felt like I’d gotten back a part of my soul that had been wandering aimlessly for years.
A little over a week after the worst day of my life, Mama and Dad threw a party at the ranch for Sadie, who’d finally been released from the hospital and was hobbling around with a splint and crutches, fiercely determined to get her full mobility back. The party was supposedly for her, but the truth was, we were really celebrating all the ways we’d saved each other that day.
The ranch was packed with an avalanche of family and townsfolk. The noise was loud and rambunctious in the very best way. Mila loved it, flitting around while being treated like the hometown hero she was, but McK retreated a little bit, reminding me of the very first time she’d come to a birthday party at the ranch. The chaos had sent her fleeing to the porch, and that was where I found her when I went looking for her now.
She was leaning against the rail, staring out at the mist swirling low above the ground. The day was cold with the promise of winter hovering in the air. McKenna shivered, and I pulled her up tight against me, our warmth blending together.
“Where you at?” I asked, kissing her temple softly.
“The D.A. from Davis called,” she said as her hands found my biceps and squeezed. “Thanks to your lead, they found the store where the pre-paid phones were bought, and they had surveillance cameras that showed Dr. Gregory purchasing them. She wanted to let me know they’re pressing charges.”
She turned in my arms, fingers running along my cheek.
“Thank you,” she said, and then she was kissing me, like she had all week, fierce and yet sad, as if each one could be our last. I tried not to let it snag at my insecurities because I could feel, in every touch and every word, her intention to return to me…to us.
She stepped out of my embrace, pulling something out of her back pocket that she clenched in her fist.
“Today, we’ve been celebrating how you, Sadie, and Mila all saved each other?”
“And you,” I interrupted. “You saved Sadie, McK. And if you hadn’t remembered the hollow and the fool’s gold…” I swallowed hard, not able to think about theiffor long.
She shrugged, passing over what she’d done that day. She continued as if I hadn’t said anything. “I want you to know…you saved me, too. Not just with Gregory, not just when I showed up at your house thinking it was Trap’s, but before…when I was little. The only thing that got me up and out of the apartment some days when I lived with Sybil was knowing you were waiting for me.”
“McK,” I grunted out, uncomfortable and overwhelmed.
She handed me a key chain. A broken heart that had half of the phrase “Best Friends Forever.” She pulled the other half out of her pocket, and it already had her keys on it. “I know it’s stupid and childish, but…this is the most important word.” She pointed to theForeveron my half.
“One-hundred percent of the time McK. I’ll always have your back. I should never have let you push me away that easily. I didn’t fight for you, but I will every day for the rest of my life,” I told her. “We’re not just forever. We’re forever and always.”
She stared at me for a moment, tears filling her eyes that she brushed away. A small smile appeared on her lips. “Forever and always. You going to add that song to your sappy ringtones?”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
And then I kissed her, proving the promise of my words with action.
? ? ?
She left the next day. I’d wanted to drive her to the airport, but she had to drop the rental off, so Mila and I said goodbye to her at the house. My gut was in shreds. The last time McKenna Lloyd had left Willow Creek, I’d known she wasn’t coming back, and now, even though she’d said she was, and I believed in the stupid forever and always we’d promised each other, I was still terrified something would change. That something would prevent her from returning.
“I drew this for you,” Mila said, handing her a paper. “I still can’t draw very well yet, and our unicorn horns look like we’re wearing weird hats.” The paper had three stick figures at the front with our names written over them, and then behind us in the sky was a bunch of faces with the names of my family, Rianne, and even Mila’s friend, Missy. Below the three of us, it saidBFFs, and at the top, in her imperfect kindergarten handwriting, someone had helped her spell outThe Day the Hatleys Saved Each Other.
McK’s throat bobbed, and a little sob escaped her as she pulled Mila into a hug that was tight and fierce.
“It’s perfect, Mila. Just like you.”
