Page 81 of Marrying the Gardener
“Crim—”
She turns, marching away from me, toward the closet that connects our rooms.
Leaving my phone atop the sudoku book, I follow her. “Crimson, there are other options. We can figure this out.”
“We will,” she says, opening a drawer in her desk, taking out a page, and grabbing a pen. “But not like this.” She clicks open the pen.
I grab her hand. “What are you doing?”
“Filling out my petition for divorce.”
“Crimson…”
“The sooner we’re divorced, the sooner we can get remarried with the right intentions. I’ll take your last name. We’ll go somewhere else.” Breaths short, she blinks back tears. “It’s not ideal, but I don’t know what else to do. I’m so sorry I’ve put you through this, and it’s amounted tonothing. If you can forgive me, if you can stillloveme…” Her body crumples as she covers her face with a hand. “…I want a life with you. I’llexplain everything to Crisis, and Ava, and the other girls. I’ll find places for them. Can we do it? Will you come with me? Can we disappear?Please?”
My heart breaks as I pull her into my arms. “Crisis isn’t going to let you disappear.”
She shoves out of my arms. “Ican’ttake her fiancé’s money, Kaleb! That’s not how this works.”
“What about mine?” I ask.
“Yours?” She laughs. “How many jobs have you done if you have the kind of money we’d need just lying around? And, also, no.No. I am not going to take anyone’s money on a hope and a prayer that I’ll actually know what to do with it.”
“So you’re going to run away instead?”
Her teeth grit. “I thought you’d understand that solution.”
My chest twists, and my fists clench at my sides. “You’re right. I understand that it’s not a solution. I understand the regrets I can’t shake. I still feel like I’m on the run. Even when I’m home, I don’t know how to mend the rift I opened when I ran away. I know I’m the only one holding it there, but I can’t get past the fact I was the only one who got out yet I didn’t take a single one of them with me. I can’t handle the shame that I bailed on a family that made me their first priority the moment it was safe.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My parents are dead. When they died, my big brother found me and brought me home. I spent every year I was gone trying to forget my entire childhood, but the very moment the monsters who made it a living nightmare were gone, herememberedme. And he brought me back home, here, to Sunset.”
Crimson’s body slumps, and she looks at the paper on her desk. “Your family…is here. In Sunset.”
“Yes, it is.”
Her eyes close. “You can’t leave them again.”
“That’s not the point of what I’m saying. The point is I regret leaving them, and I don’t want you to regret leaving your family, too.”
She fixes me with a grimace. “The whole point of this was to leave my family, Kaleb.”
“I’m not talking about your father and the rest of the Nightingales, Crimson. Crisis. Ava. Charlotte.Everyonewho became a family to you when your flesh and blood failed, those are the people I don’t want you to regret leaving behind.”
“I… I don’t know what else to do…” she whispers. “I don’t want to leave them. But I can’t keep living like this. I work so hard. All the time. On things that benefit a man who will leave everything to you. I am enslaved to a man who doesn’t even believe I can run a bakery without another man’s help. I’m… I’mworn, Kaleb. I am fed up and worn out.”
I catch her hand. “I know. I know what a breaking point looks like, Crimson. Can you please…pleasetrust me?”
“You have a solution that doesn’t involve taking advantage of the people I love?”
“I have a solution that involves trusting the people who love you.”
“That sounds like a scam.” She tries to pull her hand out of mine; I won’t let her. She swallows, hard. “Kaleb, please let go.”
“I need your answer.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, blind faith isn’t my strong suit.”
