Page 163 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
“Mine too. We burned so bright.” I glanced over and caught the soft smile on her lips. Lips I wanted to kiss.Again. “But maybe that’s all we get. Just that one summer and the three months that came after it. Maybe we were never meant to have any more than that.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Don’t you?”
No. No fucking way did I believe that. “I don’t know, Evie.” Because that was true too.
“Why are we going this way?” she asked, suddenly noticing where we were headed as we drove past the diner where she used to work.
“You said you wanted to put some ghosts to rest. So let’s do it.” Although I wasn’t sure how we’d accomplish that just by driving to her old house, it felt like something we needed to do.
* * *
Evie
Ridge pulled up in front of the house I hadn’t been to in eight years. Whoever lived there now had fixed the front porch steps and given the place a fresh coat of white paint. The rusty chain-link fence was gone, the front yard had been cleared, and grass grew where there used to be weeds and scraggly bushes.
It was just a house, and I was in no danger, but I couldn’t stop shaking as the memories of that night assaulted me.
Ridge took my hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Nothing can hurt you.”
I brushed away my tears. “I was so scared,” I whispered.
“I know. I came back the next day. There was police tape all around it, but there weren’t any cops around, so I broke into your room and stole your perfume.”
“Oh my god.” I started laughing. “That was you?”
“It was me, alright.”
“Joe packed up our stuff. I didn’t want to come back here. I didn’t notice my perfume was gone until months later when I finally went through the boxes.”
“Have you ever heard from your mom again?”
“Yeah. Once. Two years ago, she showed up at my aunt Lindsay’s house. Wren was in school, and when Lindsay called me, I drove home. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind. But when I saw her again, none of it mattered anymore. Wren and I are so much better off without her. She looked horrible. The drugs are killing her. She asked Lindsay for money and took off before Wren got home from school. She said Wade’s in prison, and I have no idea where she lives or what she does. I feel sorry for her. She missed out on so many amazing things in Wren’s life.”
“And yours,” Ridge said. “You’ve done amazing things.”
I brushed away some more tears. “So have you.”
“Look at us now. Kids from the hood made good.”
I looked out the window at my old house and remembered the girl I used to be. I’d been so busy struggling to survive for the better part of my life that I hadn’t really been living. Until I met Ridge. His love had given me the courage to hope for something better, and that night the man assaulted me in my own house, and that hope was stolen from me.
No, that wasn’t true. I’d given him that power over me. Fear had driven me to push away my hopes and dreams and the boy I loved because I thought I was damaged goods and nothing would fix me.
I used to believe that being strong meant that I had to build walls around myself and shut everyone out. But now I knew it was the opposite. To be truly strong, you had to be brave enough to make yourself vulnerable.
Because what was the purpose of life if not to love and be loved?
I was okay now. Better than okay. I’d survived that night, and now I was free of that life. Free to move on and live the life I’d always wanted.
“Have you seen enough?” Ridge asked as if sensing that I’d made peace with the memories that used to haunt me.
I nodded, and he pulled away, leaving my shitty house in the shitty neighborhood in our rearview. But our trip down memory lane wasn’t over yet.
* * *
“Think you can still scale a fence, Dr. Bellamy?” he asked as we stood in front of the chain-link.
