Page 95 of Free to Dream
Hope.
“But?”
“We’d love to have you over for dinner. We have a lot to catch up on.”
Keene swallows once, twice, then gives me a quick nod and a smile before walking away. As I hear his footsteps down the hallway, I hear him call out, “I’ll bring takeout!”
I start to smile. Our lives will end up okay. We’ll work to make it that way.
Caleb, out of the blue, says, “You know, you really designed this room for complete decadence.”
I grab the new ice cream bowl from the tray. Plowing in another mouthful of ice cream, I nod. I did.
“You know the only thing you’re missing in here?” Caleb asks casually as he reads the medicine bottle before shaking out one of the 800 mg ibuprofen. Handing me that and a glass of water, I take the pill, hoping it kicks in quickly to alleviate the pain in my cheek.
Swallowing, I ask, “No. What?”
“Someone to share it with.” His eyes are intent on mine. Waiting. Patient.
My heart thuds in my chest.
My mouth opens and closes.
For just a moment, the fear of my past tries to reach out its feelers and grab hold of me to drag me back. I fight back the shadows. No more. It’s time to face the future standing in front of me with my heart open instead.
“No, Caleb, I’m not missing that. I already found it.”
Leaning back, I pull back the blanket to welcome him into my bed, my arms, my heart. With no secrets left between us.
His eyes wildly dilate before he climbs into his place.
Right next to me.
Epilogue
Cassidy
It’s Memorial Day weekend, and there are plans to celebrate by the lake on the farm.
From my bedroom window, I see casual beauty. There’s about forty of us who will be here today, so we went for four large, round tables covered in white. Casual elegance. That’s the effect I wanted. Low flower centerpieces in red, white, and blue make it easy for what we know will be lots of easy conversation and laughter going long into the night. In front of each place setting is a Mason jar which holds a red, white, or blue candle to be lit as the sun goes down. Each jar has a tri-colored ribbon glued carefully on top. Even the cake Corinna made is red, white, and blue.
Jared and Ryan spent most of yesterday wiring the speakers from the farm to face outward. Jared volunteered to play DJ for most of the day from his Spotify app. Ryan said of course, because Jared just wanted to play with all the tech porn toys. Jared shrugged before we all broke out into laughter.
I look up at the beautiful blue sky with a smile on my face. Weather was expected to be mid-70s with a low of 50. Perfect. Then again, it was going to be perfect anyway.
I was getting married today.
To say it wasn’t an easy road after Millicent Lockwood shot me, finding out Keene was my biological brother, redefining family dynamics, and learning so much about my life was based on the greed and jealousy of the woman who was the mother of the man I love would be the understatement of the century.
Shortly after I was released from bedrest, Caleb and I began counseling with a wonderful team Matt referred us to.
There were nights where one or both of us were up pacing the floor, our demons too much for us to deal with in the dream state. We fought with each other and for each other. There were tears, pain, and grief, but through it all, I kept two very important things in my mind.
That bitch wasn’t going to win, and I loved this man far too much to give up.
After the first few months, the difference became noticeable. Our nightmares eased. Our smiles outweighed our grief. We started sleeping through the night more, clinging to each other rather than pushing each other away. Caleb eventually stopped trying to handle it on his own and started talking to me about the things causing him the most pain—the betrayals perpetrated by his mother that led to my kidnapping, my mother’s death, my attempted murder, his brother’s pain. His own guilt.
Then we talked about all the blessings. I remember a little over two months ago when I taunted him by saying had this never happened the way it had, he never would have been able to resist me as a teenager and I would have ended up knocked up. We would have had a whole different set of problems then.
