Page 49 of Whisper of Surrender (Whisper Lake 2)

He paused and took a breath. Hearing the words coming out of his own mouth was so different than hearing it from someone else.

“He took me to the hospital, and that’s where I spent the first few months of my life. I had some issues because of the drugs in my system. He came and visited me a lot and even got to name me. Then, when I was healthy enough, I was released and went into foster care. My dad kept tabs on me. Every month or so he’d check in with me. Then, when I was about four, he showed up one day without calling to schedule a visit. He saw the conditions I was living in and told me to get in the car. A few months later, he asked if I wanted to be his son. He used to always say that I was a superhero and that being found in an alley was my origin story.”

“He sounds like he was an amazing man.”

“He was. It’s so weird to think about the fact that he was three years younger than I am now when he adopted me,”

Jess spoke so quietly he could barely hear her. “I can’t believe I never…knew any of that. I mean, I knew your dad died but…”

“I never talk about it.” Ethan shook his head. “But, I’ll never forget that day. I walked out of school and saw my dad’s partner waiting for me. I knew that something was wrong from the look on his face. He told me he was taking me home. I kept asking where my dad was, but he wouldn’t answer me. He kept trying to make small talk about sports and other things. I was so mad by the time I got home I wasn’t even speaking to him. When I opened the door, my grandma was there, and I knew. My dad was gone. She was sitting on the couch, and she asked me to come join her.

“She told me what happened to my dad and said I was coming to live with her. She said she didn’t want anyone else to tell me because she didn’t want me to think, even for a second, that I was going to go back to foster care.”

“Wow.”

Ethan felt like a huge weight had been taken off his shoulders. He’d never bought into the philosophy that talking about things was healing, but he had to admit, saying the words out loud was cathartic. He hadn’t thought about his dad for a long time. Right after he lost him, it was just too painful, so he blocked it out. Then, as he got older, he’d think about him when he had milestones like his first touchdown, first girlfriend, graduation, but other than that, he did his best not to think about him.

His grandma never really talked about his dad, either. They’d have moments where they both knew the other one was thinking about him, but they rarely vocalized it. It was just too painful.

Jess and Ethan walked for a while in silence before she slipped her hand into his. He threaded his fingers through hers and finally knew that this was home. Wherever she was, be it in the city or in Whisper Lake, that was home.

“The day on the pier was my first day in Whisper Lake. I was walking along the lake, and I saw this girl sitting at the end of the pier. You looked so tiny. I was worried you were going to fall in. Then when I got close, I saw you were crying.”

“Most boys would have run the other way.”

“I saw the same sadness in your eyes that I was feeling but didn’t know how to talk about it.”

Jess nodded. “Yeah, that morning I’d overheard my parents talking after they got off the phone with my doctor. The stint that I had put in didn’t give them the results they’d hoped for. I knew that if the treatment didn’t work, I only had four to six weeks, tops.

“My dad held my mom as she cried and I slipped out the back door. I just needed to be alone and think. I was trying to figure out a way to make it okay for them that I was going to be gone.”

He stopped and turned to her. “I remember you telling me that you weren’t scared for you, you were scared for your parents. You were so brave. You amazed me.”

She let out a forced laugh. “I wasn’t brave. I was just tired. I’d been fighting all my life, and I was exhausted.” The corners of her eyes crinkled. “I always wondered what the boy on the dock thought of that day. Or if he thought about it at all. The day the crazy, dying girl kissed him.”

“I think about that day all the time. And I never thought you were crazy.” Ethan lifted his hand and brushed a strand back from her face. “It was brave. You are the bravest person I know.”

“Is that the real reason that you asked me to be your fake girlfriend?” she was joking, but he sensed a vulnerability in her question.

“No. The real reason was I wanted an excuse to kiss you again. I needed to redeem myself, after all.”

Her blue eyes twinkled in the moonlight. “And you think you have?”

That was a challenge if he’d ever heard one. He’d almost kissed her in the buggy, and as much as he wanted to do it now, he knew that a crowded street wasn’t the right place.

“Actually, I think I might need another crack at it.”

Thankfully, they were only about a block away from their hotel.

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