Page 50 of Written in the Stars

I don’t remember him when I came back into town for my mother’s funeral. I just remember being with my family and falling apart once I realized she was gone. I can’t believe he and I are connected this way.

He places his head in his hands and begins to sob. I immediately get up from my seat on the couch and walk over to him, taking him into my arms. “Babe, I don’t hate you.” Tears are streaming down my face. Not because I’m upset that he’s just telling me this now. I can understand why he waited, but because losing my mom was so difficult.

I can’t believe Zander and I have been entwined since then, our story written in the stars, way before we even knew one another.

He wraps his arms around me and cries into me uncontrollably. “I’m so sorry, baby!”

I feel so bad. I need to say something to make him understand I don’t blame him for what happened. Of course I wish he could have saved my mom. I wish things would have turned out differently. But it’s not as though he didn’t want to. I know he would have wanted to save her, just like he wanted to save his wife and his unborn child.

He was about to become a father and it just got ripped away from him in a matter of minutes. He couldn’t stop it, nor could he change anything that happened, and that had to be so hard for him to go through.

“Baby, listen to me,” I say, willing him to look at me. He pulls away from me and looks at me through his red, tear-filled eyes.

“It is not your fault. This is not your fault. Do you hear me? You have to stop blaming yourself. You couldn’t save everybody. It wasn’t your fault.”

I can’t believe his wife and my mom had been in that fire together… had died together. How small is this world that we live in for things like this to take place? What are the odds of falling in love with a man who is related to the death of your mother?

“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so fucking sorry,” he cries and crashes into me once more.

It breaks my heart to see him like this. I don’t know what to do or what to say to let him know that sometimes you can’t control what happens. Sometimes things are out of our control.

I pull him back toward the couch and we take a seat on it. We never let go of one another, though.

After a long while, he pulls away and wipes the tears with the back of his hand. “I’ve been holding this in for so long, and I’m sorry. I know I should have told you sooner, but every time I tried to, it was so hard, and I didn’t want to end up breaking down like I did right now. I knew I was going to.”

I shake my head as if telling him everything is going to be alright. “Babe, I know. I understand. It’s okay.”

He shrugs. “I just can’t help feeling as though everything is all my fault. Everything that happened to them.”

I’m about to tell him once more that it’s not, but he continues before I have the chance to say anything at all.

“Because of me, Maddie, my child, and Mrs. Darling are lying six feet underground. All because I couldn’t get to them in time. After the incident, I had to leave the force… I stayed away for the whole three years and just went back to the rescue team about a month before you walked into my life. Matt was there for me the whole time, but I still felt so alone and like I let everyone down.”

Pain and heartache are painted all over his face.

“Oh, love. I’m so sorry…”

He shrugs again. “It was just so hard, you know? I blame myself for the death of my wife, my unborn child, and your mother. No matter what anyone says, it’ll always be because of me they are no longer here. I wouldn’t be mad at you if you wanted to just walk away from me, from us, right now. Sure I’d miss the hell out of you, but I wouldn’t blame you for it. Especially because I didn’t come clean with it right away.”

I furrow my brows, not fully grasping his last statement. He thinks I want to leave him because of this revelation? Absolutely not. There’s not a chance in hell that I can walk away from him now. If anything, I need to be here for him more than ever now. He needs me. And I know, sure as hell, that I need him. I can’t help but feel like he is the one for me, the one who I’ve been waiting my whole life for. He is the reason Walter and I didn’t work out. He’s my destiny; I know it in my heart.

I grab Zander’s hands in mine and stare deeply into his eyes. “Listen to me, babe. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here. You came into my life the moment I really needed someone. You saved my heart from the devastation it had just been through, walking in on my fiancé, messing around with someone else a month before our wedding. There’s no chance in hell that I’m leaving you now when you need me.”

“Sweetheart,” he whispers.

I close my eyes, hoping to fight the tears back. “I love you, Zander. I fell in love with you so suddenly, so helplessly. But I knew when your eyes looked back into mine that I was done for. You are the one for me. You’re the one I’m meant to be with no matter how our pasts are intertwined.” Tears stream down my face again.

“Serenity, I love you so much, sweetheart.”

Zander grabs me and pulls me into him, and there, on his couch, we spend the rest of the night, comforting one another. And as a thunderstorm makes its way through the town, I know I need to go back to Narrowville, get all of my things from my old apartment, which should take at the most a couple of hours. I can then bring some stuff back here and spend another night in Zander’s arms because that’s exactly where I’m meant to be.

Where I need to be.

Where I want to be.

I need to officially move back out here to Glimerton to be with the people who matter the most. Zander, Lissa, my dad, and even Matt and Valerie. Even though I’ve just met them not too long ago, they are becoming good friends of mine, too, and I know it’s here where I belong.

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