Page 123 of Hero for the Holidays

She breathed in deep, her chest feeling like there were shards of glass in it. And she knew it wasn’t fair. She knew it wasn’t fair. She was holding seventeen-year-old Landry to the same standards that she held her parents. The people who were supposed to parent her. And she knew what being a parent was. She knew that her parents bore the weight of this pain. Of the doubt. Because it wasn’t up to Landry to be an adult when he wasn’t one. They had both grown and they had both changed.

And she realized that it wasn’t anger. Not anymore. It wasn’t anger.

It was fear. It had always been fear. She had looked at Landry then and she had seen exactly what she wanted to see. Something unfixable. Because she had known that she was the one who had to make the break with him. That she was the one who had to break it off, so that he wouldn’t. That she couldn’t endure another loss. And that was all she was doing now.

She was protecting herself.

“I did what I had to. But I came back empty. In a baggy sweatshirt, with no baby and a broken heart. Because whether or not I thought it was the right thing, whether or not I knew it was the only choice, it broke something in me. And I have spent all these years working to fix it. To become whole. Knowing that a part of my heart was out there. I did a pretty good job. But I’m so scared of something breaking me again. And the minute I came back the first thing I did was break up with you. You made it so easy. Because you were cruel. And that was actually a blessing. Because then I could just hate you. For what you did to me. For what you promised me. And it let me not be heartbroken. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what would happen to me if I lost you. If I lost this.”

“I need you to trust me,” he said. “Trust my love. Because it is real. And it is deep. It is the sum total of who I am as a man. I realized weeks ago life would’ve brought me here even if Lila hadn’t come to us. She was a damned good catalyst, because damn, did it mean we had to get it together. We had to figure out how to talk to each other. How to be together. We had to. There was no other option. But I love you. If that wasn’t true, the house, the family, that would be enough. But I love you like a man loves a woman. Not just as the mother of my child. I have loved you this whole time. I just wouldn’t let myself. Because like you, I was freaked the fuck out. About what it would mean to want you and to not have you again.” He sat down next to her on the hill. “We loved each other too early. It was too big for us. We couldn’t catch up to it. It was never the love that was wrong, though. It was just the time. And maybe we would’ve been fine if the people around us had helped us. Had taught us anything. Had given us any support, but we were kind of just out there giving it to each other. And we didn’t know what we were doing.”

“The scary thing is that I still don’t. I don’t feel grown enough to handle all of this.”

“That’s why we have to go together. We’ve done a damn fine job of it. If you don’t love me, Fia, then I’ll drop this. I’ll let it go. But if you do...”

“Of course I do,” she said. “Landry, there’s not another person for me. Not in this whole world. I just tried to tell myself that being Lila’s mother was enough. That I didn’t need to be yours too. I can’t stay away from you. You asked what my dream was. And I didn’t want to say it. It was to marry Landry King. It was to be Fia King.”

“Does any part of you still want that?”

“Yes. Of course if I do that, then I’m not going to be able to pass on Sullivan’s Point. Because the name is going to end...”

“Names don’t matter. Be Fia Sullivan, or be Fia King. You know that’s not what it takes to be family. Look at us. Family with three different names. Honoring all the places that we come from.”

“The name is the least of my worries. Landry, I love you so much it could shatter me.”

“But I’ll never shatter you. Because love means something different to me now. Because all these years taught me something better. Because I looked at myself and I didn’t like what I saw, and I decided to change it. I loved you from the beginning. But I couldn’t say it to you until I was confident that I could without demanding a thing in return. Because of the way that my dad used those words to manipulate, and I...I don’t want to do that. My love back then was selfish. I’m not saying that on a given day my love’s not going to be a little selfish. But I hope that it’s better. I hope that mostly it’s about what I can give you.”

“These last thirteen years were nothing,” she whispered. “They were just us learning how to love each other. Better. Different.”

“It was probably a good thing. To take the sex away for a while. Because we’re so good at that.”

She felt herself blushing. “Yes. We are very good at that.”

“You had to get to know me. As the man that I am. This wasn’t something we just fell into. Not like the first time. We are making choices. I choose you. The woman that you are now. The mother that you are now.”

“I choose you,” she whispered. “The man that you are.”

“We might fight sometimes,” he said. “That won’t make us toxic. We might hurt each other sometimes. But that won’t mean we should quit. Anytime you feel yourself on the edge with me, I want you to look at me and tell me where I’m failing you, and I’m gonna listen.”

She realized then that there were other true things that she still needed to learn. That yes, love didn’t cover everything. That sometimes distance and time and growth were necessary. But also that not only could she not know for sure how things would have gone if they’d made a different choice, she also could never know for sure what the future would hold.

And all of it required trust. In who they were, and who they’d become. And in their love. To make better choices. To make the right choices, because they were loving from a place that was different than the one they’d had before.

“I love you,” she said. “And I trust you. With all my past hurt. And my insecurities. And the things that still scare me. I love you. And maybe...maybe it’s easy now, because we both know we’re never gonna leave each other for anybody else. There’s no one else. We’ve proven that.”

He chuckled. “Well. That is true. But you know, the last thirteen years have been the making of us. We went our separate ways and we discovered something.”

“What’s that?”

“We can live without each other. But it’s just not as good.”

“No. And I would never choose to.”

“Me neither.” He leaned in and kissed her. “I can’t love anyone but you. I just can’t. It’s you. And there were a lot of things about that love back then that weren’t right. But it was real. And it was only you.”

“Only you.”

He picked her up off the hillside, and they stood in front of the cabin, where they’d built their family, for better or worse. The foundation of them, right there.

---