Page 66 of Embers in the Outfield

I feel strong arms pull me in, and all I can do is cry. I’m digging my nails into River’s skin, that simple act reminding me it was all a nightmare and none of it was real.

Gasping for air, I can’t calm down. River keeps shushing me, telling me I’m safe. I don’t know how long he holds me, but it feels like forever before my heart rate slows, and I can take a whole breath in.

My breaths begin to even, and I peel myself away from River’s chest. My tear-soaked cheeks keep my hair stuck to my skin, but River moves as much as he can out of the way, dropping kisses along my cheeks, then moving his lips down to the cornersof my mouth. Eventually, he drops a small kiss to my lips, his eyes full of concern.

“Kennedy, talk to me, baby. What happened?” I feel my eyes well up again just at the thought of what happened in my subconscious.

I’m surprised it took this long for a nightmare to happen since I started seeing River. I have always been a restless sleeper and that hasn’t changed since we started sleeping together, but my nightmare hadn’t returned for months.

“I sometimes have nightmares about the day my parents died. It’s always on repeat, pulling me back through the steps leading up to the accident. In some morbid way, I sort of look forward to seeing them, even though the entire memory is so horrible. But it’s like a window into a world I never got to see carried out past the handful of years I got with them.

“But this one was different. This one didn’t have my parents in the front seats. This one had—” I choke on my words, feeling as if my breath is once again taken from me as I recall the horror that felt like reality just moments ago.

“This time, it was you sitting in the seat. And I couldn’t warn you, and everything went black.” I feel the tears slip free again, that fear that the one person who is finally holding my heart is going to leave me just like my parents did.

River brings me back so that I’m engulfed in one of his embraces, holding me close, and I hear the steady beat of his heart against my ear.

He’s here; he’s with me. He wasn’t there; he’s going to be okay.

I keep repeating those words, hoping they start to feel real the more I breathe him in and feel the beat of his heart in his chest.

“I’m right here, Kennedy. I’m not going anywhere.” He tries to assure me, but I start to shake my head.

“You can’t promise me that. You can’t say those words and know for certain,” I say, once again turning into a blubbering mess as I let fear overtake my emotions again.

“Kennedy, look at me.” River adjusts himself so his eyes are in direct line with mine. I try to avoid his gaze, the vulnerability in my soul at an all-time high.

I keep my eyes anywhere but on him, but eventually, I give in, unable to keep from losing myself in his gaze.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He moves my hand to touch his chest above his heart. “You feel that? That beat beneath my skin? It’s there because it beats for you. It beats in rhythm to the love I feel for you. Because that’s the thing, Kennedy. I love you, and all my steps will lead back to you. Always,” he says with no hesitation.

Right now, in this moment where he confesses his love for me, I forget about how stubborn we’ve both been at not declaring our love for one another. This right here is about us; it’s about a love that erupted from the most unlikely place.

“For so long, I pushed you away. I kept you at a distance, thinking it was a result of years of irritation and annoyance. But I think my heart knew the moment I let you in it would never be the same. And it hasn’t. I have loved you far longer than I could imagine, River. You’re it for me.” I stroke the soft hair on his chest, trying to memorize everything about him in this moment.

“I’m scared now that I found you, I’ll lose you. Like there’s a dark cloud that sees my happiness, and somehow I’ll lose everything once again,” I say, my voice above a whisper, fearing if I confess this too loud, something in the universe will pick it up and run with it.

“Life isn’t about control, as much as you’ve worked hard to attain it. It’s about giving your heart a chance to love, even if it breaks later. It’s about giving that muscle a chance to get stronger. Because without those moments, you’re notliving. You’re simply surviving until your last breath.” He drops another soft kiss against my lips.

I let that kiss deepen until I feel him get hard against me. He turns me so I’m on my back, and he pulls away, his gaze full of passion and love.

“Kennedy, you don’t have to fear my love being lost with you. Your heart is safe with me. It just took me some time to figure myself out, but know that life feels fuller with you by my side. And I will not leave you behind to feel that kind of loss again.” Then he brings his lips to mine, and, for the first time, I feel myself get lost, not in the physical need I have for this man, but in the love we’ve learned to embrace between one another.

CHAPTER 29

River

The momentI confessed my love for Kennedy, it felt like a weight had been lifted. Aside from my parents and my brother, I have kept myself from telling anyone I loved them. Now that I think about it, I don’t even think Kailey and I told each other we loved one another in high school, despite how long we dated. I knew whatever I felt for Kennedy was deep, but I kept talking myself out of the fact it could be love.

That night, when we decided to make this thing between us something more than a physical need, I knew it was love that was making its way into my heart. I think I knew, even when it felt like we were enemies throughout the years, that I loved her to some degree. I look back and remember watching her movements and thinking that I would catch her if she fell.

Little did I realize that she would fall into my arms, and I would never want to let her go. I look at her, and I don’t just see tomorrow; I see next month, next year, and all the other milestones with her by my side. The craziest part is this came out of nowhere for both of us. For so long, we’ve felt as if we were pushing away from one another, only to see us gravitating closer with each step.

I move my hand over to interlace our fingers. My mother asked, or shall I say demanded, that I bring Kennedy over for Sunday dinner.

“I can’t fucking believe this is happening,” my brother pipes up from the backseat.

He had the means of coming on his own, but I know he just wanted to tag along to bother us on the drive over.

---