Page 77 of Married to Number 22
“Maybe,” I tell him. “But at least—at the end of the day—I know I’m not the one throwing away something as precious as Luna.”
Thirty
Luna
“Just breathe, honey,”Kathy says, slowly smoothing her hand up and down my back.
“I should go out and talk to them.” The words sound a lot surer than I feel, mostly because I’m shaking, my stomach in knots.
I’m used to the way they talk to me, used to the vitriol and rage.
What if they tell Aiden something truly awful?
What if hebelievesthem?
What if my part of the curse isn’t to die young like Becky, my sister, like my mom, but to be like Grams—alone and left behind, living without the man I love for the majority of my adult years.
Wishingthings had gone differently.
That circumstances could have been altered.
And knowing there was nothing I could do to change it.
I close my eyes, hate that a tear slips free, slides down my cheek.
“It’ll be okay,” Kathy murmurs and my lids peel back when she wipes gently beneath one set of lashes and then the other. “I promise.”
It’s sweet of her to say that, beyond kind.
But I can’t stop the sinking feeling in my belly that this has all gone too easy before now—Aiden accepting my reappearance, us getting married, the sex, him knowing instinctively that I wouldn’t want to give up Grams’s place—and I’m worried this is going to blow up in my face, no matter how much I need, andwant,it to work out.
Doing something better.
Having Aiden in my life.
Having…something more.
Something that meanseverything.
And an everything that slides just out of reach.
“How do you know it’ll be okay?” I whisper, heart squeezing painfully.
“Because you know as well as I do,” she says, “that when Aiden says he’ll take care of it, he’lltake careof it.”
Idoknow that.
He’s the one person in my life who has nevereverfailed me.
If anyone can handle my brother and father, he can.
The only question is—why should he have to?
Stifling a groan, I blink the tears away and whisper, “Yes, he will.”
“Exactly, honey.” She cups my cheek. “I see you’re getting it now.”
“It’s just…it’s not that simple,” I whisper.
