Page 220 of Wild Then Wed
Julia.
She’s…stunning. Likestop-you-in-the-streetgorgeous. She has this bronzed, dewy skin that looks like it’s never seen acne a day in its life, with long black curls that fall past her shoulders and thick lips. Her eyes are big and brown and somehow soft and sharp at the same time. You look at her and you know she lit up every room she walked into.
There’s a picture of her on a beach, pregnant, her hair wild from the wind, her hands on her belly, smiling like the whole world is right there in front of her.
There’s another one of her sitting on the floor of what looks like this room, her back against the crib, both hands resting on her pregnant belly. She’s laughing at something off camera, her head tilted back just slightly, curls spilling everywhere. Her joy is so infectious it practically glows off the page. It’s the kind of moment you don’t stage—you just catch it, if you’re lucky. And you can feel it—how much she loved this baby. How ready she was.
It hurts to look at. Not in a jealous way, but in that way where you’re suddenly aware of every past life someone’s lived without you. Every version of them you’ll never meet. I’ll never know that version of Sawyer.
They were so happy. So…alive.
I feel this ache crawl into my chest and settle into my ribs like it’s making itself at home. I glance at Sawyer again—at the way he’s still looking at the photo.
He loved her. He still does. It’s plain as day. And I get it—that kind of love doesn’t just vanish. It stays. It changes, maybe. But it doesn’t leave.
And I don’t resent that. I just wish I could take even a fraction of that pain off his shoulders. I set my hand on his thigh gently.
“She’s beautiful, Sawyer,” I say, and I mean it. Not in the way you say it when you don’t know what else to say. Not like I’m trying to fill the silence with something soft. I say it because it’s true.
Julia was beautiful.
And not just in the perfect hair, perfect skin, glowing-from-the-inside-out way, though there’s that, too. But she has thislightin her. Even in still photos. That rare kind of warmth people either have or they don’t. And now that I’m looking at her, it makes perfect sense. Of course he loved her. Of course she’s the one he picked. They were made from the same stuff. That same light, that same goodness.
He sniffles and clears his throat, but it doesn’t do much. His voice still cracks when he speaks.
“She loved butterflies,” he says, his eyes lifting to the wall where the decals scatter across the paint like they landed there on purpose. “She said they reminded her to slow down. That they only live a few weeks, and they spend almost all of it looking for something sweet.”
He smiles, barely. “She used to stop whatever she was doing if she saw one outside. Like—mid-conversation, didn’t matter. She’d point and go, ‘Look, a butterfly!’ every time.”
He glances at the crib, then back at the wall.
“She said she wanted Violet’s room full of them, so even on hard days, she’d always have something cheerful to look at. Something that made things feel a little better.”
He pauses. Just long enough for the silence to feel real again.
“I miss how she used to talk to the baby,” he says, still staring down, “like she was already here. Like Violet could understand her. She’d tell her everything. What she ate for lunch. What color she was painting her toes. It didn’t matter.”
He leans his head back against the wall and looks up at the ceiling, breathing like he’s trying to remember how.
I don’t try to stop him. Or fix it. There’s nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound small and useless. So I just sit there, my hand still on his leg, and I stay with him.
He wraps an arm around me and pulls me in close, pressing his nose to the top of my head. I can feel his tears drop onto my scalp, warm and slow. I don’t move. I don’t care. If this is what holding space for someone looks like, then I’m all in. I can be here. I can do this for him the way he’s done it so many times for me.
His voice is barely above a whisper when he finally speaks again.
“I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, Wren. Or to compare. Or to drag you into the mess of it all,” he says. “I just…I needed to let it out. And for the first time in a long time, it felt okay to not do that alone.”
I nod into his chest. My eyes are closed, but I’m listening to every word.
“I don’t expect you to carry this,” he says. “You didn’t ask for any of it. This baggage.”
I lift my head from his chest and turn toward him, my hand on his jaw. His face is still wet, his eyes still glassy. And God, he looks so tired. So sad.
I hold his face in both hands. Not gently. Not carefully. Just firmly enough so he knows I’m not going anywhere.
“Iwantto carry it,” I say. “Not because I have to, and not because I feel sorry for you, but because I love you. And this is what that means.”
His face crumples like he’s trying to stop more tears from coming, and I keep going.
