Page 111 of The Weight Of Falling
It’s thealmostthat breaks me.
The apology is stamped all over his face. “I can’t risk you getting hurt.”
My composure crumples. “But you’re hurting me right now.”
He closes his eyes, as if riding out a wave of pain. “I know. It feels like I’m ripping my own heart in two.”
My voice comes out in a whisper. “You don’t have to go. Why don’t you stay and give us a chance?”
“Because I won’t take chances with the woman I love.”
I search his face. “Okay, so when will the danger be over? When can you return to Brown Oaks?”
He stares past me, his shoulders bowed with exhaustion, defeat etched in the lines on his face. “I don’t know.”
“But that could be...”
“...years,” he finishes.
I flinch in horror. “Joel, no!”
His eyes are filled with anguish. “I’m sorry. As long as he’s alive, everyone I care about is at risk. I want you safe. That’s all I want right now.”
“You want my safety more than my happiness?” I ask, an edge of panic in my tone. This can’t be happening. This can’t be how our story ends.
“You are the brightest thing that’s happened to me. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
In this moment, I feel everything. The love we have for one another. The pain of two hearts breaking. The bleakness of a future apart. The impossibility of what stands between us.
I press a hand to my chest to ease the heaviness there. “Why don’t I get a say?”
Confusion flickers across his face. “What?”
“I want a say,” I tell him, my voice rising with determination. “And I say you don’t let him win, Joel Adams. He’s taken enough from you. We fight him. And the best way to fight him is to be happy. Together.”
He’s already shaking his head, but I keep going, trying to get through to him. “I could die tomorrow in a car accident. Would you forbid me from ever driving again? Life comes with risk. Being with you is a risk. I accept that. I choose that.”
Tears press hot behind my eyes. I love this man. I love the fierce outside and the fragile inside. The anger he wrestles and the goodness he doesn’t always believe he possesses. I love all of it.
“If you only had one more sunrise,” I whisper in a last-ditch attempt, “what would you do with it?”
“I’d want to watch it with you,” he says immediately, his voice thick. “I’d watch it with your head on my shoulder, your hand in mine.”
I climb into his lap, frame his face with my hands, and search his eyes. “Then let’s fight for that sunrise,” I plead. “Please choose a future with me.”
A choked, wrecked sound escapes him as he pulls me close, his arms tightening around me. He buries his face in my hair.
“I choose you, Kenzie,” he says hoarsely. “I choose a future with you.”
I close my eyes, my heart lifting, and surrender to being held by the man I love.
Roy Bellings does not get to win anymore.
47
I pull into the driveway and cut the engine. It was a good day at the studio. The fox and fireflies birthday card that’s been fighting me for a week clicked into place with one clean stroke. I feel the kind of tired that comes from a productive day.
I grab my tote and step out into the heat that lingers even in June’s gentler light. The air smells faintly of cut grass. My snapdragons look a little wilted. I make a mental note to water them.
