Briar Valley: The Complete Duet

24. Willow

CHAPTER 24

WILLOW

IT’LL BE OKAY - SHAWN MENDES

Dragging the bag of soil across the cabin’s generous garden, I curse under my breath. It’s heavy, but I’m determined to do this alone. The whole flowerbed is prepped and ready to go, though it’s taken time for me to work up the courage to begin.

Killian got the lily plants I requested from over in the town’s main allotment. They’ve been waiting for me for a couple of weeks now, but if I don’t plant them now, they will die soon. I’ll never be ready to do this.

Some things in life don’t get easier with time.

The wounds scab over, but never fully heal.

With sweat pouring from my forehead in the sunshine, I drag the soil over to the quiet spot in the corner of the cabin’s garden. It took me a long time to choose this place. Using my bare hands, I dig several trenches, leaving space for the small plants.

Positioning the lily plants, I pack them with more soil before watering each one. It’s slow, methodical work that focuses my mind. I zone out from the world, finishing the whole patch and cleaning up any loose ends.

In a few weeks, the flowers will bloom.

Just in time for summer.

Reaching into the plastic bag that Micah presented me with, I pull the freshly carved sculpture out. It’s small, spanning the size of my palm. He spent all night crafting a pair of angel wings with last month’s fateful date stamped on the bottom.

Placing the hand-carved wings in the flowers, the memorial is complete. That’s when my resolve breaks. Hot curtains of tears spill down my cheeks, stinging in the air. I glance up at the cloudless sky.

“I’m so sorry, little one.”

The light, silent breeze answers me.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t keep you in this world, and you never got the chance to live. I wish we could have met you. We didn’t get enough time together.”

Wiping my cheeks, I run a finger over the intricate angel’s wings. My chest threatens to explode with the sheer weight of pain rolling through me. Despite making progress, focussing on paint samples and furniture brochures, recent events are still so raw.

The pain is indescribable.

But more so, the sense of shame.

I couldn’t keep my baby alive inside of me. Without knowing it, I failed my own child, before it was even born. That’s a very particular brand of self-loathing that only a mother can understand.

But deep down, I know it wasn’t my fault. If the roles were reversed, and someone I loved had been through this ordeal, I’d hate to think of them punishing themselves for something so out of their control.

That doesn’t help me now.

Other people’s empathy has done nothing to ease my guilt. The guys want to help and keep encouraging me to open up to them, but it’s so hard to talk about this. It feels safer to be alone with my grief. They can’t understand.

“You’ve grown your angel wings now.” I grant myself a tiny smile. “Say hello to Pedro for me. I hope he’s keeping you company up there. We’ll see you one day.”

Sunshine warms my face, drying the tears on my cheeks. It feels like an invisible ghost is kissing my skin, the warmth whispering a silent message.

“For now, you’re our guardian angel.”

I stay crouched in the dirt, silently crying, until there’s nothing left in me but bitterness and regret. It feels like hours have passed when the crunch of footsteps approaches.

“Willow?”

With a sigh, I force myself to stand and face Lola. She tentatively slides through the freshly painted garden gate. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in weeks. My avoidance has worked until now.

She looks devastated, her clear eyes lined with painfully heavy bags and brimming with tears. Her silvery hair looks haphazard, like she climbed out of bed and didn’t have the heart to fix it. Even her yellow floral dress is unusually creased.

“Lola.”

“Can we talk?” she requests.

“I guess so.”

Gesturing to the handmade wooden bench that Killian appeared with last week, we both take a seat and face the memorial across the mowed lawn. I can’t even look at her.

“I’m so sorry, poppet.”

My tears pour soundlessly.

Lola wipes her own wet cheeks. “There’s no pain quite like losing a child. I know I didn’t lose your father until he was a teenager, but I understand what you’re feeling.”

“Do you?” I utter emotionlessly.

Her shrivelled hand clasps mine. “You’re not alone, Willow. I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I’m here for you regardless.”

“I have nothing to say to you. All you’ve done is lie to me.”

“While that may be the case, I have plenty to say to you.”

She won’t release my hand when I try to pull it away. All I want is to run, leave her with her excuses and bullshit lies. I’m furious with her, but I know it’s not all her fault.

The anger pounding through me is a torrid mix of a decade’s suffering. My father’s addiction. His death. Debts. Poverty. Abuse. Violence. Leaving our home. Fear, hope and every shade of confusing agony in between.

“Please,” Lola begs. “Just give me ten minutes and I’ll go. I want to explain myself.”

“Go ahead.” I sigh in defeat. “Ten minutes.”

She studies the memorial in front of us. “I’m sorry for lying to you. Things are complicated. I was conscious of not overwhelming you when you first arrived.”

“Spare me the excuses, Lola.”

“The truth is, I have known your mother for a long time. She tracked me down fifteen years ago and made her way to Briar Valley.”

“Why?”

“She was looking for your father… and for you.”

I stare at her without understanding. “What do you mean she was looking for us? Katie abandoned us both. I barely remember her.”

“But you remember what your father told you about her, right?” Lola’s smile is full of devastation. “That she left and never returned?”

I was barely older than Arianna when she left. One day she was there, and the next, she wasn’t. All I had was the word of a drug addict, and I was too young to question him.

“He lied to you, Willow.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She never abandoned you.”

I shake my head. “This is just more of your lies, isn’t it?”

“Your father took you from her. She spent the next decade searching the entire country for you both. That search is what brought Katie into my life.”

“No! I don’t believe you,” I shout at her, drawing to my feet. “You’re still lying. Why would he do that to me?”

“He was unstable,” Lola insists.

“That doesn’t mean he lied to me!”

She implores me with her eyes. “You remember her scar, don’t you? He attacked her with a smashed vodka bottle one night when she threatened to leave with you.”

I rub my temples as my headache explodes. “I… don’t remember how she got it.”

“Without you, he wouldn’t receive any child support payments from the government,” Lola continues. “How else would he pay for the drugs? You were his source of income.”

More anguished tears spill down my cheeks. “If this is true, why didn’t she look for me? He was a shit dad, and she just left me with him.”

“She never once gave up hope of finding you.”

“That means nothing to me! Why didn’t she come?”

Lola’s face crumples. “Your father took you and ran. She searched and searched, but you were gone. That’s when she tracked me down, hoping that I knew where he was.”

I angrily scrub my tears. “You sat in that cabin on my very first day here and lied to my face when you asked me to trust you. What’s your excuse for that?”

Wringing her hands together, Lola focuses on the golden wedding band she still wears on her ring finger. The strength that shined through her wizened appearance from the day we met has gone.

Now, she looks like an old, broken woman, unable to fix the mistakes of a lifetime. Not even the scores of lives she’s saved in the years since have redeemed her of this sin.

“I’m sorry that I lied to you. No excuses, Willow.”

“Just tell me why. That’s all I want to know.”

“I didn’t know what else to say. I did what I thought was the kindest thing.”

“But you knew where I was when my father died. Why didn’t Katie come then?” I choke on a sob and fall to my knees. “Why didn’t my mum come and save me?”

Leaving her perch on the bench, Lola joins me kneeling in the grass. I don’t fight back as she pulls me into her arms. Pressed against her cookie-scented chest, I lose all sense of control. Her gentle whispers fail to keep me together.

“I didn’t write that letter,” she admits tearfully.

“You d-didn’t?”

“Your mother wanted to reach out. She came to look for you when the police called me, but you’d slipped through her fingers again. She wrote that letter in desperation.”

“It h-had your name on it.”

Lola rubs my back in slow, comforting circles. “She didn’t want to scare you after so many years apart. We didn’t know what your father had told you. It felt safer to pretend it was me reaching out instead.”

Shoving her away with a snarl, I scramble to my feet and back away from her. Lola is staring up at me with such raw agony, it hurts to see the pain festering deep inside of her. There’s a bottomless pit reflected in her eyes, threatening to drown me.

“Mummy!”

The door to the cabin has opened, and Arianna now stands on the wraparound porch. I panic, scrubbing my tears out of sight. Zach and Micah bustle her back inside, hanging back on the porch as Killian jumps into action.

I glance back at Lola, needing to know the truth. “You’re telling me that all this time, after everything that’s happened to me, Katie was alive and well.”

Lola simply nods. “Yes.”

“When that monster took me to a strange country, stuck a ring on my finger and… and… when he forced me to… she wasn’t there!”

Her face crumples. She can’t respond.

“I needed someone to save me. Nobody did. Nobody, Lola!”

Vaulting over the porch in a rush to get to us, Killian lands on the lawn with a loud thud. He leaves Zach and Micah behind, both of them stuck together and watching the unfolding disaster with horrified expressions.

When Killian attempts to approach me with his hands outstretched, I back away, warning him off. “Stay right there.”

Lola climbs to her feet. “I’m so sorry, Willow. I’ll never forgive myself.”

“I was a child.” My voice cracks. “Dad left me with all these debts. People smashing the door down and demanding money. I was homeless for months.”

“Willow, please?—”

“I spent my nights stripping at a bar for money to pay them off. Did you know that?”

“I… I d-didn’t,” Lola admits.

Wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders, Killian whispers in her ear, encouraging her to back off. It makes me even angrier, seeing him comfort her. Not even Zach or Micah have the guts to intervene.

“That’s where he found me, you know,” I shout at them all. “In that damned strip club. If it wasn’t for my father’s debts, I never would’ve been there.”

Pushing an inconsolable Lola behind him, Killian faces me. “Willow. Stop.”

“No, Kill!”

“Lola’s upset enough right now.”

“You’ve all been waiting to hear about him, right? Do you want to hear about what he did that night to make sure I was a virgin before he bought me?”

He flinches, his face paling. “Let’s talk about this inside.”

“After that, I was shipped off to Mexico to be his plaything for ten years. He forced me to marry him against my will and trapped me there. That’s the truth.”

It’s all pouring out. Every dirty, disgusting detail. Secrets I never intended to show the light of day. Lola looks like she’s going to have a heart attack, but Killian doesn’t return to her, his attention solely fixed on me.

“Stay back.” I raise my hands to protect myself. “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he offers in a soothing voice. “Just take a breath before you pass out. You need to calm down.”

Clutching my painfully tight chest, I fight to drag in a stuttered breath and fail. I’m so fucking angry. Lola. Mr Sanchez. My parents. The entire goddamn world is out to get me. I’ve been failed, over and over again, by everyone in my life.

The only reason I’m still alive is me. My own determination to survive. Not even for myself, but for the one blessing my marriage gave me—my little girl. She kept my dead heart beating even as it shattered into irreparable pieces.

“I didn’t know I was pregnant when I came here because he hurt me so often,” I force out. “That was my baby, not his. I still lost it. I lost my baby, Kill.”

“I know,” he hushes. “I’m so sorry. It isn’t fair.”

My knees give out as I curl inwards with grief. “Nothing ever is.”

“Please, Willow,” Killian begs. “Let me help you.”

“I fucking lost my own child. I’m so weak!”

Before he can sink to the ground next to me, the pad of small feet overtakes him. I stare through my relentless tears at Arianna, racing across the lawn with her frostbitten blue eyes.

She looks so much like him, but she will always be my girl. All I see when I look at her is hope. It’s the same flickering flame of hope that kept me going when I gave birth to her alone, scared out of my mind and in so much pain.

I begged for death that night, but no one answered. Instead, I was given new life. Her tiny, terrified whimpers and thrashing fists screamed for attention, even as I sobbed in a bathtub of my own blood.

Arianna was always the one to get me off the floor, broken and beaten to a pulp after Mr Sanchez relished in his regular fits of rage. I’m not strong. I’m not brave. All that I am… it’s for her.

My little girl.

My guardian angel.

She stops at my side, those damned eyes peering up at me. “Mummy, please don’t cry. Daddy can’t find us here. The giant and his family will keep us safe.”

“Ari… please go back inside.”

“No, I won’t,” she protests. “You don’t need to be sad anymore.”

I kneel in front of her, my entire world narrowing until it’s just the two of us. Like it always has been. Me and my little miracle against the whole fucking world.

She places a tiny palm on my cheek. “Aren’t we safe here?”

Pulling the remaining shards of my sanity together for her, I summon the world’s worst smile for the world’s best daughter. It’s all I have left to give her.

“We’re safe. I promised, didn’t I?”

“And Mummy always keeps her promises,” she declares. “That’s how I know that everything is going to be okay. Because you promised.”

Wrapping her hands around mine, Arianna tugs hard, demanding I stand back up. With her to anchor me in the present, far from that blood-stained mansion, I find my feet again. Only because she needs me to.

“Ari,” Zach calls from the porch. “Come inside.”

She spares me another glance. “Mummy?”

“It’s okay, baby. I need to talk to Killian. Go on up.”

Arianna releases my hand and reluctantly returns to the cabin. I watch as Zach leads her inside, though he looks desperate to pull me into his arms. Micah is helping Lola, leading her away to give me some privacy.

My legs are weak, but Killian closes the gap between us in a flash. He lets me collapse into his arms and crushes me against his chest, almost cutting off my blood circulation.

“Fuck, Willow. You should have told me.”

“I was scared for you to know the truth,” I whisper into his flannel shirt. “It was easier to lie. I didn’t want you to look at me any differently if you knew what he did.”

Cupping the back of my head, Killian forces me to look up at him. His eyes strip back my skin, layer by layer, until it feels like he’s looking straight into the centre of my soul. Every last ugly secret I hold inside me is displayed for him to see.

“Nothing in this entire world could make me see you any differently,” he says with fire. “I see a mama bear determined to protect her baby, and the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”

“You’re wrong. I’m broken.”

“Broken wings can still fly. You are living proof of that.”

My throat constricts. “All I can do is fall.”

“I’ve got you, and I’m never letting go. None of us are. We’re here to catch you if you fall and help you get back up again. That’s what family is for.”

Lifting me into his arms despite my protests, he carries me back to the cabin, leaving Lola to be led away. There’s nothing I can offer her right now. She’s one in a long line of disappointments.

I can’t be angry with the whole world for failing me, but I don’t know how to forgive those who left me behind. I was a child. Vulnerable and alone. They were all adults and they still let me down.

No matter what happens, I will never do that to my daughter. Nobody will ever lay a finger on her while I’m still breathing. I’ll do for her what my parents didn’t do for me. She will always be safe, no matter what it costs.

Even if that cost is my heart.

And the three men who now own it.