Keeping You (Destined Love #3)

30. Hannah

CHAPTER 30

Hannah

G rayson’s weird when he gets back from the store. When I look at his eyes, it looks like he’s been crying, but I don’t know why. When Chloe gets home, she takes one look at her brother and her eyes widen. She knows something.

Melanie and I make dinner, and it’s nice that I can fall into the same rhythm we had a few weeks ago. It’s nice to be at this table surrounded by people who all love and care for each other. Realizing these people are my family has been healing in ways I didn’t know I needed. Cutting out my mom didn’t leave the void I always thought it would. I think the reason it took me so long to do it was because I always thought that, even though we weren’t close, finally saying I wasn’t putting up with the toxic behaviour anymore meant I’d feel like I was missing something I could never get back. I was wrong. All she did was cause me stress and unhappiness. Being surrounded by Grayson’s family has showed me I have everything I need.

After dinner, I curl up on the back deck with a blanket and book while Grayson spends some time with his dad. I must have fallen asleep, because I’m woken up when Grayson lifts me out of the chair to carry me upstairs and place me in the bed. I snuggle into my pillow as he covers me with the blanket before climbing in behind me and wrapping his arms around me.

In the morning, Grayson is waiting for me in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a serious but hesitant expression. Micky is sitting beside him, his head resting on Grayson’s thigh, like he’s offering him support. I scratch the top of his head before taking a seat across from them.

“Good morning,” I say, accepting the coffee from him.

“Good morning. I was hoping I could take you somewhere today,” he says.

I nod. “Okay. Like the waterfall?”

He shakes his head. “No, but it’s important to me.”

I place my coffee on the table and take his hand. “Grayson, of course, I’ll go. Let me just go get dressed and we can leave.”

I push up from my chair, and he catches my wrist. “Finish your coffee, and I’ll make us some breakfast. Then we can go.”

Worry fills his eyes, and I can tell he’s stalling for some reason, but I nod and sit back down. He moves around the kitchen and makes us omelettes, just like he does back home, and we eat together in silence. When we finish, I quickly change and meet him at the back door.

We load into Grayson’s car, and he pulls away from the house, but he doesn’t go down the driveway, instead he takes a right between the fence and the garage and drives down a dirt road I never paid much attention to. He drives for a bit before he stops in front of a gate. He leaves the car wordlessly and opens it before driving through, stopping to make sure he closes it before we continue. The drive is slow and bumpy as he navigates around the potholes. On our left is trees that separate their property from the neighbours while the right side is open fields. A creek runs through part of it, horses stopping to drink from it.

After five minutes, Grayson pulls into a field and parks twenty metres away from a lone white oak. It’s large, probably thirty metres tall. Grayson takes a deep breath before getting out of the car. I follow behind him as he reaches into the back to grab something. We meet at the front of the car, and he’s holding a bouquet of flowers and a blanket tucked under his arm. He takes my hand, and we walk up to the tree.

As we get closer, I can see a small section has a collection of old flowers. When we reach the tree, Grayson squeezes my hand before placing the flowers on the ground and running his fingers over something that’s carved into the bark.

We love you. 3-16

I give Grayson space, knowing this place is important to him. He hangs his head for a minute, and then he takes my hand and lays the blanket a few paces away before he sits down. I sit beside him, and we look out across the expansive field.

“Rebecca and I dated in high school,” he says, breaking the silence.

I don’t say anything, wanting to give him the opportunity to continue.

“We started dating in tenth grade, and it was a whirlwind. It was teenage love. That naive love when you know nothing of the world. It was a couple weeks after Christmas during twelfth grade when she told me she was pregnant. I was scared shitless, but I was also so excited about starting a family. I knew we were still so young, but we loved each other and we were committed to doing everything we could to give our baby the life they deserved. We told our parents, and they weren’t stoked because of our age, but they were all supportive, agreeing to be there through the whole thing, helping how they could. I was going to switch my university to online and do classes at night and find a job in town during the day. Once we graduated, we were going to find a tiny little house to move into, and we were going to raise our baby.”

He brings his legs up and rests his arms on his knees, his eyes still trained on the horizon, not once turning to look at me. He sighs heavily and continues.

“I had just gotten home with my dad after working at the shop when she called. When I answered, she was sobbing. I could barely understand what she was saying. All I managed to get was that she was bleeding. I rushed to my car and drove straight to her house. Her parents weren’t home. I rushed inside and found her in the bathroom on the floor. She was crying so hard she was hyperventilating. It was when I got her to breathe normally that I noticed all the blood.”

He wipes at his tears, and I’m unsure of what to do. Do I comfort him or let him continue? When he wipes at his tears again, I say fuck it and sit up on my knees and shuffle towards him. I use my thumb to wipe at his tears before wrapping my arms around his left arm and leaning into his side. His body relaxes slightly as he exhales, and his right hand finds mine and he grips it tightly.

“She was having a miscarriage,” he whispers, and my heart drops. I knew where this was going from how he was talking and my medical background, but that doesn’t make it hit any less hard. My own tears gather as I feel the pain my husband has kept bottled up for so many years.

He takes a minute to gather himself and continues. “I rushed her to the hospital in town. It’s small, but they were able to help her. They explained what was happening, and I held her as she cried in my arms. We both cried. The baby wasn’t planned but was so wanted.”

He rubs the heels of his hands in his eyes.

“The doctors watched her for a bit but eventually released her, telling her she could expect cramping and bleeding for a few hours, but it should subside eventually. They kept saying that there was nothing we could have done, and at the time, my brain just couldn’t comprehend how something so horrible could happen. I took her home, and her parents were there. I was the one who had to explain to them what happened. I practically lived at their house for the next few weeks. I stayed in the guest bedroom, but I refused to leave Rebecca. We came out here, one of our favourite places, and carved into this tree a reminder of our baby.

“It was hard. Rebecca became a shell of herself. She wasn’t the bright, vibrant girl I had fallen in love with. She kept apologizing to me for losing the baby. She kept saying she had failed me, and no matter how many times I’d tell her she didn’t, she wouldn’t believe me.”

He shakes his head as he takes another deep breath, and I know he’s nowhere near done unloading all the trauma he’s kept inside of him all this time. Another tear falls as he continues.

“It was the Monday after Mother’s Day when her dad called me after school. Rebecca had used pills to attempt to take her own life. She left a note apologizing to her parents and me, saying that she couldn’t go on knowing she had failed me and the baby. But she didn’t fail me. I failed her.”

His tears fall slowly as he continues staring out in front of him. I run my hand through his hair, showing him I’m here for him but giving him the time he needs. He leans into my touch, and my heart jumps in my chest, knowing he’s finding some sort of comfort from my touch, as he recounts probably the most traumatic thing he’s ever experienced. The wind blows through, lightly rustling the branches of the tree and my hair. Grayson’s chest rises as he takes a deep breath, like he’s letting the wind take away some of the weight he’s been carrying.

“I saw Rebecca yesterday. We sat and had coffee and talked, like really talked, for the first time since she was admitted to the hospital that night. I’d been avoiding her for years. She was the reason I hadn’t been coming home a lot and why when I did visit, my trips were short. Seeing her and knowing I had failed her all those years ago was devastating. Failing her was why I had decided that love and relationships and kids weren’t for me. I still don’t think that kids are for me.”

He turns and faces me for the first time since sitting down.

“That’s why I let you get away after you walked in on Samantha kissing me. I knew I couldn’t give you everything you wanted and needed. I figured it was better to let you go before either of us got too attached.”

He reaches forward and tucks one of the wind-blown strands behind my ear. I lean into his touch.

“I knew then you were someone I could fall madly, deeply, and completely in love with,” he whispers.

My tears are falling in earnest now as I let the weight of everything he’s told me settle in. I knew before that I love Grayson, but this solidifies it. I decide to wait until a different moment, one that’s about us, to tell him, though. Instead, I encourage him to lower his legs, and I straddle his lap and wrap my arms around his neck, holding him tight to me. His arms find their way around my waist, and his entire body relaxes into me.

When he pulls back and looks up at me, I run my hand through his hair again. “What do you need?”

“I think I need to find a therapist when we get back to the city.”

I nod. “Okay, we can do that. What do you need right now?”

He reaches up and cups my face, I lean into his hand as his thumb strokes my cheek. “Right now, I just need you,” he whispers.

I lean forward and press my forehead to his. “You have me.”

We wrap our arms around each other and just hold each other. I’m not sure if he realizes how serious I was when I said he has me, because he does. Body, mind, and soul, I belong to Grayson Maxwell. This marriage may have started with a drunk night in Vegas, and me wanting to get out of it as quickly as possible, but now I know I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

The rest of the week, we help his parents settle into their new normal. When we leave Thursday morning, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do with only ten days left in our agreement.