Where Happiness Begins (Evermore #3)

15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

“ L ilianne Valeria DiLorenzo, what the hell have you done?”

The tone my grandmother uses is even more frightening than her words, especially since this is the first thing she utters the second I pick up her call.

“Nan?” I ask, afraid that something tragic happened and I missed it.

“Please tell me this was a prank and you didn’t get married in secret.”

My jaw hangs open and I let myself fall backward onto my bed, my laundry forgotten on the floor. “How…”

“I watch those videos you make. You know this,” Nan says, almost obviously rolling her eyes at me.

“No, I didn’t know.”

Shit. Of course I didn’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t have boasted about my new husband online before calling her. Not that I actually planned on telling her anything. I knew that lying to Nan would be close to impossible, but sharing the truth wasn’t an option either. I was secretly hoping I could prevent Nan from ever learning about Carter’s existence or the fact that we’re married. That was probably hopeful naiveté on my part.

“I can’t believe my only granddaughter had the guts to get married without even telling me. Is that a way to treat an old lady?”

Dramatic as ever. “I’m sorry, Nan, I—”

“Don’t apologize. Make it up to me instead.” She huffs. I can imagine her pacing inside her studio apartment, curlers in her hair and a flowery robe on her back, holding a pencil between her index and middle finger to help with the urge to pick up a cigarette instead. She only smokes on special occasions, as she likes to say, but it’s not the temptation that’s missing. Although maybe today, she settled on an actual one and opened the window so as not to get the residence administration on her back. That would be just like her. “I’m waiting for you and whoever this man is to be at my place at noon, and you better not be a second late.” Then she hangs up, leaving me babbling into the disconnected call.

This is bad. Really bad.

If there’s one person I can’t say no to, it’s Nan. First, because she wouldn’t let me, and second, because she’s the only family I have. Even as a child, I hated disappointing her, and the feeling has never gone away.

Which is why I immediately leave my room and holler, “Carter?”

It feels strange to be calling for him. I’ve never done so. Even though we eat most of our meals together, or at least side by side while I watch my TV show and he does what I think are sudoku puzzles on his phone, we rarely seek each other out, unless it’s to ask if he’s seen my hat somewhere or if I’ve touched his keys. Plus, we’re rarely in the house at the same time, but it’s Sunday morning, so it just so happens that we’re both here.

Loud footsteps echo from the kitchen, all the way down to the hallway, and in seconds, he’s in front of me, eyes wide. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Oh,” I say at the sight of his alarm. “Nothing. Well, nothing that bad, sorry.”

His body visibly relaxes.

“Although I’m not sure you should be relieved yet.” I take a careful step his way and try to give him my most charming smile. “I have another favor to ask.”

“So, before we go in, I need you to promise to act the shit out of this,” I tell Carter as we get closer to Nan’s retirement home.

I have to force myself not to ogle at him while he drives. Ever since he came back from the basement dressed in a black crewneck and clean dark jeans that make his ass look ten out of ten, I’ve been trying my best not to drool over him, but it’s more difficult than you would think.

He throws me a quick look. “What’s up with that?” he asks.

Hoping he didn’t bust me staring at him, I say, “She can’t know the truth. Ever.”

“You think your grandmother would blab about us?”

“No. I think the truth would devastate her.”

Outside the window, the overflowing trees create a blur of color that’s almost neon green. Spring has always been my favorite season for that reason. Everything is so vibrant, so electric. It feels like the entire world is coming back to life, more intense than ever before.

Carter doesn’t say anything, but I can feel in the silence that he’s waiting for me to elaborate. And after more than a month of being married to him, I guess it’s time I tell him at least some part of the story.

“I’ve been sick pretty much my entire life.”

While Carter’s attention remains ahead, his grip tightens around the steering wheel, balancing his fingers.

“Diagnosed in childhood with a disease that pretty much destroyed my kidneys little by little until they were unusable and I had to go on dialysis. Started it at thirteen years old, three times per week, four hours per session. There was nothing else to do while I was put on the transplant waitlist to receive a new kidney.

“As you can imagine, all those treatments cost a pretty penny, and it’s always just been me and my dad. He had good health insurance that covered most of the costs, but he still had to work twice as hard to pay for the difference.”

Carter’s throat bobs. He doesn’t turn when he asks, “What about your mother?”

“What about her?”

“Where was she?”

“Left when I was two. Said she was destined for more than motherhood.” My voice is calm, so unlike how it was at some point. “It used to haunt me when I first got diagnosed. Every time I sat in that dialysis chair while kids my age went to school and attended dances, I’d think about how my mother might’ve been a match. If she’d stayed, maybe she could’ve given me one of her kidneys and life could’ve gone back to something close to normal, but she was never there for me to even ask.”

After a pause with only the sound of the engine between us, Carter says, “I’m really sorry, Lilianne.”

“ Lil . And it’s fine.” I inhale a deep breath. “It’s fine. I’ve made my peace with it. And I did end up receiving my transplant after all without needing her help, so that’s the best outcome I could’ve hoped for.” My lips turn down, and I have to force my voice to remain steady. “I’m just sad my father never got to see it. He died before he got the chance to live the moment we’d been waiting for for years.”

I wish this didn’t make me so emotional, but I can’t help it. Every year, when I baked Dad a cake for his birthday, he told me he’d wished for random things while blowing his candles, but I always knew it was a lie. I don’t think he ever spent one wish—birthday cake, eyelash, shooting star—on something other than my transplant.

When I got the call that they had found a match for me almost four months after his death, my first reaction wasn’t to jump around, but to break down into sobs because he’d missed it by so little. The one thing he wanted more for me than even I did.

I blow out a breath, blinking fast, then I clear my throat. “Anyway. So after an operation and expensive anti-rejection medications I still had to take, my medical debt started building up, and without my father’s insurance, there was no way for me to be able to continue paying it forever—which is where you came in.” I don’t know why Carter’s gaze makes me blush just then, but it does. “And while my life is just fine, I know my nan would feel terrible to know I got married because I was struggling financially instead of asking her for help. I know her. She’d have moved out of her residence and into a cheaper one to help me, and I couldn’t have lived with myself.”

There. It’s done. Now Carter has most of the pieces of the puzzle and he can do whatever he wants with them.

When he remains silent as he turns onto the nursing home’s parking lot, I start questioning whether he needed to know all that. Maybe he’s judging me for lying to my grandmother. Maybe he thinks it’s stupid that I didn’t try harder to find a job with benefits when I need them so badly. Maybe he even thinks he’s regretting marrying me now that he knows I’ll be using his insurance policy a lot and it might raise suspicions on the legitimacy of our marriage.

However, he qualms all those doubts when he parks the car and exits before rushing to open my door, extending his hand my way. I hesitate, gaze going from his long fingers to his serious brows. We haven’t touched since the livestream a few days ago, and that was only pretending.

My hesitation doesn’t last long, though. I trust this man, for whatever reason, and if he wants to take my hand, there’s no reason for me to say no. His palm is warm against mine, and once I’m out of the car, he lets go of my fingers just to wrap his arm around my waist, making my breath catch in my throat. Then, with the most serious face, he says, “All right, wife. Let’s give that woman the best show she’s ever seen.”