“Say something,” he whispers.
“It’s pretty obvious now why we were born so close together,” I manage a watery smile. “My parents were on their honeymoon, and your mother was…reaffirming their relationship.” I shake my head. “This is all so crazy. Our stories are so different and so similar too. It’s like…I don’t know what to do with all of this,” I pull in a shaky inhale, my heart raw as my emotions get the best of me, and I let my words fly.
“My dad tried at the Super Bowl. He really did. For the most part, he was okay, but that song forced him to relive that night, and it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how much time had passed—he felt it. Watching him relive it…it was hell on earth. I was so angry with your mother, with you, with our circumstances, with what became of us, that’s how I was able to—”
“Sign the papers,” he finishes for me. “I can’t blame him, Natalie. I just can’t anymore.” Easton blows out a harsh breath. “I was fool enough to believe that time mattered. But love is like music for so many in the fact that it’s—”
“Timeless,” I finish for him. “That’s how I felt about their emails, like it was happening as I read them.” Another tear escapes as I shake my head. “I don’t know what to say. I’m just…”
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” he assures. “But I’ve been fucking blind to how much you could see. I always was. You saw how much it was destroying your father and our families, and I was too consumed in what I felt for you to see you were right in many respects. I’m sorry for that.”
“Yeah. But I see too. I see how she truly loved him. I-I—”
“Clarity, insight, remorse,” he finishes for me. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted you to have this, so you could get some much-needed, much-deserved perspective, if you still wanted it. You paid for it dearly. We both did. Fuck knows I needed it and found it in there.” He moves to sit. “I tried to hate him, but the more I read, the more I understood who Nate is, it evaporated. Somewhere deep down, I knew if I read it, I couldn’t hold him responsible.”
“God, what we put them through,” I say. “I feel so bad for all of them.”
“There was no winner,” he says.
“I came to that conclusion months ago.”
Easton nods. “At least we know why they reacted the way they did and were initially so fucking adamant about keeping us apart.”
“It’s so weird, but I’m not angry anymore.”
“Me neither,” he croons softly, lifting his eyes to the purpling sky.
“I’m just…sad.” I press against my aching chest with both hands. “Jesus, this hurts so much.”
“There’s more,” he says, pulling an envelope from his pocket, “but I have to take this back with me.”
I open it to see it is a letter addressed to Stella. More tears emerge as I read Reid’s letter to Stella on their wedding day and finish it with an exhale bordering a sob. “God, it’s so beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with me.”
“I probably shouldn’t have, and I don’t think Mom realized she left it in there. But we’ve come this far…and there’s more.”
“Um, Easton, look at me,” I wave my hand around my stinging cheeks. “Do you really think I’m up for it?”
“Not like that,” he lifts his chin toward the paper. “Look at the bottom of the stationery.”
I lift it, and even with dusk setting in, I manage to catch the logo.
“The Edgewater,” I gasp, utterly stunned. “That’s just…wow.”
“I wonder which room it was,” he says thoughtfully. “I wonder if Dad remembers.”
“I bet he does, but please don’t tell me, because I have a feeling it will totally freak me out.”
“But it’s cool, right?”
Biting my lip to hide the tremble, I nod in agreement.
“We were asking too much, weren’t we?” I wipe my eyes with my sweater sleeve. “Doomed from the start.”
“That’s not my take away. Mine is a lot like my father’s now,” he exhales, “I have a grudge-filled respect for Nate Butler that I couldn’t have ever managed before.”
“He’s a good man.”
“Yeah. I wish…fuck…,” he exhales, “what I wish. And as much as I fucking hate to admit it, they all had every right to their initial reaction. When they were trying to get over it—”
“We screwed the rest up ourselves,” I finish for him.
He gives me a subdued nod.
“Thank you for this,” I say, hugging the manuscript to my chest. “I wonder if my father has read it.”
“He lived it,” Easton says, “but I don’t think so. Mom says her agent and lawyer reached out with the original, and he denied having any part in it.”
“He did?” I shake my head as dozens of answers to questions I never thought to ask circle in my mind. Silence lingers as I start to plug some of the pieces into place.
“You’re going to have a lot to unpack,” Easton supplies, “it will take a little time, but you’ll get through it.”
“My dad was a badass,” I grin, hugging the manuscript a little harder.
“Mine was an asshole,” he says, “and a badass.”
“How do you feel about the part where he…almost—”
“Killed himself?” Easton shakes his head while brushing off his jeans. “I never would have thought him capable of that, but the way I feel sometimes when I get really low, I understand the thoughts… Honestly, I can barely imagine that version of him. Living on a mattress, starving, on a fucking floor.”
“Your mother saved him by washing his hair,” a fast tear forms and falls, and he catches it with his thumb, seeming briefly fascinated by it.
“Jesus, Crowne. You know, you always do this to me. One minute I’m emotionally stable and somewhat put together, and the next, with you, I’m a damn mess.”
“Such a beautiful mess,” he fires back.
I glance around as the sun disappears. “What have you been doing all day?”
“Staring at my beautiful wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Right,” he says as he stands and holds out his hand. “Come on, Beauty. I’ll take you home.”
The ride back to my apartment is silent as I mull over what I just read, which felt more like what I lived. Our parents’ love story in its entirety. Emotions swirl in my chest as my mind races with the knowledge we both have now.
Joel pulls the SUV to a stop two buildings away from mine and parks between two cars to keep us hidden. When he exits, a strange energy rolls off Easton, who sits next to me, his gaze trained out his passenger window. I can’t get a clear read on him as I soak in his profile—as much as I can in the dark cabin of the SUV.
“So, now we both know,” I state the obvious, my perception shifting by the second. “Do you…feel like it was a mistake…like we were a mistake?”
“Never, and I never fucking will,” his declaration strikes deep. “So yeah, now we both know,” he says, his voice hoarse. “It’s funny though.”
“What?”
“Their story doesn’t change the significance of ours.” I manage to catch him licking the corner of his mouth as he keeps his gaze on the car parked next to him.
“So, do we try to forgive each other now?” I ask.
“I want to… See, the thing is, I will never regret us, Beauty, because…” he seems to sort through his words, choosing each carefully—which I hate because it’s new, and I know it’s because of post-apocalyptic Easton and Natalie.
“Because?”
He turns to face me, eyes shimmering. “I can’t recall any other time in my life where I was so blissfully happy.” A tear slowly rolls down his cheek, “Can you?”
The burn starts in my throat, and I choke out my answer while letting my own tears free. “No.”
“If that’s not a sign of something fucking real, something worth fighting for, something worth keeping, then I don’t know fucking anything at all.”
“We tried,” I sniff, my own tears cascading down my cheeks, “didn’t we?”
“We succeeded,” he says, plucking one away, “we really did when we kept everyone else out of it.”