Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(23)

The guilt was written all over his face. I swear, blaming himself was Caven’s favorite pastime, but at the moment, he had bigger problems than booking his tattoo artist to add another feather of responsibility.

“Then why the hell does everyone think Willow died?” he asked.

And I guessed guilt was one thing Caven and I would always have in common. “Because we got into a big fight because I’d read her journals. She’d described everything about the last few years of her life. Including every excruciating detail of her night with you and then giving birth to Rosalee. I’d never been so hurt in my life, but we were going to fix it. We were going to be a family the way we were supposed to be. She was all I had left. But it was nothing but another one of her games. The second I turned my back, she stole my car and my purse and took off.”

I rolled the hem of my shirt between my thumb and my forefinger, desperate for a distraction from the gut-wrenching pain in my stomach. “It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I was done. Done trying to save her. Done letting her hurt me. Done trying to stop the inevitable. I took her purse, used her ID, and caught a flight back to Puerto Rico. She could keep my car and all the money she could get from my accounts. But I was done with her.” I swiped a stray tear away. “When the wreck happened, all signs pointed to it being me in the car. Beth didn’t even question it. Not surprisingly, nobody could get in touch with Hadley, so Beth buried me. Well…she buried Willow. Two weeks later, she found me when she came to clean out my house in Puerto Rico.”

With my every word spoken, his face filled with another emotion.

Most of them conflicting.

All of them heartbreaking.

“Why pretend to be her? Hadley came back and I was ready to wage war. But you… You’re Willow. Do you understand me? You. Were. My Willow. But the lies? What the fuck?”

My Willow.

I was his Willow.

Devastation shook me to the core and my lids fluttered closed as I imagined that alternate universe. “I didn’t know I was anything to you. When we left that mall, I never heard from you again. I tried to reach out over the years. I wrote letters every night when I’d wake up in a cold sweat. I rode my bike to your old trailer in Watersedge when I thought I was breaking. I even called once when I couldn’t breathe anymore.”

“What makes you think I could breathe! You were a kid. When I was eighteen, hiding under beds because of fireworks, you were eleven. The best thing I could do for you is let you forget that day in hell.”

“People don’t forget, Caven. They learn to live with it.”

“Nobody fucking lives with this. They live around it. They learn to not let it dictate their lives. That’s what I wanted for you. It wasn’t about if I thought about you. Or if I wanted to reach out. It was about not reminding you of all the ways I had ruined your life. I was there the day you saw Trent. You were clinging to the edge of reality with those memories. I didn’t want to be something else you had to live around.”

My breathing stammered, and I was unable to find oxygen in the pain hanging between us. “That was why I stopped trying to get in touch with you too. If you had moved on, I didn’t want to drag you back. I’m not blaming you here, Caven. You did nothing wrong. I’m just trying to explain why I pretended to be Hadley. I can’t have kids, at least not biologically speaking. The bullet that went through me—”

He shot to his feet like the same bullet from the past had just gone through him. “Jesus Christ. What the fuck?”

I lifted my hands in surrender and quickly amended that with, “That’s not your fault. I’m not in any way putting that on you. It’s just Rosalee is the last remaining part of my mother, my father, and my sister that will ever exist. I couldn’t chance that you’d shut the door in my face. Willow had no rights to that child. Not as her aunt. But Hadley… She was her mother. So, when she died and then Willow was declared dead, it felt like a sign. I didn’t lie to you when I said I wouldn’t take her away from you. I would have been happy being her art teacher forever. I never wanted to hurt you. I swear.”

He rubbed his chest. “Oh, good, because this feels fucking amazing right now.”

I inched toward him but remained seated as he loomed over me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” he whispered ominously. “You’re sorry about what? That you lied to me? Manipulated me? Made me feel like I was falling in love with you? Was that part of your plan too? Capitalize on whatever you think I felt for Hadley in the past to get your way in the present? Because I have news for you. I felt absolutely nothing for your sister. But you… You had me. Hook, line, and sinker. Bravo. Truly. Good job.”

My whole body blanched. He was falling in love with me. It was what I’d always wanted to hear from him. But, now, it just felt like a slap in the face.

“Caven, please.” Unable to resist any longer, I stood up and reached for him.

He backed away, each step crumbling my heart. “No. Don’t touch me. I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

“I’m me.” I patted my chest, my voice breaking with desperation. “I’m Willow. The girl from the mall. The woman who believes you were her hero. I eat brownies with ranch and spill glitter all over your floor. I love your daughter with my whole soul, and I’m more than falling in love with you. I’m in love with you. And not because of our past. But because of the man and father you are in the present.” Tears were pouring down my face, and I used my shoulder to attempt the futile task of drying them. “After I told you Hadley’s truth that night at the diner, the things I’d read in her journals about the darkness that surrounded her the night she had Rosalee? After that, I always gave you Willow. You know me. You know me better than anyone else in the world.”