Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(53)

Like a bomb had been detonated, her eyes flashed wide before the explosion flew from her mouth. “I don’t want to be myself! If Willow is alive, that means Hadley is gone forever.”

Oh, fuck.

How had I not seen that coming?

She was her sister. Her twin sister. One she had loved so completely that she’d given up her entire life to be close to the daughter Hadley had abandoned. And knowing Willow, I’d have bet my bank account that during that time she’d spent hatching a plan to reclaim the only remaining member of her family, she’d never taken the time to grieve the sister she’d lost.

Only hours earlier, as I’d poured my heart out to her over all the things she should rightly hate me for, she’d been nothing but patient and understanding, And there I was, in a roundabout way suggesting she bury Hadley all over again. Something that wasn’t my call to make.

“Willow, come here.”

She shook her head. “She always wanted to be me, ya know?”

“Willow. Come here.”

“She always thought I had it so easy. And, compared to what she went through, I’m not sure she was wrong. I get to live. Maybe if she’s finally Willow, she won’t resent me so damn much anymore.”

Throwing the covers back, I stood up and walked straight for the bedroom door. I quietly shut it and twisted the knob to lock it before turning back to face her.

For such a terrible day filled with confessions and ghosts from the past, it’d been amazing.

But only because she had made it amazing. The way she’d lightened my guilt just by holding my hand as we’d driven the hour home. The way she didn’t look at me with contempt and blame the way I did so often in the mirror. She might not have said the words that day, but just as it’d been when she’d been a girl, her forgiveness was a comfort I’d never felt with anyone else.

Willow was a warrior on levels neither I nor Truett West would ever understand.

And, now, she was standing in my bedroom, her shattered heart all but on display because I’d unwittingly found the chink in her armor.

The vulnerability that had been right in front of me all along.

The one that had brought us together.

And the one that had the ability to ruin us both.

And she wasn’t even alive anymore

Hadley.





WILLOW


I watched as he walked toward me. His steps were calculated, as though I might spook at any minute.

“I didn’t know Hadley well, so you’re going to have to help me out here. Okay?”

I shook my head and backed away. I didn’t know what he was about to ask, but I knew with an absolute certainty that I didn’t want to help him out. I didn’t want to talk about her at all. This was our night—our date.

She had no part in that.

But she did.

And because of the little girl fighting sleep just down the hall, she always would.

However, talking about Hadley meant thinking about Hadley. And, with Caven, it meant thinking about her in past tense. That was not a task I was ready to tackle.

For the majority of my adult life, I’d only seen Hadley in sporadic bursts. She’d wandered in and out of my life based on what she’d needed at the moment. I’d just wanted a family. So, when she’d come knocking on my door at three in the morning, I’d let her in. Sometimes, she stayed for a few days. Sometimes, a few hours. Occasionally, a month or two under the promise that she was getting clean and back on her feet. But it never lasted.

At Beth’s urging, I moved to Puerto Rico to escape the constant need to stress about where she was or who she was with. It was killing me. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, an ocean between us could solve, but it did wonders for my mental health. And, for Hadley, finally knowing there was no one she could fall back on seemed to serve as a reality check.

For two years, Hadley settled down. We started R.K. Banks. I emailed her photographs. She printed them and then painted over them. Most, she’d mail back to me, and some, she’d ship to the customer herself. What she did at night or on the weekends, I didn’t know. But when I called with a question or a custom piece for a client, she’d always answer the phone. And we’d talk. Without fighting. Without name calling. Without…all the other bullshit that seemed to get in the way. It was one of the best periods in my life, and even though I only saw her a few times during those years, I was genuinely happy to have my sister back.

However, as the old adage states, all good things must come to an end. At some point, Hadley got back into drugs. And stealing. And obsessing over the woman in the picture from the mall. She stopped answering my calls. She stopped laughing. Ultimately, she stopped painting.

I sold off whatever inventory we had left, except for a few I kept for my personal collection. And then Beth and I did what we could to just keep her alive. The longest I’d ever gone without seeing Hadley was six months.

It had been over eight now, and the time had been weighing on me. I missed her fiercely. But it was easy to pretend she was still alive. To imagine she had a new boyfriend and was out wreaking havoc with him. Maybe she was high and happy, bouncing from house to house, and I was letting her go, tough-love style. Maybe she was pissed at me again for something completely out of my control. But in the back of my head, even as I was pretending to be her and cleaning up the mess she’d left behind, she was always somewhere living, breathing, and not gone from the Earth forever.