When We Let Go, Delancey Stewart [early reader books .txt] 📗

We sat in silence for a moment, but I knew I needed to add something more, and Maddie seemed to sense that I wasn’t finished. I straightened my shoulders, turned to face her. “I think I owe you another apology, actually.”

“You do?”

“For being hot and cold about the property. And for not telling you who I was.” Her wide-eyed expression and slight nod made me think she knew what I meant. “I should have told you everything as soon as I realized who you were. I wanted to buy that place because…it’s always meant something to me. That spot…” I looked into the fire, wondering if I could possibly explain to Maddie what that day by the river had meant to me, how it had shaped me. “That day when we were kids, when I pulled you out of the river…it was important to me.”

“It was a million years ago,” she whispered.

“But I see it every time I close my eyes. I think it’s the only thing in my life I’ve ever done right. I see you in the water, your eyes huge. You were so little, and you had this enormous wild mop of curly hair. When we played, before we went down to the river, there was something about the wild child with the big crazy hair that drew me in. You were loud, and fierce, and so fearless. And I saw my sister and me when I watched the way your brother was with you.” I remembered her dark haired brother, his quick defense of his little sister, his constant watching presence at her side.

“But then you fell into the river and he couldn’t help you. We were all perched on the rocks over you while you tried to get out, and you kept sinking under. And Cam was yelling like a crazy person, and trying to fish you out with a stick, but he didn’t go in.” He’d been frantic, but he must not have been able to swim.

“And your eyes were everywhere, and then they landed on me, and I jumped. I didn’t even think about it. I remember knowing I had to save you. And I did.” My eyes found hers. “I saved you. You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to save.”

“What do you mean? Your sister?” She asked.

I leaned back and laughed, but there was nothing funny about the stories I had to tell about those I’d failed. “Yeah, for one. But way before that. I’ve lost a lot of people, I guess. My grandpa used to live with us when we lived in Chicago. But he died when I was pretty little. I used to crawl in his bed every morning and he’d tell me stories. One day I went into his room to wake him up, and he was dead.”

“Oh God. I’m so sorry.” Maddie gasped and brought a hand to her mouth.

“And then the summer we came up here for the first time, my parents had been in a car accident, so my sister and I went to live with my aunt in northern California. She and her husband were the ones who brought us up here during the summer. But they had never wanted kids. And they didn’t want us. And so when I was eighteen, it was just me and my sister.” I remembered the way they’d let us go, as if we’d just been visiting and had somewhere to return to.

Maddie reached out tentatively and laid her hand on mine. The warmth seeped through me and I felt my shoulders drop. I turned my hand over and grasped her smooth fingers in my own.

“I think at first, I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

“Trying to save you over and over again so I could feel that sensation. Of doing something right. Of succeeding.” My voice had become a whisper. I’d never admitted this out loud, never really realized it until yesterday.

“You’re a huge success,” she argued. “Surely that means something?”

“With words, I do okay. With people? Not as much. I’ve never been good at getting close to anyone. I’ve had relationships…” I paused, but knew I needed to tell her everything. I went on. “But I’ve never done it right. They get tired of trying to understand. And they leave.” I took a sip from the glass on the counter. “My agent finally asked me why all the ones who survive in my books have the same curly hair, the same brown eyes.”

“Like me,” she breathed. “You keep saving me.”

“My sister actually figured it out first. She said you were the only person I’d ever kept from leaving me. And somehow it stuck with me, even when I didn’t think it was that important to me.” I smiled, hoping she wouldn’t think I was completely crazy after this. “Once I realized it, after we’d come up here to my house, I came back to the spot and saw this house you were building. And I wanted some part of that memory to be mine. So I offered to buy it. But then I realized who you were. And I couldn’t take it from you.”

“And when you figured out who I was, why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

I didn’t have a good answer. “I don’t know. I just wanted to be near you, and didn’t know if it would freak you out to hear it. And then the deeper we got and the longer I waited, the less it seemed like I could tell you.”

She nodded and looked up at me then, and I saw that she understood. Her eyes held mine and her fingers rose to trace the side of my face, drawing lines of heat down my jaw, through the stubble at my cheek. Finally, her index finger traced my bottom lip and I couldn’t help the ragged breath that escaped me.

I reached for her, pulling her into my arms. “It almost broke me when I thought you’d sold me out,” I whispered. “I didn’t even realize how much I trusted you, how much I’ve come to depend on you in so short a time.”

“I would never do that,” she said, looking up into my face.

I lifted her hand, bringing her palm up to kiss and she shivered in my arms.

I pulled her closer, and felt the heat of her body pressed against mine, the solidity of something I thought I might never feel again warming my body and my heart. For a long moment we stood like that, looking into one another’s eyes and breathing together, two parts of one unified being. And then she tilted her head up slightly and I leaned down, capturing her mouth with my own.

Maddie melted into me, her arms sliding around my neck, pulling me closer. And I held her possessively, conscious of how tenuous the connection between two hearts and two people could be, carefully focusing on protecting the delicate trust we were building together.

Our lips slid together, seeking and solidifying the bond between us, cementing the trust we shared with each breath we took.

“I never expected to see you again,” I whispered eventually, when Maddie moved her head back for a breath. “It makes me almost believe in fate.”

She watched me, her eyes glazed and her lips swollen from the kiss, and a flicker of a smile crossed her mouth. I turned and led her upstairs.