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I look down.

“I’m the reason he’s dead. There, I said it for you.” He walks over to the stove, looking down at the dim burning fire.

“Do you even feel guilty?” I ask. “Or are you glad?”

His head whips around and he moves quickly for a man who’s half-dead. I step back toward the wall as he towers over me. “You think I wanted him dead?” he asks.

I look him in the eyes. Danny’s eyes have always been dark, just like his soul. But at one time, I did get to witness a speckle of light in them. When we were kids swept up in a fantasy that we could have a normal life together. When we thought love was enough.

But we grew up. I moved on because he moved on, and things just changed so much. We’re not the same people anymore. Do I think Danny wantedhimdead?

“Yes,” I say.

His eyes bounce between mine. He breathes heavy, and from the moonlight I can see sweat on his brow. Tension builds, swarming around us like flies buzzing over a dead corpse. That’s exactly how our love for one another is.

Dead.

We’re both filthy, hurt physically and emotionally, and so damn tired, a week’s worth of sleep wouldn’t be enough.

“Maybe I did,” he says, his shoulders dropping. “Does that make me evil?” he asks lowly, like he’s scared to hear my answer, but at the same time he already knows.

“What happened to you?” I ask. “How did you sink so far in?”

“You happened to me,” he replies, like that’s all the answer there is.

I shake my head at him. “What a bullshit excuse.” I move around him, clipping my shoulder with his arm.

“Why did you marry him?” he asks me. “Why did you even entertain the fucking idea?”

I look back at him. “I told you why. I loved him. You acted as if what Samuel and I had was nothing. You were wrong.”

His back shutters as a breath leaves his lungs, like me saying those words cut him deeper than any knife could.

Good, he deserves it.

Chapter Fifteen

Bexley

2015

Resting the crate on my hip, I shut the trunk of my SUV and step over a puddle from the evening rain shower we just had. People walk by on the sidewalk; I nod and smile as I put the key into the lock and push open the door to A-Street Flower Shop. The small bell chimes above me, and the sweet aroma of fresh cut flowers and wisteria hanging on the charcoal walls fills my senses.

I did accept Billie’s offer nearly nine years ago. I went home and talked it over with Uncle Hale, who at first didn’t think it was a great idea. He wanted me to go off to college and meet new people, but I just never could leave.

I place the crate full of milk and eggs from Billie’s farm on the black cement table that sits in the middle of the shop. It stretches down the center, filled with beautiful arranged flowers ready to be picked up by customers. You can also host dinner parties here. Lights are hung, zigzagging from one corner of the shop to the other. Evergreens are placed and hung throughout the shop, and in the back is a beautiful garden area with a fountain.

Billie did expand her shop, and we now have a whole side reserved for her vegetables and eggs and whatever else she grabs fresh from the farm that’s in season. The local restaurant chefs stop by every morning and grab what they need if we have it.

Years have come and gone since Samuel and I started getting serious. It took me two years to give it a go with someone else, but I finally moved on. Samuel and I share a home together now, and he’s helped me become the person I am today.

Danny fades in and out of my life. He shows up in short spurts. And even though I love Samuel, every time I see the man who only wears black, it’s like a violent stab in the chest. My heart races and my mind scatters. I think back on the times we shared together. All the memories we have. That’s the thing about memories. They’re like a tattoo, forever inked onto your mind.

But we’ve grown up. We’ve moved on. We had a love that was too young. Doomed from the start. It’s funny. Lately I find myself thinking about when we were kids. During that hard time, when Mama was dying and I stayed over at the O’Briens’ house to keep my mind occupied from the reality of my childhood. My mama was leaving me, and neither one of us could do anything about it.

I don’t think you can really ever get over a parent’s death. You keep living your life, but the connection you felt to this world is untethered. It’s just not the same.

But my chosen family helped me. They let me come into their lives, and they accepted me as one of them. But none of them seeped into my bones like Danny. Before we started a relationship when I came back, there were so many little moments that we had together.