Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 114011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Her hand goes to her mouth. She lunges toward me but stops herself.
“I do love you, Palmer. I fell for you the moment I saw you. Is love at first sight real? If it is, I loved you then. If not, I fell for you as I got to know you and your son. I love both of you,” I say, a laugh covering the hiccup in my voice. “But there’s something you need to know.”
My nerves almost get the best of me. I can taste bile at the back of my throat. I grip the chair and hope that it keeps me still long enough to say what I need to say.
“I found out—well, I’ve known for a while, but it was confirmed last week—that I have multiple sclerosis,” I say. My voice is flat, unemotional, as if I’m telling her it’s sunny today. “There’s really no way to tell what my quality of life is going to be like going forward.”
“Cole.”
She flings herself around the desk and propels her body into mine. Her head nestles in my chest.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her so snugly against me that I’m not sure she can breathe. But I’m not sure I’m breathing anymore, either, so maybe we can pass out together.
This is right. This is the way it should be.
I close my eyes and feel her warmth, her energy—the way everything in my world seems to have snapped back together.
God, let this work out. Please.
She pulls back and touches the side of my face. “Are you okay?”
I smile at her. “Right now, I’m great.”
“I mean it. Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped you process it.”
Shrugging, I look at the ceiling. “It felt wrong.”
“Cole . . .” She extracts herself from my arms and leans against her desk. “What do you do now? Is that why you are—were?—going back to California?”
I nod. “It felt easier to run away from my problems. And I’d convinced myself that I was doing you a favor.”
She laughs. “Right.”
“You were having the worst day of your life. And when I opened my mouth to tell you about my diagnosis, it felt like it, like I, could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Palmer frowns.
“The last thing you needed in that moment was for someone else to tell you that they might have to need you to take care of them—”
“Cole—”
“And I couldn’t do it to you, Palmer. I couldn’t. I’ve lived my whole life with this baseball mentality of pulling your own weight and being a constructive member of the team. And to feel like a burden—that I would be a burden to you—was more than I could take.”
“You could never be a burden to me.”
Her words pull at my heartstrings.
“I swore to myself that leaving was in your best interest,” I say, my voice softer. “But once I thought about it, really thought about it, I realized that I’d made a decision based on fear, not on love. Love stands through it all, and I knew I’d stand beside you if the roles were reversed.”
A small grin slips across her cheeks.
“It took someone reminding me that true courage is being honest about your feelings,” I say.
A look flashes across Palmer’s eyes.
I smile. “Look, I can’t promise you the future. I’m healthy. I should be strong for a long time, but you never know—”
“I know.” She walks to me again and stops just inches away. “I know the only thing I’ve ever wanted is someone to do life with me. Whatever life is. Whatever happens. And then you came into my world and shook it up. For the first time, I wasn’t scared for the future because I could imagine us together.”
My God, I don’t deserve her.
“Anything could happen, Cole. I could get sick. I could get into an accident on the way home and never walk again.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
She smiles.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I admit. “I went to Cincinnati and couldn’t bring myself to get a ticket to California. Every time I thought about boarding a plane without you, I panicked.”
She touches my cheek again, feathering her thumb over my face.
“I want to be beside you when we’re celebrating and when things aren’t great,” I say. “I want to teach Ethan to play ball or chess or whatever he does. But let’s hope it’s not chess.”
She laughs, her eyes clouding with unshed tears.
I grab her hand and bring her knuckles to my lips. I press a long, lingering kiss against them.
“I’m sorry I left you,” I say. “If you’ll have me back, I’ll never leave you again.”
She stands on her tiptoes and grins. “I can’t have you back, Cole. I never gave you up in the first place.”
I pick her up, making her squeal. Then I sit her on top of her desk.