50
RECLAIMING MY FOREVER
Olivia
I’M GOING ON SIX HOURS of sleep. Six hours split between three nights. Pair that with my shitty sleep Saturday night and the near all-nighter from Friday? It’s Wednesday morning and I’m sitting at a grand total of thirteen hours over the last ve nights.
Let me be clear: I am not functioning properly. My brain is a foggy, dark mess that I so desperately want out of but can’t nd the ladder to crawl up. I’ve been living o iced lattes and Big Macs. My stomach hurts, I feel like shit, look like hell, and don’t care.
Frankly, it’s a miracle I’m dragging myself to work, but it’s the only normalcy I have left, and no one’s dared say a word to me.
I roll over, pulling the blankets tighter around my shoulders. The soft orange glow of the rising sun peeks through the tiniest crack in the curtains, and all I want it to do is rain. I’ve spent months feeling like sunshine, even during the bleakest, snowiest winter, and the grayest spring. Now that the sun’s here, all I want it to do is go away.
I still have two hours until I have to be up, but any chance of sleep has left.
There’s an irrational, fucked-up part of me that frowns at the notications on my phone. I have tons, but none are from Carter. The logical part of my brain tries to tell me the space is good. It’s what I asked for, after all. The rest of me begs me to call him, to make sure he’s okay. Because he promised he’d be
back, and he’s not. I’m here and he’s there, and with each passing minute, the distance feels farther, the hole in my heart gaping wider.
He promised me answers, and the longer he’s away, the more I worry there isn’t any.
I swipe at my screen, over and over, pictures of us smiling up at me, until I settle on one of my favorites. I’m laughing, looking into the camera, and Carter’s got his arms around me from behind, his chin on my shoulder with his biggest, gooest grin. But he’s not looking at the camera.
He’s looking at me.
Never in my life has somebody looked at me the way that man looks at me, like I’m the only thing he sees, like someone seeing in color for the rst time. He holds so much love in his gaze, erce appreciation, devotion, and that right there is why my heart keeps urging me that something doesn’t add up. It’s why I promised him the time he begged for right here in this room, the time to gure it out.
The door to my room creaks open, and I hug my phone against my chest, swiping at my tears as Cara pops her head inside.
She smiles and pads toward the bed, slipping beneath the covers and snuggling into me. “I knew you’d be up. It’s like I can hear the wheels in your head turning.”
“What are you doing up?” Besides the obvious, which is checking on me.
Cara and Emmett are getting married this weekend, and I’m all she can focus on. She insists it’s a welcome distraction from wedding worries. I don’t know if I believe her, but she sure makes me feel like I belong here.
“Couldn’t sleep. You wouldn’t talk to me last night and you know I don’t deal well with the word no.” Her hand brushes over my phone, and she gives it a
tug. “What’s this?”
I hug it closer to my chest. “Nothing.”
Cara pins me to the mattress, wrestling my phone from my grasp, because like she said, she doesn’t deal well with no’s. She doesn’t say anything when she nds the picture, nor when she drops the phone on the bed, slamming her body into mine from behind in a hold that has the power to cut o my oxygen supply if she were to squeeze a touch harder.
I can tell she’s crying by the slight quiver in her body, the tiny snies. She thinks I don’t hear her cry to Emmett at night, but I do. My best friend loves me ferociously, and for that, I’m truly blessed.
“Where is he?” My body shakes with a sob, and Cara buries her face in my hair, shaking right along with me. “He said he’d be back. He said he’d x it, that he’d nd the answer and explain everything. He promised, Cara, but it’s been two days and he’s not here.”
“He’ll be here,” she whispers. It’s a promise she sounds so certain making, no matter how heavy the words are. When I roll out of her arms and sit up, she sits up, too, wiping her cheeks.
“My heart hurts so much,” I admit, wiping at a tear that gathers in the corner of my eye. “This doesn’t feel like Carter. Not at all. He was talking about our wedding and babies. He was calling it our home long before I moved in. He wanted to share everything, his whole life. And I only wanted to be a part of it.”
“Oh, honey. You’re the biggest part. You know that.”
“Why can’t he just talk to me? What’s stopping him? What doesn’t he want me to know?”
There’s a part of me that’s sure Cara knows what’s going on in some capacity, that she’s dying to tell me, and if I’d come right out and ask her to, she would.
But it puts her and Emmett in a position they shouldn’t have to be in, between their best friends. I don’t want them to have to choose sides, because I don’t want there to be sides. I have to believe there’s a perfectly logical reason for all of this, even if it’s a little misguided.
“If this were reversed, if it were me trying to nd my way through this, Carter wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d demand we do this together. He wouldn’t let me go through this on my own, no matter how much I’d try to push him away.”
Cara’s blue eyes hold mine. “You’re right.”
“I don’t want him to do this, to try to be strong on his own.”
“What do you want?”
I want to be next to my person instead of feeling so lost without him. I want us, together and forever. I want the answers I deserve, and if he’s having trouble nding them, then I want to help him look.
“I want to show him what he’s been showing me all along. That we’re stronger together.”
That’s why I call him three times on my lunch break. When I get his voicemail a fourth time after work, I wind up out front of the house that was supposed to be my home, the one that’s been my home all these months, simply because of the person inside it, the memories made within the walls.
His truck sits in the driveway though it was last tucked in the garage. He barely drives this thing anymore; he says it’s my baby now, and I’m his.
So if he’s home, why isn’t he answering the door?
I knock again, over and over, and my phone keeps buzzing, the video doorbell telling me there’s someone at the front door. I know there’s someone at the front door; the someone is me.
My knocks go from timid and gentle to frantic and hard, my palm slapping the wood as I beg for Carter to come, to open the door, to let me in. I call his phone once, then twice, and when I nally give in, punching in the code to the front door, when it beeps three times and tells me it’s wrong, that the code’s not the one it was just days ago, the tears come.
I sink down to the porch steps as the oodgates open, and with my knees pulled to my chest, I bury my face in my arms and sob. Everything leaves me, the hope I was clinging to, and now all I have is the fear I’ve been trying to ignore, the one that creeps up my stomach and tries to make a home in my chest. I don’t want to let it.
Something warm and wet touches my elbow, then my ngers. It laps at my ear, and I snie, peeking through the crack in my arms at the two golden paws
that rest between my feet.
“Ollie.”
My chest cracks wide open at my name, all the love it’s whispered with, the shock at nding me here. That fear that’s been trying so hard to take root claws its way out, escaping as two warm hands capture my face.
Glossy emerald eyes peer down at me, and when I cry out his name, Carter wraps his arms around me and yanks me into his embrace.
“You didn’t answer your phone,” I cry. “And the code. I tried the code, and it’s not working. You locked me out.”
“Oh, baby.” His palm skates over my back, his touch rough as I cling to him.
“I would never try to keep you out. I changed it to keep everyone else out.
Everything’s been so overwhelming, and without you here, I needed some time to myself, time to think without people in my ear.”
“You said you were coming back, Carter. You said that. But you…” I pry my face from his neck, swiping at my sopping cheeks as he holds me. “Why haven’t you come back to me?”
Shame tints his cheekbones. Carter takes a seat on the step, setting me on his lap, and smooths my hair back from my damp face as Dublin lies beside us.
“It’s still broken, Ollie. I have to x it before I deserve to come back to you.”
“No,” I say rmly, sting his shirt in my hands. “That’s not what you taught me. You taught me to communicate. You taught me to lean on you when I need strength, and you’re supposed to lean on me too. Because we’re supposed to do these things together, aren’t we? Work through the hard stu, the fears?”
His eyes cloud, an uncertainty that takes over, steals the brilliance of his evergreen forest and replaces it with a bleak and hazy fog. He rests his forehead against mine, a tremor in his voice as he whispers, “I’m so scared, Olivia.”
“I don’t want you to be scared alone. That’s not how we do things in this relationship.”
My tongue touches my top lip, tasting the saltiness of my tears, and before I can think twice, I cover his mouth with mine. Carter’s ngers crawl up my back, diving into my hair, clutching me to him as I kiss him.
When I pull back, I trap the single tear tracking its way down his cheek.
“Please talk to me, Carter. Give me the truth, and together we’ll nd the answers.”
His inhale is staggered, his exhale every bit as anxious. But he presses his lips to mine once more, and nally, he talks.
“I did go upstairs with them. Courtney and her friend, I still don’t know her name. I only did because Courtney had… she had my phone. Her friend found it in the bathroom at the restaurant. I was so careless, and I must have forgotten it, and when Courtney showed it to me…” He swallows. “She had one of your private pictures up.”
Something strange claws up my throat, a mixture of anger and fear. Anger that somebody could be so callous, fear for what that means for me, for us.
There’s something else there, the nagging reminder in the back of my head that I’m not perfect. That there have been so many women before me with smaller waists, rounder breasts. Shame curdles in my stomach, but for only a moment. Because then I remember that I’m perfect for Carter, that he thinks I’m beautiful, and what anyone else thinks doesn’t matter in the slightest.
“I’m so sorry, Olivia. I should’ve been more careful. I never should’ve kept them on my phone.”
I place my palm on his cheek, calming him. “What happened next?”
“She told me she’d already sent all the pictures to herself, that if I didn’t want them to get out I needed to come with her.”
“What did she want? Money? Did she blackmail you?”
A bitter chuckle leaves his lips. “If she’d wanted money, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I tried, trust me. I threw it all at her, but she didn’t want it.” He runs an agitated hand through his hair, mussing his waves. “She said we ruined her life, that Adam didn’t trust her anymore because of what happened that one weekend at the bar, that he would’ve been able to forgive her cheating otherwise.
She said it wasn’t fair that I was getting another chance after my past, that she couldn’t stand seeing me portrayed as such a perfect boyfriend. She wanted to remind everyone of who I really am.”
“But that’s not who you are, Carter. You aren’t your past, and it doesn’t dene you. There is such a beautiful, incredible person behind every decision you’ve ever made.”
He looks down, nodding. “She wanted to hurt us, and I think I let her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all that?”
“Because she wanted me to break up with you. She wouldn’t get rid of the pictures until she knew we were done. I can’t ever be done, Ollie, not with you.
But I can’t let your pictures get out either. You’ll lose your job, and I won’t let you be exposed that way. I need to keep you safe, and I’ve already failed by letting someone get their hands on your pictures.”
“I love my job, Carter, but nothing in this life is worth risking you. I would trade all of it for a happily ever after with you.”
“I’ve never been so disappointed with myself. I was so scared, and I freaked the fuck out. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I was worried if it looked like everything was ne between us, Courtney would leak the pictures. I stayed up all night trying to come up with a plan, but came up with nothing. I wanted to beg you to stay, stop you from leaving. But in the moment I nally gave in, let you get in that damn car, I knew the best thing for you was space. Space until I could solve it, until I could make sure you were safe.” He shakes his head, unable to meet my gaze. “I’ll never forgive myself if I fail you any more than this.”
“Failing is part of life. And we pick back up and start again. We can do that, Carter. As long as you’re by my side, I can always start again. Can’t you?”
Anguish swims in his eyes as he watches me closely, like he’s afraid the words aren’t real, that I’ll get up and leave at any moment. Doesn’t he know my heart belongs to him? As long as he’s willing to keep trying, I’ll be here.
Before he can answer, the quiet purr of an engine sounds nearby, and a police cruiser pulls up the long driveway. Carter shifts me o his lap, taking my hand in his as we stand, the car coming to a stop next to his truck.
Two ocers step out, looking from me to Carter. “Can we talk, Mr.
Beckett?”
Carter nods, and the ocers smile at me.
“Good evening, Miss Parker. I’m Ocer Perry, and this is my partner, Ocer Wolters.”
I look to Carter in question, and he squeezes my hand.
Ocer Wolters steps forward, oering something to Carter as he chuckles.
“Well, your screen is still shattered; we couldn’t do anything about that. But you can have your phone back.”
Carter takes his phone, turning it in his hand, and the hot sun glints o the fragments of the broken screen before he tucks it in his pocket. “What does this mean?”
Ocer Wolters smiles. It’s warm and broad and makes me feel something I
haven’t felt in days.
Hope.
“It means we’ve got both women in custody. This is over.”
I CAN’T SLEEP, AND I expected as much. The problem right now is that the solution to my sleepless nights feels obvious.
But Carter didn’t want to push me. He was worried it was all too much, too fast, too soon.
We spent hours at the police station, my hand tucked in his while they explained the charges we were well within our rights to press: intent of nonconsensual distribution of intimate images.
Carter led a police report on Monday night after he promised to come back with answers. I think he made the right decision, and he nally does too.
The problem was they couldn’t locate Courtney since her last known address was with Adam, and since Carter didn’t know the name of her accomplice, the police were stuck. Until a woman named Raegan showed up this afternoon, ridden with guilt over the part she’d played. She turned her phone in, loaded with messages from Courtney, details of her intent to distribute the photos one at a time, whether or not Carter and I ended our relationship.
And then Carter brought me back here to Cara and Emmett’s. He held me in their driveway and told me to take the time I needed to come to terms with this.
He told me it was okay to be angry with him, and he’d understand if I was.
The problem is that he’s there, and I’m here.
The phone rings once before he answers, eager, as if he were hoping I’d call.
“Ollie? Are you okay?”
The tears that haven’t stopped these past four days overow again, cool trails tracking down my cheeks. “I don’t want to sleep without you.”
He stays on the phone the entire drive over, for every step he takes up the stairs, and I hear Emmett’s soft chuckle both in the phone and through the door as he pokes his head out to see who’s here. The bedroom door opens and Dublin dashes inside, leaping up on the bed, covering my face with his tongue. Only when Carter’s gaze lands on me does he nally hang up.
I peel back the covers and he wastes no time climbing in, pulling my body against his, his hands gripping my hair, my face, my hips as his mouth covers
every inch of my face with kisses.
“I haven’t lost you?”
“Carter, you will never, ever lose me.”
