THE LAST SHOW WAS incredible but it also symbolized the end. Ben sang our song and it felt like it was good bye. We love each other and we always will, but that doesn’t mean we can forget the past and move forward with just love.

“A carnival, you brought me to a carnival?” I question, shocked this is what he wanted to do on our last night together.

“You’ll see. Trust me?” he questions, shutting the cab door after helping me out.

“I think I always have. That’s why we’re in this place.” I don’t refer to our location, but instead our marriage. We’re broken and damaged because I trusted each and every word he said, every promise that he could never keep.

“Don’t do that. Please.” He pulls my hand in his and gives me his Ben eyes, those deep browns with honey dripping from them—the puppy dog eyes.

“Don’t lead me down another road that I can’t travel on,” I warn him with a heavy breath.

“I won’t. Come on.” Taking my hand, he makes a b-line toward the ferris wheel.

Approaching the ferris wheel, I smile discreetly, the small gesture meaningful.

As we climb on he tells the ride operator to let us go around until he signals us to get off. I find the request odd and I begin to wonder what he could be up to.

We ride around a few times without saying a word, just watching the sun set on the water line. The bells and dings of other games and rides go off in the background, but he says nothing. I feel him watching me, waiting for me to speak first, but I really have no idea what to say. This is the last night we will be together like this. What can I possibly say?

“Today was hard.” That’s the best I come up with.

“How?”

“You confused me even more, Ben. You say you love me and want this baby, but all I can see when you say that is you pushing me away.” The image comes back in a rush and I shake my head to try and rid of it. I can’t think back to that. I just can’t.

“I know and I regret that, I will forever regret that,” Ben tells me truthfully, wrapping his arm around me and turning my body into him. I want to reject it but I don’t. Call me a glutton for pain.

“You live with too many regrets and guilt. Aren’t you tired of always adding another one to your list? Aren’t your shoulders heavy?” I ask, searching over his face.

“The only regret I have left is how I’ve pushed you away and caused you pain.”

“Then why are you trying so hard to get me back when you know that?” I question on a huff.

“Because I love you. I could try and give you more words to define that love but there aren’t any that can justify it. I love you Sadie and I want to fight to get us through this. I want to look back years from now and know that the two young kids that fell in love when they had no clue what kind of shit they would go through, made it out, that we made it through.”

He searches my face and I shake my head in disbelief, my eyes swarming with tears. “How can you expect us to get through all that we have and have me forget what you did the past few months? Ben, how can you expect me to do that so fast!” I’m yelling as we pass the ride operator and I can tell he’s uncomfortable, but I don’t care how anyone feels but me. I’m hurting, completely wrecked and I don’t care.

“Because I’m clean and I’m sober. I’m working hard every day to become a better man and when we get home, I will continue on my road to recovery because I have you and I have your faith.”

“You mocked my faith, for so long you mocked my faith.” I basically stone him, sneering at him, because that faith that saw me through everything, even mama’s cancer is now gone—it’s something I almost despise and that’s because of him.

Quickly, he grabs my face in his hands, squeezing my chin. “I mocked it because it scared me. I knew the truth and you were it and that shit scared me.”

“You’re dad found his faith again. And you didn’t forgive him,” I whisper, trying to break from his grip, but he keeps it tight giving me no way out.

“Because he can’t find faith or redemption when he killed his own angel. You’re my angel, you were sent here to fucking save me, Sadie. I don’t believe he can find it because he already had his chance and he destroyed it. I have my faith in the palm of my hands, in my heart, on my left wedding finger, inside our child and I won’t let that slip out of my hands again. I won’t lose the only two people in my life that I loved more than my mother.”

I choke, letting out a gut wrenching sob. How come he never said that to me before? Where were those words this whole time I needed them? My soul softens a little more and I know that little wick of burnt out hope is slowly sizzling back to a full burning flame.

God, I needed him to make this right for so long. I don’t say anything and urge him with my cries to go on, to keep telling me what I need to hear, because he’s grasping onto my heart and I don’t want him to let it slip away again.

“You and our child are my faith. Please know that I will never lose it again. I need you to bring me back to where I felt most at home. In your arms, in your heart baby, right here.” He lets his hand travel to my heart, the warm touch making it beat again. I swear I can feel a thundering pound as he revives it with his touch.

“Ben,” I cry, pulling him in with a kiss. Locking my hands around the nape of his neck, we kiss again for the first time in weeks. The manly taste of him mingles with the salt of my tears and he takes over, grabbing my hips and placing me in his lap. The bucket we’re in rocks a little and he breaks our kiss with his own tearful laugh.

“Ahh!”

“When the boat goes a rockin…” he teases, bringing his lips to mine again. We do this for a solid round before we’re extended in the air at the very top. Pulling away, I rest my forehead against his, placing my hand on his heart as his finds my tiny stomach. I swear I feel a surge of energy move through his hand, into our child and into my heart. The kinetic type of energy, telling me that my life is now complete.

I’ve fallen in love with Ben all over again. Just like the first time, all it took was a quick moment in his world to know that he was my everything, to know that his life was my life and my life was his. I trust this time and I know it’s our child giving me the renewed hope, the belief in his new promise. I begged God to save me and when I thought he wasn’t I abandoned my faith and in that abandonment, he saved us. I then learned of true faith.

“Sadie?”

“Hmm?”

“Marry me?” I chuckle and peer up at him.

“We’re already married, silly.”

“I know but I want to marry you again. In the same church your parents got married in.”

“Really? Oh my gosh, Ben. Are you..”

Before I can finish, he places me back beside him and very carefully drops to one knee in the spacious bucket.

“I’m asking you to marry me just like your dad did with your mom and I want you to marry me in the same church they did. Marry the new me.”

My heart dances and a beam of light radiates from the center of me.

“Ben. I’ll marry the same you, just in a different light.” With that I pull him back up by his shirt and we kiss, my heart beating wildly for this man, every doubt I ever had in him vanishing.

“I can’t believe you’re trusting me and giving me another chance,” he says pulling away. Looking into the eyes of my other half, the better side of my soul, I get lost inside him.

I pause for a brief moment and sculpt his face in my hands, gazing lovingly into his honey brown eyes, before I speak the realest words I will ever speak for the rest of my life. “That’s what I get for loving you, Ben Cooper.”

And right there Ben Cooper showed me what no book or holy prayer could. He showed me real love, a real testament to faith and God’s greatest work. The road to redemption was paved with a million battles, but we found it together and in that, I found my real religion. I found it in loving Ben Cooper.

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