Delaney
An Uber took me to a cemetery in my hometown, just an hour away. Since my mother’s death, there had been a constant ache within my chest, a heaviness that wouldn’t allow my lungs to expand fully. I had been slowly suffocating, weighed down by a truth I couldn’t speak.
And then I’d met Shane. Suddenly I could breathe again. I could feel again. I could cry again.
But today was different. I wasn’t crying just because of Shane. My tears were for everything I’d kept bottled up for so long.
My mother’s death.
My father’s insistence on taking the blame.
The lives that had been shattered because, for a split second, my phone was more important than the world beyond my windshield.
I cried for the college coed who’d foolishly thought she had her future all mapped out.
I cried for Shane. For the little boy he once was, and the man he’d become.
I cried for the connection we shared. The couple we’d been for just a little while. Two people with one heart, who had found themselves in each other. Or so I’d thought. And I cried for myself. Because my heart, whatever part of it remained, didn’t feel like it would ever be whole again.
I fisted my hands at my sides, nails leaving half-moon imprints in my palms. No. No—I wouldn’t do that again. I was done letting someone else dictate what I would say. Where I should go. What I should think. How I should feel.
Who I would love.
One day my heart would be whole again. One day I would love again.
Someone who loved me back just as fiercely. Someone who would fight for me, who would fight alongside me.
The sun broke through a narrow gap in the clouds, slanting across my face, drying my tears. The headstone at my back warmed, the heat spreading along my skin, radiating through my chest. I pulled away, facing the stone, which was now reflecting the sunshine, glowing almost white. I looked around, expecting the neighboring markers to look the same. But no, I was surrounded by a sea of gray. I swallowed, tracing my mother’s name with my fingertips. Feeling her presence.
The sun slipped back behind the clouds, the headstone fading back into gray. But for just a moment, the inscription brightened, one last pulse of warmth lighting up the epitaph I’d been too devastated to notice.
LOVE HAS NO ENDING.
I pressed my palms against the slab, felt the warmth draining from it even as I was filled with certainly that mother was still be there for me, no matter what. I spread out on the soft green grass, watching the clouds floating by. “Thanks, Mom,” I said softly.
The first moment I realized I loved Shane, a part of me had relaxed, loosening with relief. I had thought I’d crossed some kind of invisible finish line.
But what I hadn’t known then, not even a clue, was that I’d only been standing on the starting block. The real race, my race, was just beginning.
I’m not sure how much time passed. Ten minutes. An hour. Two. It didn’t matter. I knew what I needed to do. I’d known it for a while now. I was tired of lying. Tired of hiding. Tired of pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
Three years ago, I did a bad thing. A very bad thing. And I was still stuck in that moment. Caught. I’d never be able to move forward until I faced it squarely. Admitted it, not just to Shane, but to those who had been too eager to accept my father’s explanation. After a few drinks, he’d gotten behind the wheel with his wife and daughter in the car. One lived, the other didn’t. And he was serving a fifteen-year sentence for the choice he made.
Except that he hadn’t been behind the wheel.
I was at fault, not him.
Whether Shane was by my side or not, I had to make things right.
Shane
Reluctantly, I opened one very bloodshot eye. Regretted it immediately.
My cell was ringing, loudly enough it was obviously nearby, but all I could see was the empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s lying on its side. Empty.
Daylight streamed into the room, no doubt because I’d forgotten to close the shades last night. The past days were a blur. What city was I in? I couldn’t remember. Reaching out for a pillow to cover my throbbing head, my fingers touched something hard.
The damned phone.
Against my better judgment—Who was I kidding? I’d thrown out anything resembling good judgment the second I’d walked away from Delaney—I answered it.
“Colin Fraser is being released tomorrow.” Gavin’s delivery was matter-of-fact.
“Great,” I croaked, trying to inject a note of enthusiasm into my hoarse voice. Had I been smoking, too? What other vices had I indulged in? I glanced down at my pants. Still on, zipper up. It was a relief. I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in kissing anyone other than Delaney, touching anyone but her. Although after a bottle of grain alcohol, what I did or thought was anyone’s guess.
“Did you hear me? I said Colin Fraser is being released. Tomorrow.”
Through a thick fog, the meaning behind his words finally made it through to my brain. “What? How the hell did that happen?”
“If you had taken my calls at any point during the past day, I would have told you that Delaney came to me with the truth of what really happened the night of the accident.”
Delaney was the driver.
“You got her a deal?”
“Actually, no. I told her you had requested I look into her father’s case. And since I was working with her father, I couldn’t take her case.”
“What the fuck, Gav? You didn’t help her?”
My brother snorted. “Unlike you, I didn’t leave her high and dry. I said I would get her a lawyer, a good one. I just needed a day.”
Still flinching from his barb, all the more painful because of its accuracy, I rolled onto my back and released a deep breath. “And?”
“And nothing. The girl walked right out of my office and into the Bronxville police station.”
“What?” I bolted upright, my brain banging painfully against my skull. “Where is she now? Did they arrest her?”
“No. The cops told her to come back with her lawyer.”
Thank God. “Then did you go with her?”
“Yes. Right after I sent a notice to the court terminating my relationship with Colin Fraser.”
“So, what happens now? Is she okay?”
“There was a bit of legal wrangling, but in the end, the cops didn’t want to have dirt on their faces. Turns out there was a red-light camera that caught the whole thing. They never checked it because Fraser confessed. Delaney has agreed to plead down to a misdemeanor. She’ll do community service, but no jail time.”
No jail time. I wouldn’t have to see my girl behind bars.
I considered Gavin’s news. Did it make a difference?
“Shane? You still there?”
A long breath shuddered out of me. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“She’s going to be there, waiting for him. Tomorrow morning.”
I grunted as a vision of Delaney, naked and beautiful, her lush body wrapped in a nearly translucent white sheet, flashed against the back of my eyelids.
“I looked at your tour schedule. You don’t have a show tonight.”
“You’re a master of subtlety, Gav.”
“Fine. Fuck subtlety. What happened between you two?”
I barked out a laugh, the sound reverberating painfully within my throbbing head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“I asked her to marry me.”
The silence on the other end of the phone was blissful. I closed my eyes, suspecting that of all the explanations Gavin could have imagined, a marriage proposal was possibly last on his list. “What happened after that?” he finally prompted.
I pressed my lips together. What would be the point? I’d screwed up my life a long time ago, and there was no use pretending otherwise. Delaney had fucked up, too. Big-time. But she was making amends, putting things right. Took me thirteen years to do what she was doing.
My hands fisted at my sides as my heart rattled around in my chest, all flimsy and cracking. I hated myself for being weak. For feeling. For loving. For hating.
I wanted to go back in time and do everything differently. Everything.
Because I would make the right choices, the smart choices. I wouldn’t destroy families. I wouldn’t hurt people.
I’d fall in love, and stay there.
“Shane.” My brother’s voice pulled me out of my roiling thoughts.
“Yeah. I’m here. But I gotta go.”
“Jesus Christ, Shane. That’s the best you can do—you gotta go?” I winced at his tone, but didn’t hang up. “You know what? You’re right. You do have to go. Get the fuck up, get in the shower, and go to Delaney.”
“You know what she’s done, Gavin. Same thing I’ve done. And she lied to me about it. You think we can be together? We can’t.” I reached for the empty bottle and threw it across the room. It didn’t even have the courtesy to break into a million jagged pieces, merely thudding against the wall and rolling, none the worse for wear, across the carpet. “Leave it alone, Gavin. Delaney deserves a chance to start fresh. Not sure I know how to do that—and if she does, I can’t be the one to get in her way.”
“You think the Branfords hate you as much as you hate yourself? They’re grieving, man, but do you have any idea what they’ve been doing all these years?” I could feel Gavin’s disgust through the airwaves. “Did you even ask?”
My forehead pinched, and I rubbed at it, wanting to hang up the phone but somehow unable to pull it away from my ear.
Gavin scoffed. “They’ve taken in half a dozen foster kids since the accident. They’ve loved their way through the grief. That’s how they survived, Shane. By choosing love over hate. And that’s why they met with you, why they forgave you. Because they stopped hating you a long time ago.” His voice quieted. “It’s about time you did, too.”
“I can’t.” My voice broke, the words shredding my throat.
“Damn it, we lost so many years because you couldn’t unlock the door of a prison you built your goddamn self. And then Delaney came around and, for whatever reason, she brought us together again. I thought you were lost to me forever, but you weren’t.”
“Gav—”
“No. Listen to me. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a second chance. Remember Mom? By the time we finally got her to leave Dad, it was too late. Do you want to wait until it’s too late, too?” Gavin paused, a disgruntled sigh echoing in my ear. “This is your second chance, Shane. Take it.”
My stomach roiled, and not just from the whiskey polluting my gut. Who said I deserved a second chance?
“Gav—”
“Don’t. Don’t try to explain why you’re throwing away the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Yeah, you fucked up. Yeah, so did she. But you’ve both owned up to your mistakes, and now you have the rest of your lives to make up for them. Do it together, damn it. Choose happy.”
“Happy?” I wiped a hand over the back of my mouth, so much bitterness. Could I ever be happy?
“Yeah, happy. You think Caleb’s not up there somewhere, rockin’ out to your songs? I’ll bet he’s your biggest fan. If the situation were reversed, you don’t think you’d be pulling for him? Come on, Shane. You know you would be.”
A flicker of memory streaked across my mind. Caleb and me, the first time we found a place willing to let us take over the stage. How he’d kept handing the mic to me, wanting my voice to make it through the speakers, too. An echo of the song lit up inside my ears. A cover of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to live in a lonely world anymore. “Not sure she’ll take me back,” I muttered, doubt heavy on my tongue.
“Since when have you taken no for an answer? Go to her. Fight for her. Soon. Because if you think you can show up at her door in ten years and she’ll welcome you with open arms, you’re not just sad. You’re stupid. News flash—any guy without shit-for-brains is going to scoop her up, buy her a house with a white picket fence, and give her two kids and a goddamn golden retriever. What will you have, Shane? A microphone? A few Grammy Awards and magazine covers?” Gavin’s voice softened. “You have those already, brother. Now go get the girl, too.”