Chapter 21
Forgiveness
Mike
After what felt like a hundred calls and unanswered texts, Mike didn’t actually expect his phone to go off. He heard the text come in long before he saw it. He’d called in sick to work, something he never did. He let Heather have the joy of rescheduling his three clients in his already jam packed schedule. It should have mattered to him, but it didn’t. He didn’t feel anything at all.
He’d spent a sleepless night tossing and turning. Sometime in the early morning hours he’d moved to the couch. He’d stared at the lifeless TV screen for hours, until he finally dozed off. He drifted in and out of sleep, but the same nightmare, the playing over of the whole incident, always woke him. Finally he’d called work. He’d drifted off over and over, into the afternoon. He realized the sun was high in the sky and it was getting late and he still hadn’t moved from the couch.
He reached for his phone, his movements uncoordinated and jerky. He fumbled with the device, nearly dropping it off the couch. He finally made his thumb and index finger function together and turned it on. He fully expected the text to be from anyone else. Probably Kian telling him to get his ass into work and to stop causing problems.
It was from Savannah.
Mike nearly jumped off the couch. He’d tried to reach her so many times he’d given up on hearing back from her. He figured whatever was happening between them was pretty much over. Christine had seen to that.
Why didn’t I see it coming? Why didn’t I just go in and call the cops right when she showed up and refused to leave? At least she wouldn’t have been out there. She might have made a fuss, but at least she wouldn’t have been able to kiss him. It still stung, seeing the devastation on Savannah’s face. God, it broke his heart.
Hindsight was twenty-twenty, or so they said. He’d done the best he could since last night. He’d called the cops and he’d filed a report. He was on his way to filing a restraining order. So what if it wasn’t exactly manly, as Christina had said the night before? Whatever she was doing needed to be stopped. She’d hurt Savannah and Mike would do anything in the world to take that pain out of Savannah’s eyes.
CAN YOU COME OVER?
He read her text, hardly able to believe it. Did she want to talk? Was she finally ready to listen? Could he make her believe him? Could he fix things? He didn’t have any answers. He just knew he had to try. He couldn’t live without Savannah in his life again. And Carter… he loved that little boy already. He knew he had to fix things.
He fired off a quick response. He actually had to ask for her address, since he had never been to her parent’s house before. After she sent him the house number and street name, he confirmed he’d be there in an hour.
There was nothing more he wanted to do than rush right over to the house and beg for a second chance, or was it a third? He knew he couldn’t go looking like a rumpled mess.
After a cold shower and a fresh change of clothes, Mike got in his car. He took the few pieces of paper with him that he could to back himself up.
The ride wasn’t exactly long, but it seemed to take all day. Mike’s nerves were frayed, the edges raw. If his heart hammered any harder in his chest, he figured it might smash right through his ribs.
Finally he pulled up in front of a quaint bungalow. It wasn’t fancy, as he figured it would be. It was nice, but it wasn’t large by any means. There were flowers planted in two beds in front of the house, just to the left of the concrete driveway and the garage. The grass was green and immaculately cut. A tree, something that was more shrub than an actual tree, stood off in a landscaped circle in the middle of the lawn. It was cut into a triangle shape, the leaves groomed with as much care as the rest of the yard.
He stopped just short of the driveway. He would have taken more of the house in, but at the moment, the door opened, as though Savannah had been watching for him. Which she probably had. She likely wanted to intercept him before he rang the doorbell.
Were her parents home? Did she really not want them to meet him that badly?
He watched as she approached the car. He figured he was near enough to the sidewalk to consider it a parking spot. He put the car in park and killed the ignition.
Savannah looked immaculate. She didn’t look at all disturbed. She looked like she’d had the perfect night’s sleep. Her hair was brushed out and shimmered with health. Her eyes didn’t have black smudges under them like he had. There weren’t lines turning down the corners of her mouth. No, she was a vision as she always was. She wore a simple yellow sundress, which was short, but not indecently. It revealed long, shapely bronzed legs.
She didn’t hesitate to open the passenger door and slide into the car next to him. Her scent filled up the small space and Mike’s lungs ached as he took a breath. She didn’t smell like perfume. He knew she didn’t wear any, since she was afraid the scent would bother Carter. She smelled like shampoo and god, he didn’t even know. Sunlight?
He blinked, unable to look at her. He stared at his hands which still uselessly clutched the wheel. He wanted to say something, anything, beg her to listen to him, but he couldn’t even form a single word.
“Are you okay?” Her question was quiet, spoken into the near silence in the car. He wondered if she could actually hear how violently his heart was pounding in his chest.
“No.” He turned bloodshot eyes her way. “Are you?”
“I’m trying to get there.” Her small smile wasn’t at all what he expected. He’d come, expecting rage, anger, hurt. He knew he deserved all three, if that’s how she chose to react. He expected an argument. He expected to have to defend himself. It surprised him that she wasn’t in the mood for a fight given how angry and hurt she’d been the night before.
“How? How can you sit here and be so calm?”
She actually laughed softly. It startled him, the sound flooding the car and swirling around him. He thought of them in that car, that night they’d looked up at the stars. It hurt, the way they’d been so connected, so happy, so he forced his mind back to the present.
“I don’t know,” she responded. “I guess because I’ve had a lot of time to think. I talked to Katelyn too.”
“What?”
“Yah. I hope that’s okay.”
“I have no idea.” He shook his head. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “I guess it depends on where we go from here. If you decide never to speak to me again, I’m definitely not ever going to be alright again.”
“Mike…” There was something about the way she said his name, so infinitely tender, that gave him hope. “I want you to tell me what happened. If you lie to me, I’m going to know, so please, just tell me the truth.”
He blew out a breath. He didn’t have to look at her to know this was his one shot. She was going to give him an honest chance to tell her the truth. She’d hear him out.
“That woman at my house was an ex. I didn’t know when I was with her that she was so… unsettled. I never thought she’d stalk me after I broke up with her. After I thought about it though, that must be what she was doing. Watching the house. I swear she had that whole thing planned. She showed up right before you got there. I opened the door thinking it was you and saw her. I wanted her to leave. She said she wanted closure, but that’s not what she wanted. I broke up with her before I ever found out about Carter and certainly before you came back into my life. My heart was never in it. I don’t doubt that I hurt her. The truth is, I never loved anyone but you. After you left, I was a mess. I was stumbling around, trying to figure out how to get my life back together and she… I wasn’t with her for the right reasons. I guess I felt like I owed her an apology. I thought if I gave her one and was sincere, that she’d leave. She didn’t. I even threatened to call the cops to get her out of there. Before I could, you pulled up and she took advantage of the moment. She kissed me, knowing you were watching it all. I’m not proud of it, but on a drunk night, I told her that I loved you. You can imagine how that would set someone off… we broke up a short while later, but god, I guess she wasn’t over it.”
“That’s crazy, Mike.”
“Yah, I know.” Could his knuckles get any whiter on that wheel? His hands ached from gripping it so tight. “I’m not proud of it either. After you left, she still wouldn’t get off my doorstep so I did call the cops. They came and I filed a report. I’m also in the process of getting a damn restraining order. I don’t care if that seems like something that’s pretty damn emasculating, given that she’s a woman, but I don’t ever want to see her again. I know it sounds crazy and it’s probably hard to believe me, but I just hope like hell that you will. I can’t live without you again, Savannah. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to live the rest of my life never seeing you or Carter again. I just remember what you said, about us being a family. I want that more than anything in the world. I’ve never had it and when I was with you, I knew that I did. I finally knew what it meant. I don’t want to let that go. I don’t want it to just be me again.”
“Mike…”
“And if you believe me, I promise that nothing like this will ever happen again. I swear to you that I have always been faithful to you and I always will be. I would never, ever do anything to hurt you or hurt Carter.”
“Mike…”
“I promise I would give you the life you deserve. I would treat you like a princess. I would-”
“Mike!”
He finally stopped. He was rambling anyway, going on desperately, begging her without actually getting on his knees. He was exhausted, out of breath, out of words, out of options. When he turned to look at her, he expected her to throw something back at him and get out of the car. He knew that was it. He was finished. His life would mean a whole lot of nothing for a very long time.
Except that wasn’t what he saw. Savannah was smiling tenderly, her eyes sparkling. She looked at him the way she used to, with compassion and love. It stopped his heart. His hands turned wet and slippery and finally fell away from the wheel.
“I believe you,” she said softly. “It just doesn’t make any sense otherwise. Katelyn and I pretty much came to the same conclusion. I know you wouldn’t cheat on me. I was just upset last night. I needed to get out of there and give myself time to think. I needed to calm down. I know you’re a good man. You’ve always been a good man. You’ve treated me far better than I had any right to, especially the first time we were together. You were the one who showed me what love is.”
“Savannah… I-”
“No, don’t tell me you don’t know what love is or that the kind of love you have is imperfect. I don’t care about any of that. You’re a good man, Mike. I meant what I said. I want us to be a family. At the very least, we have to learn to do what it takes to be civil and get along, for Carter’s sake. I want him to have a mom and a dad who are at least friends. That’s what I want for his future, at the very least. What I want for us, for our future, is for us to have one. The way I feel isn’t a secret. It might be moving fast. Way too fast, but I want to keep moving forward. I want this with you. I’ve always wanted it with you, even when I didn’t know it. Even when I ran. I spent a year regretting what I did, the choices I made, how I hurt you. I don’t want to live with any more regrets.”
“So you’re going to forgive me? And what? Move on like it didn’t happen?”
“There isn’t anything to forgive. We’ve all made mistakes. If I never left you or if I had told you I was pregnant than you wouldn’t have needed to try and fill up all that hurt that I left you with.”
“I’m responsible for my own decisions.”
“I know, but I’m serious. There isn’t anything to forgive. What happened wasn’t your fault and you did what you could to fix it already. The fact you had to call the cops shows just how unsettled that woman was. That wasn’t your fault. That kind of stuff might be triggered by a breakup, but she needs help of her own. You can’t put that on yourself.”
“Why are you the one defending me? I sure as hell didn’t expect that.”
Savannah’s eyes grew even softer. “I love you, Mike. I want to be a family. I’ll do what it takes to make that work. If that means taking some time to think rationally or talking things out with a friend or hearing you out and actually listening, then that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not the same person I was before. I’m not that childish little girl anymore. At least, I hope I’m not.”
“No. You’re not. You’re the most unbelievable woman. You have no idea how amazed I am at how much you’ve changed. You’ve always had the most tender heart. I just don’t think that you even knew it.”
“Oh, I knew it. That was the problem. I spent a long time trying to run away from that, but I’m not running anymore.”
“So this is it? We’re going to make this work? You and me and Carter?”
“Yes. That’s what I want. Is it what you want?”
“I have never wanted anything more in my life.” He felt the sting of tears starting behind his eyes. He blinked hard and swallowed harder.
“Then give me a hug and come inside.”
“Inside?” His mouth dropped open.
“Yes. I want you to meet my parents. It’s about time don’t you think? Mom is getting supper ready and dad will be home from the club. He’ll go right back after dinner for a few hours, but he’ll be here. I want them to get to know you. I want them to be your family now too.”
When Savannah moved, opening her arms, he fell into them. The car didn’t restrict his movements, though the console and the wheel bit into his side. He didn’t feel the pain. All he felt was the tenderness and the warmth of Savannah’s arms wrapped around him. He couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They trickled hot and healing down his cheeks. He didn’t care. He’d waited his entire life for this moment, for a place to belong, for a place where he could truly call home.