The moment her eyes connected with Josh Turner’s, she let out another sob as he walked over to Emilia and brought her into him.
He tried shushing her as she pressed her cheek against his chest, making his shirt damp with tears.
“I should have known.” She sniffed. “They don’t want to change. They never did want to change, and I’ve fallen for it ever since I was young. Every single time.”
Josh patted her head and held her tightly as she whimpered into his chest all the pain and hurt her parents had caused simply by not coming.
“I’m just so tired of letting myself fall for their ploys. I doubt they were even sober when we first connected.” She raised her head, her eyes locking on Josh. “I probably fell right into their trap.”
“It’s not your fault,” Josh said, keeping his arms looped around her waist. He didn’t want to let her go, and she could sense that.
“They called and left a message, both hollering into the voicemail. Of course, I was in the shower when they called.” She forced down more tears and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
She sniffed again, but this time, it resulted in a snort and brought a smile to Josh’s lips.
“At least I know where the money went.”
“Where’s that?” Josh asked, genuinely concerned.
“The casino.”
“Seriously?”
“They had a credit limit and exceeded it.”
“A credit limit thanks to you,” Josh pointed out. “So they used you to feed more of their addictions and still found themselves needing more cash.”
“Needing to contact me.” She shook her head and took a step back, and Josh loosened his embrace. “I actually thought that because we spent Christmas together like a family, it meant we were on the right track.”
“The only track they seem to be on is one doomed for self-destruction.”
“I fear that I’m on the same train.” Her eyes locked on his and he shook his head.
“I won’t let that happen.”
She let out a sigh and slumped onto the couch.
“I just don’t understand why I let them use me like that.” She groaned, feeling the tears evaporate and anger replacing the sadness. “I’ve lost so much because of them.”
“But you had such wonderful grandparents in their place who loved you so much.”
The moment the words left Josh’s mouth, Emilia began weeping so hard every part of her body hurt. She was so tired—so exhausted—from keeping the secrets she held to her chest so tightly for fear if she uttered them aloud, it would make things real.
The problem was that it was real. The choices she made led to her losing the only two people who cared about her in the world. She turned her back on their love in pursuit of something that didn’t exist.
Her own parents’ love for her.
The pain hurt so bad and felt so raw, so real and in the moment, as she remembered answering the door at Mama Cam and Papa Jack’s door. This very door. She opened her eyes and attempted to catch her breath as she looked at the tiny entryway where the police officer had informed her of the accident.
The accident that was caused by her.
“I killed my grandparents.” Emilia’s eyes steadied on Josh, and his expression remained unchanged.
“No, you didn’t,” Josh said softly. “A drunk driver killed your grandparents.”
She rubbed her nose and sucked on her bottom lip. “I never told you, but I contacted my parents two days before my grandparents’ deaths. I’d been searching and searching for them…”
Josh nodded. “I remember that part. You’d told me you were looking for them.”
“And you told me it was a bad idea. That if my parents didn’t want to be found, they had their reasons.”
Josh let out a sigh and nodded.
“They were staying at some hotel on the interstate. I’d phone them a few times over those days leading up to my grandparents’ accident. They convinced me that they wanted to see me, so I took off the afternoon my grandparents were hit. I’d left them a note that I was catching a ride to where my parents were staying. They knew I was probably hitchhiking, and they were right.”
“Oh, my God, Hailee.” Josh held my hand. “It’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself.”
“When I got to my parents’ hotel room, there were liquor bottles everywhere, and I realized they only wanted to see me because they’d run out of money. I couldn’t believe what a fool I’d been. I ran out of their makeshift apartment and somehow found a family kind enough to take me back home, but when I got there, Mama Cam and Papa Jack weren’t there. They’d gone out looking for me.”
Uttering the words aloud felt surreal. It was like what she just relayed to Josh didn’t happen, but she knew it did. She lived it and had been reliving it every second of her life since that night.
If she hadn’t gone out to search for parents who didn’t want her, Mama Cam and Papa Jack would still be alive. She’d probably still be with Josh and never would have left Silver Ridge. She’d be happy and not running away from the memories that had caused so much pain.
Instead, she’d spent eighteen years trying to forgive herself, attempting to fool herself into believing she was worth something. That her existence had value for the reason that if anyone should have been taken that night, it should have been her, not the two kindest individuals this world had ever seen.
Josh pulled her into him, and she felt his body shudder as he held her tight.
“You’re worth being here, Hailee. What happened to your grandparents was no fault of anyone except for the drunk driver who hit them. You’re not responsible for their deaths.”
She heard his words, but the tears kept coming.
“If I hadn’t gone searching for people who didn’t want me, Mama Cam and Papa Jack would still be here,” she whimpered.
“And they could have been hit the next day by someone else. Life isn’t about regret and trying to rewind and replay history. You’ve been carrying around guilt for something that wasn’t your fault.” He held Emilia tightly, and for the first time in a long time, she felt comforted and understood.
“All you wanted was to be loved by your own parents, Hailee. There’s nothing wrong with that. What’s sinful is that the two people who had you were worthless individuals.”
“But they’re not.” She shook her head, and he recognized the loyalty she had for her parents no matter how they treated her. “They have a problem.”
“That they’ve made your problem.” He let her go, and she let out a deep breath, trying to catch a steady rhythm so she didn’t start crying again.
“I don’t know how you’ve lived with that all these years without telling someone. Anyone would have told you it wasn’t your fault.” He shook his head, his blue eyes connecting with hers. “It just kills me thinking you’ve been harboring this guilt all these years.”
“I felt like a disgrace to my grandparents. They’d done nothing but provide for me, and they made me feel like the most blessed child to walk this earth. I felt like I betrayed them when I went looking for my parents.”
Josh nodded in understanding. “It’s not that I agree with what you’re saying, but I certainly understand why you’d feel that way.”
“I couldn’t stay here after that. I just wanted to get as far away from Silver Ridge and the memories as possible.” She clenched her fists together and glanced toward the front door. “When the police officer told me, it was like my world stood still. And it still is.”
“We can change that, Hailee. I know we can.” His eyes stayed on hers, and she nodded.
“I know we can. I believe that.”
“But you have to let me in. You have to let me stay in. No matter what we face, we face it together.”
“At eighteen, it seemed like this impossible feat. I couldn’t get rid of the guilt, and I didn’t want you to think less of me, so I just left.” Her pulse was pounding as she thought back to her grandparents and the choices she’d made leading up to that fateful night. “It’s like history is repeating itself.”
“What?” He shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“What if something had happened to you on your way up here, and all for nothing?” She looked around the empty living room. “My parents don’t add anything to my life. They never have.”
Josh stood and walked into the kitchen. She watched him start some water in the teapot, and she wondered how she could have let him go so many years ago.
“I honestly don’t know what I would have said had you told me what happened when I was nineteen.” He grabbed two mugs from the cabinet. “I wouldn’t have blamed you by any means, but I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t have blamed your parents.”
“I’ve spent the last eighteen years doing that…plenty. It’s exhausting, and I want to let it go. I need to let it go.”
He poured the water into the mugs over the tea bags and brought them over.
“Maybe just stop trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders,” he said softly. “And just start living.”
She took a sip of the tea and smiled. She hadn’t done much of that since the night her grandparents had died. Instead, she made sure she was always one step ahead of the nightmarish memories, except they always caught up with her.
Emilia stood up and stretched. Her brows rose.
“How’d you know to come here?”
“My sister. She has her faults, but at least I got this out of her too.”
Emilia smiled. If there were a way to become dehydrated from crying pails of tears, Emilia was sure she’d accomplished the feat. She made her way into the bathroom and looked in the mirror at her red-rimmed eyes, blotchy cheeks, and pink nose.
If this morning didn’t scare Josh off, she just might have a chance of him hanging around. She dampened a washcloth and pressed it against her face as she thought about her parents.
The healthy thing to do was to cut them off. For her own self-preservation, she needed to focus on her own health, her own life. If they ever wanted help themselves, she would be there for them, but until that day arose, she couldn’t promise them anything more than silence. She draped the washcloth over the sink and wandered back into the living room to see Josh looking concerned.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I will be.” She smiled. “Thanks to you.”
“It’s not me. You’re just finally ready to say goodbye to a past that doesn’t have to dictate your future any longer.”
“I’m tired of being Emilia Hudson. It’s exhausting.” She sat next to him.
“Then come back home. Come back to me and be Hailee.” He moved a strand of hair off her face, and she breathed in slowly, closing her eyes. “Be the person you’ve always been.”
Emilia let out a contented sigh for the first time in eighteen years, and she realized she finally knew what she wanted to write about.
The truth.
The truth as Hailee Howard and the truth as Emilia Hudson.