I stepped back when she lunged forward, but she didn’t slap, punch, or claw me like I’d been expecting. Instead, the red slowly drained from her face, the fire in her eyes dimming to a smolder. She took one more step closer.
“Look where you’re standing, Clara Belle.” Charlotte waved at our family and Ford behind her before flashing her arms at me, where I stood separate from them all. “Alone. You’re standing alone. You’ve always been standing alone.” Charlotte stepped back, aligning herself between Ford and our mom. “You will always be standing like that. Alone. So stop taking it out on us. It’s not our fault you’re alone and have driven away everyone who has or might have cared about you. Being alone’s an outcome, Clara Belle, not a choice like you’d like us all to believe.”
I stood in place, taking in just how separate and apart I was from the people standing across from me. We were bound together by things like blood and experience, but that didn’t seem like the kind of bond that could hold if no other ties were formed. Why I felt tears wanting to form, I didn’t know, but realizing that I’d driven my family away as much as they’d driven me away might have had something to do with it.
I felt everyone watching me, waiting for me to say something or respond in some way. By either melting down and rushing away or by firing back something equally as nasty, continuing to play this potentially never-ending game of insult volley. Both were appealing options. Both were ones I found myself struggling to set aside as I accepted what I wanted most was to give each of my family members a hug before saying good-bye.
I’d say it, leave this place, leave Charleston, and never come back. It was the only way we could all live in peace. Not just myself, but them as well. I was as guilty of messing up their lives as they were of messing up mine. No one had to come right out and say it for me to realize that. It was written in my dad’s brow line. It was etched into the corners of my mom’s eyes. It was stamped all over every square inch of Charlotte’s face. It was hidden beneath the warmth Avalee was trying to look at me with now.
I was just as much to blame for my actions as they were for theirs.
I felt stuck, unable to turn and walk away, and just as incapable of moving forward to say good-bye. That was when five fingers knitted through mine before a warm palm pressed against mine. His body settled closely beside mine, his arm running the length of mine.
“She’s not alone.”
The surprise of him being there, coupled with the surprise of his touch, should have rattled me, but it didn’t. Instead it seemed to ground me. When I looked over, I found him locking eyes with each member of my family, ending on Ford. Charlotte had a thing or five hundred to learn from Boone when it came to contempt.
“I think you’re in the wrong place, Boone.” My dad’s voice didn’t resonate as it normally did.
“I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” Boone pointed at the ground, his palm pressing harder against mine.
“Well, lobster and free booze are on the menu tonight, so I figured you’d make your appearance somewhere along the way. You never could pass up a free lunch, could you, Cavanaugh?” Ford had stepped out of the family line-up a few steps.
I wasn’t sure if Ford knew Boone and I had figured out he’d lied to us, but my guess was that if he didn’t shut his mouth and step back, Boone was going to inform him with his knuckles.
But Boone’s gaze didn’t flicker Ford’s way. His expression didn’t change. It was as if he hadn’t heard a single word coming from the man not ten feet in front of us. Like Ford was invisible and Boone was deaf, there was no recognition. Not even a flicker firing in Boone’s eyes.
“I know you’re hot on ruining lives and all, Cavanaugh, but I’m going to have to insist you don’t ruin my wedding day. Leave, or I’ll have the sheriff I just so happen to have on speed dial make you leave.”
Ford stepped closer still, his voice elevating, but Boone didn’t acknowledge him in word or action. All that did was drive Ford further up the pissed-off pole. He looked close to marching up and forcing Boone off the premises, one shove at a time, when my dad cleared his throat.
“You need to leave, Boone. This isn’t the time or place to be making a statement.” Dad pointed his chin in the direction of the driveway. “Now go on and get.”
Boone’s hand flexed around mine, so strong it made me wince, but he loosened his grip a moment later. “Because you are the father of the woman I love, I will let that one go, but if you order me to leave her again, I won’t be so willing to overlook it.” Boone stepped forward, taking me with him. “I might have been a stupid-as-shit boy back then and listened to you when you told me to leave, but I’m not making that mistake again.”
“And we’re supposed to believe you’re any less stupid-as-shit now than you were then?” Ford nudged my dad, trying to garner a chuckling companion, but my father’s face stayed cemented in hard lines.
“You think you know about love, but the truth is, all you’ve learned is how to run away from it when life gets tough,” Dad said. “I won’t ask to be forgiven for wanting more for my daughter than some man who’s going to cut and run every time life puts the pinch on him. You don’t deserve her, Boone, so don’t try strutting in here and hoping to convince me otherwise.”
“You’re right. I don’t deserve her.” I shook my head, about to object, but Boone kept going. “And I know there’s nothing I have done or could do or could do in my next ten lifetimes to deserve the woman standing beside me, but fuck deserving and fuck the past. I love her.”
Dad didn’t blink. “You mistake love for infatuation.”
“No, you’re mistaking the two. I’m all clear on the subject.” Boone stepped in front of me, turning his back on my family and Ford. His hand stayed in mine, and he stared at me like there wasn’t anyone around for miles. He stared at me like there weren’t a good twenty sets of eyes staring at us without blinking. “I love you. So much. And I’m sorry I’ve been too scared or proud or stupid to say it, but it’s the truth. I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you. I always will.”
“If this is the part where you add something about being born to love her, you can save it, son. Clara Belle’s all grown up and not some impressionable girl anymore.”
Boone didn’t glance back at my dad, but he shook his head, still staring at me. “Not born to. Just made to.”
A sharp huff came from my dad.
Boone continued to stare at me, waiting. “You haven’t said a word.”
I felt my collapsed lungs struggle to fill. They couldn’t. “That’s because it’s been difficult to get a word in.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Clara Belle,” my dad piped up, his forehead drawn into so many lines it looked like an old washboard.
For once, I saw feelings on his face. Concern. Worry. Nervousness. He was afraid I was going to fall for Boone all over again, get hurt, and be wrecked just the same way I had been before.
My dad . . . cared about me. In more ways than just how I influenced the Abbott family image?
A lot was coming at me, and none of it was slowing down, but instead gaining speed.
“I’ve got my thumb on Sheriff Cooley’s number. Give the nod, and he’ll be here as fast as his cruiser can send him.” Ford lifted his phone, quirking a brow at me.
“You’re still not saying anything.” Boone guided us a few steps away from everyone, pressing the pads of his fingers deeper into my cheek. Reaching around his back, he fumbled with his shirt before pulling something out and holding it in front of me.
My eyes cut from him to what was in his hand. It didn’t seem possible. I’d seen it shatter. Hell, I’d been responsible for it shattering. I was sure I’d never see it whole again. I was sure I’d never see it again at all, yet there it was, pieced back together, within my grasp.
“What once was broken can be fixed.” Boone lifted the angel with the number eighteen at her feet. I could still see every crack from the break, but she was fixed. “It’ll alwa
ys bear the scars, but at least it’s whole again.”
When he held it out for me to take, I did. Carefully. Looking at it, a person’s instinct was to believe it was extra fragile due to the breaks. It seemed more delicate, not as strong or able to withstand as much as it had before being fractured.
“People say we’re weak where we’ve been broken, but I say we’re stronger.” Boone traced the long jagged line running right down the center of her. “We’re stronger because we know our weak spots and can protect them more carefully the next time.”
I nodded as I turned the angel over in my hands. Miraculous was all I could think as I inspected every fissure and crack. They had all been repaired. They would always be visible, but the angel had survived the crash. It wasn’t perfect anymore, the innocence of it had been lost, but that was life’s policy. The good came with the bad, the highs brought on the lows, the idyllic days were balanced by the ones that made us want to give up and crawl into a hole.
Life wasn’t about learning how to deflect the bad, but learning how to hunker down and weather it until it passed. I supposed . . . no, I knew, it was the same way with love.
“Just so I don’t hold my breath for too long”—Boone’s voice was quiet, almost unsure—“are you going to say anything? Eventually?”
“Maybe she doesn’t have anything to say to you besides good-bye and get lost.” Ford’s voice rang out behind us.
Neither of us bothered to acknowledge him.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling at the angel, feeling like the muggy Charleston air was dispersing and thinking about finally letting me breathe. “Thank you,” I repeated, louder since I wasn’t sure he’d heard me the first time.
“You’re welcome.” His shoulders relaxed as he ran his finger down a few of the cracks. “I figured since it was kind of my fault it broke, it was my job to fix it.”
“It wasn’t just your fault. I’m just as much to blame as you are.” I lowered the angel to my side and turned my attention to him. My hand found its way around the back of his neck. As I moved closer, so did he. Our bodies were connected, so close together they were one. “You were right, you know.”
“I was right about what?” His hands slid over the peaks of my hips, tying together at the small of my back.
I smiled at him. “Everything.”
Something gleamed in his eyes. “Everything?”
“Every.” I raised an eyebrow. “Thing.”
“Even the part about you feeling the same way about me? Even the part about me telling you—”
“I love you.” I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t look away. I didn’t blink or blush or squirm. I looked him right in the eye, stood my ground, and was confident I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.
“Clara Belle . . .” My dad’s voice rolled across the lawn, but before he could say anything else, I shook my head.
“I love you, Dad,” I said, looking over Boone’s shoulder at him, refusing to release my hold on Boone. “But no.”
“Clara, sweetheart, don’t—”
It was my mom’s worried eyes I locked onto next. Somewhere in the course of unearthing what had really gone wrong between Boone and me, I’d uncovered where my family and I’d seemed to go wrong. Both cases were chock full of good intentions gone horribly awry, bound together by an unending yarn of miscommunications. I found myself forgiving them as easily as I had Boone.
“Mom, I love you,” I said in the most soft, firm voice I was capable of, “but no.”
I couldn’t miss Charlotte bouncing in place, rattling like a volcano on the cusp of exploding. “But no, Mom. But no, Dad. But no. But no. But no?” She thrust her bouquet my direction. “What does that even mean, Clara Belle?”
Boone turned us a quarter turn, almost like he was trying to deflect Charlotte’s spite, but it was unnecessary. Along with my parents, I think I was finally understanding who Charlotte was, not just who she appeared to be. She wasn’t borderline vicious because she was just plain mean, but because she was plain scared. Scared of playing the middle child role her entire life, never measuring up to the firstborn and never being as infectious as the third. Scared of being alone and abandoned and discovering all she’d worked for had been for nothing. While I’d never quite fit in in this family, Charlotte had been the one desperately trying to.
I cleared my throat. This was her wedding day. Her day. Whatever Boone and I had to figure out, she didn’t deserve to be caught up in the middle of it today.
“It means I love you all, but please stop interfering in my life and just let me live it the way I want, with who I want to live it with,” I said.
For a long moment following that statement, my family stared at me. At me in The Thing. At me with Boone’s arms twined around me. Every moment that passed, another grain of acceptance sifted into their expressions.
It was my dad who cleared his throat and backed toward the driveway first, just as the line of limos arrived to take everyone to the church. “Clara Belle’s right. We all interfered enough the first time around. Let’s do our best not to this time.” As my dad backed away and looked at me, a rare smile formed. “So if you two make it or not this time, you’ll have no one but yourselves to thank or blame for it.”
I returned his smile. He held out his elbow for my mom, and Charlotte and Avalee followed them, Charlotte’s train billowing behind her as the photographer checked his watch, cursed, and rushed after them. So much for the family photo; I guessed showing up for the actual wedding was more of a priority. Ford’s family and the rest of the wedding party dashed after everyone else. It was a beautiful sight, everyone in their formal wear running across the expansive green lawn toward a line of sparkling white limos. It would have made a perfect picture if the photographer had stayed around long enough to see it.
One figure lingered on the lawn, watching Boone and me with the same grimace I’d grown used to as kids. Ford lumbered forward a few steps, clucking his tongue. “Bad choice, Clara Bella. Such a bad one.” Ford motioned at me in Boone’s hold like I was a chick caught in the talons of a raptor.
“Ford—”
“I tried to help you. I went out of my way to help you.” Ford thrust his arms in my direction. “And look at all the good it did. You’re right back where you started. In the arms of a nobody who knocked you up and waved good-bye. When it happens again, don’t come crying to me. My sympathy’s run its course with you.”
Boone’s arms tightened around me, his jaw going rigid. I was just about to snap something back when Boone let me go and angled toward Ford.
“You know, you bringing that up reminds me that I owe you something,” he said, stopping a couple feet back from Ford.
Ford fired off a disgruntled huff, crossing his arms. “What the hell could you possibly owe me?”
At the same time Boone’s mouth opened, his arm wound back. “This,” he snapped a moment before his fist connected with Ford’s face.
I was alone again. Sprawled out in a chair at a wide empty table, watching from the sidelines as a bunch of people had a grand time.
Avalee was tearing it up with her fiancé on the gleaming teak dance floor; Charlotte and Ford were in the middle of the floor, swaying together in slow circles to a fast-paced song; and my mom was playing the indelible, tireless hostess.
But me? I was alone.
For the first time in a while, it was out of choice.
After dancing and talking and singing and having what constituted one hell of a time, my feet were throbbing, my skin was sticky with sweat, and my body was spent. I needed a moment alone if for no other reason than to wipe my armpits with a couple of napkins and massage a few knots out of my feet.
Leaning back in my chair, I realized this was the first minute I’d had to myself to relax and attempt to take in everything that had happened throughout the day. Besides my sister marrying my ex-boyfriend, who my present one had given an impressive black eye to an hour before the ceremony, I’d managed to come to
some sort of understanding with my family. The Abbotts, not exactly your typical American family on the surface, but beneath all of that, we struggled through the same rivalries, good intentions going off course, resentment, and misunderstanding, and finally—or at least where I’d wound up—understanding and acceptance.
I’d dreaded this week for a dozen different reasons. I’d come up with just as many excuses not to come. This week hadn’t just been a pivotal one in Charlotte’s life, but in mine as well. To miss it would have meant spending the next however-many-years of my life perpetually avoiding my family and my memories of Boone.
To have lived this week made all the difference.
My “plus one” had disappeared after not letting me leave the dance floor for fifteen songs, and yes, I had been counting. When a woman was stuffed into a sausage-casing type dress (alterations and everything, the dress was still tight) and shoes that could only be described as the root of evil, one started counting songs after the first three.
Boone. He was in my life again. Maybe he’d never really left it, but he wouldn’t continue to be a ghost haunting it. Instead, I’d have the real living, breathing, grinning-like-there-was-always-some-secret Boone Cavanaugh. How would it work? I didn’t know. How long would it work? I didn’t know. How often would we see each other, and would that be enough, and where would this journey take us? I came up empty in the answer department there as well.
All I knew was that those were just details. Bullet points in the grand scheme. We’d let enough details muddy the waters between us; I wouldn’t make that mistake again. As Boone had said, the places we’d been broken before reminded us of what we needed to be careful to protect.
I would protect our weak spots. I would protect the strong ones too.
I was just slipping out of my other shoe to massage my other foot, which had grown its own heartbeat and was throbbing in pain, when I noticed someone whisk up to the center of the long bridal party table and crouch down to rustle through her clutch. Charlotte’s train had been gathered so she could dance, and her veil had been removed from the delicate tiara combed into her hair. Her skin was flushed from the heat and what I guessed was happiness, and her eyes gave away just how excited she was, despite her face holding an expression of mild amusement carefully in place.