Coming back downstairs, I met Tyler, who waited in the living room in front of the fireplace. Holding the ziplock bags in my hands, I stared at the letters, seeing my former coach’s writing peeking out from the mess of torn paper.
“They’re all the letters that Chase wrote me,” I told him. “His obsessions, threats…” I trailed off. “I had never seen them before my parents died, and it was only afterward that I realized the full extent of how he threatened me and my family.”
“Why did you keep them?” he questioned.
I looked up at him, his navy blue tie loosened against his white shirt and heather-gray suit.
“My parents, my sister, Avery…” I began. “They died because I put them on the road that night. I took a risk I shouldn’t have for my own selfish reasons, and I deserved to remember that.”
“Did you think you would forget what you lost?”
I paused and then dropped my head, sighing. No, I will never forget. I felt the pain of their deaths every day. But back then, taking any kind of a risk made me feel like there was no control. There was no “careful.”
For so long I had felt like I was in a stalemate with Chase, waiting for something to fucking happen, and when I finally chose to give up the control and say “Fuck it, let’s see what happens,” I liked it.
But I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t just risking myself. There were others I didn’t think about.
“I deserved to be punished,” I told him.
He touched my face, meeting my eyes. “You could never have known.”
No, I couldn’t. But carelessness brings consequences. I should’ve known that.
Which accounted for my behavior of making my life afterward as controlled as possible.
“Easton, there’s no line you can walk that’s safe enough,” Tyler implored. “You didn’t do anything out of malice. Crimes deserve to be punished. Mistakes deserve to be forgiven.”
I nodded, finally understanding the truth behind his words. And I was ready.
Opening the bags, I dumped the contents into the fireplace and lit a match from up on the mantel. Leaning down, I lit the scraps on fire and stood back upright, both of us watching them turn to ash.
Taking his hand, I breathed out a sigh of relief, finally feeling better than I had since before I could remember.
“Are you ever going to be careful with me?” I asked quietly, watching the flames burn bright.
“No.”
I looked up at him, my lips curling into a small smile. “Good.”
EPILOGUE
“
C
hin up,” the photographer instructed, smiling behind her camera.
I tilted my head up an inch, keeping it cocked slightly to the right, my relaxed smile still plastered on my face.
The shit I do for him.
I sat on the arm of a rich, brown leather chair, my legs crossed and my arm resting on Tyler’s shoulder as he sat in the chair, both of us posing for our engagement photos.
Correction: engagement-slash-campaign publicity photo representing our perfect American family’s high moral fiber. Riiiiight.
I dropped my eyes, feeling a blush heat my cheeks, remembering all the immoral things he’d done to me last night in our bed.
“Excellent,” the photographer cooed, snapping a few more shots as she leaned down again behind her tripod.
I kept my left hand on my thigh, the round black onyx stone set in a platinum band and surrounded by freshwater pearls visible in the pictures.
Tyler had pushed for a diamond ring, wanting the best, but Jay liked my idea of environmental awareness as good publicity. So many diamonds came from war-torn countries, so I decided to go with something different.
Hell, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, rocked a sapphire engagement ring. The times were changing.
Actually, I just liked the pearls. It was Jay who was selling the war-torn story.
“You look incredible,” Tyler commented, his white tie matching my cream-colored dress.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Over the past few months, we’d dived deeper and deeper into the campaign, but elections were still six months away, and I knew he was concerned that his life took too much of our time.
I looked down, running my thumb over the fff tattoo I’d gotten on the inside of my wrist when he’d proposed this past Mardi Gras at the very same annual ball where we first met the year before.
Family, fortune, and future.
He’d had the same letters tattooed, but his appeared on the outside of his wrist, right under where his watch sat.
To ensure that we never took our gifts for granted or lost track of what was truly important, we had promised each other to prioritize.
Family came first. Always first. We took care of each other and relied on each other. Without the family and without Christian, everything else would be worthless.