Heartbreak Lover (Broken Hearts Academy #2) - C.R. Jane Page 0,75
keeping his gaze on me the entire time. “I love you, Everly James. I’ll love you forever and ever. And maybe one day, you’ll meet me in the beyond, and you’ll finally love me too,” he whispered.
“Caiden, no!” I screamed, realizing what he was going to do.
But it was too late.
A single shot rang through the air as Caiden Parker put a bullet in his brain.
23
It was raining when we buried him. The mud from the freshly dug grave sloshed on my black flats as I stood in front of his headstone. I attended the funeral by myself, in the back of the crowd, hidden from view under an umbrella.
Jackson had gone black the day his twin died, and he still wasn’t back.
I watched the funeral attendees gather around, all of them mourning the boy they thought they knew instead of the man he actually was.
“How terrible.”
“Such a loss.”
“He was so young.”
They whispered their comments, all ignoring the fact that Caiden had been a kidnapper. An attempted murderer…that he killed himself. They created their own stories for who he’d been, trying to give themselves relief, to make sense of the tragedy of it all.
Jackson’s parents stood by the grave, wrapped in their grief, his mother’s tears never-ending.
It was terrible.
I hovered in the back, knowing that my presence would be most unwelcome. I let all of these strangers have their moment, and I waited patiently for mine.
And finally, when all of the attendees had left to go to whatever lavish wake was waiting for them, I approached his grave.
I kneeled in front of it, the cold mud seeping into my thin black tights. I traced the letters on the stone with my hand, wanting to cry but unable to summon any more tears.
“I hope you’re able to forget me up there, that you find the peace I couldn’t give you,” I whispered to him. “I’m so fucking sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted.”
The tears I thought I’d cried out finally came then as I wept for the boy I once knew and the monster he’d become.
I had so much anger, so much disgust, but I let it go as I knelt in front of his grave.
The rain finally stopped at some point, and sunlight peeked through the previously thick, dark clouds.
And it felt like a sign.
I turned my face towards the sunlight, and I sent up my love to Caiden, hoping that wherever he was, he would feel it.
It wasn’t the love that he’d wanted, but it was all I had to give.
“Goodbye, Caiden,” I whispered to the heavens.
And then I picked myself up from the sodden ground, dropping Caiden’s diamond ring to the ground in front of his grave, leaving it behind with all my guilt and my fears, knowing they had no place in my future.
Jackson was waiting for me.
It was days before I saw blue in Jackson’s gaze. We were lying in his bed, my body wrapped around his, my soul asking him desperately to return to me.
And when he finally did, it was a beautiful thing.
He took my hand and brushed a kiss across my skin, and we wept together. He stretched towards me for a kiss, soft at first, and then deeper, his tongue sweeping against mine lazily, like we could do this every day, like we had forever in front of us.
And for the first time, I knew we did.
I didn’t know where we went from here, but I knew wherever it was, it would be together.
Because when we were together, no matter where together was, it was home.
Our journey to a happily ever after was not the stuff of fairy tales, but it was ours. And it was enough.
It was more than enough.
Our love wasn’t the stuff of fairy tales.
It was the stuff of legends.
Epilogue
I married him amongst the wildflowers in that field where we’d found our way back to each other.
It was just him and me, and the preacher, just like we’d talked about that day.
And I did run to him, as fast as I could, to where he was standing there with the blue sky behind him, the breeze blowing in his golden hair, a lifetime of happily ever after just a few words away.
Jackson was twenty and I was nineteen, and people said we were too young.
But we knew better.
We’d lived what had felt like a thousand years already, so there was no need to wait a second longer than necessary to start our new life together.