“I can’t go another minute, another second, with us being like this!”
I hear footsteps. My heart races even faster.
“Keep talking!” Xander shouts back. I know that tone. He’s focused. He’s not going to say a word until he has found me. All that matters right now is finding his way through the yew.
And to me.
“Xander, I know everything,” I yell out. “About that day in the garden. Your father told me. It’s not your fault.”
The footsteps stop. “What?”
“It’s not your fault!” I cry over the hedge. “It’s not! Xander, I understand your reaction to what happened with Arthur now. My love, it’s not your fault. You can’t protect everyone. You can’t save everyone. But you can save me now if you are willing to love me. You are the only one who can rescue my heart. My soul. That is, if you are brave enough to give me your heart once more.”
The footsteps begin again. Coming closer. I’m shaking from head to toe as I wait for him, my breath caught in my throat, my pulse pounding in anticipation.
“I will give you my heart forever if you’ll forgive me,” he yells out, and with a jolt, I realise he’s on the other side of the hedge from me now.
“Xander, you’re getting closer!” I call out.
The footsteps move away, and I hold my breath and stare towards the next turn in the row.
I wait.
And then he appears before me.
Xander is standing at the end of the row, soaking wet and gasping for breath. I throw my umbrella to the ground and run towards him. He runs to me in quick, urgent strides, and before I know it, I’ve fallen into his arms.
I cry into his chest, gripping the lapels of his khaki-green jacket, never wanting to let go of him.
“Poppy, I’m sorry,” he says quickly as he holds me tightly. “I’m so sorry. I was an idiot. A bloody idiot to think I could let you go. Please forgive me. Please say you’ll forgive me.”
I lift my head and search his eyes, which are watery and rimmed with red. “Only,” I say, my voice breaking, “if you can forgive yourself. None of this was your fault, Xander. You didn’t fail your grandfather. You didn’t fail your father.” I put my hands on his face and hold it firmly. “And you haven’t failed me. You haven’t failed any of us, do you hear me? You have loved us fiercely. And that is all any of us have wanted from you. Your love. You are everything I need on this earth. And you are the only man I will ever love. That’s not failing. That’s succeeding.”
He swallows hard and turns his head away. A sob escapes his throat, and he breaks down in tears, dropping to his knees in front of me.
“I-I didn’t fail,” he sobs. “I couldn’t have saved him.”
I drop to the ground in front of him, stroking his wet hair with my hands. “No, my love, you couldn’t. Nobody could have. Including you.”
I pull him into my arms. Xander sobs against my shoulder, and I cry with him as I hold him as tight as I can.
You’re free, I think as I press my cheek to his, our tears mingling together with the falling rain. You are finally free of the past that has hurt you for far too long.
After a while, Xander stops. He lifts his head and shifts back so he can look at me. Xander gently lifts his hands to my face, his reddened eyes searching mine.
“I know now that I can’t always protect you,” he says, his voice thick, “and it’s not up to me to decide what sacrifices you are willing to make to be with me.”
I smile through my tears. “No, it’s not.”
Xander exhales. “It won’t be easy to love me.”
“I know.”
“You’ll have to give up a lot of your privacy. In the future, you’ll have to give up being a biscuit artist full-time. You’ll have to do duties you might not enjoy. You will inherit my mess of a family, and I promise you, that won’t be the last time dinner is interrupted by screaming.”
He reaches for my hands and takes them in his, and the second he squeezes them, I nearly weep with joy from that familiar routine between us.
“I love you,” Xander says, his eyes burning bright with what is in his heart. “I love you in a way I didn’t know could exist until you came into my life. So,