Page 19 of Written with Regret (The Regret Duet 1)
But I didn’t care how old she got. If she wanted to crawl into my lap and eat her birthday donut every year for the rest of my life, I’d sit there, smiling like a maniac in an ugly banana tie, eating one with her.HADLEYEvery little girl dreams of the fairytale. The white knight rushing in to save her from the clutches of evil. After that they fall in love, move to a castle, have babies, and live happily ever after.
By that definition, my life should have been a fairytale too.
When I was eight years old, Caven Hunt saved me from the worst kind of evil to walk the Earth. It didn’t matter that I was a kid. I’d fallen in love with him immediately, unquestionably, and without hesitation.
But that was where my fairytale ended.
Instead of the castle, I moved into a small three-bedroom ranch-style home with a grandfather who could barely remember my name most days. I struggled for years with severe PTSD and depression, and eventually, I convinced myself that some lives just weren’t worth living.
Years later, there was a baby, conceived on accident during one of the darkest moments imaginable. But that darkness was a summer’s day compared to the pitch black that was the day she was born. Now, that innocent child was only mine in the sense that my DNA ran through her veins. She belonged to Caven in every way that truly mattered.
At the end of every fairytale, the one thing that always remains consistent is the happily-ever-after. It wasn’t going to be mine, but there hadn’t been a night that passed where I didn’t pray that it would be hers.
The only way I’d slept at night was knowing that Caven had her. She’d be safe with him. The same way I had once been.
To some, it would seem like I was the villain of the fairytale. The evil mother come back to wreak havoc on the white knight and his little princess.
But hurting him was never part of the plan. After everything he’d given me, I owed that man my life.
It was just… I owed that innocent child more.
“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered to myself, my heart in my throat as I drove through the iron gates in front of a towering gray-stone mansion. The sprawling green lawn was manicured to perfection, and the rich bed of newly blossoming spring flowers bore the touch of a professional. It was the start of a warm spring in Jersey. We didn’t usually see flowers until May. Though, judging by this place, those flowers had been planted specifically for the party.
Her party.
Her birthday party.
I couldn’t believe she was turning four. She wasn’t a baby. Not even a toddler. At four years old, I’d already started taking pictures. I had memories of making mud pies in the backyard with my sister and arguing with my mother over a hideous dress she’d sewn for me.
Keira was four and had no idea who I was.
Guilt slashed through me as I imagined her growing up without a mother. Regardless of how deeply it gutted me, I knew with my whole heart that it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
The Hadley from four years earlier had had no business raising a child. That woman was nothing more than a shadow of the eight-year-old who’d lost her innocence in the midst of a bloody, heartbreaking tragedy. The gunshots and screams still haunted her even though it had been over a decade. Her demons were unshakable, their claws anchored so deep into her soul that they seemed impossible to escape. Therapy hadn’t helped. Medicine only took the edge off. Self-harm, self-loathing, and self-sabotage had become a way of life. Sure, that Hadley could have kept the baby. She could have tried to be a good mother, but she never would have been able to forgive herself if—and ultimately when—she’d failed.
Not everything was black and white. It was often in the gray areas where the hardest decisions were made. And four years ago, in the darkest gray imaginable, dropping Keira off to Caven had been the only option.
But that was a different time.
A different place.
A different world.
And a different life.
The Hadley of now was a different person.
When the monstrous task of living had begun to suffocate me, I’d considered ending it all. Thankfully, my mother’s green eyes, frantically trying to figure out how to keep me alive even as she took her dying breath, flashed on the backs of my lids, convincing me to give therapy one last try.
And, this time, it changed my life.
I explained to my doctor that I was in the prime of my life, as some would call it, but most days, it was all I could do to pry my lids open. It felt like I was walking through life, dragging two cement boulders tied around my ankles and a semi-truck strapped to my chest. How was I ever going to survive the rest of my life if I couldn’t even climb out of my bed?
