Page 59 of Written with You (The Regret Duet 2)
But it’d never felt wrong.
I’d had no idea she wasn’t Hadley at the time. Though, deep down, some part of me recognized her. She was all grown up, but my draw to that woman was just as strong as it had been from the start.
It was like I had known she would be my salvation.
There had been dozens of people in that mall that day.
People closer to me.
People farther away from Malcom as he’d paced his path of destruction.
And then there’d been her.
I remembered cussing to myself as I made my way over to her, crawling on my stomach, my hat pulled low as if I honestly thought my father wouldn’t recognize his own son because I was wearing it.
But even at fifteen years old, nothing could have stopped me from getting to her.
That didn’t change when she came back.
It didn’t matter that it had been eighteen years. Or that she had a different name. Something inside me recognized her. And it was that same something that overrode all logic and reason the first time I kissed her.
My need to be with that woman was inexplicable. And while daydreaming of tracing my tongue across her collarbone was how it had manifested in the beginning, I could have lived the rest of my life having her safe, smiling, and breathing my name like a prayer.
“No. I want you to be Willow again. The real Willow. You’re not Hadley when you’re inside this house. But the minute you walk out that door, that’s exactly who you become. And it’s dangerous, babe. I hope your sister rests in peace—genuinely, I do. But she left a shitshow behind and I don’t want you getting wrapped up in that any more than you already are.”
It was an innocent request not intended to upset her in the least. However, in the very next second, it was as if a fire had been lit between us.
She suddenly sat up, crisscrossing her legs like a physical barrier. “She was my sister. My name being Hadley isn’t going to wrap or unwrap me from her.”
I sat up too, propping my back against the headboard. “I don’t mean it like that. I just mean you could finally be free from her chaos.”
Clearly, it was the wrong thing to say.
Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth fell open “Free from her chaos? Seriously?”
I tipped my head to the side, confused and incredulous. “Yeah, seriously. You’re currently staying at my house after a man attacked you because he thought you were Hadley. That’s chaos. And if word got out that you were not your sister, that chaos would disappear.”
She scrambled from the bed, rising to her feet and crossing her arms over her chest. “Maybe I don’t want it to disappear.”
“What the hell are you talking about? That makes no sense. You could finally be yourself again.”
Like a bomb had been detonated, her eyes flashed wide before the explosion flew from her mouth. “I don’t want to be myself! If Willow is alive, that means Hadley is gone forever.”
Oh, fuck.
How had I not seen that coming?
She was her sister. Her twin sister. One she had loved so completely that she’d given up her entire life to be close to the daughter Hadley had abandoned. And knowing Willow, I’d have bet my bank account that during that time she’d spent hatching a plan to reclaim the only remaining member of her family, she’d never taken the time to grieve the sister she’d lost.
Only hours earlier, as I’d poured my heart out to her over all the things she should rightly hate me for, she’d been nothing but patient and understanding, And there I was, in a roundabout way suggesting she bury Hadley all over again. Something that wasn’t my call to make.
“Willow, come here.”
She shook her head. “She always wanted to be me, ya know?”
“Willow. Come here.”
“She always thought I had it so easy. And, compared to what she went through, I’m not sure she was wrong. I get to live. Maybe if she’s finally Willow, she won’t resent me so damn much anymore.”
Throwing the covers back, I stood up and walked straight for the bedroom door. I quietly shut it and twisted the knob to lock it before turning back to face her.
For such a terrible day filled with confessions and ghosts from the past, it’d been amazing.
But only because she had made it amazing. The way she’d lightened my guilt just by holding my hand as we’d driven the hour home. The way she didn’t look at me with contempt and blame the way I did so often in the mirror. She might not have said the words that day, but just as it’d been when she’d been a girl, her forgiveness was a comfort I’d never felt with anyone else.
Willow was a warrior on levels neither I nor Truett West would ever understand.
