Page 105 of You Met Me There

Having kids with Luke is what I’ve always wanted; being a mother and raising children was my ultimate desire. But now that I have it in my reach, I know it’s not the most important thing in my life.

“I don’t want you to say you want kids if it’s only coming from a place of fear,” I say. “You won’t lose me anymore. Kids or not, I’m not leaving you. You mean too much to me for me to run away anymore, and I’m so sorry for telling you I wanted kids more than I wanted you.” He frowns, but I put up a finger to quiet him before he says anything.

“Almost losing you, falling into a darkness where I couldn’t see you—” I shake my head. “I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to jump out of the pit and chase you. I’d do anything to get to you. So no, I don’t want you to give me kids if you’re doing it because you’re afraid of losing me. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t need a baby to make me happy—I just need you.”

He thumbs the tears away from my cheek. “I’m not afraid of what might happen anymore, Natalie. I’m not scared of the future, the pregnancy, or being a father. We’ve gone through fire with each other, and we keep coming out stronger and sharper than ever. I don’t want to be afraid of what might happen by getting pregnant. I’m only afraid now of what we might be missing if we don’t.

“I realize now that my love for you, coupled with my fear of losing you, was, in reality, caging you in. It was keeping you in my fear with me. But I shouldn’t have let my fears of what happened to my mom write our future. God willing, you will never have to deal with the things she did. We have all this love between us, and I want us to share it with someone else. I want us to be partners and friends and lovers and parents. Together.”

“You’re sure?” I ask, worried about getting my hopes up and accepting it yet.

“I am,” he murmurs, his voice breaking. “Let’s have a baby, Nat.”

I laugh, happy tears falling now, replacing the anxiety-driven ones I shed before, and I nod like I’m one of Tyler’s bobbleheads in his Jeep. “Okay. Let’s have a baby.” I lean forward and kiss his lips ever so gently so I don’t hurt his cuts and bruises.

When I move away, he frowns. All business. “It’s going to take me a long time to heal from this accident. At least six to twelve months, according to Dr. Carlton. I propose we both heal together.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he doesn’t let me just yet, jumping to continue his thoughts.

“While my leg and my lung heals, I want you to go back to therapy. And I’ll go, too—for my own stuff. You need someone to talk to, someone who can help you through the way you feel. I wish it could be me, but you know I can’t get you through it every time. It’s up to you to learn how to cope with the nightmares, the anxiety.”

My eyes search the room, wandering from the computer monitor to the bed, down to the off-white tile floor. I want what he’s saying. I want us to get better together so we can move on from this summer and all the difficulties it’s put us through.

“Okay,” I say finally. “I’ll start therapy again. I want us to start over, like all the bad parts of this year didn’t happen.”

He tugs my hand forward and kisses the inside of my wrist, his lips tickling my skin as he smiles. “I’m glad you’re on board. Just promise me you won’t jump ship again.” The hint of a smile plays on his broken lips.

I lift a brow, teasing him. “You’ve been hanging out with Ty too much. His terrible jokes and puns are rubbing off on you. If you weren’t in a hospital bed, I’d push you overboard.”

He gasps playfully. “Oh, you can push me. Push me down and kiss me senseless, that is. I won’t tell the nurse.”

My eyes widen, and I laugh as he grins up at me.

It will be a while before Luke can walk or even sit up without pain, but I’m looking to the future. For the first time, I feel like I really know what the next part of my life looks like.

I was born in Maple Lake, Pennsylvania. I met a boy and ran away to Florida to be with him. Little did I know it would take running away from him to make us stronger than ever.

I wouldn’t recommend running away from a caring, loving husband. I also wouldn’t recommend waiting until he’s in a life-threatening accident before discovering that loving someone is the most important thing you could ever do.

Life isn’t linear. It’s a tangle of threads twisted around in complicated paths. The choices you make either make or break those threads, pulling you closer and knotting your life to that of another’s, or, quite the opposite, they’ll squeeze too tightly and cut you off from someone you once knew.

Love is a choice. The heart-fluttering sensation in your chest is simply a feeling that follows the choice. Or maybe sometimes the feeling comes first, twisting around in your tummy before you’ve even given it thought. But either way, we choose to love the people we love. For some it might be easy to give up, to run away, to start over. But it’s hard to try again, to persevere, to keep going.

I choose to love Luke, like he’s chosen to love me. Not because he’s chosen to love me, but because I want to. Our marriage was always good, but it was never perfect, especially this summer. I did things wrong, again and again. But our threads pulled us closer, the knots got stronger, and I’m looking forward to our future more than I ever have before.

Chapter 53

Luke

“Are you sure you’ll be fine while I’m gone?” Natalie lifts her small backpack over her shoulder, leaning down to kiss me.

It’s been three weeks since my accident. She hasn’t gone back to Maple Lake, not even to get her stuff. She told me how she ran out in a hurry to get to me, leaving all her things behind, but now she needs her camera, her clothes, and her car.

Jules flew back a few days after I was discharged from the hospital. She made sure Nat and I were doing alright before she went home. I’m grateful that she could stay for the time she did—she helped Natalie as she learned to take care of me, all the way down to when to administer my medications when the pain flares and how to bathe me around the cast on my leg. Jules didn’t come into the bathroom, of course, because how awkward would that be? But her tips and instructions were beyond helpful for everyone.

I’ve had a lot of rest since the accident, but I’ve also started physical therapy, which is physically exhausting and mentally taxing. Natalie gleaned a lot from her sister’s nursing expertise, and I know it did her good to have the help during the stressful few days of transitioning me home after the days I spent in a hospital bed.

My lung has healed from the puncture, and right now our main focus is on keeping weight off my injured leg, which is harder than it sounds. I’m not a good patient when it comes to being immobile.