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“I’ll hold off on telling the world you’re mine if you’ll introduce me to your family. Maggie has Spring Break coming up soon. We can go see them and maybe then figure the rest of this out,” he suggests and my heart races with worry. “I want you here with us Amelia. I want you as mine for forever.”
“Rafe…”
“No baby. You have to at least give us a real shot Amelia. If you constantly try to assume that we’re going to lose what we have, then wearegoing to lose this. I don’t want that baby. I want you, Maggie, and me to be a real family. I want us to have brothers and sisters for Maggie no matter if they’re hearing or not. We can do this Amelia. If you’d just give us the chance to, you’ll see that we can do this.”
It sounds so good, so sweet, and the majority of me is ready to just jump on it and float along this river of sweetness forever, but it’s the end of that river that scares me, keeps me from saying yes. The end of that river could be cold, dark, and dangerous. It could drown me without warning when we reach it and thatterrifies me, because you have to reach the end of the river, don’t you? “What will meeting my parents do?”
“It will let them see how much I adore you. How much Maggie adores you. It’ll let us find the way to do all of this together out in the open.”
“My parents won’t like us living together,” I warn, my breath catching at the glint in his eyes.
“So-what? Think they’ll insist on me marrying their little girl?” he teases, and I try to control the look that passes across my face, but I don’t think I’m completely successful because his eyes brighten a bit further. “That’s why you haven’t told them about us, isn’t it? They’ll want to know if I intend on marrying you and they’ll figure out that I want to. Then it’ll all be on your head, and you’ll have to finally admit why you keep pulling away when this gets too close to being forever.”
“Rafe…”
“No Amelia. It’s time you make a choice. We stop hiding this, you introduce me to your family, or we’re done. I won’t put Maggie through years of questioning because I know what I want.”
“I’m going to my place,” I state, getting up because telling him isn’t an option. It’ll just cause more questions that I don’t want to answer.
“No, you’re not. You’re not running away until you tell me your decision. I mean it Amelia. If you walk out that door there’s no coming back. Maggie loves you too much to have you seesawing about your feelings. If it was just me, I’d give you more time…room but it’s not and I won’t let Maggie get hurt in this more than she will be if you walk away now.”
The look in his eyes tells me that he means every word of it and what’s the harm in introducing him to Mom and Dad? They’ll fall for Maggie and him as easily as I have.
Then it’ll be up to me again to make a decision. Maybe going back will be a good thing too. I can sneak away and go visit someone I desperately need to talk to and maybe, just maybe, I can figure out how to admit everything to everyone.
“Alright, we’ll go see my parents,” I tell him and the next thing I know I’m scooped up in his arms and we’re heading to the bedroom.
It reaffirms my decision to go talk to Harrison. I need answers to questions that have been seven nearly eight years in the making.
It’s not an easy choice to make but I know I have to. I have to finally decide if I can take this chance, if loving him is worth the risk of getting my heart broke again. I do love him and if I lose him it’ll be horrid but telling him and the world…is that something that I can really do? Is that something I want to do?
I don’t know yet, but I do know that the answers have to be back home. It might be the only way to finally be happy, fully and completely happy. Something that I haven’t been since I was sixteen and in love. At least until he died, leaving me to navigate a tide I never knew existed.
Chapter 12
“So this is where you grew up?” Rafe asks as we head through the middle of town.
“This is where I grew up,” I answer glancing in the back seat at Maggie who’s staring at all the trees in awe. “Someone’s in love I think.”
“Well there’s never been any doubt about that Ame. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you,” he says making me smile.
“Cute but I meant Maggie,” I state fighting a smile because it fills me with so much warmth and I want to linger in it forever.
“I know, but it’s true Amelia. I do love you, baby.”
I don’t say anything just as I haven’t ninety-nine percent of the time when he tells me because I don’t know what to say. ‘Thank you’ and ‘I know’ are too cold but the words get stuck in my throat when I try to tell him how I feel.
“Which way?” he asks when we reach a junction.
“Left, through two stop signs and it’s the fourth house on the right,” I tell him and the moment we pull up in front, I feel the panic hit me. What on earth am I doing here with Rafe? I shouldn’t be doing this. I should just let them walk away and go back to square one. I might be sad but at least I’ll be able to breathe again.
“You can’t run anymore Ame,” he says, and I feel my irritation kick in. How can he know me so well?
“I can if I want to.”
“But do you really?” he questions, pulling my attention back to him. “Do you honestly want to run away from me, from Maggie, and us?”
“No,” I admit with a sigh. “Deep down I know this is right but…”
