Page 55 of Indebted

I drank in the sight of him.

It’d been easy to deny my feelings when he wasn’t standing right in front of me, but now, here, I couldn’t deny what I felt for him, the surging of emotions nearly choked me.

I clutched my phone, the device burning a hole in my hand. My appointment was in less than two hours.

I had a choice to make.

“Is everything okay?” Justin’s voice, the concern in his eyes, warmed my heart.

There was only one thing I needed to know. “Why’d you throw it away?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The letter I wrote all those years ago in high school. The one where I asked you and my mom to come to my graduation? I went to your house to ask you about it and found out you’d thrown it away. You and my mom turned your backs on me, and I never understood why.” It’d been a weight I’d carried around with me for years—the idea that I was never good enough. Not for my mom. Not for Justin. Not for anyone.

His long legs ate up the space between us, the heat from his body teasing me from where he stopped less than a foot away. “Katie, I never received a letter from you. The reason I stayed away was because your mother told me you wanted nothing to do with us. Why do you think I kept tabs on you from afar? I always wanted you in my life, in whatever way I could. If I had known for one second that you wanted me in your life, I would’ve been there. Afterward, I thought you blamed me for her death. Lord knows there was enough speculation around it. Fingers pointed to me, as they should’ve, but I swear to you, I had no idea back then, about the letter, about graduation, any of it.”

I believed him.

My lungs expanded for what felt like the first time in a long time.

It’d all been my mom.

A part of me wanted to resent her, but it was the way she was, never wanting to be out of the spotlight, always chasing her own validation until her need for more caught up with her. I should’ve never resented her. I should’ve pitied her, but my high school self would’ve never been able to understand, not like I did now.

A strange sense of peace washed over me.

I forgave her.

“Sweetie?” The warmth of Justin’s hand cupped my face, wiping away a single tear. “I’m so sorry.”

I leaned into his touch. I knew it all now. There was nothing left standing in my way.

Gazing up at Justin I asked, “Would you like to go out to dinner with me tonight?”

I saw the answer dawning in his face, before reality set in and crushed it. His gaze darted to the door behind me, and I knew what he was thinking.

Midge.

His clinic

But I needed to give him the choice, I needed to hear him say it when everything was out on the line. When I was out on the line. But there was something I had to take care of first.

I grabbed his hand and squeezing. “Meet me for dinner,” I implored. Then I did what I should’ve done all along, and trusted my instincts. “I love you, Justin. I know what Midge did, and I understand what the clinic means to you, but what if you could have both?”

“Katie—”

I pressed a finger to his lips, the contact sending a spark up my arm. “What if you could have it all? Would you want me?”

The passion in his eyes was something I would never forget. He crushed his lips against mine.

It was fierce and desperate and too short. It told me everything I needed to know.

“I can’t let you ruin your future, Katie.” And he meant it.

My lip curled. “You’re not. You’re creating it.”

Chapter 19