7th March

It's Saturday and Lydia and I have been in California since Thursday morning, the morning after I walked out on Nathan in order to clear my head and make sense of the mess I'd inadvertently made.

Dallas and Drayton haven't been here, both of them travelling for work but Dallas comes back at mid morning while Lydia and I are sitting in the sand in our swim wear. Lydia thinks we're here for a vacation, she has no idea that Nathan and I haven't spoken and I feel like a monster for dragging her away from another man I'd allowed her to trust and love.

Dallas comes out onto the sand after she's put her luggage in her bedroom. She's holding a box, the front of it shows that inside is a collection of paints, brushes and stencils. Dallas sits down beside me, stretching her toned legs out on the warm grains. She kisses me on the cheek and hands the box to Lydia.

"Monster, this is from uncle Drayton. He asked if you could paint him something special that he can hang in his office at work."

Lydia, sitting in her rash shirt and shorts, specks of sand sticking to her skin, grabs the box and grins. "He always gives me presents."

Dallas laughs, nodding. "He does spoil you rotten, doesn't he?"

Lydia stands up and tucks the box under her arm, I watch her every move. Each little expression on her face, her happiness, her content smile, her innocence. I want to absorb it, retain it, never take her childhood for granted for one moment.

"It's not spoiling," Lydia wraps her arm around Dallas' head and gives her an awkward hug. "It's kindness. Because he knows I love to paint so he gives me stuff I love."

Dallas nods, slow and enlightened. "You're so right. In that case, you better go and paint him something incredible. He loves your art work."

Lydia assesses her legs. "But I've got sand on me."

Dallas brushes her hands over her legs, removing a little bit of the sand but not all of it. "That'll do," she says. "You can sit in the kitchen and paint on the island if you want to."

My little girl rushes off after that and I watch, heart on my sleeve, heart breaking at all of the things I can never protect her from in life. I'm not sure what's happening to me in this couple of weeks. So much has changed so fast and I wish I could dig my heels into the ground, prevent moments from slipping past me, keep life suspended in the moments I can control.

It hits me over and over again that Lydia will grow and change and she'll face pain and there will never be anything I can do to stop it because that's life. I don't know if I'm strong enough to watch it though. All I want is to put us both in the absolute safest scenario, to do my best to ensure she grows up the happiest she can be.

Dallas turns to me, folding her legs, grains of sand trickle over her smooth skin. "He pushed you away, didn't he?"

"Dallas, no," I turn into her so we're facing each other front on now. "That's not what happened. I did the damage here. I practically begged him to commit to me and then he did and I-"

"You panicked? It got real."

Swallowing, I lower my head, ashamed at how I handled things. "Mom text me this morning. She told me I did the right thing because Nathan wasn't someone that would settle down and she'd just been humoring me when I told her we were together."

I'm not looking at Dallas but I can feel her shift in discomfort. That's her brother, she loves him, she doesn't want to hear people talking about him like that.

"I don't believe her," I say, lifting my gaze and meeting her furrowed brows. She's biting her tongue, I can tell. "I know Nathan loves me and it's different. Somehow, he wants to be different for me."

"It happens," Dallas rests her hand on my knee. "Sometimes it's that one girl that changes everything. If Nathan wasn't in love with you, he wouldn't bother pretending. He's been a little bit of a player in the past but he was always honest and he was respectful and he never would've let you think there was more to his feelings if there wasn't."

"I know that," my chin starts to tremble, the sun on my back is warm but it isn't thawing the numb cold in my heart. "I know he's serious. I think that's what scares me. He's someone I could spend the rest of my life with. I'd marry him right now and as much as I love feeling like that, is that the right thing to do? I've never been alone, Dal. I'm scared that I'll regret not having that single time. But then what if I left him and I never got him back and I never got over him. I'm so fucked."

I fall back into the sand, the sun is bright, even through my closed lids and I squeeze them tight, sending big fat tear drops down my cheeks. I hate that I don't know what to do. I hate that I want all the answers to the future, knowing it's impossible.

"You get one life, Dallas," I sob, my voice choked. "You get one. If you fuck it up, there's no going back. There's no do overs. There's no knowing what the best choice is. I hate it."

Dallas is quiet for a while, then I feel her hand in my hair, her fingers running through it in a gesture of comfort. "That's true. All of that is true. There's no answers or do overs but that's life. That's how life has been from the beginning and it'll never change. So, while I don't know the answers, I think life is too short to not love who you love. Love is one of those things that feels incredible and should be enjoyed if it makes you feel good and if it's. . .healthy."

I can feel tears tickling my ear lobes as I hold my hands over my face to keep the glaring sun from blinding me.

"Loving Josh didn't make you feel good, Gabs. It didn't for a long time and he wasn't a good addition to your life but you stayed because you felt like it was the right thing to do. You started over and you fell in love with Nathan and honestly I've never seen you happier. Those are two sides of the coin babe. Nathan wants to elevate you and watch you live the best life you can. His love is good. It's not a bad thing and if it doesn't work out, you'd have learned something and you can start again. There's no rule to say you can't start again."

I sit up and face Dallas, wiping my face. "I agree but I have a daughter that I want to be a good example for. I don't want her to watch me jumping from man to man whenever something doesn't work out. I don't want her to get attached to people who aren't going to be a constant in my life."

Dallas hitches a shoulder, her blonde hair glowing under the sunlight. "Yeah, I get that concern. But I think one way to look at is she'd have an example of what standards look like. And she'd know her mom never for settled for someone that wasn't incredible."

I nod, sniffing and sinking my finger tips into the sand between us.

Dallas adds, "besides, I don't think things with my brother won't work out and if you're happy with him, it'll never feel like you missed out on life, Gabs. Does he make you happy? Do you miss him?"

My entire chest might as well have opened up and bled out the minute she asked me that because I'd missed him so much it was unbearable. I'd spent hours staring at our photos together, listening to his voicemail, re reading all of our text messages. I missed him more than I'd ever missed another person.

I nod, biting the inside of my cheek when I feel a fresh fall of tears coming on.

"I can't tell you what to do," Dallas wipes my cheek. "I just know that there are worse things than being in love. And that's coming from me. Someone who almost pushed the love of my life away because I didn't think I could have a career and true love."

"You're an over achiever," I tease and she grins.

"I got the best of both worlds and for me, it never felt like I missed out. It comes down to what you want most out of life. Some people want that time to be alone and have lots of casual sex and whatever, that's cool. Some people want one person forever and that's cool too. Just make your decision based on how you feel now. Not what you think you should feel. Or what you think you might end up feeling down the line."

My head starts to clear a little at her advice, knowing that she's right. If I wanted to be single right now, if I wanted to have lots of casual sex and go back to college and live that life, I could.

But that's not what my heart craves. My heart craves one man. The same man that loves my daughter, the man that gets up in the morning and makes her toast with little faces on it, brushes and ties her hair, teaches her new skills, listens to her talk and talk and talk.

I want the man who stands beside me in my hardest moments, who supports my ventures, no questions asked, who looks at me like I just came down from heaven on a cloud, who approaches the tough situations with logic and patience and has never made me feel like I can't be exactly who I am. Even if I don't know who that person is right now.

Life without Nathan would be whatever I made it. Life with Nathan would be whatever I made it, with the love of a good man right beside me.

Later that afternoon Lydia is eating a crepe on the living room floor while she watches Encanto. Dallas is curled up with a pillow on her lap and I'm reading a book, the words blurring together when my mind wanders to Nathan, wondering how I should call him and tell him I want to come home. His phone calls and texts have slowed down and I worry that he might be angry at my radio silence.

I wouldn't blame him.

There's a buzz from the intercom beside the stair case where Dallas can control almost the entire house from a touch panel. She peers over the back of the couch and sees the blinking red light under the gate camera. Standing up, she looks at me and shrugs, just as in the dark about who it could be as I am.

For a moment, I wonder if it's Nathan.

"Hello?" Dallas holds the speaker button down and looks at the car behind the gate.

"I have a parcel."

"Oh," Dallas rubs her lip and stares in thought. "Okay, I'll be right there."

She looks at me. "No idea what I ordered."

She disappears down the corridor, heading toward the garage, which then leads to the gate. Once again, I attempt to make sense of the words I'm reading. Nathan. Nathan. Nathan.

Lydia gets up and takes her plate to the kitchen just as Dallas comes back with a small box in her hands. I don't get much warning before she's tossing it across the sofa toward me. I catch it and see my name across the front of it.

"What is this?"

Dallas collapses back into the couch and reaches out, snatching Lydia around the waist as she comes back from the kitchen. The two snuggle together. "I don't know," Dallas lightly laughs. "It's from Castle Rock though."

There's only two people from there who know where I am and I can't figure out which of them it was more likely to be. I peer over at Dallas again but she's watching the movie with Lydia curled up beside her.

I love how affectionate Dallas is now. In high school it was difficult to get a hug from her that didn't feel stiff and forced. Touch was never her love language. But Drayton has changed that. Lydia has too. It's beautiful.

Peeling the packing tape off the package, I open the box and find a book inside. It's the book 'It Happened One Summer,' by Tessa Bailey. One of my favorite books. I'd annotated it while I read and it was the first time Nathan had seen the concept. I remember him leaning over me while I dragged a pastel pink highlighter across a quote. He'd asked why it looked like I was studying for a test, his arm against mine on the sofa.

He'd loved the whole idea of annotating when I told him. Then he'd used my highlighter to draw a pink love heart on my arm, his name underneath it.

My heart aches.

I pick it up and stare, super confused on why he'd decided to send me a book. Was he worried I hadn't brought enough with me? A note slid out from between the pages and fell into the box face up.

I read this, highlighted a few of my favorite parts too and I wanted to share them with you. I love you baby, with my entire heart.

I get up from the couch, barely aware of my surroundings but I mumble to Dallas that I need a moment and then I go upstairs to the spare bedroom, sit in the middle of the bed and stare at the book. No one has ever done something like this for me. It's a small gesture, but my heart pounds furiously in my chest, reminding me that Nathan is thinking of me just as much as I'm thinking of him.

Flicking open the book I leaf through the pages and see the pink highlighter I'd used for my notes and then I see a pastel blue.

"That sparkle was positivity and life and promise of better things, and she always, always had it, glowing within the blue of her irises, lighting up the room."

My heart surges, finger tips tracing the words he'd highlighted. Where the word blue was written, he'd crossed it out and written honey brown. I feel a smile on my mouth, the first one that hasn't felt forced.

"I want you. However you are, whatever you are, I want you."

"This girl. He'd be keeping her. There was no way around it."

Next to the highlighted quote, he wrote, 'you're stuck with me baby.' Tears slip down my cheeks, rolling over my smiling cheeks and lips, the salt taste finding my tongue.

"I'll love you until my heart gives out. I'll be your man for a thousand years. Longer if I'm allowed."

"She didn't have to give up everything. He loved her enough to find solutions. That's what he did. There was no inconvenience or obstacle he wouldn't face if it meant having her in his life, so he'd fucking face them. He'd adapt."

A loud and guttural sob racks through me when I read that one. Around the quote he'd drawn love hearts and underlined the words to create emphasis and I heard it loud and clear. He'd do whatever it took to have me.

"Can you be mad at me while I kiss you, baby? It's all I've wanted to do for the last two weeks."

I clutch the book to my chest and fall apart because he'd managed to send me the most beautiful, creative message and I can't imagine going another moment without telling him that he's all I need. Whether that's just for now, or for the rest of our lives, I don't know but I want to find out. I want to enjoy being in love and experiencing what life has to offer with him right beside me.

I realize I don't have my phone, so with tear blurred eyes, I drop the book on the bed and head down stairs to get it from the couch. As soon as I step off the stair case, I see Nathan in the living room.

He's sitting on the coffee table facing Dallas and Lydia, his black henley clings to his frame, the sleeves rolled and his hand rests on his thigh while my little girl tells him all about our vacation. He's giving her one hundred percent of his focus, his face full of fascination.

It all falls together then. All of the emotions, the feelings, the love I feel for him. It's been swimming around inside of me, causing collisions, unsure where to settle but as soon as our eyes meet, it falls into place. It clicks. He's the right person and whether or not the timing is off, it doesn't matter. I won't lose him just because I didn't realize I should've left Josh a long time ago.

Nathan has a thousand confessions on his tongue and I have a million on my face. Dallas stands up and takes Lydia's hand. I'm vaguely aware of her leading her outside, promising her sand castles and sea shells. Nathan stands up when the door closes and then it's just us.

"I love you," I run toward the sofa, leap over it and jump straight into his arms.

He catches me, of course he does. He's been catching me from the moment we met at the bar. My legs wrap around his waist, his arms go around me, holding on so fucking tight, so secure. This is where I feel most at home. In his arms. Nothing has ever felt more right.

He was right when he said I've been raising Lydia alone. I have, I know how to live without Nathan, but I don't want to. Doing life with him is beautiful.

I lean back and kiss him, my mouth wet with tears and I feel his audible sigh of relief and a shudder move through him. His hands on my ass tighten, doing his best to get me so close we might as well be one person.

"I love you, baby," he whispers against my mouth. "You want to move here? I'm in. I'll follow you wherever. Forever."

Right now, the only place I wanted to go with him, was upstairs.