Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“It’s just words, K,” Declan says, snapping me from my thoughts. “Doesn’t mean anything.”
I glance up at him, confused, as he takes his phone back and turns off the song, but he won’t look at me. It’s as if he’s looking past me. We wrote this beautiful, emotional song together, yet he’s acting like it means nothing.
My thoughts go back to the day I woke up in the hospital. “Kendall, you can do it. Wake up, sweetheart. Just open those beautiful blue eyes and come back to me.”
Something is off, but I can’t pinpoint what it is, and the harder I try to reach into my brain and figure it out, the more my head hurts. I’m about to ask him, no, beg him, to tell me what’s going on, but before I can get the words out, he says, “I need to get going.” He leaves me alone, wondering what the fuck is going on and why it’s suddenly freezing in here. It’s as if he took all the damn warmth with him.
And I’m still sitting here, confused as hell, when my mom walks in. “There you are!” She sits next to me and wraps her arms around me. “I was texting you.”
“Sorry,” I say, sighing into her comforting embrace. “My phone is on silent.”
“That’s okay. You look good,” she says, sitting back slightly to assess me. “How’re you feeling?”
Confused, frustrated… “Okay.”
“The seamstress called to confirm your appointment for your final fitting tomorrow. I was thinking we could make a day of it. Go to lunch, do some shopping. We had talked about buying you some bridal lingerie.”
“How did you know Dad was the one?” I blurt out.
“Umm,” she says, a bit taken aback by my change in topics. “Well, I think I knew he was the one when, even though I put up walls made of concrete, he tore them down like they were nothing more than paper.”
When I don’t say anything for a few beats, she takes my hand in hers, squeezing it softly. “What’s going on, Sunshine?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Were you nervous when you married Dad?”
“Well, no…” She flinches. “But we’re different.”
Yeah, I know…
“Hey.” She cups the side of my face. “Talk to me.”
“I just feel different… off,” I say, tears filling my eyes.
“Are you having headaches? Any vomiting or—”
“No,” I cut her off. “I’m not talking about the accident. I mean, me. I know I can’t remember the past six weeks, but it’s more than that. I can’t…” I sniffle back the sobs bubbling up. “I don’t feel grounded, put together.”
Mom’s brow furrows, so I explain. “For a long time, I’ve felt like I was flying above the Earth on my own, lost and searching for something to ground me. I don’t feel like I belong. I’m not like you or Dad or Camden or Bailey… I suck at love.”
Yet I wrote a damn love song with Declan.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom coos. “You don’t suck at love.”
“Yes, I do. I thought marrying Kyle would ground me and make me feel less… lost, but the thought of marrying him, living with him… having kids with him is doing the opposite.”
“Maybe you’re just having a moment,” she says gently. “When I met your dad, I was lost. I was in school and working at the bar. Naomi and I were raising you the best we could. And then I met your dad. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it was definitely lust.” She smiles softly, probably remembering their first encounter, and my heart clenches, wanting to feel the way she looks—in utter love.
“We hooked up.” She shrugs unapologetically since I already know the story. She and my dad have shared it many times over the years. “And I ended up pregnant with your brother. When I found out I was pregnant, I was so scared, felt like you, like I was soaring above the clouds, lost, but Easton brought me down and grounded me. In the chaotic world, I found myself, my place, my calm, through his love.”
My thoughts go to the lyrics of the song I listened to earlier:
To cure that chaos in your heart
Hand it over, and I’ll fix the broken
Turn the chaos into calm
Make that heart of yours mine
And you’ll never feel alone
“What if… What if Kyle’s not the one?”
Mom’s eyes go wide before she quickly schools her features. “Only you can know that.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
DECLAN
“We wrote a love song together.”
“It’s just words. Doesn’t mean anything.”
I can’t get the conversation with Kendall out of my head. The one where she was shocked we wrote a love song together, and I told her it didn’t mean shit… even though those words meant everything. While we were writing it, I thought she would catch on and realize she was writing her first love song, but she never said a word if she did. She acted like the queen of heartbreak wrote love songs every damn day, when the truth was, she’d never written one before… until now.