He knelt down, his knee connecting with the cold, hard ground, the ice that covered the top of it melting and leaving a wet spot on the denim. He pressed his palm to the earth. “I feel that you’re gone every day. But there’s something... Well, when I’m here I just want to talk to you. I haven’t had the words to say I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I failed you. And I know that you would say I didn’t. That it wasn’t my fault. But I haven’t been ready to hear that.”
He closed his eyes. “I didn’t want to be forgiven. I didn’t want Ryder’s forgiveness. Or Rose’s. Or anyone’s. And I know I just would’ve had yours. Because you loved me. Because you loved me in ways that I’m afraid I grew up to not deserve. And I can’t ask you, because you’re not here.”
He felt choked with his grief, and he fought hard to take a breath.
“I haven’t been living how you’d want. But the way you’d want me to live means letting go. Making peace with some things that I’ve been using as walls. Hank Dalton didn’t know about me. His wife lied to him. She lied to you. And now I wonder... I wonder if I’m allowed to make a family with them. It won’t be the same.” He swallowed hard, and he let himself remember. Really remember.
Not just the ways his mother had been hurt. Not just the ways he protected her. But the way she’d smiled, and the way she’d laughed. The story she’d told him when she tucked him into bed. The way she’d bandaged him when he’d fallen down.
Rose was the only other person who’d ever done it.
“No one will ever replace you. Because you shaped me into who I am. Because you taught me what I should care about. Because you chased away the monsters that were under my bed. No one will replace you.”
And with that, he gave voice to his deepest fear. That somehow, by getting to know any of the Daltons, even just the half siblings, that he would somehow erase the importance of his mother in his life. Diminish that loss. But nothing ever would. Because no one could ever replace all that she’d been. And just as no one could take away the sting of the loss, no one could take away the joy of the sixteen years of life he’d spent with the best mother in the world.
He lowered his head, a smile curving his lips. “You were the best. You didn’t really need me to pity you, did you? I spent all this time focusing on the way you were hurt. Not the way that you loved. And the way you love, that was the important thing, wasn’t it? That’s what you want me to remember. It’s what you want me to carry on.” He chuckled. “I’m in love with Rose Daniels. Bet you didn’t see that coming. I know I didn’t. And she’s... She’s the bravest. You would like the way she turned out.”
And just like she had spoken into the air around him, he also knew his mother would have been fit to be tied that he had broken Rose Daniels’s heart.
“You’re not any madder at me than I am at myself. She puts me to shame.”
And like a whisper had come through the wind, he heard words inside his head.
Let go.
He opened his fist and released his hold on the bouquet. He let the flowers drop in front of the gravestone.
Let go.
Not of his mother. Not even of his grief.
Because grief was an echo of love that didn’t have a person you could give it to anymore. And it wasn’t always bad. It just was.
It was the guilt.
It was the guilt that stood in front of everything. His protection from his pain, and the wall between him and the love he wanted to give Rose.
And yeah, it would mean getting rid of his protection. Because he couldn’t love with all he was and protect his heart.
But a life without Rose wasn’t life.
And it wasn’t a grudge his mother would want as his monument to her. It was his happiness. Everything she had done had been for his happiness. For his protection.
And he had built an idol to the wrong thing. Because he had wanted to worship at the safer altar.
Love was terrifying. Love was wild, and it wasn’t safe.
Love was like Rose. Bright-eyed and relentless, and nothing he could control.
“I love you,” he said. “Nothing will ever change that.”
Nothing. Whether he decided to make some family connections with the Daltons or not. Whether he went and found some happiness of his own.
For the first time in seventeen years, he felt peace. The oddest sense of peace as he stood there looking at those flowers on his mother’s grave. Because there was nothing left to do for his mom but love her. He didn’t have to hate himself, he didn’t have to hate other people.
He just had to live.
And he knew exactly what he wanted.
Because all these years, his mother had been gone, and his tribute had been self-imposed exile.
But he realized now. He could love. As freely, as big as he wanted. And all these years he’d chosen not to. He had shrunk himself down and made his life small. His mother deserved a better tribute than that.
His life deserved a better tribute than that. He’d survived, but he hadn’t been living.
It was the most humbling damn thing. To realize that he was the one who hadn’t known all this time. That he was the ignorant one. All those times he’d accused Rose of not understanding, of not seeing what was right in front of her, but he was the idiot.
And Rose was right. He hadn’t been able to recognize love when he saw it. But more than that, he hadn’t been able to recognize what made life worth living.
You could live with low
