Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
He hadn’t answered her then, either.
Still, as she’d gone into labor, she’d called one last time, begging him to come to her. She’d left a message pleading with him to come hold her hand.
Never again.
“I’m not even thinking about hooking up, Avery. I’m barely cleared for sex. It will probably be another six months before I even think about it, and then I’m pretty sure I’m going to find myself a nice Hitachi wand and settle down. I’m going to name it and everything.”
Avery sighed. “Oh, dear. He did some damage.”
Steph shook her head. “He told me what he wanted and I pushed him. I don’t blame him. I simply want to move on without him. I’m good. Well, except for the psychopath chasing after me. And the fact that I need to make up a batch of formula for Nate. One more thing I couldn’t manage. I got mastitis a few days after he was born and I had a high fever for days before the antibiotics worked. I don’t know if it was all the surgeries after…well, anyway, I can’t produce enough milk for him.”
There it was, that moment in her life that all roads seemed to lead back to. That one moment when she’d been weak and it had cost the woman in front of her more than most people could imagine.
“It’s all right,” Avery promised. “He’ll be fine on formula. He’s a big, healthy boy and you’re doing a great job with him.”
Maybe it was how tired she was or simply the fact that being around Avery stripped her bare, but the tears started up and she asked the question she’d been thinking about since the moment she’d held her baby. It was a question she’d asked Avery before, but now it meant more. Now she knew what Avery had lost. Now she’d held her own child.
“How can you even look at me?”
Sometimes the accident felt like it had happened to another person, another Stephanie.
Sometimes she could still feel that moment of impact, hear the crash, louder than thunder, like it was happening to her all over again.
She’d been a teen coming home from a party. Her whole world had been laid out in front of her. She would be class valedictorian, get accepted to medical school, make her parents proud.
One single mistake. One moment where she’d taken her eyes off the road and she’d killed Avery Charles’s infant daughter and young husband. Avery had been in a coma for months and Stephanie’s future died.
Until that day when she’d stood in front of Avery. She’d expected anything from a lecture on how her carelessness had cost Avery everything to Avery telling her to do what her darkest self wanted to do—to die like she should have on that country road.
She’d expected anything but what Avery had given her. Forgiveness.
You owe me a life, Stephanie. You owe me two lives. You don’t get to be a coward and take the easy way out. You pay me back by being good. By doing good.
Avery Charles O’Donnell was the single most extraordinary human being Stephanie had ever met. Avery was the reason she was alive and working.
Avery cuddled Nate close and reached for Steph’s hand. “I look at you with ease and joy in my heart because you’re my friend. Stephanie, there are events that happen in our lives that can devastate us, and we can’t control them. The only thing we can control is how we react to them. Something terrible happened and I could have lain in that bed and allowed that one moment to make me bitter and hateful. I could have looked at you and damned you to hell, but that wouldn’t have solved anything at all. Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves. Who knows what could have happened if we hadn’t both been on that road that night. I could be married to Brandon and Maddie might be in high school. Or we could have divorced. Or they could have died some other way because I was always meant to go down this path. I can’t question why they were taken when they were, but I believe one day I’ll have to answer for how I handled it. I chose to live and that meant finding meaning. Hell, maybe it meant making meaning where there was none, but I don’t regret forgiving you. Not for a second.”
Tears poured from her eyes because she should have done this long ago. Avery was a blessing in her life. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
“I understand and you’re here now. So I get to ask you to do something else for me.”
“What’s that?”
Avery reached out, placing a hand over hers. “Forgive yourself. Come home and raise this baby. Forgive yourself. Forgive Brody. Move on with your life with an open heart. You can’t be this child’s mother and hate yourself. It’s time to come home.”