The Elements Series Complete Box Set

by Brittainy Cherry

  “Stop…” I whispered, my right hand cupping over my mouth, my body beginning to shake with horror.

  “Sixty-year-old Mary Cole, who walked away from the accident.”

  “Tanner, please. Don’t.”

  “Thirty-year-old Jamie Cole…”

  Tears fell, my insides twisting into knots as he continued speaking. “And eight-year-old Charlie Cole, who both lost their lives.”

  Acid began to rise from my stomach and I turned away from him, sobbing uncontrollably into my hands, unable to truly believe what he was telling me. Had Steven been the reason that Tristan lost his world? Had my Steven been the cause of Tristan’s heartbreak?

  “You can’t be here right now,” I managed to say. Tanner placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and I slung it off. “I can’t deal with this right now, Tanner. Go.”

  He sighed heavily. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, Liz. I swear. But, could you imagine if you both found out later on? Could you imagine if he didn’t know until you two were in too deep?”

  I turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you two can’t stay together after this. There’s no way.” With hesitation, he rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re going to tell him, right?” My lips parted, but no words came out. “Liz. You have to tell him. He has a right to know.”

  My hands brushed against my eyes. “I need you to go, Tanner. Please. Just go.”

  “All I’m saying is if you love him, if there’s any part of you that truly cares for this guy, then you’ll let him go. You’ll let him move on.”

  The last thing he said to me was he didn’t mean to hurt me.

  I had a really hard time believing him.

  32

  Elizabeth

  I didn’t know how to tell Tristan what Tanner had told me. We drove to Mama’s house, and he could tell Tanner had said something that bothered me, but he didn’t pressure me to talk about it. I tried to put on my best smiles for Mama and Mike the night of their wedding reception; I tried my best to be happy for them, but inside my heart was so confused.

  Emma dragged Tristan out to the dance floor. I couldn’t help but smile when I heard a slow song come on and watched Emma step onto his feet. Mama came over to me in her beautiful ivory dress and sat beside me.

  “You haven’t said one word to me all night,” she said. Her smile was the sad kind.

  “I came, didn’t I? Isn’t that good enough?” Such a big part of me felt somewhat betrayed by her sudden rush to the chapel. She’d always had a way of rushing all of her relationships, but she hadn’t been crazy enough to walk down the aisle with a man she hardly knew. I turned toward her. “What are you doing, Mama? Just be honest with me…were you having money issues again? You could’ve asked me for help.”

  Her face reddened with embarrassment, maybe anger. “Stop it, Liz. I cannot believe you would say that to me, on today of all days.”

  “It’s just…this is all so sudden.”

  “I know.”

  “And I know the man has a lot of money. Look at this wedding.”

  “The money has nothing to do with it,” she disagreed. I cocked an eyebrow. “Really, it doesn’t.”

  “Then what is it? Give me a reason you would rush into this crazy situation if it isn’t for the money. What are you getting out of this?”

  “Love,” she whispered, her lips curving up. “I’m getting love.”

  For some strange reason, those words stung me. My heart was pained as she confessed to the idea of loving another man who wasn’t Dad. “How could you?” I said, my eyes watering over. “How could you just throw the letters away like that?”

  “What?”

  “Dad’s letters. I found them in the garbage bin before Emma and I moved away. How could you?”

  She sighed heavily, folding her hands together. “Liz, I didn’t just throw them away. I read each and every one of those letters every evening for sixteen years straight. Each night. Hundreds of letters. And then one day I woke up and realized that the security blanket I was wearing was really nothing but a crutch keeping me crippled from living my own life. Your father was a wonderful man. He taught me how to love fully. He taught me how to give into passion. And then I forgot. I forgot everything he taught me the day he left. I lost myself. I had to step away from the crutch of those letters in order to heal. You are so much stronger than me.”

  “I still feel weak. Almost every day, I feel weak.”

  She took my face in her hands and placed her forehead to mine. “That’s the thing, though. You’re feeling. I was numb. I didn’t feel anything. But you’re feeling. One must know what it feels like to be weak in order to really find their own strength.”

  “Mike…he really makes you happy?” I asked.

  Her face glowed.

  She really did love him.

  I hadn’t known we were truly allowed to love again.

  “Tristan,” she said. “He makes you happy?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “And that scares you?”

  I nodded once more.

  She grinned. “Ah, then that means you’re doing it right.”

  “Doing what right?”

  “Falling in love.”

  “It’s too soon…” I said, my voice shaky.

  “Says who?”

  “I don’t know. Society? What’s the amount of time you’re supposed to have before starting to fall in love again?”

  “People say a lot of things and give you all kinds of unwanted advice and tips on how to mourn. They tell you not to date for years, to let time pass, but that’s the thing with love—time doesn’t exist with it. The only thing love counts is the heartbeats. If you love him, don’t get in your own way. Just allow yourself to feel again.”

  “There’s something that I have to tell him. Something terrible, and I think I’ll lose him.”

  She frowned. “Whatever it is, he’ll understand if he cares for you the way you care for him.”

  “Mama.” Tears fell from my eyes, and I stared into the eyes that mirrored mine. “I thought I lost you forever.”

  “I’m sorry I left, baby.”

  I pulled her into a hug. “It doesn’t matter. You came back.”

  Tristan drove us home from the wedding after I had one too many glasses of wine, and Emma passed out in her car seat as soon as we left. We didn’t speak to one another, but so much was said when my hand, which had been alone for so long, tangled with Tristan’s fingers.

  My eyes couldn’t move away from staring at our touch. I lifted our hold up and lightly placed my lips against his hand. How could I tell him about Steven and the accident?

  How do I begin to say goodbye?

  He glanced over to me and gave me his half smile. “You’re drunk?”

  “A little.”

  “You’re happy?” he asked.

  “A lot.”

  “Thank you for inviting me. I think my feet are a bit bruised from Emma stepping on my feet so much, but I loved it.”

  “She’s crazy about you,” I said, staring at his lips.

  His eyes studied the darkened road as he replied, “I adore her.”

  Oh my heart. It stopped. Or sped up. Maybe both all at once.

  I kissed his hand once more. My fingers traced every line that wound across his palm.

  When we pulled up in front of my house, Tristan lifted Emma from her car seat and carried her to her bedroom. As he laid her down, I stood in the doorway watching. He took off her shoes and placed them at the foot of her bed.

  “I should probably head home,” he said, walking toward me.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  He smiled. “Thanks again for tonight. It was great.” He placed a small kiss on my forehead and stepped past me to leave. “Goodnight, Lizzie.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t go. Stay tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Stay with me.”

 
He lowered his eyebrows. “You’re drunk.”

  “A little.”

  “But you want me to stay?”

  “A lot.”

  His fingers wrapped around my lower back, and he pulled me closer to his body. “If I stayed, I would want to hold you until the morning, and I know that scares you.”

  “A lot of things scare me. A lot of things completely terrify me, but being held by you isn’t one of them anymore.”

  My mouth parted as he traced my bottom lip with his finger. He softly lifted my chin up so he could kiss me slowly and gently. “I adore you,” he whispered against my lips.

  “I adore you,” I replied.

  His fingers rested on my chest, and he felt my heartbeats. I placed my hands over his chest, feeling his. “I like this,” he whispered against my lips.

  “I like this too,” I replied.

  His eyes dilated, and he breathed me in. I breathed him in too, becoming slightly addicted to his entire being. He smelled like the wind that pushed through the most beautiful pine trees in the forest: refreshing, comforting, peaceful. Like home. It had been so long since I had felt like I was home.

  We took in each other’s breaths, silently begging for a little bit more. We headed to my bedroom, where our clothes fell off and our lips came together.

  “Everyone in town thinks this is wrong. Everyone thinks we are a ticking time bomb set to explode any second,” I explained. “And I am completely positive that I’m going to somehow manage to mess this up. Then everyone will say, ‘I told you so.’”

  “For a second let’s pretend that they are right. Let’s pretend that at the end of this, we don’t end up happy.” He sighed against my skin, his lips rolling over my bare stomach. “But as long as air moves in and out of my lungs,”—his tongue danced against the edge of my panties—“as long as I breathe, I will fight for you. I will fight for us.”

  33

  Elizabeth

  I fell in love with the idea of him first. I fell in love with the idea of a man who could someday make me laugh, smile, and cry all at once. I fell in love with the idea of him loving me for my brokenness, for my pained heart. I fell in love with the idea of his kisses, his touch, his warmth.

  And then, one chilly morning, I walked onto my front porch with a steaming coffee mug in my hand. He was lying in the snow-covered grass, making snow angels and looking up at the clouds with Emma beside him. They fought all the time, but in the silliest of ways. That morning, they were arguing about what animal they saw. Tristan saw a giraffe cloud, while Emma swore it was a penguin, so after a while, he pretended to see the penguin too.

  Emma’s lips spread into a grin, and the two grew silent as they moved their legs and arms to perfect their snow angels.

  It was in that silence that I knew. I loved him. I loved him so, so much. It wasn’t a dream anymore, nor was it the simple idea of loving him.

  It was real.

  It was true.

  He was love.

  He made me smile. He made me happy. He made me laugh in a world that was determined to make me cry.

  Tears formed in my eyes, and I tried to understand how—how could it be that I was allowed to love such a man who also loved me?

  It was such a special feeling to love and be loved in return. To find a man who not only loved you, but cherished the best part of you—your baby girl. I was blessed more than words could ever say.

  Emma and I loved Tristan completely, and he loved us the same. Maybe he loved our scars the most. Maybe the truest form of love grew from the deepest kinds of pain.

  It was funny how everything came to be. We first lied to one another, using each other to hold on to the past, and then we accidentally fell in love.

  I knew I had to tell him about the accident. I knew I had to let him know, but I couldn’t that morning. That morning, I needed him to know one thing and one thing only.

  The two stood up from the grass. Emma hurried into the house for breakfast, and I stayed on the porch, leaning against the railing with a smile that was crafted just for Tristan. His hands were stuffed into his jeans, and he had a few grass clippings clinging to his shirt and his damp hair. I was certain Emma had thrown the grass at him. As his foot hit the top step, he kept smiling my way and walked past me to enter the house.

  “I love you,” I said.

  He turned to me and smiled even wider.

  Because he already knew.

  34

  Elizabeth

  Late one night, I stood in my closet, staring at all of Steven’s clothes. Inhaling deeply, I began to take them all off the hangers. I removed everything from the dressers. I took everything out of the drawers.

  Exhaling slowly, I boxed them up to give away.

  Next, I moved to my bed, and I turned my sheets down.

  I was ready to fully let Tristan into my life, and I knew that meant I had to start letting go of Steven. In order to truly begin to move on, I knew I had to tell Tristan about the accident. He deserved to know, and needed to know. If he truly meant the words he spoke about fighting for me—for us—then no matter what, we would be okay.

  At least that was what I hoped. Yet a large part of me knew we wouldn’t have been okay after this. Our ticking time bomb was growing louder each day.

  “We need to talk,” I said to Tristan as we stood on my porch. “About when Tanner came over before the wedding.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Tristan asked. His hand brushed against my cheek, and he stepped into the foyer of the house, close to me. I stepped back. “What did he say?”

  The words were on the tip of my tongue, right there, but I knew if I told him, those small touches would leave me forever. My lips parted to try to make him understand, but I knew if I told him what Tanner had found, I would lose him. I wasn’t ready to let go of the dream we’d been dreaming.

  “Baby… Why are you crying?” he asked. I hadn’t even noticed the tears falling against my cheeks. More tears began to form in my eyes, and he stepped closer to me. “Lizzie, what’s wrong?”

  I shook my head back and forth. “Nothing, nothing. Do you think… Will you just hold me for a few minutes?”

  His arms wrapped around my body, and he held me tight. I breathed in his scent, almost certain that if I told him the truth—which I knew I had to do—I would lose that moment. I wouldn’t be held by him anymore, I wouldn’t be touched by him, I wouldn’t be loved by him. Tristan’s fingers slowly started rubbing my back in a circular motion as I pulled him closer, trying to hold onto something I felt as if I’d already lost.

  “You know you can trust me, right? You know you can always tell me anything. I’m always here for you,” he swore.

  Pulling away from him, I gave him a tight smile. “I just need rest, that’s all.”

  “Then let’s go to bed.” He nodded, slowly placing his hand on my lower back to guide me to my bedroom.

  “I mean alone. I just need a night by myself.”

  The disappointment swimming in his stormy eyes broke my heart, but he gave me a sad grin. “Yeah, of course.”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” I promised. “I’ll stop by Mr. Henson’s shop.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Sounds like a plan.” He apprehensively rubbed the back of his neck. “Are we okay?” he whispered, his nerves loud and clear in his tone. I nodded once. He wrapped his hands around my head and rested his lips against my forehead. “I love you, Lizzie.”

  “I love you too,” I replied.

  He flinched. “Then why does it feel like we’re saying goodbye?”

  Because I think we are.

  35

  Tristan

  April 6th, 2014.

  One Day Until Goodbye.

  “I’m dead,” I whispered to myself, staring into the bathroom mirror. The pint of whiskey sat emptied on the counter, the orange pill bottle lay on its side, and my vision blurred. I could hear my parents outside the bathroom, talking about last minute details for the day, the plans for the service, a
nd our transportation from the church to the cemetery.

  “I’m dead,” I repeated. My tie hung around my neck, waiting to be tied. I blinked once, and when I opened my eyes Jamie was standing in front of me, tying my tie.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” she whispered, as water filled my eyes. I lifted my hand and ran it against her soft cheek. “Why are you falling apart?”

  “I’m dead, Jamie, I’m dead,” I sobbed, unable to control my howls. “I want this to be over. I want this to stop. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “Shh,” she whispered, placing her lips near my ear. “Baby, I need you to breathe. It’s okay.”

  “Nothing’s okay. Nothing’s okay.”

  I heard pounding on the bathroom door. “Tristan! It’s Dad. Son, let me in.”

  I couldn’t, though. I was dead. I was dead.

  Jamie looked down at the sink and picked up the emptied pill bottle and whiskey pint. “Baby, what did you do?” My back slid down the wall and I sat against the tub, sobbing. Jamie rushed over to me. “Tris, you have to throw up now.”

  “I can’t… I can’t…” My hands covered my face, everything a blur. My mind was playing tricks on me. I was fading. I could feel myself fading.

  “Baby, think of Charlie. He wouldn’t want you like this. Come on.” She moved me to the toilet. “Don’t do this, Tris.”

  I started to throw up. Everything inside me burned, and when the whiskey and pills rose up from my stomach, my throat was set on fire.

  I fell back against the wall once I finished. My eyes opened, and Jamie was gone—she had never been there to begin with. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, running my hands through my hair. What was I going to do? How was I going to survive?

  “Tristan, please, let us know you’re okay!” Mom and Dad shouted from outside.