All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4)

by Melyssa Winchester

  It’s one of strength.

  I’m definitely not the same person I was a year ago and as the smile creeps across my face, I realize that I’m happy I’m not that person anymore.

  I like this version much better.

  Kayden

  I’ve been back from my failed expedition for a few hours now and despite the way I was when I woke up, ever since the text from Belle, I’ve felt pretty good.

  Even working out with Dillon, running drills up and down in the stands can’t break me out of it. It’s something that even with the sweat pouring down my body and the exhaustion setting in, can’t wipe the contented smile from my face.

  Something he easily catches on to when we finally give our bodies a break and drop our asses down onto the bench.

  “That took forever!”

  “Huh?”

  “Three days I’ve been watching your morose ass stumble all over campus. We’re out here sweating our balls off and now you’re smiling. It’s a fucking miracle.”

  “That’s a big dramatic don’t ya think?”

  “Nope. You obviously didn’t see yourself. I swear I walked into an episode of The Walking Dead with the way you’ve been slumping along.”

  “You’re as bad as Belle.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The Walking Dead? Really, Dill? That’s the best play on my name you can come up with?”

  It takes him a few minutes, but when he finally clues in, he laughs, which only makes me do the same. Even if he wasn’t attempting to make a joke referring to me as a walker, there’s no doubt that what he said reminds me of Belle. I’m starting to think they’re a lot more alike than I thought. Same weird sense of humor.

  On Belle it’s just cute, having Dillon do it though, it’s fucking strange.

  “So, what’s with the mood change?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Belle.” We answer simultaneously and immediately laugh about.

  “Whatever she did, remind me to thank her. Seriously, the way you’ve been the last few days, it was scary. It was like freshman year all over again.”

  Dillon bringing up freshman year with the way I know he feels about it, is pretty big. It’s when we met each other, but it was also when I was at my worst. If I thought the darkness I felt sitting outside the motel room earlier was bad, it was nothing compared to the shit I was carrying around back then. I hate that the way I was even compares at all to that time.

  We were the kings of the damn school, yet the two sorriest sons of bitches alive. Not a good combination.

  “Well, it’s over. She fixed it.”

  “She always fixes it.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  “You hear anything more about the transfer?”

  “Not yet, but you sure you wanna come with? If you keep running these drills every day and busting ass on the field, you’re gonna nail QB pretty quick. How sure are you that you wanna walk away from that?”

  Football is Dillon’s entire existence. He eats, sleeps and breathes the sport. It’s been the only relief he’s had with everything else he was put through.

  With as hard as he goes at it, how intense he is, walking away and heading back to Wexfield with me seems like a huge mistake. With the way he’s been changing over the last few months, I would think making a mistake that big would be the last thing he’d do.

  “Wexfield has a team and it might even be easier to nail QB there then it is here. I mean have you seen Mac lately? He’s even more determined than I am to nail the position once Wayne graduates.”

  “Mac is good, but he’s no Dillon Murphy.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” He laughs before turning serious again and releasing a loud sigh. “I’m sure about going back man. It’s the right thing. Any second thoughts on your end?”

  “Hell no. If I had my way, I wouldn’t have come home at all three days ago. This transfer can’t go through fast enough.”

  He nods his head and leans over, but before I can question why, he pulls his phone out from under the towel he threw down when we sat and he’s completely zoned out and typing away, no doubt answering his girlfriend.

  The one thing I should have done after I got the text earlier.

  With the way I was feeling at the time, the tortured place my head was, the last thing I wanted to do was send her a text and make her worry.

  Worrying is my job.

  “Hey man, I hate to bail on you in the middle of this shit, but I need to go help someone with something.”

  “Does this someone happen to be Caddy? I smirk and he rolls his eyes before sticking his tongue out at me and laughing.

  “No, it’s not Caddy. It’s a new friend. Wanna meet up and run it again later?”

  “Yeah sure. Once I get through class in an hour, meet me back at the room and we’ll hit the gym too. With the game coming up next week, I wanna be sure I’m ready for it since it’s probably gonna be my last.”

  Nodding his acceptance, Dillon picks up the towel and slings it around his neck before turning and heading off in the opposite direction of the way we came. The way that will lead him out and around to the parking lot and his car.

  With him gone, there’s only one other thing I gotta do now. It’s time to answer my girlfriend back before I head into my last class. After everything she did for me earlier to break me of the mood I was in, there’s no way I wanna go another second without letting her know how much it meant.

  How much she means and just how badly I want to see her again.

  Belle

  I’ll meet you at the house in a couple hours. Leaving now.

  Belle, thank you. You have no idea how much I needed that text. I can’t wait to see you this weekend. I love you to the moon and back baby. I’ll see you later for our FaceTime date. <3

  Two texts from two different guys but both of them meaning a whole lot to me.

  Of course Kayden’s text means the most because it’s another chance to see my tough guy showing his softer side, but there’s no discounting that it means a whole lot seeing Dillon’s response too.

  When I decided I wanted to do this earlier, I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to be able to make it work out the way I saw it in my head, but as I’m starting to learn, Dillon is full of surprises.

  Kayden wasn’t wrong in what he said a few weeks ago. It’s weird reaching out to the guy I believed at one time to be the devil. I can easily remember the way he looked at me that day at school when he tried to apologize. At the time it was all a game. He wanted me to feel sympathy toward him in order to do what he did at homecoming, but at the time I’d believed it.

  The thing is, even if it was all a plan to do something horrible to me, there was some realism in it. Dillon wanted to be different, he was just hardheaded and needed it slammed into him by a hurricane known as Cadence and with what he’s about to do for me now, I’m thankful she did.

  After what happened with Bryan, I’ve been thinking about how it felt doing something so unlike me. Standing on my own two feet against someone that easily frightened me.

  It was in that moment that I saw what being with Kayden has done for me. His support and not seeing my diagnosis as something bad, it’s enabled the strength that I’ve always had to shine and make me into something better than I was.

  Something more, not less.

  The high that I got standing up to Isaac’s bully, the guy that spends the majority of his time making comments about me that are much better left unsaid, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced and I want more of it.

  This is my attempt at making that happen.

  I’m about to go to Toronto for the first time since I was a kid and Dillon’s going to help me do it. It’s not just about conquering my fears. It’s about surprising Kayden too. Bringing what I asked him to do earlier to life the only way I can.

  Opening each messaging screen separately and letting my fingers work their magic with relative ease, I smile o
nce they’re both sent and I’m putting my phone back in my pocket.

  Drive safely please.

  I might be a little late for our FaceTime date but I’ll explain everything, I promise. Can’t wait to see you. <3

  In four hours I’m gonna give Kayden Walker the one thing he’s been needing for the last three days.

  Me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kayden

  Despite the way I was with Dillon before he took off and the way I’ve been since Belle sent me the text earlier, there’s still an unease inside me and with the text she sent me back, the one I’m finally able to see now I’m out of class, it makes the uneasiness grow.

  There’s always been one constant with us. When we’re not together in Wexfield, we’re texting, calling or facetiming with each other. Even though I’ve been late a few times because of run overs in practice or getting caught up with Dillon and the other guys, she never has.

  Saying she’ll explain should calm the questions running through my mind, but it doesn’t and it doesn’t take a genius to understand why that is.

  With everything I’ve learned over the last few days and what I spent hours watching earlier outside the motel room, it’s got me all tied up in knots. I’m questioning things that I never would have before. I’m doubting myself and the people around me because nothing feels solid anymore.

  After pacing around the room for hours, my attempt at walking it out of my system a total failure, I finally throw myself down on the bed and attempt to sleep it away.

  Belle is the last person I have to worry about. So she can’t show up on time for our call, it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong or that she’s doing something she shouldn’t be. The problem is, even knowing all of this, all I can see is her holding Isaac’s hand and hugging him and it sets what’s already upset off.

  Could there be more there despite her telling me otherwise? Is she starting to finally see what I’ve been trying to tell her from the beginning? That she deserves so much better than me? Am I just sitting here like a chump while she’s off doing god knows what with a guy that can give her everything I can’t?

  Knock it off asshole. Belle loves you.

  She does love me. I know that’s right, but I can’t help it. The quiet and not having Dillon in the room to distract me, along with how strange it is having her bail on a call that we always look forward to, it’s too much to ignore. If I don’t close my mind off from all of this soon, I’m gonna lose my mind.

  Closing my eyes, finally breaking the intense stare down that I’ve had for the last twenty minutes with the ceiling, I think about the one thing that I always use to get me through moments when I feel like this.

  Our anniversary.

  Nothing about that day is clear in my head. I know where I want to end it, but getting to that point, I haven’t pieced it together yet.

  I want to put it together. As much fun as it would be to just do something unplanned and take the entire day as it comes, I know I can’t do that with Belle. I need to put together a plan. One that will connect her heart even more to mine.

  It’s not common knowledge, but whenever I was really bored, especially on the nights when Dean used to throw his parties, I would sit back and watch a lot of movies, sometimes resorting to chick flicks just to pass the time. It was in one of these movies that I saw something kind of cool.

  There was a guy and a girl who spent the majority of their lives as best friends. Over the years he would keep mementos from their time together. Stashing them away in a shoe box that he buried deep in the back of his closet, too embarrassed to let everyone know the way he truly felt about the girl the rest of the world saw as his friend.

  After being separated for years, one day he wakes up and decides that it’s not the way he wants his life to be and runs off in search of her. He takes the shoebox of memories and when he finally finds her, despite knowing that she might have moved on with her life, he hands it over and lays his heart on the line, proving with each word he says how much he loves her.

  It’s only when she’s been through the entire box and turns to face him, her eyes filled with tears that she says the words he’s spent the last ten years dying to hear.

  She loves him too.

  I don’t know why the fuck that movie is coming back to me now, but with as clearly as I can see it all in my mind, I know that it’s exactly what I’ve got to do. It’s the perfect thing for us because just like that guy, I’ve been keeping things from her too.

  Writing to her in the beginning, page after page filled with emoticons and words that cut deep into my soul, I never wanted to lose it. At the time, I never understood why keeping the papers was so important to me, but remembering that movie now makes the reason for it clear.

  She doesn’t know I kept them. It’s something that after the year we’ve had, I finally want her to know.

  Yes. This is perfect. I know what I have to do.

  Sitting up and making my way over to Dillon’s side of the room where I stored a lot of my old binders when I brought them with me months ago, I slide open the drawer and pull out the one with the big block lettering of my name scrawled across it.

  Opening it up and seeing what I’m looking for right at the beginning, I smile. Stage one in creating the perfect anniversary is complete the minute my eyes land on the pages and more importantly on the first happy face she ever wrote me.

  Just like it did a year ago, all the doubts I’ve been letting run through my mind start breaking up and fading away, until all that’s left is the very real and sometimes overpowering love I have for the special girl that lived across the street.

  The special girl that now lives with me, both physically and in my heart.

  It really is true what I said to her. Despite the way I’ve been feeling since Dillon took off, even the way I was feeling before that, the rest of the world could crash and burn around me and as long as I have her, I have everything I need.

  Now all I need to do is make her see it too.

  Belle

  I can’t believe this is happening.

  I’m actually standing here, my hands gripping tightly onto the side mirror of Dillon’s car, my feet frozen in place despite my minds attempt at willing them forward.

  The University of Toronto. Kayden’s school. A place that just like I knew it would be, is larger than life, just like the megacity it resides in.

  When we finally left Wexfield and jumped on the highway that would bring us here, the panic inside of me was at an all-time high and even though he hasn’t spent a whole lot of time around it, I knew Dillon could sense it.

  My body would shake at the most random times, tears would slide down my face even though I wasn’t crying and there was no sound coming with them. He looked over at me a few times, obviously taking in my reaction, but for the longest time never said a word, just focused on driving.

  It’s only after about an hour in, when my knuckles had gone completely white with the death grip I had on the handle of the door that he broke the silence and attempted to understand what he was witnessing.

  ~*~*~

  “Belle, I’ve tried ignoring it, but I don’t think I can anymore. Are you okay?”

  “Y—Yeah.”

  “Not very convincing. Wanna try again?”

  He’s giving me a chance to be honest with him. The problem is, this is all internal and no amount of talking will make it okay.

  The amount of buildings alone that we’re passing; the malls, the excessive amount of lights and cars moving around us, it’s too much to take. My mind is running a million miles a second and no amount of controlled breathing or redirecting my thoughts can help. If I can’t calm myself, there’s no way he’s going to be able to do it by getting me to open up.

  “It’s too much.”

  “What is?”

  “Lights, cars, movement. Buildings, smells, people.”

  He nods and I swear there’s something in his expression that makes me think he really
does understand. Considering that he hasn’t spent a whole lot of time around me when I’m in the middle of a meltdown, or experiencing overload at all, there’s really no way he could.

  “Kayden told me something last year.” He pauses for a second, his face scrunching up as he frowns. “About you and how you handle things.”

  His look of understanding makes sense, but I’m not sure how I feel about Kayden opening up to him, especially since this time last year they weren’t even speaking to each other.

  “I’ll be—okay.” I choke out, wanting him to believe in it even if I don’t. This bright idea of mine, no matter how bad I feel, I need to see it through. I need to do it for me and for Kayden.

  After everything we’ve been through the last few days, I can’t spend even more time apart from him. It would hurt too much. I don’t want to let him down and not being where he is, it’s exactly what it would do.

  “It’s okay if you’re not. What you’re doing, it’s pretty fucking big.”

  He doesn’t need to tell me that. I already know how big this is. I went from standing up to a bully to texting him for help and now I’m sitting in a car, about to put myself through a sensory situation I just know is going to break me. It doesn’t get any bigger than this.

  “I know.”

  “Do you need me to pull over somewhere? We can get out and walk around some place quiet, without all the lights and maybe clear your head?”

  I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Despite being friends, seeing something in him that I know a lot of people are still having issues seeing, the way he’s acting right now is shocking to me. This is definitely not what I expected to hear from Dillon.

  “No thank you. It’s hard but I need to get there. I need to get to Kayden.”

  “He’s gonna lose it when he sees you.”

  This gets me to do something I haven’t done for hours. I smile and when he catches me doing it, he laughs under his breath.