Written With You

by Martinez, Aly

  God. Willow.

  I was pissed. I was hurt. I was bitter.

  But every single one of those emotions was mine.

  Yes, it was my job to protect Rosalee. But what was this protecting her from? Glitter? Smiles? A piece of her family that was nearly extinct?

  Willow had wronged me.

  Me.

  But she’d never once done anything but the best for Rosalee.

  “Please, Daddy,” she repeated.

  I sucked in a deep breath and looked down at my baby—who was no longer a baby—as tears dripped down her cheeks.

  When a man did stupid shit, it could usually be traced back to one of three things: a woman, alcohol, or his kid.

  As it turned out, this one was two out of the three.

  WILLOW

  “I’m coming!” I yelled, walking to my front door as my bell rang for the third time in less than ten seconds.

  It was probably Jerry dropping off his recycling again. Apparently, his son had started bringing his recycling to his father’s house so he too could use the magical recycling bin. I was all for helping the environment, but this was getting ridiculous.

  I ground my teeth when the bell rang again just as I hit the foyer.

  I will not cuss out an elderly man.

  I will not cuss out an elderly man.

  I snatched the door open and my heart came to a screeching halt as I took in Caven standing on the other side, sporting the world’s darkest glower.

  But the little girl standing at his side was what ripped the breath from my lungs.

  “Hadley, guess what?” Rosalee exclaimed. “Your name is Willow and you were my mommy’s sister. You look just like her because you were twins! Isn’t that cool?”

  I sucked in my lips, biting them as I tried and failed to hold the emotion back. Tears sprang to my eyes, and my chest clamped down until I feared that my ribs were going to break.

  He’d told her.

  He’d told her and they were standing on my front porch.

  Both of them.

  And while my whole body ached at the sight of Caven Hunt, I didn’t give the first damn that his eyes were boring into me with a contempt that would have made Ian proud.

  He’d brought her. Knowing everything. He’d brought her.

  “Hey, Rosie,” I managed to choke out, dropping into a squat.

  She wasted exactly zero seconds before throwing her arms around my neck and squeezing tight.

  I was going to die. That was all there was to it. I was going to burst into tears and cry until there was no moisture left in my body and then I was going to die from dehydration.

  With her red waves tickling my nose, it was a hell of a way to go.

  She leaned away. “Daddy said we can only stay if you aren’t busy. Please don’t be busy.”

  Oh, God, they were staying. I slanted my head back to look up at Caven, but he had his hands shoved inside the pockets of a pair of khaki shorts and was blankly staring at the brick exterior of my house.

  Every instinct I had told me to dive into his arms, but every instinct I had had been wrong more than once recently.

  Instead, I looked back to Rosalee and croaked, “I am actually free every day for the next twenty years.”

  “What do you have to do in twenty years?”

  I shrugged. “Probably get dentures since I didn’t go to the dentist for two decades. But it’ll be worth it. Come on in.”

  She did not need a second invitation. I’d barely risen to my full height before she’d squeezed past me.

  “Oooo, your house is pretty!”

  “Thanks,” I called over my shoulder, unable to tear my eyes away from her father.

  The hum I felt when I was with Caven was as present as ever, but when his steely gaze finally came to mine, it was my nerves that buzzed the loudest.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “Don’t thank me,” he said tersely. “I didn’t do this for you. It’s Wednesday and she wanted to see you. I told her about Hadley. I told her about you lying. But I haven’t mentioned anything else about our past together. I’d appreciate it if you would do the same.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Of course.”

  His face remained hard and stoic. It was the angry man from her birthday party who could barely look me in the eye, not the man who’d held me and kissed me and made love to me.

  I’d come to terms that that man was gone forever.

  But this was agony all the same.

  “I gave you Mondays as a part of the deal for the painting,” he continued, gruff and to the point. “I’m a businessman. I’ll keep my word. Pick another day of the week that suits your schedule and I’ll bring her over for you to teach her art. I don’t want you at my house. I don’t want you texting me. I don’t actually want anything to do with you. But she does. And despite your absolutely asinine stunt over the last four months, I love my daughter. So here we are. No need to thank me. No need to even acknowledge that I’m here at all because I assure you I wish like hell that I wasn’t.”

  And with that, he followed his daughter into my house, sliding past me without so much as an excuse me.

  Half of my heart was singing grand hymns of praise.

  The other half was withering into nothingness.

  This wasn’t about Caven. It wasn’t about the way I longed to curl into the safety of his arms. It wasn’t about the way I missed his smile or his tender touches.

  I’d gotten what I’d wanted: time with Rosalee. And while I was grateful beyond all measure for his generosity, two days a week with Caven sounded like absolute torture.

  But, for her, there was nothing I wouldn’t endure.

  Closing the door, I squared my shoulders, pasted on a halfway-real smile, and said, “At my house, we paint, Rosalee. Fingernails, toenails, pictures, and all.”

  She let out a loud squeal that immediately transformed that halfway-real smile into something so genuine that I felt it in my bones.

  This was enough.

  This would always be enough.

  “That’s me!” Rosie exclaimed as I walked her into my spare bedroom studio—Caven only one step behind us. “Daddy, you used to have that picture in your room.”

  Used to. I didn’t know that my stomach could sink any lower. I’d wondered if he’d kept it. Clearly, he had not, and I had no idea why that hurt as much as it did. I should have been immune to the pain by that point. But not when it came to Caven.

  He grinned down at her. “Yep.” When his head lifted, the grin was gone and he avoided my gaze by retrieving his phone from his pocket and propping his shoulder against the wall.

  Right.

  He didn’t want to be there. He’d only come for Rosalee.

  I walked over to the shelves lined with tubes of paint and grabbed two pinks, a white, and three purples—the palette of princesses everywhere. “So, what are we painting first?”

  “A flower like my mommy.”

  I froze and, without moving my head, shifted my eyes to Caven. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but I was even more unsure of what I was allowed to say to her in regard to Hadley.

  Caven looked at his daughter, his face so soft and so gentle that I was jealous of its warmth. “When people die, they don’t really turn into flowers, baby.”

  “But they get planted in the ground, right?”

  He took a step in her direction and used his large hand to smooth the top of her hair down. “Kinda, but it’s called being buried, not planted.”

  I held my breath as I listened to them discuss Hadley. In some way, it felt strange to talk about her. In other ways, it felt liberating. She wasn’t a dirty little secret anymore. Hadley and I had more issues than I could list. But she was my sister. And I missed her.

  “Oh! What kind of berry?” She looked at me. “Is she a strawberry? We picked strawberries one time.”

  God, I loved that kid. I bit my bottom lip to stifle a laugh.

  “Buuuuur
ied, Rosie. Not berry.” His gaze finally lifted to mine. Just like the grin, his warmth was gone. “Maybe, instead of painting, Willow could show you pictures of your mommy when she was alive.”

  My lungs seized, and my eyes flashed wide. I’d never dared to dream of a day where I could break out the old photo album with Rosalee. I had a million stories I wanted to share with her about Hadley. From both before and after the shooting. And thanks to Caven, no matter how much he hated me, I now had the chance.

  “I can do that,” I breathed. “I have lots of pictures of her.”

  “Can I see? Can I see?” Rosalee begged.

  “Absolutely,” I replied, setting the paint down. “I’ll be right back.”

  I rushed from the room, pausing as I passed Caven.

  He turned to stone when I wrapped my hand around the feathers on his forearm. His eyes flicked from my hand to my face, his jaw getting harder by the second. He already hated me though, so I had nothing to lose.

  I kept my voice low so Rosalee couldn’t hear me—and also to keep from revealing the tremble of emotion. “I don’t care if you did this for me or not. She looks like my mom. Laughs like my dad. And argues like her mother. For however long you stay tonight, and any night in the future, my family will be alive again. This is truly the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. And I will never stop thanking you for that, regardless if you want me to or not.”

  I didn’t wait for a response. I simply released his arm and walked away.

  But I did it with a huge smile on my face for the first time in over a week.

  WILLOW

  “What the hell?” Caven rumbled as he finally looked up from his phone. He was precariously perched on the edge of my bed, a far cry from the last time he’d been in that room—when he’d been naked and sprawled out beside me.

  For three weeks, Caven had kept his word. He brought Rosalee over to my house every Monday and Thursday—the day I’d picked to spread out her visits, never wanting to go too long with seeing her. He always stayed within arm’s reach, sitting at the end of my table as we rolled vases in glitter or hovering in my new studio once it’d been finished as we painted a unicorn mural on the wall.

  He didn’t look at me or speak to me if he could avoid it. He didn’t even crack a smile when Rosalee and I were giggling ourselves sick.

  From what I could tell, hate from Caven Hunt only came in one form, because he was right back to treating me like he had the day I’d arrived as a total stranger at his house for Rosalee’s first art class.

  He didn’t trust me. I got it. I deserved that. And as long as he kept bringing her back, I was willing to accept it.

  But it was getting worse. His hate for me was growing instead of fading. It had only been three weeks; I didn’t expect him to be my best friend or anything. But he never missed the opportunity to throw out a snide remark even if it was mumbled under his breath. He’d bitten my head off when they’d arrived an hour earlier because I’d prepped slime for our nightly craft. Apparently, they were going to dinner afterward and he didn’t want her to get messy. I’d offered to give her one of my T-shirts to cover her clothes, but he leaned in close, his nose nearly brushing mine—and not in a good way even though my nipples reacted all the same—and seethed, “This is a privilege I’m letting you have. Pick another project or we’re leaving.”

  I enjoyed taking his shit about as much as I would have enjoyed a root canal, but I had no leg to stand on. So I’d packed the slime away and instead broke out the photo albums. Not surprisingly, Caven sat on the other side of Rosalee on the couch, busy with his phone and ignoring my existence as I showed her more pictures of Hadley.

  Looking at pictures was her favorite thing to do when she came over. And not just pictures of Hadley. She wanted to see pictures of me and my parents too. I thought Caven was going to have a nervous breakdown the day I told her that they were in heaven with her mommy. Of course, he’d been able to mask his emotions from Rosalee, but I’d seen the straining of the muscles at his neck and the sweat beading on his forehead. He’d said nothing though. He’d actually looked me in the eye for a second, making me feel like we were rebuilding a semblance of trust when I’d managed to redirect her interrogation about how my parents had died by showing her an old home video. I regretted it immediately, because the moment my mother appeared on the screen, Caven stood up and stormed outside. It was the one and only time he’d left me alone with her.

  I’d started to go after him but that wasn’t a demon I could beat back. At least not for him. I would have only made it worse. The memories. The guilt. The pain. While Caven’s presence made me feel safe and calmed my ever-brewing anxieties, Willow did not do the same for him.

  To Caven, I represented the past.

  I was Willow, the little girl from the mall.

  He was always on edge when he was around me. His jaw hard, his lips tight, and he fidgeted like it was either that or tear out of his own skin. He didn’t want my reassurances and not just because he was pissed that I’d lied. He saw me in a different light now, which was almost worse than being Hadley the Terrible in his eyes.

  He hated her.

  But the sight of me wrecked him.

  Which, in turn, wrecked me too.

  But just like he’d said the night he’d brought her over, these visits were about Rosalee. And while Caven and I were dancing the world’s most awkward tango, young as she might have been, Rosalee was thirsty for knowledge about the Banks family.

  She had her favorite pictures of Hadley that she insisted I show her every time she came over. One was a photo that my mother had taken when Hadley had been jumping rope as a kid. Her mouth was so wide that the laughter was almost visible. Rosalee’s other favorite was one of me and Hadley together. We were fifteen, and it was April Fool’s Day at school, so we’d broken our rule of individuality and dressed exactly the same to confuse people. The irony was not lost on me or Caven. He’d cussed under his breath the day Rosalee had shoved that picture in his face, exclaiming, “Look! They are exactly the same!”

  It was that same picture that was about to get me in trouble. Again.

  “Can I get a word with you?” Caven flicked his gaze at Rosalee, sitting on a stool in front of my bathroom mirror, then back to me. “In private.”

  I flashed a pair of wide eyes at her in the bathroom mirror, unplugged the flat iron, and tucked it under the sink before leaving the room. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

  We met in the hallway, where he quietly closed my bedroom door.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I pursed my lips to the side. “Her hair and makeup?”

  “You said lip gloss and hair?”

  I rubbed my chin, pretending to be deep in thought. “Okay, you got me. It was tinted Chapstick.”

  “I’m talking about her hair, Willow.”

  He didn’t say my name often, but each time, no matter how coarse or how short tempered, it caused a chill down my spine.

  “What about her hair?” I asked, genuinely confused.

  “It’s straight. Why is it straight? Her hair is curly.”

  “Right. But she asked if I could do her hair like Hadley’s and you said yes. So I’m doing her hair like Hadley’s. I’m not completely sure where the problem lies?”

  “Hadley’s hair wasn’t straight.”

  I arched an incredulous eyebrow. “No. But she always wore it that way. Rosalee showed you the picture of us when she asked if I could do her hair.”

  His jaw ticked as he cut his gaze down the hall. “I didn’t inspect the damn picture. Her hair was full of thick waves the night I met her. I just figured—”

  Confusion hit me like a Mack truck. “What? That’s impossible. She hated when it looked like mine.”

  He leaned in close. “You want to know something I’ve learned recently? Nothing is impossible when it comes to you and your sister. Stalking me down. Stealing my shit. Fucking me as a distraction. Leaving babies on doorsteps. Screwing with pe
ople’s heads. Pretending to be someone you are not. The list goes on and on. Don’t talk to me about impossibility, Willow. My entire life is currently an impossibility.”

  Okay. Whoa.

  I shouldn’t have said it. I was toeing the line. His line. But damn, I was sick of keeping my mouth shut for the sake of not making waves. I wasn’t Rosalee’s mother, but he was allowing me to be a part of her life. We hadn’t talked about long-term. We hadn’t actually talked about anything past Mondays and Thursdays. But he was coming to my house twice a week and something had to give.

  Snaking a hand out, I grabbed his forearm. “You know what? I was willing to accept all of your hate when you thought I was Hadley. She deserved that. But now that you know I’m Willow, you are not allowed to throw in my face the things she did. I couldn’t control my sister any more than you could control your father.”

  His eyes flashed wide, and I knew I’d cut him deep, but it had to be said.

  “I am sorry, okay?” I continued. “I can’t say that enough. What I did was wrong. But I did it for the right reasons and you will never be able to convince me otherwise. So, if you want to hate me, go for it. Hate me for me. Hate me because I remind you of that terrible day. Hate me because—”

  He moved fast. His hand went to the back of my neck, his fingers sifting into my hair. I stumbled back and his large body pinned me against the wall. I ignited with need as his head dipped low, his mouth only a breath away.

  “The only reason I hate you is because I can’t figure out how to fucking hate you at all.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath, chills exploding over my skin as his words sank in soft as a feather and sharp as a knife igniting a wildfire of hope inside my hollow chest.

  He didn’t hate me.

  I’d cried myself to sleep more times than I could count, missing him and wishing I could fight for the only man I’d ever wanted, but he was always so stoic and angry. Sure, he’d said that he was falling in love with me, but I’d assumed that my deception had made it just as easy for him to fall out of it.