Safe Harbor (The Lake Trilogy, Book 3) (24 page)

“What are you doing?”  I ask him. Again, he doesn’t answer but continues to re-pack. “Will! What’s going on?” This time, instead of being ignored, I take the jeans out of Will’s hand and throw them on the bed, forcing him to give me his attention.

“I need some time, Layla. I’ve got to sort through everything,” he says. He tries to pull his hands from mine but I hold tight.

“What are you talking about?” I’m more confused now than I ever have been. “What happened to us doing this together? What happened to not running anymore?”

“I’m not running. I’m standing still, trying to figure out where I come from and who I am. I sat in that living room today and listened to a woman tell me that my father served her with divorce papers while she lay in a hospital bed after losing their baby! What kind of a man does that? I have to understand everything about who he was so that I never become him. I’m so scared, Layla. I’m so scared that without knowing it, I’m going to turn into him!”

“
You’re not! You never could! I won’t let you!” I’m trying not to raise my voice. It’s getting late and I don’t want to disturb anyone. “Didn’t you hear
everything
she said? She knew within five minutes of meeting you that you could
never
be like him. Please…please don’t leave me,” I cry.

“C’mere,” Will says, pulling me into his arms. “Shh…it’s ok, it’s ok.
I just…I just need a few days…”

“A few days to do what?” I pull out of what
used to be the safety of Will’s arms.

“Wes gave me a copy of the other exes statements. I’ve got to read them, see if there are
any patterns, behaviors…anything that I can see in myself…”

“Will, you are
nothing
like your father. I’m not worried for a single second that you’re ever going to treat me the way he treated any of his wives!” I can’t believe that Will is entertaining the thought that he could in any way ever be like Gregory Meyer.

“Oh no? What about Halloween? I was filled with rage, Layla!
I was angry with you for siding with him. I could have literally killed Marcus that night!”

“That was different! We both know what Marcus was doing
. He was trying to provoke you,” I say, reminding him of the truth of the event.

“How about the night that Eli showed up?” Will is reaching, searching for any moment he was absolutely perfect to me as some kind of indication of the evil DNA that lives in him.

That’s not the kind of behavior Cheryl described at all! Will, those were
events
, not a description of our life together. Please, Will…” I plead.

“Please, Layla. I have to do this. I’m overjoyed at your confidence in m
e, really, but…I don’t have the same confidence in myself. I’m just going to spend a few days at my parents’ house, so I’ll be close,” he tells me.

“I’ll come with you. We can read the statements together…I can help you
. I know you better than anyone! I can….”

“Layla. No. I have to do this. Alone.”

“Will…”

“I love you. I love you so much that I have to do this. I saw the look of pain in Cheryl’s eyes
when she talked about how my father treated her. I saw that same look in my mother’s eyes for years.” Will pauses and stares his distractingly blue eyes into mine. “I saw the pain in your eyes, the pain
I
caused, that night at Halloween…the night Eli came and I was so mean to you. I never want to see that look in your eyes again, and I’m going to do whatever I have to do to ensure that.”

“
Is there anything I can say to change your mind?” I ask, defeated.

“Just tell me you love me,”
he says softly.

“I love you.”

Will kisses me and I cling to him, hoping in vein that he never stops. When he does, tears start to roll down my face. Will wipes them and kisses my forehead sweetly, and then he grabs his bag and the file folder and walks me silently to the front door.

“I thought you weren’t going to let me close another door behind you again,” I say.

“I promised I would do whatever I had to do to keep you safe. I have to know that you being with me is the safest place for you.” Words are leaving Will’s mouth but I’m still in a daze, not understanding how we ended up here.

“How can you say that?” I feel my face contort from how confused I am.

“Everything is going to work out exactly as it should.” Will kisses me softly and opens the door. He walks through it and down the steps to his car, leaving me to close the door behind him, which I think is completely unfair.

I watch Will drive away and all I can do is cry. When I’ve stood in the doorway, crying out into the emptiness of the night for what feels like
forever, I do the only thing a girl can do.

“Mom!”

*****

I haven’t seen Will fo
r 36 hours. At the 24-hour mark I called Tyler and sent him over to Will’s house. I didn’t care that it was 10:30 at night. Will hadn’t replied to any of my texts or calls and I just couldn’t take not knowing if he was ok or not. At my insistence, Tyler called as soon as he left Will. Apparently they had quite a conversation since it was one in the morning when my phone rang. Tyler said he promised Will he wouldn’t tell me what they talked about, but Tyler also made Will promise that he would tell me everything himself. As much as I wanted to beg Tyler for information I had to respect their brotherhood and trust that Tyler would make sure Will didn’t leave me in the dark for too much longer.

After
Will left and I cried for over an hour on their bed, Claire spent the next hour convincing me that Will would be back before I knew it. That I had to take him at his word and give him the time he’s asked for to sort through everything. After Will disappeared on me, it’s hard for me to let him be so radio silent. I know Will is an internal processing kind of guy, but I can’t stand that he’s cut me out of this all together.

I feel like we’ve come so far that for him to start getting scared now just seems crazy. He’s done nothing but prove to me over and over again how
not
like his father he is. He’s loved and respected me. He’s let me make my own decisions and been there to catch me when I’ve fallen. Will has a heart. He’s compassionate. He thinks of others before himself. He’s more of a man than Gregory Meyer ever was.

Caroline and Gwen walk into the kitchen as I’m putting my coffee cup
in the dishwasher. Like the true friends they are, I called and they came right away. I’ve missed them and want to really enjoy the weeks we have together this summer.

“What was so urgent?”
Gwen asks.

“Yeah…has Will called?” Caroline asks.

“No, he hasn’t called. But just because he’s processing doesn’t mean the wedding planning stops. We’re getting married October 25
th
and my maid of honor and bridesmaid don’t have their dresses yet! Claire is taking care of booking the church and the reception site today, so I told her we’d get your dresses settled,” I tell them.

“So everything is still on?” Caroline asks with a huge smile.

“Definitely! In four months, I
will
be Layla Meyer! We haven’t been through all seven layers of Dante’s Inferno for nothing. Now, let’s get our shopping on!”

Gwen is absolutely
giddy! Before we went to Florida I was just getting used to the idea of being a real girl with all the shopping and caring about what I looked like. She’s thrilled to see me in full-on girl mode, not because I have to be, but because I want to be.

I still don’t know where to shop so I let Gwen and Caroline lead the way. Since it’s just the two of them standing with me they take me to
a gorgeous boutique in Charlotte called The Bride’s Head. We walk in and I feel like I just entered a fairy tale. There are whimsical lights and music, and the décor is light and airy. It’s just about the prettiest store I’ve ever been in. Gwen insisted that we were sure to find the perfect dresses here.

I browse the racks of dresses, looking specifically for yellow. Almost any shade of pale yellow will work. It’s funny how I never really thought about my wedding before Will actually proposed. Even though I knew it was going to happen one day, it didn’t become real until that unbelievable night by the water at our home in Tallahassee.

Caroline and Gwen come skipping through the shop, each with three dresses in tow. They hold them up and my heart starts to flutter.

“I love all of them,” I say. “How am I supposed to decide?”

“That’s the great part! You don’t have to get it down to one dress. We can each wear a different dress in the same color!” Gwen squeals.

“You can do that?” I ask. I’ve never heard of that. I always thought that bridesmaids all wore the same dress that the bride picked out, regardless if it looked good on them or not. Although, I’m determined to make sure the dresses the girls wear in the wedding make them look as stunning as they do every day.

“Yes! People are breaking those old wedding rules all over the place! Didn’t you see that YouTube video of that couple that danced everyone in? You can do whatever you want, Layla!” Caroline says as she holds up all three of her dresses, shaking the hangers in excitement.

“Well…if you say so! Try them on and let’s get you two
bridesmaided
up!”

Gwen and Caroline each take their own dressing room, leaving me sitting in the waiting area in front of their doors. I watch their feet as they disrobe and slink into the first dresses. I hear both of them
ooh
and
ahh
at themselves and I can hardly wait to see what they look like. Caroline shouts to Gwen to see if she’s ready to come out. When Gwen says she is Caroline tells her to come out on the count of three. As Caroline counts down I feel my heart flutter and tears start to well up in my eyes even before I see them.

In the midst of Will’s emotional crisis, I’m here, still planning our wedding. But…it occurs to me that, despite my silver
linings approach to this, despite my stubbornness in dragging my best friends out to look for bridesmaids dresses, despite my surety that Will could never become his father…Will
could
come back to me filled with even more fear after reading all the exes statements.

The girls reveal themselves and I start to cry.
I wish they were tears of joy at seeing my beautiful friends dressed in what could be their dresses for my wedding, but they’re not. They’re tears of fear and sadness. I’m losing Will. After everything we’ve been through, I’m losing him.

“Darlin’?” Caroline comes to my side, kneeling down so she can put her arm around my now hunched over body. She knows my break down has nothing to do with the dresses. They look lovely…what I saw of them. “It’s gonna work out. You know it is.” Caroline rubs my back, making me feel only slightly better.

“She’s right. Will is going to read through all of those statements and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s not his father, and he never will be,” Gwen says. “When you two were apart, he was so miserable. He was the walking dead. I mean that figuratively and slightly literally, too. You’re his heart, Layla. Will doesn’t know how to live without you. And it’s not like he’s broken up with you.”

“It’s good to hear he was so miserable without me,” I chuckle. “He needs to remember that.”

“You know what? He does. He does need to remember that, and we’re going to help him remember,” Caroline says to Gwen. “When we’re done here, we’re dropping you off and going straight to his house to make sure he remembers what a mess he was without you, and that nothing that any of those exes says about who his father was is going to change who Will is!”

“Really? You two would do that?” I say quietly as I recover from my crying.

“Honey, we’re going to knock some sense into that man. There’s never been a couple more meant for each other than you and Will. We can’t let this fear overtake him. He’s stronger than that,” Caroline says as she stands, straightening out her dress. “Now, look at us and tell us how beautiful we are in these dresses.”

Gwen and Caroline both look stunning. Both pale yellow dresses are knee-length and flowing, like my dress. Gwen’s is strapless and Caroline’s has two soft straps over her shoulders that cross in the back. I love them in both dresses.

“Wow,” I say, wiping the tears from my face. “You both look really beautiful. It’s going to be hard to decide.” I sit up straight and pull myself together, knowing that they’re both right. Will would never really let me go. He loves me too much. I have to let him do this. Part of being in a relationship with someone…part of being married…is knowing when to let the other person do what they have to do to get to the end of their crisis. As much as I want to be next to him for every second of this, I have to let him go through this process. It’s all going to work out, just like Will said it would. “I think I’m going to have to see the other four dresses! And, you know, you each might need to try on the other’s dresses. We could be here a while.” I smile, grateful for such amazing friends who aren’t going to let Will and me fall apart.