After Three Losses, I Stopped Looking Back Chapter 07

After Three Losses, I Stopped Looking Back Chapter 07

The years blurred together. Seasons folded into each other until time was nothing but daylight and dark, one wave after another rolling in and pulling back out.

Just like that, five years were gone. This holiday season marked exactly five years since I’d moved Mom to Los Angeles.

I’d had no plan when I came here. No vision for what came next. All I knew was that I needed to get out of Crestwood before the grief buried me alive.

I was never the person Julian made me into. I graduated from Hudson University with a finance degree. I could have done anything. Instead, I shrank myself down to fit beside him — content to play secretary as long as it meant being close.

But then I met someone. And he helped me remember who I was.

I was staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows, lost in thought, when I heard the door open behind me. Footsteps I’d know anywhere. Then his arms were around me, warm and solid.

“What’s going on? You okay?”

I turned into his chest and held on. “Yeah. I’m just thinking about how lucky I am that I found you.”

He laughed softly. “I was going through my own loss back then, remember? We found each other at the exact right time, Clara. We saved each other.”

I pressed my face into his shoulder. “I want to go back for the holidays this year. Visit Dad. I haven’t been back since we left. I spent so long running. But I don’t need to anymore.”

He tightened his arms. “Then let’s go. Wherever you need to be, I’m there.”

I closed my eyes and breathed him in — pine and warmth — and for the first time in a long time, I felt like the universe owed me nothing.

“What about Lily—”

“I wanna go too!”

The door burst open before I could finish. A tiny hurricane in a sundress came barreling across the office, and the bodyguard scrambled to shut the door behind her. She wedged herself between Silas Vance and me.

“Mommy, you can’t leave me behind! I wanna see Grandpa too.”

I melted.

“Okay, baby. We’ll all go. Grandma too.”

The next day, we landed in Crestwood. After so long away, the city felt like it belonged to someone else. We went to the cemetery first.

“Hey, Dad. I’m here. I know it took me too long, and I’m sorry. Years — you deserved better than that.”

Silas’s hand found mine and squeezed. My throat tightened.

“But I need you to know — Mom’s good. She’s really good. And I found someone, Dad. Someone who actually loves me.” I smiled through the sting in my eyes. “You have a granddaughter now.”

I took Lily Vance’s hand. “Say hi to Grandpa, baby.”

She smoothed down her dress, completely serious, and waved at the headstone. “Hi, Grandpa. I’m Lily.”

Silas stepped up beside me.

“Mr. Hayes, I’m Silas. I just want you to know — I’ve got them. Both of them. And I’m not going anywhere.”

My eyes blurred.

I kept talking — scattered, rambling, pouring out years’ worth of everything I’d never said. By the time I stopped, the sun was touching the horizon.

I stood up, took Silas’s hand and Lily’s, and turned to leave.

That’s when I saw him.

Julian had never believed he’d actually see her again. For years, he’d been coming to this cemetery. Her father’s grave — the one he’d helped put him in. Guilt dragged him back, again and again.

Every time, some part of him hoped she’d be there too. She never was. Years passed, and not a single trace.

Julian hadn’t slept a full night in years. Every time he closed his eyes, she was there — her face ruined, her voice torn raw, asking him the one question he could never answer. Why did I ever love you?

And behind her, always, the ghost of the child they never had.

The guilt didn’t fade with time. It grew — tightening around him like something with roots, digging in deeper every year. Every sleepless night dragged him a little further down, and there was no bottom.

The flowers slipped from Julian’s hands and hit the ground. He stood there, staring, unable to move, unable to breathe.

And then, for the first time in years, he said her name out loud — not to a dream, not to an empty room.

“Clara.”