34. Maggie

Ifound myself standing in front of Luke's gravestone. It was the first time I had mustered up the courage to visit, which was mostly due to Tommy's encouragement and Olivia's pep talk from the day before.

It was four years since the accident took him from me, and the first year when it didn't feel like my heart was dying inside my chest from guilt and loneliness. The past three months had given myself back and more. I wasn't a shell of myself living out in the world and hiding behind my camera. This Maggie was the version I knew Luke would be proud of.

I sat down with my back against the gravestone and let out a breath that had been pent up inside me for the past four years.

"Hi," I started. "It's been a while, I know. But I'm not going to apologize for that because I know you've been around these past few years. I see you everywhere. I feel you when the crowds at the games get excited. I see you every time I fold my pizza because you were the first person to teach it to me. I hear you when I queue up our favorite album when you used to sing every word to me off-key. You're never far, I know that.

"But I know it's about time that I make the effort to meet you where you are. So here I am." I patted the ground beneath me, feeling my chest start to constrict. "I promised myself I would get through this with no tears, but let's be honest, that was a bad promise.

"After you left, I was different. I wasn't me. I was so angry at the world because what happened to you wasn't fair. And I know how angry you would have been with me if you watched the person I became. I'm sorry for that. I hope you're proud of the person I grew into. I feel like I've been a phoenix rising out of the ashes."

I swiped at a couple of tears that fell down my cheeks.

"I met someone . . . and I guess that's the reason that brought me here today. Not to tell you that we're happy or anything like that. We're not even together. I guess it wasn't really meant to be. But I really think you would have liked him. He's a big reason why I came today. He made me realize that what happened wasn't my fault. I felt guilty, and that guilt kept me from you these past few years. I'm sorry for what happened that night because it wasn't fair. But I thank you for putting me on the path I am on now."

With each word that left my mouth, it was like a weight was lifted off my chest. I had finally realized that I would never let Luke go. He would always be a part of me, but I had to learn what life looked like after him and I never would have done that if it weren't for Tommy's encouragement. He was the only one who understood that Luke couldn't be this taboo thing that happened to me. The narrative had to change, and the only way to do that was if I finally faced the fear I had of dating and being truly happy with someone else after Luke. I had made up this irrational fear in my head that if I found another guy attractive or he made me laugh, I was disgracing the legacy Luke had left. But that would never be the case. Luke had taught me how to love and love hard. It was time I showed that to someone else.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see a text from Olivia.

Olivia: You're late!!!

I sat up like a bolt of lightning had struck my body.

Olivia: You have that event to shoot at the field. Don't you remember?

I obviously didn't remember the event because if I had, I wouldn't be sitting in a cemetery instead. My legs were Jell-O as I pushed myself to my feet and took off toward the bus. I couldn't afford to lose my job over being scared. I had just told Luke how much I had grown; it was time to suck it up and prove it.

The bus ride was agony as I watched the minutes tick by, making me even more late for whatever I had forgotten about. Whatever event I had so conveniently forgotten, I was in deep shit if May was here for it. I grabbed my camera bags from the seat before sprinting into the stadium, not even bothering to say hello to the usual people. My footsteps echoed as I ran down the tunnel, cursing myself every step of the way for having neglected any form of exercise for the past few years. The tunnel opened up onto an empty field, making me stop in my tracks.

Do I have the right place?

I pulled my phone out to check the texts that Olivia had sent me, telling me where to be. She did, in fact, say the field.

I glanced around, trying to spot either May or Olivia anywhere in the stadium. But nobody was there. I started to walk toward the infield, thinking that maybe they were waiting for me in the dugout and I couldn't see them. Suddenly, the Jumbotron turned on and a series of press pictures of me and Tommy started to flash across the screen. They were then followed by the selfies we had taken in Tommy's home, on the pier with Olivia in California, at the ice cream place right after I managed to get us there unharmed after my first time driving. It was like my eyes couldn't tear themselves away as I relived some of the best months of my life. But then the slideshow ended and I was left alone on the field again.

Or so I thought.

Someone cleared their throat behind me. I spun around to see Tommy standing there by himself in a pair of jeans and a simple black T-shirt. The dressed-down Tommy was my favorite.

My heart had slowed down to a dangerous rhythm in my chest as I stared at the man that I had fallen in love with. The man that had ripped my heart out and crushed it, shredded it into a million pieces, unable to be repaired.

Or so I thought.

Because the way he was looking at me right then felt like it was slowly mending it back together, piece by piece. It was the same way he had looked at me the first time I had met him.

"Maggie." My name came out of Tommy's mouth like a whisper, like he was afraid if he spoke it too loudly, I would break again right in front of him and float off in the breeze.

"What are you doing?" I breathed.

"I need to say something." He held up a hand to try to silence me, but I was beginning to question if I really did have the strength to stand here and listen to whatever it was that he had to say. What if this was some cruel way of saying goodbye?

"I have work to do though, and I should really go." At this point I had put the pieces together that I did not in fact have work to do and I really didn't have anywhere to go. But my heart was now beating at a speed that terrified me, and I thought anywhere but here would be a safer option.

"Maggie, will you shut up for one second?" Tommy raised his voice slightly, silencing me in one fell swoop. Even though the pain inside my heart that had started the night I saw Tommy through the window of his house with Sutton was making it unbearable to stand there in front of him, the look on his face kept me rooted in place. He looked like he was hurting as badly as I was.

"When we first met, I thought you were ridiculous." Okay, definitely not where I thought this was going. "You were this shy girl, too afraid to put yourself out in the world because you were too frightened the world would hurt you even more than it already had. So you shut yourself off from everyone and refused to show anyone how special you are."

Okay, this is better.

"But then you, quite frankly, upended my life by ruining everything I thought I had built the night we left that club."

And back to ground zero.

I started to speak, but he shook his head, taking a step closer to me.

"You're frustrating, a perfectionist, never on time, and quite particular about your pizza. Your hair is always on everything, and you never seem to go anywhere without your camera. You cackle when you laugh like a crazy person and insist on watching romance movies instead of anything else. But I love you despite all of those things."

With each word, Tommy took a step closer to me. My heart was beating so fast that I was sure I was going to need the defibrillator in the dugout if he didn't stop soon. There was a part of me that didn't want to believe what he was saying or acknowledge the way he was looking at me as my mind replayed the last time I had seen him, hugging Sutton.

"I love the way you eat your pizza because it's ridiculous. I love watching the way you melt apart at the same movie scene you've watched a million times. I love the way your eyes are always dissecting a moment like you are trying to figure out the best way to capture it in a picture. And I love that when anything good happens to me, I look for you, because I want to share all of those moments with you. I love you, Maggie Redford."

My heart felt like it may very well burst from my chest and land on the ground between us. Love? Did he just say he loved me? I wasn't sure if I wanted to cry, scream, or laugh.

"What about the contract?"

"I will be damned if some contract gets in the way of what I feel for you."

He took a step closer.

"What about Sutton?"

Realization crossed Tommy's face as he put the pieces of our timeline together. His grip loosened on my hands. I thought for sure he realized that I had caught him in the act and that none of those things he had said about me would really mean anything, but then I felt his hand slip under my chin and lift my eyes to his.

"She was there to try to win me back." My heart sank as he confirmed exactly what I hoped wasn't true. "But I told her she had to leave, Maggie."

What?

"I told her that the guy she had dated didn't exist anymore. I'd stopped being that guy over a year ago, but the fact that you and I were all over social media made her think otherwise. I told her that I had met someone that felt like home to me."

"I don't understand."

But part of me did. It was soaring up within me. It was hoping. That feeling felt foreign. I hadn't hoped for something this much since that night I had hoped Luke wouldn't leave me. That night, I had learned that hoping was dangerous. But Tommy had taught me that daring to hope was the bravest thing a person could do.

"I'm trying to tell you that I want to take you on a date where there aren't any cameras unless it's a camera in your hands. I want to take you on a date and kiss you good night at your door with so much passion that there's no question about my intentions. And I want to tell you how much I love you every goddamn day until you don't doubt it."

"Can I ask you something?" I said after he was silent for a moment.

He nodded. "Anything."

"Why'd you sign the contract in the first place?"

"My plan was to walk away the second they offered it, but then I looked over at you and that just wasn't an option anymore. Because if I walked away, I would miss the opportunity to get to know you, and part of me knew that day in the conference room that you were worth getting to know." He took another step closer to me, and I could practically feel our breaths mingling in the air between us.

"I gave all the money from the contract back." Confusion flashed across Tommy's face. "I couldn't stand to even look at it. It felt dirty. I didn't want to be someone who took advantage of you. You've already had so much of that in your life."

"Maggie, you could never do that. But I appreciate the gesture, even though you definitely didn't have to do that. I feel like you've gone through so much this season so far that's completely unfair." The guilt that Tommy felt over our predicament was all over his face.

"I wanted to do it," I told him. "For you."

Tommy sucked in a breath at my confession.

"I'm scared," I breathed, tears filling my eyes.

"I am too," he whispered back. Then his hands reached down to take mine in his. "Maggie Redford, I am madly, deeply in love with you. You've been in my head from the moment that stupid baseball almost took you out at practice. If you give me the chance of dating me for real this time, I promise I will spend the rest of my life honoring the woman that you are and being the man that you deserve."

As I stared at the man before me, I realized that this was part of the growing I had told Luke about. If I opened my heart up fully to Tommy, I wasn't disrespecting Luke. I was honoring him. Because he would want me to continue to be happy and to live. I wasn't living sitting on my couch watching other people get their happy endings, especially when my own happy ending could be standing right in front of me.

Love is scary. It's scary to trust your heart in someone else's hands. I had mine ripped from me four years ago. But love wasn't just trusting that someone else wouldn't break your heart. It was trusting someone would keep it safe when you did go through the worst times in your life, and they'd celebrate with you through the best. And as the man I knew I was head over heels for stood in front of me, trusting me with his own heart, I realized there were different kinds of love. Luke was the first love. It was new and exciting, like I was seeing the world for the first time. Tommy was the comfort of my favorite blanket or, in his words, like coming home.

"I love you." Tommy's eyes widened as the words came out of my mouth. Honestly, part of me was surprised too.

In an instant, I was wrapped in a pair of strong arms. My body relaxed as it moved around him. "I promise you I will try my best every day," Tommy told me as he held me against his chest.

"I know you will," I told him.

Tommy tipped his chin down, and I rose up on my toes, the two of us meeting in the middle. As soon as our lips met, it felt like the last chain snapped off me, leaving me feeling brand new.

"And the crowd goes wild . . ." Tommy and I glanced up to see Jamil, Adam, and Olivia in the press box. Jamil's cheeky grin was wide enough we could see it on the field. He and Adam were fist-bumping and Olivia was snapping pictures with her camera. A laugh bubbled out of my chest as I watched our friends celebrate us as if they'd just won the World Series.

"Are you happy?" I asked Tommy. He looked back down at me with a grin that I was sure I would never grow tired of seeing.

"I'm the happiest man in the entire world." He leaned back down for another kiss as the sound of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" echoed around the park.