All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4) (3 page)

I love you Kayden Walker. <3 To infinity and beyond.

Kayden

The minute I pull on
to my street and look down at the flashing notification on my phone, I slow the car down to check it. At first all I see is the message and if that wasn’t enough to completely undo me, seeing the attached picture does it.

My Belle
smiling at me. The way I always want her to be. Giving me what I need and want without me having to say a word.

Making me love her even more.

Deciding on a different course now that I’m home, I pull up the familiar number and wait while the rings go in, praying that she’s home and will agree to do this for me.

“Kayden? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I just need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“Can I park my car in your garage for the night?”

“Why do you want to do that when you’ve got one of your own?”

I can’t help it, I laugh. She’s reminding me of her daughter so much right now questioning me the way she is. It’s no surprise they’re related.

“Belle’s home
and I want to surprise her. I haven’t told her I’m here yet.”

I watch as the curtain pulls back and I see her peering out.

“Pull it in but do it quietly or your surprise is gonna get blown.” She warns and I laugh as I end the call and do as she says, pulling the car in until the garage door is closing behind me and she’s on the step watching.

“Thanks, Ms. R.”

“What did I tell you about that?”

“Something a
bout not calling you that again?”

She nods and smiles. “It’s Grace.”

“Alright, well thanks Grace.”

“You wanna tell me why you’re surprising her when she’s expecting you?”

“She sent me something and after the week we both had, I just wanna surprise her.”

Accepting my explanation she smiles and motions to the door before walking through it and back into the house.

Making my way out and crossing the street, turning my key in as quietly as possible, I slide the door open and that’s when I come face to face with the exact reason I never should have left Wexfield to begin with.

Belle, not hearing me come in, is standing in the kitchen moving back and forth, dancing to the music blaring through the stereo. The way her body moves, a combinati
on of fast and slow, it’s seductive. It takes every bit of restraint I have not to run up behind her, pull her to me and kiss her like she’s never been kissed before.

This is what I’m missing being two hours away. 

It’s amazing.

It doesn’t take me long to see that she’s rinsing dishes, putting them in the dishwasher, dancing around between the sink and the oven where she’s obviously cooking something for my homecoming.

This is what our life together is going to look like.

Watching her with a smile, I get another shock as she starts singing so loudly I can hear her ov
er the music.

Why
haven’t I heard her do this before? Has she been doing this for a long time or is it just something she’s picked up since she’s been in therapy?

Her back still to me, I stalk slowly toward her, each step quiet so I don’t spook her before I’m ready and ruin the moment. I want to keep this going for as long as possible.

It’s fucking beautiful.

Turning at the exact moment I reach out to wrap my arms around her, she falls perfectly and I bring her to me, breathing in her scent. Strawber
ries this time. Intoxicating and making me want to run my tongue along her earlobe and down her face until I get to her lips, just to see if she tastes as good as she smells.

“Kay
den.” She murmurs as I place a tender kiss to the top of her head.

“Belle.”

Pulling away and lifting her head until our eyes are focused on each other, she grins and I ache to pull her to me again. All the worry I’ve had for the past four days melts away with the grin on her face.

“You’re here!” she yells excitedly and I chuckle. Nothing will ever compare to the way she looks right now, her eyes bri
ght, her lips lifted. She takes my breath away with the simplest things.

“I am.”

“Welcome home.” She says and wasting no time I pull her back into me, this time lifting her up and hugging her tightly to me before swinging her around and enjoying the squeal she lets out as I do.

Yes, this is definitely what I want to have for the rest of my life. Moments like this one right here. The minutes
where her happiness erases everything bad that has ever happened in this very spot before it.

“Say it again,” I whisper in her ear. “I want to hear it again.”

“Welcome home?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

There’s something in the way I answer that causes her cheeks to flush pink as I place her back down on her feet. As she turns back toward the stove, checking on whatever it is she’s making for dinner, I wrap my arms around her, bending over as I do to try and see for myself.

“I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour so it’s not finished.”

“That’s alright. There’s something we’ve gotta do first anyway.”

Her head dips to the side making me smile.  I might enjoy her confusion as much as I do everything else that I’ve seen here tonight.

“What’s that?”

Pulling away, taking her hand and locking our fingers together, I spin her around until she’s face to face with me.  “You owe me a dance. Though with what I saw you doing when I walked in, you may have already given me one.”

She blushes again and this time, it’s more than a smile that happens. I laugh and turning toward the stereo, pulling her with me, I let her go long enough for her to change the song and then her hand is in mine again and we’re standing in the middle of the room as music fills it.

A s
lower tempo this time, it starts and I bring her body into mine and just allow the singer and the words to guide me the rest of the way.

It’s in moving around the room, having her nestled into me so perfectly that it hits me. Our one year anniversary is coming up. One year since the day I sat outside her house and asked her to be my girlfriend, even though I think I loved her long before that.

I can’t let the day slip by without doing something. Showing her what she means to me and what being together this way has done for me. The person that she’s helped me become.

I need to make it
a night to remember.

Chapter Three

Belle

I can already see how everything is going to go with me and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

It feels like I’m two different people. The petrified girl that somehow manages to make her way to school during the week, keeping quiet other than reaching out to the only other person around me that’s just as scared as I am. Then there’s the girl that I am on the weekend when Kayden is home.

After spending the last two days locked away with him watching movies, cuddling, and opening up and talking about our week apart, getting up this morning knowing he’s gone
again for another five days makes everything that much harder.

I’m back to being the other person. The one that despite all my changes, is still completely owned by my struggles. Owned by autism.

As I make my way into creative writing class and head down the stairs until I’m sitting in the very front row again, I see the one thing about my reality that isn’t quite so bad.

Isaac is sitting in the same seat he’s been in all week and unlike the other days, he looks up with a smile as I slide myself into my chair, acknowledging my presence.

I’m making progress.

Saturday morning, after we woke up and
had breakfast, Kayden opened up to me about his week and when he finished, I did the same. At first, I’d been afraid to bring up Isaac, but once I put it out there, Kayden proved again why I’m glad he’s the one I waited for.

If I was sitting and telling the Kayden from two years ago about this guy I met in class, I’m not sure he would have taken it so well. He was a completely different person then and I just know it would have been a fight.

Now after our talk, I’m even more determined to follow through with what I wanted to do last week.

I’m determined
to be like Kayden.

~*~*~

“I’m sorry about Eric and Caddy showing up.”

Looking up from my bowl, realizing that he’s speaking into his plate and not directly at me, I wonder why he feels bad for doing something sweet. It’s not like him to not look at me when he wants me to know something and it’s even stranger for him to apologize at all.

Especially when there’s nothing to apologize for.

“Why are you sorry about that?”

“I was so worried about you. Hearing how on edge you were, I hated not being able to be here for you. So when Dillon suggested calling Caddy, I ran with it and then texted Eric too. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“I wasn’t alone, Kay.”

“Yeah you were. If I’m not here and the others are in school and your mom’s at work, you’re alone.”

“Maybe, but you’re the one that told me on the phone that I wasn’t really alone because you were with me.”

His head lifts and finally our eyes meet. I’m thankful that what I’ve said has gotten through. The last thing I want is for Kayden to blame himself for the way I am.

It’s not like he can be
with me every second even if he didn’t go to school in Toronto.

“You really believe that?”

“Yeah. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do by saying it?”

“Of course, but I mean, I didn’t think it would work.”

“It was still hard. It’s always hard. This is all new to me and I don’t deal so well with anything new, but I’ll get there. I just need to figure out a new routine.”

“You’re so different.”

“How?”

“Mond
ay you were scared. It felt like you were falling apart. Every other day, I could still sense something was off, but you didn’t seem that way anymore and now it’s not there at all.”

I can’t explain to him what was so different on Tuesday or even the rest of the week, but I do know why things aren’t the same now. It’s a routine I’m going to have to adjust to in terms of the weekend visits, but the rest is familiar and desperately wanted. I’m better now because he’s here.

“We’re together. It’s what I want, so of course I’m okay now.”

“And the rest of the week?”

The only thing I can think is that reaching out to Isaac changed something in me. Gave me something to focus on so that I couldn’t focus so intently on myself.

“My creative writing class, something happened on Monday and I guess that might have something to do with it.”

“Did someone say something to you?”

“No. I didn’t say much of anything to anyone and they didn’t to me either. It’s not about me.”

“Then what happened?”

“There’s a guy in the class, Kay. He doesn’t speak. I heard some of the other people calling him mute and making fun of him. He reminded me of Eric at first because of the way he was walking arou
nd, but then him not talking, it was like looking in a mirror.”

“He’s like you?”

“I don’t know for sure. I haven’t gotten that far with him. I just know he doesn’t talk.”

“Well, if he doesn’t talk then he’s like you.” He pauses and his eyes focus intently on the table again, a sure sign that he’s thinking
intently. “You said that you haven’t gotten that far. Does that mean you’ve talked to him?”

“I’ve written to him.”

“He writes?”

“That’s all he does.”

“Just like I did with you.” He recalls and I nod.

The way Isaac is with me is exactly the way Kayden was when
we first started talking again. For weeks that was our only communication.

“The people making fun of him, he told me he went to high school with them, but not Wexfield. He hasn’t said where, just that he’s used to what they say and he ignores it.”

“The same way you did.”

“I pretended to ignore it,
but it was always there.”

“Have I mentioned how much I hate that you went through any of that? Knowing that I’m the reason it happened at all?”

I can’t let him go down this road. He’s made no secret that he hates the way things went down between us after he ditched me when we were ten. Reliving it is not going to do anyone any favors. We’re two different people now.

“Yes, you have and I told you. You’re forgiven.”

Acknowledging what I’ve said by meeting my eyes again, the green in them lighter and softer than their usual, he smiles before opening up and putting the conversation back on track.

“So, this guy. You want to help him?”

I nod again and his smile gets even bigger.

Last year before everything happened with Amy and the others, I had written an assignment for Ms. Taylor. It was one I
hated doing because I never like talking about myself. It’s one that Kayden eventually got to see and read all the way through. It’s what pushed him so hard to change.

He wanted to do what I said in the letter and for the most part, he has. His recreation of homecoming being the perfect example. He wanted to be someone he could stand in the future and give me the best year of my life.

It’s that memory that I’m sure is causing him to smile because he also remembers me saying I wanted a better world for other people like me.

“Yeah, I do. If I can.”

“If there’s anyone that can help him, it’s you, Belle.”

My cheeks get hot and the grin on his face changes as he laughs, obviously catching sight of what his compliment did to me.

“Why is it that every time I tell you the truth, you blush?”

“Because it’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. You saw the way I was before. That day in the parking lot, I was ready for a change, but I think if it had been Eric or someone else from your class, it wouldn’t have happened the way it did. I know it sounds bad, but it was because of who it was happening to that I got involved. You spurned the change. If you can take someone like me and do that, then getting through to someone who can’t speak is easy.”

The blush that I can tell is still on my face gets ten times worse listening to him admit all of this to me.

It’s all things he’s said before, but there’s something in the way he says them now that makes them different. They get to me in a way they didn’t before and I’m unable to hide it.

“You really think I can get through?”

“I don’t think it. I know it. You’re the only one who can.”

~*~*~

I don’t want Isaac to ever feel the way I did during my time at Wexfield High. Isolated, different, wrong. Suicidal. Believing that the world, my family and even my best friend Eric would be better off if I wasn’t a part of it. I want something better for him the same way I do for all special needs kids and I don’t want to stop until I get it.

Kayden was right on the weekend. I can do thi
s. I want to do this and with the way he acknowledged me just now, I know I’m going to use it to my advantage.

Once I’m comfortably seated, putting the rest of the voices in the room out of my head and pulling the notebook from my bag, I start writing.

Hi Isaac! :) How was your weekend?

Passing it over, I lean back in the seat and wait patiently for him to read and respond. It doesn’t take very long for the paper to come back over to me.

It was great. We went to visit my aunt and uncle and I got to hang out and play Xbox with my cousins. How was yours?

Just as I start writing back, I sense movement behind us and it doesn’t take long to figure out who’s behind it.

“Aww, Bry. Looks like you missed your shot. Mute boy got the girl first.”

Isaac tenses immediately and I feel all the work I’ve been doing trying to get him to open up draining away. The last thing that needs to happen right now is for these bullies to turn him inside out again.

“Yeah, he did. So why don’t you just leave us alone.” I say, phrasing my question in the form of a statement even though talking back at all is making my heart race faster than it has in months.

It feels like I’m in the hallway with Dillon all over again. 
I’m not like Kayden. I’m still the same frightened me. Maybe our time together hasn’t changed me after all.

I hate this.

“Fine, we’ll leave you alone. But when you get bored of the guy who can’t talk to you, come find me. I’ll show you a real good time.” the guy named Bryan says before reaching over and stroking his hand over a stray piece of my hair, causing my body to shiver and them both to laugh in response.

Disregarding the comment, but unable to ignore the movement entirely, I put my focus back down on the paper in front of me and go back to doing what I should have been
all along. Answering Isaac.

It was really nice. I got to spend it with my boyfriend. A whole weekend of watching movies and relaxing. It was awesome.

His name is Kayden right?
Isaac writes and I smile before responding.

Yeah.

Does he go here? I never see you with him when we leave class.

No, he doesn’t. He’s in Toronto. He comes home on weekends, well, when he doesn’t have a game.

Instead of writing back the way I expect, he nods instead but this time, his eyes crinkle and there’s the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. It’s only after a few seconds of watching it happen that I realize he’s written me back and is now holding the paper out again.

I’m really glad you had a good weekend with your boyfriend. You seem happier than you did last week.

So do you. :)

It’s been a really long time since I’ve written happy faces on an actual piece of paper and doing it with Isaac reminds me of the times that I did it with Kayden. It’s another reminder that the roles are reversed here and Isaac is like me and I’m like the guy I fell in love with.

I am.

Any special reason why?

His response is immediate and it melts my heart.

Kayden was right. I can do this. I’m starting to think he was right about the whole thing. I really am the only one who can.

I finally found a friend. Thanks for being my friend, Isabelle. :)