---- Chapter 18 Haylie Camacho POV: His words hung in the air between us, simple, profound, and utterly sincere. "You have me." It wasn't a declaration of ownership like Jeremy's desperate claims, but an offering. A promise of partnership. My heart, a muscle | thought had been permanently damaged, gave a hopeful, fluttery beat. | looked at our joined hands, then up at his kind, earnest face, illuminated by the fading light of the sunset. "Okay," | whispered, a real smile, wide and unburdened, spreading across my face for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. "Okay." Eleanor was overjoyed. The day Elliot was officially discharged from his doctors' care, she announced she was planning a party. "Not a party," she corrected herself, her eyes sparkling with a joy | hadn't seen before. "A wedding. A real one. You two deserve to have a proper celebration, with friends and family and too much champagne." | flushed, a little embarrassed by the fuss, but when | looked at Elliot, | saw the hopeful, excited look in his eyes, and | couldn't say no. ---- We decided to make it official first. Just the two of us. The morning we went to the courthouse to get our marriage license was bright and sunny, one of those perfect, crisp autumn days. We stood on the steps, not in fancy clothes, just jeans and sweaters, and | felt a sense of rightness, of peace, settle over me. "Nervous?" Elliot asked, his hand finding mine. | shook my head, my smile genuine. "Not at all." He grinned, that easy, handsome grin that still made my stomach do a little flip. "Good. Let' s go make an honest man out of me." He started to pull me toward the doors, but a sleek black car screeched to a halt at the curb beside us My blood ran cold. Jeremy got out. He looked terrible. He had lost weight, his expensive suit hanging off his frame. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow and haunted. He looked like a man who hadn't slept in weeks. And behind him, trailing like a ghost, was Joselin. She was pale and thin, her usually immaculate hair a mess. She was clutching a piece of paper in her hand. A divorce decree. Our eyes met across the pavement. The air crackled with a tension so thick it was hard to breathe. Jeremy' s gaze ---- flickered down to where my hand was clasped in Elliot' s, and | saw a spasm of pure agony cross his face. Elliot felt me stiffen. "Haylie?" he murmured, his voice low and concerned. "We can go. We don't have to do this today." | took a deep breath, the clean, cool air steadying my nerves. | looked at the two figures from my past, a tableau of misery and regret. They were a part of a story that was already over. My story was just beginning. "No," | said, my voice firm. | squeezed Elliot's hand. "Let's go." | turned my back on Jeremy and Joselin, on the wreckage of my former life, and walked with my husband into the courthouse, toward our future.