Free Lantern Lake by Lily Everett

eyes burning, and wished she had the inner fortitude to laugh off the memories and assure him she was fine.
    Instead, she waited mutely until Cooper had inched close enough to put his arms around her. As steady as the ladder was, Vivian sighed with relief at the strong, sure grasp of his arm. She dropped her head on his shoulder and tried not to unbalance him.
    “Viv,” he said tenderly, in a tone that threw her back ten years into the past, when everything had been simple and she’d still had hopes about how her life could turn out.
    “Hey, come on now.” Cooper’s long-fingered hand, rough with new calluses, cupped her chin and lifted her face until he could kiss her. “You’re fixing it. Maybe not literally with a hammer and nails, like you thought—but you’ve taken major steps to fix your life. You should feel good about that.”
    Tears choked her for a moment, and when she could speak again it was more of a croak. “How can you say that? You, of all people. You know how much I deserve to be punished.”
    ***
    The whole world slipped sideways for a horrifying instant of vertigo that made Cooper clutch at Vivian more tightly, certain that the roof was caving in or the ladder was toppling to the ground. But when he sucked in oxygen and steadied himself, he realized it wasn’t the roof or the ladder that had shifted.
    It was his reality.
    Every moment of anger, every bitter recrimination he’d leveled at Vivian in the years since she walked out on their future…and nothing he’d said or thought could match the ways she’d punished herself.
    “You told me once that you married Gerald because you’d already given me up, so it didn’t matter what happened to you. But it was more than that. You were punishing yourself for what you did to us.”
    He saw the truth in her eyes before she gave a short, ashamed nod. “Every day I stayed with him was like being in prison. It was awful—but I couldn’t leave. It was like making reparations, like penance. I thought, if I stayed with him even though I was miserable, then maybe eventually I’d earn forgiveness. But it didn’t work, because the person whose forgiveness I needed was you. And you were gone.”
    “Oh, Viv.” Heart ripping in two, Cooper pressed his mouth to her forehead and tried to control his breathing. “Sweetheart. We need to get down off this roof.”
    She sniffled. “Sorry. I know you were hoping to get this finished today.”
    “Stop apologizing,” he growled, then blinked at himself. But he meant it. “The roof isn’t important. What’s important is that I need to hold you right now, if not sooner, and I don’t want a ladder and the threat of a fifty-foot drop between us.”
    Giving a watery laugh, Vivian nodded once and let go of him to grasp the sides of the ladder. Cooper watched her make her careful way down the rungs, only the glossy black hair on top of her head visible. Every inch of space separating them felt wrong all of a sudden, and he hurried down after her.
    When they were both on solid ground, Cooper wasted no time pulling her into his arms. It was colder in the shadow of the house, but he didn’t think the chilly breeze was what made Vivian tremble against his chest.
    He could sympathize. He felt a little on the shaky side himself when he thought about how intent he’d been on punishing Vivian when he first saw her again after all those years apart. All those years, which he’d spent getting rich and seeing the world—and she’d spent miserable and trapped in a loveless marriage by her scheming, opportunistic parents.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, the words ripped from his gut.
    “Hey.” Vivian leaned back enough to lift her face to his. “If I’m not allowed to apologize anymore, you definitely aren’t! Especially since you haven’t done anything wrong.”
    Maybe not, but he’d sure thought about it. Shame curdled in Cooper’s belly. “I should have known you wouldn’t just leave me. I should’ve looked