Breaking Bedrock (Book Two) (24 page)

Anyway, after I wrote and published the first part of this
story, I was disappointed to hear so many of you say that you didn’t like
Addison—that you couldn’t relate to her at all. When I heard that you’d called
her selfish, it made me question my reasoning for telling her story in the
first place. It’s hard to hear those things about someone you love so much. I
mean, sure, a part of me could understand why you’d think that. For a good bit
of time, Addison was pretty unlikeable, even to me. And I’ll admit that in the
beginning I was disappointed in her too, not only for doing what she did with
William but also for being so blatantly honest and in your face about who she
was and what it was she wanted, once she had. Sure, she lied and she hid the
affair upfront; and in doing so she let a lot of us down. And it’s hard for
many of us to understand her exact motives and why she would make the choices
she did. But in writing this story and in knowing Addison, I can tell you it
wasn’t her intention to hurt anyone. What I learned from her is that love doesn’t
have and off-and-on switch. Sometimes it just hits you, and there’s nothing
much you can do about it. You just have go along for the ride and see where you
end up. In addition, if you really knew her the way I do, then you’d know that
she loved William from the beginning. She’d always loved him. And I believe
that when you love someone
that
much, it’s hard to know what the right
thing is because no matter what you decide, someone gets hurt.

But even I couldn’t see that at first. All I could see were my
own fears about my own life, which I was admittedly angry with her about
revealing, by the way. I realize now how silly that all seems, but it took
almost losing my best friend to really get it. I mean if you stop and think
about it
how many of us are incapable of being truly brave when it comes to
love?
We all tend to hide a little bit of who we are: the parts of
ourselves we don’t want anyone to see. Perhaps, it’s because we think it’s
safer that way. What I realized though is that, too, is a lie we buy into. One
day, shortly after that revelation, it dawned on me, during one of my meetings
with Addison in the coffee shop, not long after she’d been released from the
hospital, that perhaps I didn’t really do her story justice after all. Maybe
there was more to the story than I was allowing myself see. There almost always
is
more to the story, you know.

The truth is, I’m mostly just a bored housewife posing as a
writer. But what I know for sure is that watching Addison’s story unfold gave
me the courage to tell it. Seeing her follow her dreams—even if it meant hurting
people she loved—gave me the strength to follow mine, not because I’m a great
writer or anything but because hers was a story worth telling. The thing about
Addison that I think is so easy to hate—unless you love her, of course—is that
she’s different. She’s bold, and she’s courageous, and she goes after what she
wants. That’s an easy quality to despise in someone because there are a lot of
people out there don’t. Take me, for example. We hide behind the facades we
create for ourselves and pretend that we’re happy, that everything is fine—even
when it isn’t. On the surface it was easy to tell myself that I was mad at her
because she cheated on Patrick and split her up family or because she made dumb
decisions and put life in jeopardy. But that wasn’t the whole truth.

You see it wasn’t until I sat down to write the continuation of
her story that I really understood the half of it. It was then that I realized
I hadn’t been mad at Addison for what it was I thought she’d done. I was mad at
her for becoming unapologetically more of who she was meant to be. When she
revealed who she’d become, which was incidentally not who or what I wanted her
to be, and went after what it was she wanted, it in turn forced me to confront
my fears about whether or not I was willing to do the same in my own life. Maybe,
it takes a strong person, a person
like
Addison, I guess, to step out
and shake things up. She’s someone who is willing to put it all on the line for
love, to show the rest of us that it’s okay to do the same. All I know is that
in the end, the strength she showed forced me to look at, to really see, the
lies I’d been buying myself. Maybe someday, I’ll be brave enough to tell my own
story. Who knows, maybe someday, we all will.

You see—truth be told—I think that there’s something about
watching someone fumble, seeing them screw up, in all its glory that appeals to
us, isn’t there? It gives us a false sense of security, it tricks us into
thinking we’re superior, and sometimes it even allows us to believe
we’re
not
so bad after all. From the outside looking in, it’s probably easy to say what
we would’ve done had we been in Addison’s shoes—that
we
would, of
course, always do the right thing.
But who really knows.
In the end, I
think Addison did the right thing for
her, n
ot only for her but also for
those she loved. What I know for sure is that her effort to go after what she
knew to be true has in turn allowed me to realize my own truth. And I hope that
after reading this you might think about yours. We all have secrets, even, and
I would argue,
especiall
y those of us who appear to have it all
together. You never know.
You really just never know.

Thank you for reading,

Jess

Epilogue

Seven months later

Addison stared out the window, watching the lights
twinkle in the distance as the plane slowly made its descent.
That had always
been her favorite part of flying, the descent
. It was almost as though you
were floating and then, BAM, at once, all of a sudden you were
there. You’d
arrived.
Out the corner of her eye, she could see
Connor stirring a
little, and as she looked over at the greatest parts of her life, she smiled a
little. They were excited to make the trip home, to see their dad and meet
their new baby sister, and she was excited for them. Breaking her reverie,
William squeezed her hand a little, nodded in the boys’ direction then back at
her, leaned over, kissed her temple, and whispered in her ear that he was the
luckiest man on the planet. She looked back at him and smiled.
God, she
loved that man.
Glancing down at their hands intertwined, the diamond on
her left hand caught her eye. She smiled and nodded back, raised her eyebrows,
and squeezed. William had only asked her to marry him half a dozen times in the
time they’d been away, and each time she’d turned him down. It wasn’t until
he’d arranged a surprise trip for her and the boys, taking them back to Capri,
Italy, where they’d first fallen in love, and knelt right there on that very
same beach that she’d changed her answer to a maybe. It didn’t really matter,
though.
That man knew he had her right where he wanted her, and she loved
him even more for it.

The five of them had had the time of their lives over the past
seven months, exploring new places, taking it all in together, and finding more
reasons to love one another by the day. It was just a really beautiful time for
them all. The boys, aside from missing their dad—though they talked nearly every
day and had visited back home twice for a week at a time—were the happiest
she’d ever seen them. She couldn’t help but think that maybe it was because she
herself was so happy. But now, it was time to stay home in Austin for a little
while, to settle. William had purchased a home out on the lake, and Addie had
agreed to give up her rental. She never really stayed there anyway and was
looking forward to a new home base.

Later that day, as she entered the hospital corridors with the
boys, it suddenly hit her that it wasn’t all that long ago that she herself had
spent time there. Maybe it was the sights and the smells that made it all come
rushing back, she wasn’t sure. The memories were fuzzy now; they had an aura
about them, the nostalgic haze that memories sometimes get, and she couldn’t
help but think how it seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d been there. So much
had changed since then. They’d stopped by the gift shop for balloons and
flowers when Addie noticed “the book” sitting on the shelf, and suddenly her
thoughts turned to Jessica and how much she couldn’t wait to see her friend.
There was a lot they needed to discuss, and quite frankly, she’d been
incredibly worried about her—in addition to guilt she felt for not being there
when Jess had very clearly needed her. The twins interrupted her thoughts as
they tugged on her shorts, ushering her towards the cashier urgently, impatient
to get upstairs and see the baby.

Addison couldn’t help but smile at the flurry of pink balloons as
she led the boys up to the room on the postpartum floor. She knocked, and when
Patrick answered, she hugged and congratulated him and explained that she’d be
down the hall in the waiting area. He grinned and thanked her as Michele’s
voice interrupted, asking her to stay. “We want you to meet her,” they’d said.
And suddenly, once again, she felt life as she knew it ever so slowly shift, as
Patrick placed that beautiful little bundle of pink in her arms. She realized something
then that she hadn’t before. As she took it all in, watching her boys gently
touching their sister’s tiny hand and peering at her toes, everything changed.
For the first time, she thought yes.
Just yes
. This was it. She would
finally say yes to William, not only because he wanted it or because she loved
him but because she wanted
this
for the both of them. Suddenly, all at
once, she wanted everything.

Acknowledgments

A big, BIG thank you to my friends and family for your support
during the writing process and always for continually serving as personal
cheerleaders along the way. Thanks for laughing with me—
or maybe it was at m
e—either
way. Nonetheless, I appreciate you being there.
J

Thank you to
Theresa
Wegand
for being so easy and efficient during every step of the copyediting
and formatting process. Also, many thanks to Lisa Wilson of
Pixel
Pixie Design
for being fantastic at all things design. And, a special thank
you to Sebastian Kellas of
Legstore
for so generously providing the cover art.

With extreme gratitude, I would like to acknowledge my beta
readers: Monica, Denise, Dara, Heather, and Hunter. Thank you for your input
each step of the way, for making this book what it is, and especially for
incessantly bugging and motivating me to send you more.

Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank the readers
for every sweet note, for every review, for simply reading. You guys are
everything. Thank you.

About the Author

Writer. Wife. Mama. Expert juggler. Britney lives with her
husband, five children, two dogs, and a cat in Austin, Texas. You can find her
blogging on her website, and she would love it if you’d connect with her on
Facebook and Twitter.

www.BritneyKing.com

https://www.facebook.com/BritneyKingAuthor

www.Twitter.com/BritneyKing_