She clutches onto me as I continue to sing. Her head rests on my shoulder and I’m no longer scared of telling her how I feel. I want her to know—need her to understand, because holding it inside is no longer an option.
“I love you, Ella May,” I whisper, kissing her cheek. “And one day I want to be doing this exact same thing at our wedding.”
Ella
“The Story” by Brandi Carlile plays through the room, soft lyrics that tell a story that hits straight at my heart. Micha is looking into my eyes deeply and winning my heart more than he already has.
Then he tells me that he wants to do this exact thing at our wedding and my lungs compress. I want to run away and hide, but I fight to hold onto my sanity.
“Micha, I—”
He puts a finger over my lips. “Don’t say anything, okay? Just think about it for a while. I’m not talking about right this second. I just want you to know how I feel.”
I lift his finger away. “I have to say this because it’s important that you know how I feel. I can’t do this right now.” His face falls as I continue. “But someday, yes. I need to get myself together first. I need to be okay with myself before I give you my whole heart.”
He studies my face. “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying I think we should be friends until I can figure out how to get myself together again,” I explain. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt you, and right now I just don’t know if I can do that.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “You want us to be friends? Because I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“We have to, and then maybe one day down the road, after I’ve put my shit together, we can be more, but only if you still want to.” I summon a deep breath, my insides hurting as I add, “If someone better comes along, I don’t want you to hesitate because of me.”
“No one else could ever be better than you,” he says, and I start to open my mouth to protest, but he talks over me. “But if that’s what you need, then I’ll do it. We can be friends… for a while.”
He’s not completely committed, but I didn’t expect him to be. He’s the most determined person I know.
I kiss his cheek and then place my head on his shoulder, breathing in the comforting smell of him as we sway in sync to the music, holding on, yet letting go.
Chapter 10
Micha
It’s been a few days since Ella and I parted from the wedding, but it feels like months. We talk on the phone several times a day, but it’s not the same between us and I miss being with her.
“Man, I’m so bored,” Ethan complains as he surfs the channels with his boots kicked up on the coffee table. “Can’t we just go do something?”
I’m lying on my bed reading the message over and over again. A text showed up on my phone yesterday from my dad. It said he needed to see me—that he had something he wanted to ask. I’ve been staring at it, deciding if walking down that road with him again is a good idea. We’ve met two times and each one was uncomfortable and painful, but my mind won’t be able to settle until I know what he wants.
“I don’t know… I guess we could go get something to eat.” Sitting up, I swing my legs off the edge of the bed, and text my dad, asking him where he wants to meet up.
He texts me back quicker than I anticipated, asking me if I can meet him at the bakery up on Ninth Street in about an hour. Wavering, I finally text back that I will.
“Never mind. I can’t go out.” I put on a black hoodie and zip it up. “I have to go meet someone.”
He targets me with a condemning look. “A girl someone?”
I scoop up the house keys from off the top of the dresser. “No, it’s just someone I used to know.”
His face twists with confusion. “It’s not Naomi, is it? Because I’d like to advise that you stay away from that—she’s crazy. She basically tried to rape me last night.”
“Like you didn’t like it.”
“Hey, I like my women and everything, but she’s a little too much. She went from the bartender to some dude handing out flyers on the street to me. Besides, she has a thing for you.”
“I know that.” I put my wallet into the back pocket of my jeans. “You weren’t the only one she hit on last night.”
“Wow.” His eyes widen. “And I thought I was bad.”
I stuff my phone into the pocket of my hoodie. “Can you do me a favor? Can you tell Dylan or Chase when—if—they show up, that I might not make it to practice?”
He rummages through the very slim selection of food in the fridge. “Do you think they’ll show up? I mean, you haven’t seen anyone but Naomi since you got back and neither of them showed up to practice yesterday.”
“I know that.” I open the front door and notice it’s raining. “But just in case they show, will you tell them?”
He shrugs as he selects a carton of juice out of the fridge. “Yeah, I’ll tell them… but doesn’t it seem like your band’s falling apart?”
“Kind of,” I mutter and shut the door. Pulling my hood over my head, I trot down stairs and out into the rain, splashing through puddles as I march toward the street.
Ever since the little incident with Naomi, things in the band have gotten rocky. It started with her not wanting to be around me, and then Dylan and Chase lost interest when they discovered they could make a lot of money bartending at this club exclusively for women.
Right now, though, I’m more concerned about what I’m about to walk into with my father.
When I arrive at the bakery and see my dad sitting at a table, I almost p**sy out. I tap my hand anxiously on my leg, staring at him through the window as rain drips down on me. He’s reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee. Dressed in a gray suit and a red tie with a briefcase next to his feet, he looks like a lawyer. Suddenly, I realize I have no idea what he does or who he is. He’s nothing more than a stranger, like the people passing by me on the sidewalk.
I man up and walk into the bakery. It smells like vanilla and kind of reminds me of Ella. Two of the eight tables are occupied and the cashier girl behind the display, filled with cupcakes and cookies, undresses me with her eyes.
My dad looks up from his coffee and his aqua eyes widen. “Oh, Micha, you showed up.”
I slide out a chair and sit down across from him. “Of course I showed up. When I say I’m going to be somewhere, I always show up. That’s the kind of person I am and you’d know that if you knew me.”
He clears his throat multiple times while smoothing out invisible wrinkles on his tie. “Look, Micha, I’m really sorry for what I’ve done. For being a shitty father and for just not being there.”
My forehead creases as I cross my arms and slump back in the chair. “I don’t get why you’re saying that, because the last two times I saw you, you made it pretty clear that you didn’t really care about me and you wanted nothing to do with me.”
Tearing some packets open, he adds sugar to his coffee with unsteady hands. “Things change… some stuff happened, and… well, I need your help.”
I stare at him expressionlessly. “Is that why you said you were sorry to me? Because you want something from me?”
He discards the empty packets onto the table. “Do you want me to get you something? Do you want some coffee?”
“I want you to continue on with what you want,” I say coldly. “Because I’m really f**king curious where this conversation is going.”
He stirs the coffee and wipes the spoon on the lip of the cup. “I’m not really sure how to start this conversation…” He drops the spoon onto the table. “I was recently diagnosed with aplastic anemia… Do you know what that is?”
“Do I look like a doctor?” I shake my head, annoyed.
“Well, I’ll skip the boring medical terms and get straight to the point. It’s a rare disease and I’ve got a severe case of it.” He stares down at the cracks in the table, with his eyebrows knit, and wrinkles form around his eyes. “I need a blood and marrow transplant and the best thing for that is to get a relative to be the donor.”
“Are you dying?” I eye him over. “You look healthy.”
“No, I’m not dying.” His voice is as cold as ice. “But I’m not healthy either, and this could help me.”
“What about your other kids? Why can’t you ask them?”
“I don’t want to do that to them. They’re too young and… I don’t even want them to know I’m sick.”
I hover over the table, putting my palms flat on the table, burning with anger, and the chair legs grind loudly against the floor. “So let me guess this straight. You want me to do it, even though you haven’t talk to me in years? You bailed on me when I was a child and I still don’t even know why you didn’t at least stay in touch with me.”
“Micha, I said I was sorry.” He reaches across the table like he’s going to pat my hand, but retreats, which is a good thing because I probably would have punched him. “And this is bigger than that—I’m sick.”
I shove away from the table. “I’ll have to think about it.”
He picks up his briefcase and stands up too. “Can you at least go get checked to see if you’ll make a good donor? These things take time.”
Sometimes I wish I could be a douche bag and walk away. “Fine, I’ll go get checked, but it’s not for you. It’s so I don’t have to feel guilty.”
Ella
It’s been almost two weeks since the wedding and I talk to Micha every day on the phone. The conversations are light, except for the occasional dirty comment from him, but that was always normal, even when we were friends before.
I miss him like crazy and think about him an unhealthy amount of hours during the day. He consumes my thoughts, my body, my dreams—he’s what drives me to be better.
It’s midday, the sun is glistening from the blue sky, and the air smells like fresh-cut grass and autumn. I’m walking across the quiet campus yard toward my therapist’s office with the phone up to my ear.
“You did not do that,” I say to Micha with a smile on my face. “You are such a liar.”
“I did,” he argues with humor in his voice. “I threw down my guitar and told them I was out—that I didn’t want any more drama.”
I swing the main entrance door open and step inside the vacant hallway. “So you quit the band—you’re just done, after months on the road with them?”
“It actually happens more than you think,” he replies and I hear Ethan’s voice in the background. “And I quit like a week ago, but I didn’t want to tell you until now.”
My mouth sinks into a frown as I lower myself into a chair outside the therapist’s office. “Why? I wouldn’t have talked you out of it. As long as you’re happy, you can do whatever you want. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”