That night, I pack and go to bed early, feeling down that Ella isn’t coming with me. We’ve spent the holidays together every single year since we were five. It was the only way to celebrate, since her family was never really into it and my mom couldn’t afford to do much. She tried though, by decorating the house and making Ella and me a nice breakfast. She’d always wrap a few presents up for the both of us. It wasn’t much, but it was still nice.
Long after I fall asleep, my phone wakes me up. My hand fumbles across my nightstand, knocking over the lamp, until it finally brushes my phone. Still half alive, I blink my eyes into focus and see Ella’s names on the screen.
I answer it quickly. “What’s wrong?”
She sounds hoarse. “Can you come let me in? I didn’t want to ring the doorbell and wake Ethan up.”
“You’re at my house?” I rub my eyes and check the time on the clock.
“Yeah, I’m standing in front of the door.”
I stumble out of bed and hurry to the door in my boxers, with the phone still held up to my ear. Flipping the porch light on, I swing open the door. The light hits her swollen eyes and the red streaks on her cheeks from the dried-up tears. She’s wearing a pair of striped shorts, with flip-flops on her feet, and her hair is pulled up in a messy bun. She has no bra on under the thin tank top she’s wearing and I can see her n**ples through the fabric.
“What are you doing?” I haul her inside the house to hide her barely covered body away from the eyes of anyone else. Her skin is ice cold and she’s shivering. “Did you walk here?”
She shakes her head and hugs her arms around herself. “No, I took the bus.”
My gaze skims her bare legs and her perky n**ples. “Dressed like that?”
She shrugs and sinks down into the couch, grasping an envelope in her hand. “There was hardly anyone on it.”
Turning the lamp on, I sit down on the couch and put my arm around her shoulder, desperate to make her feel better. “What happened? And what’s that in your hand?”
She gives me the crinkled envelope with her name and address on it. “This came in the mail yesterday.”
I turn it over, noting that she’s opened and read whatever is inside. “Who’s it from?”
She taps the return address with her finger. “It’s from my dad.”
Shit. “What did he say?”
She stares at the floor, her eyes enlarged. “That he was sorry and that what happened to my mom wasn’t my fault. That it was his because he was the adult and he never should have left that kind of responsibility on a child. That he should have been home taking care of his family instead of at the bar… and that he loves me.” Tears flood her eyes and stream down her cheeks as her breathing becomes erratic. “I’ve wanted him to say that forever.”
The ache in her voice almost makes me cry. She climbs onto my lap and buries her face into my chest, sobbing as she clutches desperately onto me. I scoop her up in my arms and carry her back to my bedroom where I lie down with her.
With each tear shed, she steals more of my heart, until she owns it completely. I realize that even through the hard times I’m sure we’ll face, I’ll never be able to walk away from her.
I wake up with Ella’s head pressed into the crook of my neck and her arms clasped firmly around my waist, as if she feared I’d sneak off in the middle of the night.
She bawled her eyes out until she passed out and my heart nearly broke in two. Even though it makes me feel horrible, I sometimes hate her f**king family. They took a beautiful girl who was full of life and who could have done amazing things and crushed her into pieces. Although she’s fixable—I can see that now—she is still so broken and vulnerable.
“Rise and shine. We gotta hit the road.” Ethan bangs the door open, and when he takes in the situation, his face drops. “You are still going, aren’t you?”
I nod as Ella snuggles closer to me. “Yeah, give me like fifteen minutes or so.”
“Whatever, man. Just hurry your ass up.” He walks away, leaving the door wide open.
“Baby, are you awake?” I whisper in her ear and kiss the sensitive spot on her neck.
Her shoulder shivers upward as she nods her head with her eyes closed. “How could I sleep through Mr. Loud Mouth?”
I nibble at the tip of her earlobe and breathe in the scent of her hair. “I have to get ready to go… Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? I really want you to.”
Her leg hitches around my hip and her body bows into me. “I think I—I want to come with you guys, but I have to go back to my place and pack a bag real quick. And I have to stop by and do a quick visit with my therapist. We have to see if Lila will go with us too. I don’t want her here alone.”
My body stiffens from her intimate touch. “Alright, but you know Ethan’s gonna complain the entire time.”
She rolls on top of me, props herself up on her elbows, and peers down at me through her puffy eyes. “I know, but he’ll just have to deal with being a few hours late to wherever it is he thinks he has to be.”
Knotting my fingers through her hair, I tug at the roots and bring her face close to mine, loving how her eyes roll back. “Are you sure you’re okay? Last night you had me worried.”
“I’m fine, Micha.” She kisses my lips softly. “Last night was a good thing, even though it was intense… and I think I need to go back home. If nothing else than to talk to my father.”
She begins to recoil, but seizing her hips, I trap her in place and entice her lips back to mine. I slip my tongue inside her mouth and she lets out a quiet moan. When I let her go, our breathing is ragged. She backs off of me and I try not to think about our unbalanced love for each other. She’ll get there eventually, once she understands what love is.
When I call out “I love you” as she heads for the hallway and she returns it with only a smile, it stings a little.
Ella
Ethan lectured me the entire time I packed my bag and then his face got really red when I announced I had to go see my therapist before we took off. I need to talk to her, though, about my revelation last night. Ever since I was a little kid, I thought love wasn’t real. Then Micha showed me differently, but I still couldn’t love him like he deserved.
Whether intentional or not, my dad’s letter released me from some of the burden I’d been carrying. Not all of it, but some, and last night when I was curled up beside Micha, I envisioned something I’d been blind to.
A hope for a future.
Anna is locking up her office door when I arrive. “I thought I was supposed to meet you?”
She whirls around, pressing her hand to her heart, her eyes amplified as her keys fall from her hands to the floor. “Good God, you scared me.”
I scoop up the keys and hand them to her. “I’m sorry. I just thought we had an appointment today.”
She drops her keys into her purse. “I was actually getting ready to call you. I got a call from my sister and she needs me to come over a couple days early. She’s very worried about hosting Christmas dinner for everyone.”
We make our way down the hallway of the school and push out through the doors, which latch shut behind us. It’s a cloudy day and the violent breeze cools my skin and stings my cheeks.
“So I guess I’ll see you when you get back,” I say, getting ready to leave her and cut across the grass toward my apartment.
She turns for the parking lot, but stops at the curb. “Of course, first thing on Monday. And make sure to call me if you need anything.”
Ethan’s lifted truck drives up to the sidewalk and he lays on the horn. Anna’s eyes dart toward it and the heel of her shoe catches in the grass, causing her to trip.
I sigh and redirect my direction to the truck. “Sorry about that. He just gets kind of antsy.”
“Are you going somewhere?” She frees her shoe from the grass and steps back up onto the sidewalk.
I nod. “I decided to go with Micha and Ethan back home.”
She does the buttons of her navy blue jacket up. “That’s good. I’m glad you decided to go.”
I shield the wind from my face with my hand. “Why? I thought you said you weren’t sure if I should.”
“No, I said only you would know if you should.” She pauses and wisps of her short hair flap in the breeze. “Ella, can you do something for me on this vacation?”
“Sure, what?”
“Stop worrying so much and have fun. It’s what you need,” she says with a smile.
“I do have fun… sometimes.”
“Well, try to have fun the entire time.”
I pluck bits of my hair out of my mouth as I take in her words. “You remember what you said about being in a relationship with Micha and that only I would know when I was ready. Well, I think I’m ready. I know it’s really soon and everything, but last night, well, I saw a glimpse of a future with him that I really, really wanted. And that’s never happened to me before.”
She doesn’t look upset, like I’d expected she would. “That’s good. I’m glad you were able to see that. But remember to take things as slow as you need to. I want you to focus on yourself.” She waves and walks across the grass toward the parking lot. “Have fun, Ella, and I mean it. You deserve to.”
Fun? Is that the magic cure to repair my mind? I tuck my chin in and fight against the wind, heading toward the car—heading home.
Road trips with Ethan and Micha are a pain in the butt. I forgot about the guys’ “no bathroom stop” rule: they’ll only stop, like, every four hours for a break. If there isn’t a restroom close by, then they consider a bush a good substitution.
It doesn’t bother me that much, but poor Lila isn’t used to their crap. We’re sitting in the back of the truck on opposite sides and she’s bouncing up and down, jiggling her legs to hold it in.
“Just pull over.” I slap the side of Ethan’s arm for being an a**hole and refusing to pull over. “She’s not going to pee off the side of an off-ramp.”
“I’ll back the truck up, so it blocks her,” he replies, stunning Lila. “No one will see.”
“I don’t think…” Lila presses a look at me for help.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and lean over the seat to pinch Ethan’s arm. “Pull the damn truck over now,” I threaten. “If not for me, for her.”
“Ow, you’re always so evil,” Ethan complains and then taps the brakes hard, sending me flying over the seat. “But I’m much eviler.”
I summersault over and my legs hit the dash as the shifter stabs me in the back. Sitting up straight, I smooth my hair into place and extend my hand toward him to do something equally as sinister, but Micha snags my elbow and pulls me onto his lap.
“Easy, you two,” he says, hugging me close and conforming his lap against my backside. “We have a long drive ahead of us still.”
Shooting me a dirty look, Ethan swerves the truck off the nearest off-ramp that leads directly to a truck stop. Semis line the chain-linked fence that borders the building and there’s a flashing marque promising everyone ten cents off each gallon when paying with cash.