‘Ellis…’ I hear Sebastian call out from the living room, but I don’t dare move. I can’t. The fear I have in my heart is crippling. I’ve lost her. I finally found the woman who my heart beats for, and I’ve lost her.
‘Ellis…’ Sebastian calls again, his voice growing near. It’s obvious where I am. The room I kept off limits. It’s the one room I couldn’t bear to touch. It hurt too much.
‘Ellis.’ This time it’s another voice, but it can’t be real. There’s no way it’s real. There is no way that Vivian came back to me, not after this.
I’m sitting on the nursery floor I created for a baby I never met when I hear Vivian say, ‘Ellis, please. Please look at me. Help me understand.’
My head is between my hands, my fingers wrapped through my hair, but I don’t dare meet her gaze. I can’t. I let her believe she was pregnant with my baby, but I wasn’t trying to deceive her. I swear I wasn’t. In my mind, it was our baby. I’d love that baby just like it was my own because it’s a piece of her. I knew I couldn’t keep this to myself forever, but I needed time. After everything we just went through, now was not the time.
‘Ellis, please.’ Her voice breaks. ‘I know you’re hurting. I’m sorry I left. I shouldn’t have left like that. I should have stayed and talked this through.’
I hear Sebastian hiss her name in a low tone as her footsteps grow closer and she steps over the broken furniture and items spread all over the room. Sebastian has never seen me like this, and I know he’s worried I might do something stupid like lash out at her—and who knows? Maybe I will because right now, I’m angry at the world. I never changed this room because I didn’t want to forget, but at the same time, I didn’t want to remember. But today, I came home early to finally deal with it. However, after staring at the furniture for what felt like hours, unable to focus, I decided to grab a coffee and come back. My mind was a million miles away, and in my fog, I forgot to close the door. I was only running downstairs. I didn’t think in that time Vivian would come home and stumble upon this room.
Shaky hands rest atop my own, and I hear her say, ‘I promise there’s nothing you can—’
I shake my head as my hands tug at my hair, my gaze still pinned to the floor. ‘Don’t say it. Don’t say there is nothing I can do to make you leave. It would only be a lie. You’ve left me every time.’
It’s true. Vivian may have gone home to sell her assets and cut ties with her family, but she left me too. She didn’t have to leave me, but she did. Anyway, the reasons don’t matter. Everyone always leaves. It’s why I shut them out; it’s why I stopped expecting things. I had finally freed myself—until her. But I can’t blame it all on her. Love is a choice, one I kept choosing with her every day.
‘She’s here now, brother, and so am I. So what will it be? We’ve all been broken; we’ve all fucked up. None of us are without blame for how everything has played out, but we can choose not to let this pain hurt us but shape us.’
Vivian’s arms wrap around me, and I feel her face nestle beside mine as she says, ‘I love you, Ellis. Let me in. You didn’t give up on me. I’m not giving up on you. You don’t get to push me away. Not now, not ever.’
Those words strike a chord deep in my heart because they’re the same ones I gave Sebastian when he tried to leave. ‘You heard them?’ I question as I slowly lift my face to find hers.
‘Yes, baby. I heard every word. I was hurt. I love you so damn much. I wanted this baby with you. So, I was crushed when I heard it wasn’t yours. I didn’t understand…’ She trails off, looking around the room before adding, ‘I still don’t understand.’
After all this time, I thought I had finally retrained my brain. I was so accustomed to being let down and hurt that it became an expectation. For years I shut people out and refused to feel. It’s why I couldn’t see this for what it was. I automatically assumed the worst because the worst was all I ever got. She told me she loved me and that it was forever, and I was so quick to throw her words away, as if they no longer mattered. But I can’t let myself continue to wallow in this hurt. However, I’m not sorry it happened. I needed it. I needed to feel the pain to grow through this moment and let this wound finally heal.
‘Her name was Jacinda. We met during my junior year of college. She worked at one of the campus coffee shops. She was pretty, sweet, and had my order memorized. The second I’d walk through the door, she would always start getting it ready. We were acquaintances, until one night I ran into her outside of a frat party—’
Sebastian cuts in. ‘Wait, you went to a frat party?’
My lip starts to quirk up into what feels like a smile. I know he’s trying to lighten the mood, and I’m thankful, but I need to get this out. ‘No, I didn’t go to the party. I happened to be walking by. That day, I walked to school. I couldn’t tell you why. I never walked, so that night, when I ran into her looking broken as hell, I knew it must have been fate. I was supposed to be walking by that night because she needed me. Immediately, I asked if she was hurt, assuming the worst was that one of the assholes inside had assaulted her, but she shook her head adamantly and said no. She just wanted me to walk her home. So, I did, for the entire next week. I walked her to every fucking class and made sure she got back to her dorm. In my mind, I wasn’t convinced that something hadn’t happened at that party.’ I pause to find the right words that describe how everything fell into place after that, and as I do, Vivian reaches for my hand, intertwining it with hers.
‘Jacinda asked me if I wanted to grab dinner with her one night while I was walking her home, and I knew she was asking for more than just dinner. She was asking me on a date. It was a logical next step, given how strongly I felt about protecting her. I was protective because I cared, and caring usually leans into more, leans into love. We were together for three months before she realized she was pregnant. Looking back, maybe she knew all along but was too scared to tell me. The timing of where she was in her pregnancy didn’t align with when we started hooking up. Plus, I knew there was no way the baby was mine.’
Vivian’s hand squeezes mine, and the tension that’s riddled my body since she left starts to ebb. ‘I was right about the party all along. She was assaulted, but because he was technically her boyfriend, she believed it didn’t count. Jacinda went there to break up with him, and he forced himself on her. Of course, I raged. I wanted a name. I was going to kill him, but he didn’t go to the school. He was a dealer. She refused to give me a name and insisted she didn’t want him to know. Jacinda wanted to have the baby without him, but there was no way I would let her do it alone. At the time, I thought the way I felt for her was love. I was determined to do right by her. To give her a good life, one she deserved and one I’d always wanted. With time, I’ve realized I was experiencing big feelings, things I’d never felt before, and mistaking them for love.’
I release Vivian’s hand and move to stand up. The next part of the story gets dark, and I don’t want to risk those bad omens infiltrating her pretty heart. ‘I asked her to marry me, and she accepted without hesitation. We built this room.’ I throw my hands wide as I look at the disarray I created. Good. It needed to happen anyway. ‘She seemed happy. We were happy—’
‘Ellis,’ Sebastian interrupts. ‘Where the fuck was I? How did I not know about this?’
I stick my hands in my pockets and rock back on my heels. ‘It was the year you spent in Italy with Nico. I asked him not to tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise when you came home. It just never got that far. I wasn’t enough. She left.’
‘What does that mean? You didn’t go after her? Did she go back to the drug dealer?’ Sebastian questions in a bemused tone.
‘I came home from the gym one night and found a note on the counter. It said,
I had to go. Please don’t look for me.
Of course, I looked for her. She was seven months pregnant, and my initial thought was her dealer ex-boyfriend found out about the baby and threatened her, but…’
I rest my hands on my hips and turn away because the next part hurts like hell. I’ve allowed it to gnaw away at my sanity for years. It’s why I don’t push. It’s why I accept the pieces, because I was never worthy of more.
‘She drove down to Fresno, rented a cabin just outside of Sequoia National Park, and downed a bottle of sleeping pills. Death was better than being married to me.’
‘Oh my god, Ellis.’ Vivian’s arms wrap around me from behind. ‘She was sick. She had to be. A lot of women experience severe depression during pregnancy. What happened to her is sad, but Ellis, you can’t blame yourself for her death.’ I feel her hands glide up my back in comfort before she adds, ‘Ellis, we’ll figure this out. I’m not leaving, I swear. I can’t promise you I won’t walk out when I am mad. It’s been my coping mechanism for too long, but I’ll try. We’ve all been scarred in some way, but for as much as we hate them for the blemishes they left on our souls, I don’t know that what we have now could have ever existed were it not for the ugly that shaped us.’
Her words squeeze my heart because she is absolutely right. We can choose to see the unsightly bumps and the damage done, or we can see them for the beautiful reminders they are. Sometimes we need to be reminded of the pain we endured to remember our strength and grow into the people we always longed to be.
Before I can even turn in her embrace to acknowledge her words, another voice steals my focus. ‘What the hell happened here?’ Tatum says from the doorway.
It’s going to be a long night, but at least I won’t have to endure it alone. I’ve found my family.
