Chapter 8 #2
“It tore me apart to leave for France,” he continued.
“Knowing I wouldn’t get to see you, touch you, be near you for three fucking years.
I tried so hard to forget how much I loved you, but how could I do that when you’re all I can think about?
So eight months ago, I couldn’t keep it in anymore.
I wrote you a letter telling you exactly that, with a ticket for you to come see me. ”
He took a shuddering breath, like it hurt him to finish.
“But you never came. I waited for you at the airport for hours and you never showed up. I stayed so long, security had to ask me to leave because every single person from your flight and all the other flights from Boston that day had already gotten off the plane.”
I tried to put more space between us, but nothing seemed to help bring the air back in my lungs. I’d dreamed of hearing these exact words from him ever since I could remember what love really meant, but all my mind could grasp was that I’d never got the letter.
Ezra raked a shaking hand through his hair before he reached for his back pocket, pulling out a weathered wallet. With trembling hands, he tugged out a folded piece of paper and shoved it toward me, a small polaroid picture of us at graduation falling to the floor in its wake.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“You even returned it a few weeks later,” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him over the sound of my pulse thundering in my ears. “It breaks my heart that you don’t feel the same, but do you know what hurt the most?”
My heart was threatening to rip out of my chest, my vision growing more blurry with each passing second at the crippled browned envelope with three large words stamped at the front.
Return to Sender.
Was that the reason for all of this? Just some quiet, stupid misunderstanding?
I’d never gotten this letter, much less returned it.
All this time, I thought he’d stopped wanting me in his life.
I’d tried calling after I’d moved into my townhouse, I’d written him letters, but every attempt came back unanswered.
I’d considered taking some time off from Roots and going to Paris to see him, but with this stupid economy and life, I hadn’t been able to.
I even thought of asking Josephine to check on him, but what would I have said?
Hey, I’m in love with my best friend and he’s been ghosting me for months. Can you please hop on a flight to Paris and find out why?
But after she’d casually mentioned him in passing one day, him being dead was stricken out of the reasons why he’d been ignoring me.
Eventually, despite how hard it tore me apart, I’d forced myself to move on. To figure out a version of my life without him in it.
Not that I did a great job at it.
“That you didn’t tell me.” His voice scraped against my ribcage, leaving shallow cuts behind.
It carried the same raw and unsheltered ache I’d been shouldering.
“That after twenty years, you didn’t care enough about me to think I’d be able to handle it.
Instead, you tossed me aside like I never mattered. ”
I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head.
I tried to pluck apart each of his words, arranging and rearranging them into sentences that might eventually make sense.
But my mind and chest swirled with an overwhelming storm of emotions that I couldn’t find one to hold onto.
I’d always prided myself on my rationality and ability to sort through my feelings, but right now, everything I’d learned in therapy or from watching my parents’ sickly loving and healthy marriage was unreachable.
“I… I need air,” I managed to get out, clutching at my chest with more urgency. I felt my system shutting down and rushed toward the door. I needed to get out. I needed… Fuck, I didn’t know what I needed, but staying in this room made me feel claustrophobic and I needed out.
I barely wrapped my trembling fingers around the handle when a warm hand closed around it. “Wait,” he said on a low breath. I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the concern in his voice. Gone was the irritation from earlier.
“Don’t go.”
I closed my eyes and took in a shuddering breath as he stepped closer. His chest brushed against my back, and despite every part of me that screamed to guard myself, my betraying body instinctively leaned into him until I could feel the grounding thud of his heartbeat between my shoulder blades.
“Breathe,” he whispered, his breath scorching the sensitive spot behind my ear.
My head dropped to his shoulder, and his fingers slipped between mine, guiding our joined hands to rest over my heart. I knew he could feel my frantic heartbeat pounding in sync with his own as he guided me through taking deep breaths.
Slowly, my breathing began to steady despite the fact that my heart still galloped a million beats per minute from Ezra’s proximity. But that was something I’d grown used to.
There was comfort in it.
A calming haze lifted the overwhelming tension that had gripped me and left his words from earlier finally to settle, anchoring themselves deep in my chest.
I love you, Talya.
I’ve always loved you.
I loved you when we were kids and I haven’t stopped ever since.
The boy I’d fallen in love with when I was seven loved me back. With the same quiet ferocity I’d grown to love him over the years.
Ezra wrapped his other arm around my waist and gently turned me to face him, our joined hands caught between our bodies. For a beat, neither of us spoke. Words, explanations, and apologies swirled around us, but when I tipped my head back to meet his gaze, all of it just disappeared.
All I could feel was the solid press of his body against mine.
All I could smell was his familiar, intoxicating scent filling my lungs.
All I wanted was more of him.
Ezra seemed to share the same thought because if I could see myself right now, I’d bet the shifting expression on his face matched my own. We’d always been in sync, and what I’d thought had been long gone, barreled back between us like it had never left.
“Truth or dare, Talya?” he asked, his voice low, his eyes heavy on mine.
“Truth,” I replied without hesitation. Something deep inside me already knew what he was going to ask, and after years of holding it in, I was finally ready to set it free.
“Do you love me?”
“I do,” I said with unwavering certainty. “I’ve always loved you, Ezra. I loved you when we were kids and I haven’t stopped ever since.”
There was a soft catch in his breath, his eyes going tender as my words mirrored his own.
My heart threatened to burst at the sight.
I’d always assumed I’d have to get over my first love, to mourn what could’ve been and hope that someday I’d find someone who would be able to make me feel an ounce of what Ezra did.
But that was never going to happen because how do you move on from the person who owned your heart so fervently, the mere thought of them made your soul ache forever in their presence?
Ezra’s thumb brushed against my knuckles like he needed the sensation to ground himself.
Goose bumps rose across my skin beneath his touch, craving to feel it everywhere.
My eyes wandered over every line of his face, from the hard line of his jaw to the curve of his lip before meeting his eyes again.
“My turn,” I said, my chest brushing against his with each inhale. “Truth or dare?”
My body thrummed with anticipation as Ezra’s gaze dropped to my mouth, lingering there with such raw, reverent hunger that my lips parted on instinct, my breath suspended midair as I waited for his reply.
“Dare.”
He crowded closer, his body pinning mine against the door behind me, and the breath I’d been holding slipped free past my lips, carried by my next words.
“Kiss me.”
A dare. That was what this was meant to be, but the weight of it buzzed beneath my skin.
A kiss from Ezra James had been something I’d wished for every year for my birthday and maybe this time, fate wouldn’t get in the way.
Maybe this time, it would finally give us the ending we’d both been waiting for.