The Embrace of Evergreen (Unexpected Love #2)

Chapter 17 - EthanBlueEthan

Chapter 17

Ethan

“He just needs some time.” Jayce’s voice is quiet, but not quiet enough that I can’t hear him through my bedroom door.

“I know that. I know that he needs time, I just wish he’d let me sit with him. I’d do anything for him, but he won’t even let me see him. I don’t know how to help him if he won’t let me in.” Blue’s rough and cracked voice is harder to hear through the wall.

A part of me is grateful for that. I haven’t spoken more than a few words in nearly a week. I think. Maybe it’s been hours or months. Time doesn’t really make sense anymore. If Jordyn has been gone for almost two years, what sense does anything make anymore? The whole time I’ve been in Seattle, the whole time I’ve known Blue, the fundamental and unshakable fact that a part of my heart will always belong to Jordyn has been…wrong. What else has my heart been wrong about ?

I know how worried Blue is, but I don’t have the strength to do anything about it. I’m barely managing to pick at enough food from the trays that appear on my nightstand a few times a day to convince them I’m not going to starve to death so that they’ll leave me alone in my silent bedroom again. They bring soup and toast and try to tempt me with cheese and pastries and small pieces of chocolate. They bring glasses of water and hot espressos and sports drinks, setting them down next to me with whispered words and soft palms rubbing my back or shoulders before I shrug them off and curl tighter under my blankets. Even such careful, tender touches feel like knives against my skin. I don’t know why Jayce and Namid seem to have been here the whole time; surely they have better things to do than to worry about a man they barely know. I don’t know why they care. I wish they would go home. I wish I didn’t have to hear Blue beg me to let him hold me or talk to me or help me. I wish I knew how to tell him that I’m breaking in a way that I don’t understand and that having him here is somehow making it worse. That having him with me is just a reminder of how easy it is for life to change. How quickly I could lose him as well.

I know that I shouldn’t feel this way. I didn’t lose Jordyn last week; I didn’t even lose him to a car accident two years ago. I lost him when I was a scared eighteen-year-old kid who ran away after his heart was broken. Hiding in bed and burying my face in my pillows in a futile attempt to stop the flow of tears or soothe the ache in my chest doesn’t make sense. At the very least, I should be able to find comfort in the arms of the man I love, but I don’t. I don’t know how to trust that he won’t be ripped away from me as well. I’ve locked myself away, too vulnerable and helplessly lost as all of the grief that overwhelmed me in my youth and forced me to run swarms back tenfold and threatens to pull me into the abyss along with it. Maybe it’s better if I lose Blue now too. Maybe it’s better if all of the pain comes at once.