Chapter 31
JAKE
“Now, are you sure you don’t want to come?” Christian asked as I slid his suitcase into the luggage compartment under the Hampton Jitney.
Tourists and New Yorkers dressed for summer congregated on the pavement with their bags and coolers, all eager to escape the sweltering city heat, and with the soup-like humidity, I had a brief moment of regret that I wasn’t joining them.
Talia was right. Manhattan in the summer was a real bitch.
“No, I’m gonna hang out here for a while. Figure some things out.”
“You could figure things out at my friend’s amazing place in East Hampton. Loads of rooms. Sun, sea, sand, sangria. You know I make a mean sangria.”
I grinned, remembering all of the pre-party drinks we had in our halls of residence before a night of clubbing. “I remember. But I need a clear head right now.”
Christian pouted. “Damn. When did you become a grown up?”
“If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
He chuckled and cupped my face, pulling me down to kiss my cheek before wrapping me in a long, swaying hug. I squeezed him tight in thanks and we went a few rounds patting each other on the back before things got emotional.
“Good talk,” he said. “Good talk.”
“You better get going.”
He shouldered his beach bag and fished out his ticket. “Remember to water my plants before you go home.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be going home yet.”
Christian glanced back with a knowing smile. “I do,” he said, throwing out a wave as he climbed on the bus.
If only I felt that certain.
Walking was always my preferred mode of transport when travelling, so I skipped the subway back to Christian’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights and decided to walk it.
Brooklyn Bridge was only a mile long, give or take, and one of my favourite scenic city walks. If you timed it right and hung around long enough, you could catch the sunset and the slow flicker into night, and the contrast always made for incredible photos.
That was what I was here for, I supposed.
Nearing the halfway point, I gave my phone a distracted glance to check the time, then did a double-take at the missed calls and voicemail notification bubbles popping up on the screen.
Ellie.
Fuck. Ellie hated talking on the phone. She never called anyone unless it was a loss of blood or broken limbs kind of emergency, and the knowledge of that only powered my anxiety more.
Something’s wrong.
I found a gap between tourists taking pictures against the bridge railing and dialled the voicemail service as fast as possible. The adrenaline spike made my hands tremble as I listened to the automated response and jabbed through all the relevant numbers.
And then…
“Hi. It’s me. Ellie.”
My eyes closed at the sweet caress of her voice, and—
I love her.
No terror. No panic. Nothing but overwhelming relief and a certainty rooted in my bones, the marrow of me.
I fucking love her.
“Of course you know it’s Ellie,” she muttered then, huffing out a frustrated-sounding breath that crackled down the line.
I smiled as the vivid image of her burst in my mind, reigniting the deep, yearning ache for her next to me.
“So I have something to say,” she carried on, “and I don’t know if you’ll want to hear it, but I’m doing it anyway because one day I went to bed with my mum still alive and the next day she wasn’t, and if I learned one thing from that it’s that life is short.
I’d forgotten for a while, or maybe I didn’t want to think about it because it’s so unfair.
Life is so unfair sometimes, and it’s so damn short. ”
I gripped the railing tighter.
Fuck, she was killing me. She’d barely started and she was killing me.
“I quit my job today. Can you believe it? I still can’t.
But I thought about what you said, about me deserving better, and something just snapped.
Obviously, I’m terrified. I’ve never taken a risk like that, but I feel like I can because I’m not alone anymore.
I feel like I have options and people to depend on, and you.
I feel like I have you.” She paused to whisper, “Do I have you?”
YES, I wanted to roar.
Yes, you fucking have me.
“Sometimes, I feel like I’m still figuring out who I am and the person I want to be, the person I’m supposed to be.
There are some things I still don’t know and maybe I never will, but I know what I want right now.
I want the kind of love people dream about.
I’m not talking about fairytales because, honestly, I don’t think people dream about the fairytale.
But I want to share my life with someone.
Someone who loves me, and loves my son, who’s there to fight his corner when I’m not able to.
I want lazy nights in front of the TV, and days out just the three of us, and stupid fights over things that don’t matter in the long run because that’s life.
And I realised that, well, I had that. I had that dream with you, at least that’s how it felt to me.
I know you’re probably freaking out right now, but I don’t want you to worry.
I want you to be happy, Jake, whatever that entails.
That’s what I should have said at the station, but I didn’t because I was scared. But life’s too short to be scared.”
Am I still breathing?
I wasn’t sure anymore.
“I don’t know how this is still recording,” Ellie waffled on, oblivious to my issue with taking in a breath.
“I guess what I’m saying is no matter what happens, I don’t regret any of it and we are so happy to have you in our lives, even if we only ever get a moment of you.
You’re enough for us, Jake. Anyway, I… I hope you’re having a great time.
Please don’t hold this voicemail against me.
I’m gonna go scream into a pillow now. Noah says hi. Take care. Bye.”
She stumbled over the last few words, and I closed my eyes against the tears beading there, huffing out a quiet laugh, relishing the mental image of Ellie hanging up the phone and clasping the burn of her pink cheeks. I could almost taste her embarrassment from here.
She’d probably pace back and forth for a while too. Maybe throw herself on her bed, bury her head in the pillow, and replay this moment over and over.
I knew all of that because I knew her.
It was a novelty, but a beautiful one.
Life changing.
For the first time in my life, I’d stayed with someone long enough to know them through and through, how they worked, what made them tick, what made them come alive, what made them sad. That knowledge took my goddamn breath away again because somehow, amazingly, she knew me too.
She knew exactly what I needed to hear.
I stared at the sway of the East River below, then back to the couple to my left, arm in arm snapping selfies with the view of Manhattan behind them. A gush of wind sent their hair flying, and their happiness didn’t make me ache.
Instead, the noise and chaos in my head quietened, and everything inside me settled, like the dust after a storm.
It was time to go home.