39. Ellie
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
ellie
BY THE TIME WE left the bar, I felt lighter than I had in a long time.
I hadn’t realized how badly I’d needed to listen to Theo and Sully bicker while Cooper attempted to run interference. It felt reminiscent of simpler days—a reality I missed so much.
We stayed until the end of the game, almost two hours in total since we’d missed the kickoff at the beginning. And now we were in the car again, heading back to Rosewood.
“Thank you,” Sully said, reaching across the car to slide his palm onto my knee.
“For what?”
“For suggesting we watch the game with the guys. And for coming with me to my apartment.”
I shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t let you keep wearing those tighty-whities, now could I?”
His lips cracked into a smile. “I’m serious, El.”
I swallowed before confessing, “I’m glad we went. I’ve missed them. Being together. Watching you bother your brother.”
A soft chuckle slipped out of him as he rolled to a careful halt in front of a stop sign and then continued through the intersection.
He was curiously slow as he navigated the neighborhood around Maple Street, taking extra turns that were unnecessary.
But we were running out of road now, approaching the large white house with its wraparound porch.
“They’ve missed you, too. My whole family has.”
“And you?”
The question managed to squeak out before I could stop myself, and now I was holding my breath while Sully parked in front of the house in odd, measured movements.
After what felt like forever, Sully turned toward me. His eyes had this energy to them that I couldn’t quite put into words. But they shone brighter than usual.
“Do you remember those numbers I rattled off?”
“At Cream & Craft?”
He nodded.
“Thirty-six, zero, and…”
I couldn’t remember the last one.
“One thousand, nine hundred, and seventy-three. The number of miles between us before you moved home.” His gaze bore into mine, making it hard to breathe. “And I felt every fucking one of them like a goddamn dagger.”
“Sawyer.”
All I could get out was his name.
But he didn’t mind filling the silence. “To say I missed you is the understatement of the fucking century.”
My breath hiccuped out of me. “What about the millennium?”
“That too, baby. That, too.” He reached out, cupping my face with a tenderness I melted into. “And there are things I want to say to you, things I want to talk more about, but I don’t want to rush you. You’ve already gone through so much over the last months, been so brave, and—”
“I wish you would stop saying that,” I interrupted, shaking my head.
Sully’s brows knitted together. “What? That you’re brave? But El…you are.”
“No, no. I’m—” A harsh, humorless laugh broke out of me. “I’m really not.”
His hand dropped from my face, sensing my retreat. I couldn’t help it, though. I honestly wasn’t sure I deserved the way he was treating me.
One thousand, nine hundred, and seventy-three miles.
Five years.
Daggers.
One thousand, nine hundred, and seventy-three daggers.
I’d done that to him. To us. To me.
That didn’t make me feel brave.
That made me feel like a goddamn coward.
Sully cocked his head to the side. “But El—”
“Stop, really.” Suddenly feeling claustrophobic, I opened the car door.
But the air was just as stifling as I got out, and all I could think about was making it inside, where maybe the air-conditioning would make things bearable.
I never liked September in Minnesota. Never liked not knowing if it would feel like summer or fall, if I’d feel a breeze or if the weather would choke me.
“Eleanor?” Sully called after me. I heard the car door slam, heard his steps as they hastened to catch up to me.
“I’m sorry,” I threw over my shoulder, but my words were blubbery, and I realized I was crying again.
Oh, God, I was so sick of crying.
But mostly, I was so sick of holding everything in all the time.
Sully cursed, called my name again, and I couldn’t do it anymore.
“I wasn’t brave!” I cried, stopping in my tracks just before the front steps and throwing my hands up in defeat. “I’m not brave now. And I wasn’t before. I was terrified. I was scared. And I ran away because of it.”
I turned to find Sully walking up the front sidewalk behind me. “What are you—”
“You talked about wanting kids since the summer I met you, Sawyer,” I cut in, needing him to understand.
“You were thirteen years old, staring at the stars, and daydreaming about bringing your kids to see them when you got older. And I never thought much of it because I thought I wanted that, too. But then I was twenty, and I got all these clots in my lungs, and there was a day or two there where everyone treated me like I was going to die—”
“Baby, I know.” His expression cracked, and it killed me to see. “I was there. I was there, and you had every right to be terrified. Because it was so goddamn terrifying, El. Nothing in the world has ever scared me more than the thought of losing you.”
I nodded, agreeing. Because if the situation had been reversed, I could only imagine how scared I would have been. But he wasn’t grasping what I was trying to say—not really.
“But I wasn’t okay,” I said, quieter. Barely audible. A truth I’d never said aloud.
Sully had stopped, just a few feet away. His hands sort of hovered in front of him, like he desperately wanted to reach out for me, but he was scared to. Scared that I’d slip away again.
“You’re right,” he acknowledged. “And I think I know that now.”
“Because even though I was fine, even though I survived, none of it stopped.” Tears streamed down my face, and I didn’t have it in me to stop them. I just let them run, dripping from my jawline and my chin. “It just morphed…the way everyone treated me.”
Sully inched closer, a flash of protective anger in his gaze. “Who?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Doctors, nurses, any medical professional I saw in the year after.”
His frown deepened. He shook his head. “I don’t understand, Eleanor.”
“Are you being careful about pregnancy?” I mimicked, channeling the doctors I saw, the things they said, the words that repeated over and over in my brain because they felt like they were repeated to me just as many times.
It didn’t matter if I was going in for a pap smear or a throat culture or some goddamn cough syrup.
Appointments that had nothing to do with my reproductive needs would end in me walking to my car with a pit in my stomach, worries circulating in my head.
“Are you on a new birth control? Are you aware of the risks of being pregnant with your medical history? Make sure you talk to your ob-gyn before you plan for pregnancy. You’ll want to have a plan first. It’ll be high-risk, just so you know. ”
High-risk, high-risk, high-risk.
The number of times I thought about those words that year and what they meant for me felt endless.
Sully’s lips were parted, floundering for words. But it was okay because I wasn’t done yet.
“And I was afraid, Sawyer. I was afraid about not being able to give you the one thing I knew you wanted. I was afraid to admit that pregnancy fucking terrified me, that all these doubts had been put in my head. It felt like…I’d only ever seen women who fully embraced pregnancy, who were excited for it, unbothered by the risks entailed in it.
People talk all the time about the pain of childbirth, but it’s not even that.
It’s everything else, the mortality of it, and I was ashamed that my feelings were so complicated.
It made me feel so selfish, like I was a fucking coward.
Like I was only thinking about myself. Like I failed you because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it.
For you. For us. For them, the children we talked about having.
And then I was twenty-two and feeling lost and no longer sure about what I wanted my future to look like, but it was never because I didn’t want you in it. ”
My tears wouldn’t stop, and I knew I was a mess, but he said it was okay. He said he was okay with messy, so I let them run. Run, run, run.
“It was never because I didn’t want you in it, Sawyer,” I repeated, quieter. “Never.”
Sully had resumed taking slow steps toward me now, his expression a thing of pain—broken and desperate. And all I could do was cry, feeling wrung out from my confession. Saying the truth that I’d never told anyone.
“I wanted to give you a chance,” I whispered. “I wanted to give you time to consider what you really wanted. I’d thought that moving to Boston while you finished college was a good way to do that. I never imagined—”
I choked on a sob, unable to finish.
I never imagined that years would go by.
I never imagined that he’d take my decision to go to Boston as a final act that we couldn’t recover from.
“El, baby.”
I saw a single tear streak down his face, too.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, finally brushing my face. “I’m so sorry. I should have been more honest with you.”
“I wish you had been,” he breathed. His hands twitched, and he raked one through his hair before crossing his arms over his chest. But then, a second later, he was dragging a palm down his face, shaking his head.
“I wish I’d known what you were going through, how scared you were.
I’m so sorry, Eleanor. I was just so hurt and blindsided.
I thought you must have wanted more than me and kids.
I thought—fuck.” He stepped closer, a pleading look on his face.
“You’re anything but selfish, and you’re anything but a coward.
You and your health will always come first to me, too.
That’s the way it should be. And I stand by what I said today, El. That you are brave.”
“I—”
“Just listen,” he pleaded, and I gave in, letting him talk.
“Because I also need you to know the one thing I never should have said. The idea that I wouldn’t beg you to stay or come back is ridiculous because I will.
I’ll do it right now, Eleanor. I’ll get on my knees and beg you.
Beg you to understand that I don’t care about anything else but you.
Beg you to believe me when I say that you are my dream, and everything else is just extra.
Beg you to forgive me for letting you walk away, for missing your graduation, for not being there for you.
Beg you to hear me when I say I want you. ”
Unable to keep my feet from moving, I closed the space between us and caught Sully’s arm just before he was about to drop to his knees, fully planning to do what he claimed—beg.
But he pulled me closer instead, cupping my face with both of his hands and looking down at me with an intensity I felt in my bones.
“I love you,” he rasped, his eyes glassy. “I just need you to know that I love you. I have loved you for so long that I don’t even know what it’s like to not love you anymore. I will never not love you, Eleanor. I will love you on days you’re scared and on days you’re fearless.”
“I’m scared far more than I’m fearless,” I warned him because I felt like I had to. Even while my heart was soaring, my lips itching to smile at his words. “My body makes me so anxious now. Just living in it. And sometimes I don’t know how to turn my brain off.”
“I will be here to help you,” he said firmly. “Every day, no matter what. I promise you, baby. Because I love you. And loving you and having you is all I fucking need. I want you healthy, I want you safe, I want you loved, I want you here—in my house, my home, my bed—”
I cut him off with a kiss, pushing up to my toes, launching myself at him.
Mostly because if he said one more damn word, my heart was going to combust. It was going to shatter into a million little pieces, and that was the last thing I wanted. Because every piece of my heart—big and small—was filled with Sullivan Sawyer London. And I couldn’t bear to lose any of it.
But also because, God, I wanted to kiss him.
I needed to kiss him.
To feel him.
To taste him.
And to never let go, not ever again.