Chapter 30 Loving Me #11
The word came out soft, but he stopped immediately anyway. A silence settled between us. Ellis looked at me for another second before giving a faint, almost disbelieving smile.
"That's the first thing you've said to me in eleven months."
Guilt twisted painfully through me.
He swallowed before speaking again. "I kept thinking maybe if I waited long enough you would walk back through that door eventually." His eyes dropped briefly to the floor. "Which is pathetic, probably."
"I need..." My throat tightened around the words. "Closure."
The hope dimmed slowly, though it did not disappear completely.
"Okay," he said quietly.
Neither of us spoke for a while after that. My heartbeat thudded painfully against my ribs while every sentence I had practiced began unraveling apart the moment I needed it. I stared at my hands.
"I should've talked to you."
His expression shifted immediately.
"April—"
"I should've told you things," I continued before fear could close my throat entirely. "About my childhood. About why some things made me panic. About...everything."
Understanding moved slowly across his face. The way I shut down during sex. The way he mistook my withdrawal for indifference because I never gave him language for what was actually happening inside me.
"April," he said softly, "none of that was your fault."
"I know."
And strangely, I did know that now. "But I still should've trusted you enough to say it."
Ellis sat down heavily on the edge of the couch, leaning forward with his forearms against his knees like the weight of the conversation had finally settled onto him physically.
"I thought you stopped loving me," he admitted quietly. "I thought you were not really into me."
I looked down again, fingers tightening together painfully.
"I thought there was something wrong with me," I explained.
His face changed immediately.
"God, April."
"But there isn't." My pulse spiked violently even saying it aloud. Ellis closed his eyes briefly.
"I'm beautiful," I whispered, the words trembling despite my effort to steady them. "I'm attractive and I'm worth loving."
His expression crumpled with something so raw it almost made me look away.
"Yes," he said immediately. "You are. You always were."
For a second neither of us moved. Then Ellis stood slowly and crossed the space between us before stopping close enough that I could feel warmth radiating from him.
"I would've learned," he said quietly. "If you'd told me how to love you properly, I would've learned."
The grief in his voice hurt more than anger would've.
"I know."
"You could still tell me now." He added.
His hand lifted carefully, hesitantly, like he was approaching a frightened animal instead of a woman he used to share a bed with, and for one awful moment I saw exactly how badly he still wanted this to become something salvageable.
His fingers brushed lightly against mine.
I pulled my hand back. He stood very still, although I could see the effort it cost him not to reach for me again.
The silence between us no longer felt uncertain now.
It felt like something grieving while it died.
He looked at me carefully, his eyes moving across my face as though he was trying to memorize me while I was still standing in front of him.
"You love him."
The words came quietly, not accusing, not bitter, only tired in a way that made my chest ache.
I swallowed hard before answering because even now speaking too much at once felt like trying to hold water in shaking hands.
"I feel safe with him."
Ellis lowered his head slightly at that, and for several seconds he said nothing at all. I watched his jaw tighten before he exhaled slowly through his nose. When he finally looked back at me, his eyes had changed.
"I kept thinking," he admitted quietly, "that maybe you only needed time. That if I gave you enough space you would eventually remember us differently and come back when things stopped hurting so much."
His mouth curved faintly then, but the smile disappeared almost immediately.
"I think part of me believed you walking through that door tonight meant I had been right all along."
Guilt twisted painfully through me because I had known the moment he opened the door exactly what hope he had attached to seeing me there.
"I don't want to hurt you."
"I know." His voice roughened slightly. "That's honestly the worst part, April. You've never tried to hurt me. If it is any consolation, I never wanted to hurt you either."
Emotion climbed hot and painful into my throat.
Speaking still did not come easily to me, especially not when someone was looking at me with that much honesty, but I forced myself to hold his gaze anyway because disappearing into silence now would only leave both of us trapped inside the same unfinished ending forever.
"I don't hate you, Ellis."
The reaction was immediate. His face crumpled before he could stop it.
He turned away sharply, one hand covering his mouth as his shoulders tightened with a sudden uneven breath, and for a moment I realized with horrible clarity that he had truly believed some part of me must hate him for how things ended.
When he looked back at me again his eyes were wet, his composure visibly slipping in a way I had never seen during our relationship.
"Jesus Christ," he laughed weakly, although the sound broke halfway through. "I think I needed to hear that more than anything else."
A tear slid down his face before he wiped it away quickly, embarrassed by it despite everything.
"I keep replaying everything, all the awful things I said followed immediately by every good memory we ever shared, and the regret of knowing I hurt someone I loved started eating me alive after a while.
" His voice thickened painfully as he looked down at his hands.
"I thought eventually you would look back on us and decide I had destroyed something fragile beyond repair. "
"You didn't ruin me."
The words came softly, but firmly enough that he closed his eyes briefly when he heard them. Another silence settled between us then, though this one no longer felt sharp around the edges. It felt exhausted.
Ellis moved closer after a while, slowly enough that I never felt cornered by it, and stopped only when there was still space between us.
"I would've waited for you forever," he confessed quietly. "I don't even think that's romantic anymore. I think it's just the truth. I keep hoping there would be one conversation that would fix everything because losing you never stopped feeling temporary to me."
For a moment neither of us moved. Then, Ellis lifted his hand carefully toward me again before stopping halfway there, giving me enough room to refuse before he touched me at all.
"Can I hug you goodbye?"
I wanted to say yes simply because I knew how badly he needed it. I wanted to say yes because I still cared about him deeply enough to hate causing him pain. But I also knew myself well enough now to understand the danger of giving comfort that sounded too much like reconsideration.
So I shook my head gently. Ellis looked down immediately, emotion passing visibly across his face before he nodded once in acceptance.
"Okay," he whispered.
His eyes filled again despite his obvious effort to stop it. At the doorway I paused one final time before turning back toward him. Ellis stood in the middle of the living room looking completely unlike the man I had once left behind. He looked softer somehow and sadder.
"I do love you, April," he admitted quietly.
The words landed heavily between us, stripped of expectation now, carrying nothing except truth. My throat tightened painfully around my own answer.
"I did love you, Ellis." I replied.
He closed his eyes briefly at that, tears slipping free again despite himself, and I stood there for one last second feeling the full weight of what we had once been to each other before finally turning toward the door.
Then I pictured a broad-shouldered man with unruly curls waiting patiently for me without asking me to become smaller, quieter, easier, or less afraid in order to deserve staying, and with that image steady inside my chest, I finally walked away.
Chapter 29: The Map of April
By the time I reached Bramwell's house, the exhaustion had settled so deeply into my body that even holding myself upright felt difficult.
The drive there passed in fragments. Streetlights blurring across the windshield.
My hands gripping the steering wheel too tightly.
I sat in my car for a moment after parking, staring at the warm light glowing through Bramwell's living room windows.
Part of me still felt strangely untethered after leaving Ellis's house.
Then the front door opened.
Bramwell stepped onto the porch wearing a dark sweater and socks instead of shoes. Concern crossed his face immediately when he saw me.
"You okay?"
I crossed the distance between us before I could overthink it and wrapped my arms around him. Bramwell went still for half a second in surprise before his arms came around me carefully.
"Hey," he murmured softly against my hair.
I tightened my hold on him slightly, pressing my face against his chest as the tension I had been carrying all evening slowly began to loosen. He didn't ask questions immediately. He just stood there holding me while the cool night air moved quietly around us.
Eventually, his hand slid gently up and down my back.
"Do you want to come inside?"
I nodded against him.
Bramwell guided me toward the couch, but before I could sit down, I reached for him again almost instinctively.
I leaned closer and kissed him. It wasn't graceful.
I could feel hesitation threaded through me even then, old fear lingering stubbornly beneath my skin, but Bramwell responded immediately anyway, one hand settling carefully at my waist while the other brushed lightly against my jaw.