43. Dominic
CHAPTER 43
Dominic
MY ONLY PLAN
PRESENT
“ Y ou’re going to hate me,” Ellie whispers as she moves to sit up.
Despite my stomach sinking like a weight in the ocean, I try my best to reassure her. How could she think I’d ever hate her. I’m not capable of it.
“I’m not going to hate you, just talk to me. We can’t move forward if we don’t talk about the past.”
She takes a deep, shaky exhale. To soothe her, I cradle one side of her jaw and run soft brushes down her cheek.
“I—I—It’s not easy to explain.”
“So try anyway.”
She goes quiet for a long beat, her eyes flicking around the room before finally landing back on me.
“I just felt…lost.” Her voice trembles. “We were always such an us . But the second I got to school, I couldn’t figure out how to be me without you.”
I knew she struggled with the adjustment—I did too. But I stay quiet .
“The more time that passed, the more I realized I didn’t like the version of myself I was becoming. I lived for the weekends, because that’s when I got to see you. I didn’t make any real friends because that would’ve meant cutting into the little time we had together. My grades were slipping. Yours were too. Everything felt like it was moving around me—fast—and I was stuck. Everyone else seemed to know what they wanted, what came next. And all I had was…you.”
She swallows, her fingers curling in her lap.
“You were my only plan. I didn’t know what job I wanted, or what I even liked anymore. Everything I did was for us, around us, because of us. That’s when I started thinking maybe I needed a little space. Just a break. It was never supposed to be permanent.”
She glances at me, eyes so full of pain, it physically hurts to look into them.
“But I knew if I told you it was temporary, you wouldn’t really let go. You’d wait. You’d call. You’d show up. And I needed the kind of space that meant figuring things out on my own.”
She blows out a long, heavy breath.
“You make one choice, thinking it’s just a pause, a breather—and you don’t realize it’s the thing that changes everything. I thought maybe I needed a few weeks. A month. Just until study abroad started. I didn’t mean for it to be forever.”
Her voice breaks just a little, and when she meets my gaze again, it’s devastating.
“When you’re young, everything feels like the end of the world. Every choice feels bigger than it is, and every mistake feels permanent. I didn’t mean to lose you. I was just trying to find myself.”
I swallow hard, the burn creeping up my throat like acid. There’s more. There has to be. Ellie’s always been quick to make rash decisions, sure—but that being the reason we ended? Just her needing space? I’m not buying it. Not completely.
She drops her elbows to her thighs, burying her face in her hands. When she speaks again, her voice is muffled and tired.
“About a week in, I knew I’d fucked up.”
She lets out a dry, humorless laugh, lifting her head just enough to look at me.
“I realized what I really needed was to talk to you— really talk to you. So I made this whole plan to come visit you that weekend and basically beg you to take me back.”
She pauses, eyes glassy now.
“But I wasn’t feeling well. I figured it was just stress at first. My period had started, and it was bad. Heavy. Cramping that wouldn’t let up. Or at least—that’s what I thought it was…”
She trails off and my heart lurches.
“I could barely move,” she continues. The pain was indescribable. I was pale, I was shaking. Scottie threatened to call my mom if I didn’t go to the hospital. So we went to the hospital.”
My lungs deplete all their air. I’m choking on nothing, suffocating in the void.
I was holed up in my dorm room trying to figure out where it had all gone wrong, meanwhile she was hundreds of miles away and she wasn’t okay. And I wasn’t there.
“What was happening?” My voice is barely audible.
A shuttering exhale passes through her lips, her green eyes meeting mine, and my heart compresses.
“I was having a miscarriage. A very early miscarriage.” It comes out like a strangled breath, yet glaringly clear.
My vision blurs as my stomach drops in a free fall. One where it never lands, it just continues falling and falling and falling.
“I—I didn’t even know I was pregnant.” Her voice cracks, and the words seem to catch in her throat, but she forces them out. “By the time I found out, it was already…over.”
Her gaze drops and when it lifts to meet mine, it’s shiny with tears that spill over in silent waves. My chest constricts, my heart struggling to pump under the magnitude of her confession.
“It was yours, obviously,” she whispers. “We were going to have a baby and I didn’t even know. I was so self-absorbed and wrapped up in my own shit, I didn’t notice I had missed my period. It was like the universe knew I was already a bad mom, and took the baby away just to show me how unworthy I was to begin with.
“I never told you because at first I couldn’t even process it. It was like I left my body. I wasn’t—I wasn’t there. I had completely disassociated.”A hollow, tear-laced laugh escapes her as she wipesunder her eyes. “You were the first person I wanted to call, but I didn’t know how to handle what was happening while also taking back the breakup. It was like something in me fractured that day.”
Her tears continue to fall, heavy droplets cascading down her cheeks.
“My professors pity passed me thanks to my mom and some carefully worded threats and then she took me home for the summer. I was like this ghost of a person. I hardly remember it, yet remember it so vividly it hurts. I’m sure that makes zero sense?—”
“No, I get it.” I clear my throat. “I understand. In my own way.”
Our gazes hold, a small sliver of time stretching between us. Life, losses, years slipping by, it’s heartbreaking. Something to grieve all on its own.
“I was there…that day you showed up. And I just couldn’t. I couldn’t see you when I was still so gone, so far away from myself I felt like a stranger, just going through the motions of wh at felt like someone else’s life. I didn’t know how to be the girl you loved anymore. I knew if I saw you, it would break me. It would break me to have to explain, and I wasn’t strong enough to do that. I didn’t want you to know, because even saying it out loud made it so much more real. I couldn’t. I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it.” Her voice grows thicker, barely coherent. “I’m a terrible person. I’m a coward,” she chokes. “You have every right to hate me. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. And then I was such a bitch because even ten years later, I still didn’t want to tell you—to deal with it. I’m not a good person.”
I can’t take this anymore. Watching her punish herself. It’s torture.
Instead, I gather her in my arms and hold her. Feel the tremors of her cries pass between us, absorbing them.
“I don’t hate you.” My hand runs up and down her spine. “I don’t hate you,” I repeat.
Maybe if I repeat it enough times, she’ll actually believe me.