36 Ellie
T he days after that passed in a haze. I helped Nat arrange for cameras to be installed, to record any evidence in case she ever needed to report Andy. He came back one more time, but this time, an annoyed neighbour threatened to call the cops on him before we could. That was the last we saw of him at the apartment. He tried to get at her online, but this time, Nat blocked him on every platform she could think of.
Nat was on a high. Routing Andy had been a boost to her self-esteem, and I was glad for her. She sorely needed it after being with that corrosive bastard for so long.
I hung out with Hannah and Joyce after work most days. Nat joined us sometimes—she was really making an effort—but not tonight because she had to work. Hannah and Joyce hadn’t left me like I had feared after my split with Ethan. Instead, both girls had rallied to my side.
“Please don’t make a thing of it. He’s your friend too, and I really don’t want to cause issues. You shouldn’t take sides,” I told them.
Hannah just snorted. “He was an idiot for not choosing you in the first place. I’m glad you’re making him sweat it out. He deserves every miserable minute of his misery.”
“I doubt he’s miserable,” I muttered even as my heart soared just a little. I missed Ethan so much and it killed me to think he was barely affected. Now to hear otherwise…
“Oh, he is. Callum tells me he’s a mess. He isn’t eating. He’s drinking too much. He’s not showering when it’s not a workday. He’s moping around being all miserable, and the whole house is a mess.”
I had only been gone a week. I could barely believe it. “The house can’t be a mess. Ethan prides himself on a clean house.”
“I saw him yesterday. It’s a mess,” Joyce confirmed.
Guilt gnawed at my insides.
Joyce turned to me. “Ellie, I’m completely on your side here, but Ethan’s asked me to play messenger.”
Ethan had left me alone for about three days, then he started messaging me. There were apologies, his declarations of affection and love, but I never replied. I couldn’t bring myself to believe them. He had flowers sent to Nat’s apartment. Nat nearly threw them out, thinking they were from Andy, until she remembered that Andy didn’t like to waste money on flowers. I was serious when I told him I needed space, but it had been a week, and I already missed him. Keeping him at arm’s length was excruciating, but I needed to face him. I had a whole week to be angry at him, and I realised I wasn’t any longer.
Joyce continued, “He wants me to tell you that he understands that you need time, and to take as much time as you need.”
I braced myself for the rest of the message that he was going to move on. I fully expected him to.
Instead, Joyce said, “He wants you to know that he’ll wait for you for as long as you need him to. But you have to tell him if you need him to.”
Oh. The ball was in my court.
Joyce finished, “I love the both of you. I hope you work it out.”
I nodded. He was her brother. She was my friend. I felt even guiltier.
That evening, I locked myself in my old room and called Ethan.
“Ellie,” he said my name like it was something sacred the moment he picked up.
“Ethan,” I breathed at the sound of his voice. It was like rain in the desert. It had only been a week, but it felt like forever to me. I wondered if he felt the same.
“Hey.” His voice was like a warm caress on my ears.
“Hey yourself.”
“How are you settling into Nat’s place?”
“It’s okay. It’s not quite the same, maybe because I know I’m not staying.”
Ethan’s voice was tight. “Have you found somewhere else?”
I couldn’t lie. “There are a few promising places.”
In fact, an apartment in the northern inner city area had opened up just yesterday. It was asking for a higher weekly rent than I was currently paying, but it looked great on paper and I could afford it. If I got back to the agent by tomorrow morning, it was mine. But I hadn’t.
I had looked at other places too, this time to buy. But nowhere I looked felt like home. None of them felt like the cottage.
“I miss you so much, Ellie. I don’t want you to go. I want you to come home.”
I felt something catch in my throat, and I confessed, “I miss you too.”
“Then—”
I cut Ethan off. “I need the space, Ethan. I can’t come back. I’m terrified I’ll fall back into old habits. That I’ll end up settling for less than either of us deserve.”
I had let myself fall into the space where we took each other for granted, whether neither of us made the other feel like the most important person in the world. We had both been guilty of it. Me—out of fear, him—I still didn’t know.
“I know,” Ethan’s voice cracked. “I’ve been thinking a lot about us, and you’re right. But I do want to be with you for real. Let me try, at least. Let me give it a good go.”
“You said before you were falling for me. Did you mean it?” I still couldn’t believe his words, but I owed it to him to hear him out.
“I did. I still do.”
“For how long?”
“For a damn long time, but I didn’t realise it until recently.”
“What made you realise it? Was it seeing me out on a date with Rafe?” It was my biggest fear, that Ethan only wanted me when he saw me with someone else. That I didn’t matter until it looked like someone else wanted me. If he said yes…I would know that I needed to move on because it meant that I wasn’t enough on my own.
Instead, Ethan said, “It was everything. All the little things. All the big things. Your laugh. Your smile. You looking at me like I mattered. It was waking up every day and knowing you were here. It was coming home and knowing you were here. Ellie, you’re the only one I want and I’m sorry it took so long for me to realise it.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just quipped, “I thought it was just the sex.”
Ethan’s voice became low, husky. “It was absolutely the sex too.”
“I knew that’s all you wanted me for,” I joked, but I could hear Ethan’s indrawn breath on the other end of the line. It was what I had accused him of before I left, and I wasn’t joking then. Right now, I still almost believed it.
“I want you for more than that. You are my heart, Ellie, and you have been for a long time. I want to wake up with you. I want to take you places. I want to do all the things we were already doing, but with everyone knowing you’re mine. I just want to be with you. I’ve had a taste of life with you, Ellie, and I can’t get enough.”
“Oh.” The memory of his hands on me, his body on mine, made me burn. I craved him like I craved air and water, but I kept reminding myself that physical attraction wasn’t enough of a reason to let him back in.
“I know I’ve been an idiot about things, but I want you to know that you’re the only one I want. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t do anything because you’re not mine, and it kills me that you could have been, but I fucked it up.”
I wanted to tell him that I was his. That I was always his, but the words clotted in my mouth.
“I should have taken you out on proper dates. I should have had you in my bed every night because I can no longer sleep without you next to me. I should have stopped being a coward and told you I wanted more,” Ethan kept talking. “I should have bought you flowers every day.”
“You did. Buy me flowers.”
That stopped his outpouring of should-haves.
“I hope you don’t mean the flowers I just sent you. I meant in the past.”
“You did then too.”
“I did? When?”
“You in your secret identity as the benevolent old lady landlord did. You paid for a good chunk of the garden,” I smiled. He did hide that he was my landlord from me, but he had never taken advantage of me. There were many things that Ethan didn’t do in our non-relationship, but there were even more things that he did. I had always been terrified that I wouldn’t be enough for him, but even if he didn’t make me feel like I was enough to be in a real relationship with him, he had never made me feel like I wasn’t enough as a person. Even when we were just friends, he had always made me feel important and taken care of, and that was why I had fallen so hard for him. He had made me feel enough in every way that mattered, even though he didn’t do so in the one way that I wanted. Until now.
“Everything is flowering now, so there are flowers. Every day,” I pointed out.
“But you aren’t here to enjoy them.”
“I enjoy knowing they’re in bloom anyway.”
“You would enjoy them more if you came home.”
I hesitated. I loved the cottage but knowing that Ethan owned the place changed things. “Let me think about it.”
Ethan exhaled. “As long as you need. I’ll wait for you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Ellie…”
“No, not like that. I mean that you really do need a tenant. I assume you’ve got a hefty mortgage and all. I know your family isn’t rich, and I know how much houses cost where we—you live.” I knew because I always looked at listings in the area, daydreaming of the day I could afford to buy the cottage if the landlord ever deigned to sell.
Ethan sighed. “I do, but it’s under control. You don’t have to worry about it. You can come back.”
I had to come clean to Ethan. “Ethan, I can’t. I’m happy to help you with the rent, but I can’t deal with that kind of insecurity. I can’t be in the house I want to make a home, knowing you own it and wondering every time if you’d approve of anything I wanted to do to it. It was easier when I thought we were both mere tenants, at the mercy of a faceless landlady who didn’t live there.”
Ethan fell silent.
“I’m thinking of getting my own place. I’ve got enough saved. I’ve seen a few places…” I blurted out.
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
“It’ll be hard, and money will be tight. It’ll mean I’ll have to eat out less, go out less. I won’t be able to buy my dream armchair. But I’ll have my own place, and no one can take that away from me,” I kept on rambling, the original point completely lost.
“Ellie,” Ethan sounded frustrated. “Come back. I won’t charge you rent. You can save up as much as you need, so money won’t be so tight for when you finally find a place. But you never have to leave. I know how much you love the cottage.”
“I can’t do that. You’re not rich, and I won’t put you in that position.”
“Where would you buy, Ellie? What would you buy?”
“I’ll probably get an apartment somewhere further out of the metro area, in one of the outer suburbs. Maybe in the same area as where I’m currently staying. It’s where I can afford at the moment.”
“You hate it there.”
“I don’t hate it.”
“But you don’t love it.”
“It’s what I can afford. I don’t really have a choice.”
Ethan swore. “Of course you do.”
“Ethan, don’t push me, please.”
He shut up.
Finally, he said, “Okay.”
We didn’t talk about me moving back after that. Instead, we talked about unimportant things like what we had been up to in the week we hadn’t seen each other. I told him about how Nat finally sent Andy packing, and that made him laugh out loud. It was good to hear Ethan laugh again.
“It’s about time. Good for her.”
“I know. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
“If he does come back, you know you can call me anytime. I’ll always come.”
The promise made my throat hitch. No one had ever been there for me like that. I still remembered the day he came with me to deliver Nat’s dress to Andy, and how he acted as my shield the entire time so Andy couldn’t intimidate me. No one had ever made me feel as safe as Ethan did.
“Thank you, but I think the cops would get here faster than it’ll take for you to drive here.” We were on completely different ends of the city. At least the distance was only east-west, not north-south. The city kept expanding outwards towards the north and the south, making Perth one of the longest cities in the world. New suburbs on either end felt like they were in completely different parts of the country. At least the expansion inland away from the coast was stymied by the existence of the Darling Range escarpment.
Ethan sighed. “That’s true.”
“Joyce said that the cottage is a mess. I’m shocked.”
“That’s what happens when you’re no longer here to impose any sense of order to the place.”
I scoffed. “You’re a grown man. You can pick up after yourself.”
“Of course I can, but I’m a grown man, and I don’t have to. After all, I live alone now and I’ve got no one to impress.” Ethan was baiting me.
I gasped in mock shock. “Ethan Chu, wait till I tell your mother.”
He groaned. “Please don’t. She found out you’ve left. I’m avoiding her right now because she keeps going on about all the grandchildren I’ve cost her.”
That made me laugh, but I was filled with mortal terror of his mother’s expectations for us.
We stayed on the phone for a bit longer, talking into the night. It was nice, and it was just like nothing had changed even though everything had changed. I wasn’t sure when I hung up at all, but when I woke up the next morning, the phone was still next to my ear.