Chapter 35
Elijah
“Willow?”
Ezra called earlier to say she’d shown up at his bar like she had been crying. He’d served her a few drinks and tried to get her to talk, but when he attempted to cut her off, she told him to fuck off, smashed a glass and walked out.
Apparently, she was more than a little drunk.
I know today is hard for her. It would be Leon's birthday, and it's the first one she's spent in her life without him. I expected her to be distant and some tears, or even for her to shut down.
But not this.
When Willow’s sad, she closes off from everyone. She doesn't explode or break things. And she doesn't push people away unless they've really gotten under her skin.
Which means something happened today.
When I left her this morning after she came apart twice on my tongue in the shower, she was okay.
Well, as okay as she can be.
I’m banking on her being home because I’m running out of options, and I don't do well with not knowing where she is.
I stopped by Beantastics first. The lights were off, but through the glass, I could make out enough to know something had happened. The place was a mess, and the sign on the door still said open, but luckily, the door was locked.
The studio was closed, so she wasn't there either.
And her phone is off.
I’m seriously fucking panicking here.
I close the door behind me, the lights are off, and there's not a sound.
If she isn't here, I’m gonna have to organise a search party with my Mam.
“Are you home?”
The front room is dark, but I spot her. She's curled in the corner of the couch, her knees tucked tight to her chest, a bottle of vodka dangling loosely from her fingers. Just holding it, staring straight ahead like she's somewhere entirely.
“Baby?”
Nothing.
I flick on the small lamp beside me, and the light hits her face.
She's still in her uniform. Her beautiful, green eyes are bloodshot and unfocused. Her skin is blotchy from crying, mascara smeared down her cheeks in dark streaks. I don't miss the redness of her wrists from scratching them again.
She's breaking down silently, something that cracks my heart.
All I want is for her to look at me, but she won't.
“What happened?” I ask her quietly. “Ezra said you went to his bar, and the coffee shop was a mess.”
I move slowly to sit beside her, not wanting to startle her, and reach for the vodka bottle. Before I can take it from her, her grip tightens around it.
“Don’t,” she croaks, her voice wrecked from crying.
There's an overwhelming feeling of needing to tear apart whoever made her cry.
I press my lips together, then rest my hand gently on her knee, where they're tucked against her chest. She flinches at the contact, but thankfully doesn't move away from me.
“I don't think you need any more.”
Her glassy eyes finally shift to mine. Obviously, by the look on her face, she doesn't agree.
“You have no idea what's good for me.”
Okay, something definitely has happened between this morning and now.
“Alright, what's happened?”
She hesitates. I can see it—the battle in her head. Her lashes lower, and she buries her face back into her knees like she's trying to hide from whatever she needs to tell me. But then she looks back up, sadness flashing back at me.
“Is it true?”
That small crease appears between her brows, the one she usually gets when she's overthinking. I just want to smooth it away with my thumb. I want to take whatever this is off her shoulders.
“You're going to have to be more specific, baby.”
She lifts the bottle and takes another swallow. Her face tightens at the burn, but she doesn't seem to care.
“Did you get Rose hooked on drugs?”
That… was not what I expected.
My jaw ticks. “Who told you that?”
I have a fairly good idea, but I need to hear her say it. I need to know exactly what kind of poison has been whispered into her ear about me.
“You're not denying it?” Her words slur slightly, but her stare doesn't waver.
“I’m not a liar, Willow.”
“You're not honest either.”
There are two things in my life that I regret without question: betraying my best friend and letting drugs take control of me when I was too young and too reckless to understand the damage I was causing.
“I was going to tell you,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “I just didn't know when the right time would be.”
She studies me like she's trying to decide if I’m worth believing.
“Do you still take them?”
I know she needs and deserves the truth.
“No,” I answer honestly. “I haven't touched anything in years. I got help. Proper help. Therapy. Rehab. The works. Rose did too.”
My hand moves to the back of my neck, gripping it as the past presses in.
“I never forced her into anything. She wanted to try it.
And at the time, I didn't stop her. I should have, but I didn't. I was a stupid teenager with a crush on my best friend's girlfriend, and I let that crush turn into something selfish and reckless. It spiralled out of control until it was too late.”
There's no excuse for what I did.
She pushes herself to her feet abruptly.
“I can't fucking believe you,” she hiccups, tears spilling over again. “Did you know she never wanted me? That she was jealous because my dad actually wanted to be a parent, and because she didn't get any… any attention, she went running to you?”
I want to pull her into my arms. Let her hit me if she needs to. That she's allowed to be angry at me, at Rose, at the entire mess of it.
But one wrong move and she’ll either smash the bottle over my head or pour the rest of the vodka down my back.
Okay, she won't do the first one, but I deserve it.
Mostly.
“I did,” I admit quietly. “I knew she struggled with being a mum. I knew she resented how much Leon loved you.”
The words taste bitter, wrong on my tongue. How can you not love your own child? I never understood it once I held River for the first time.
“There isn't anything I can say that will undo what happened back then,” I continue.
“If you're angry because I didn't tell you about the drugs, then you have every right to be. I should have told you sooner. I was going to. I just…” I shake my head slightly.
“It's not a time in my life I’m proud of. I don't like revisiting it.”
I reach for her hand on instinct. Just needing to touch her.
She moves away.
Fuck.
“Don’t touch me.” She blinks. “I can't have you touching me because I’ll forget why I’m angry… and you'll make me feel better. I don’t want that. I deserve to feel like this.”
Slowly, I lower my hands back to my sides, giving her the space she asked for, even though every part of me wanted to close the distance.
“She always gets inside my head.” Her hand shakes. “Sometimes I start thinking… Do you still love her? Are you only with me because I look like her? Because I remind you of her?”
A brittle laugh leaves her.
“Maybe she's right. Maybe I would be better off with my dad, so you can go back to her.”
No.
Before she can move away again and talk absolute bullshit, I reach for her. I take her hand in mine and ease the vodka out of the other one, setting it down on the coffee table.
“Elijah, don't." She whispers.
But I do.
I draw her into me, firm but careful, like I’m grounding something that's about to tip over.
“Listen to me,” I say quietly, but there's no room for argument in my tone. “You can be angry with me. You can hate me for not telling you sooner, or shut me out if you need to. But you do not get to believe that you would be better off dead.”
I cradle her face in my hands, ensuring she's looking at me—not past me or through me.
“You are not her. You don't think like her. You don't love like her. You don't break people the way she does.”
My forehead rests against hers.
“I don't love her,” I say plainly. “I haven't loved her in years. What I feel for you isn't a replacement. It isn't nostalgia, and it isn't familiarity.”
I breathe her in, steadying both of us.
“I lo… care about who you are. Not her.”
My thumbs brush beneath her eyes.
“I don't want a life that doesn't have you in it. I don't even like picturing it.”
My voice softens, even though I am so fucking pissed off inside because of Rose.
“So don't ever tell me you'd be better off gone. I can't bear that. Not from you.”
She doesn't fight me this time.
The resistance drains out of her slowly, and I watch it happen—the anger fading as she cries more, and I swipe her tears away. I’ll always make sure to dry her tears for the rest of my time.
“Maybe we should stop this.”
That's a terrible idea.
“What?” I ask in disbelief.
Her little nose scrunches. “Rose told me to… to stop fucking you today,” she sniffles. “I told her she was wrong, but she was pretty convinced.”
Oh, I’m going to have some words with that ex-wife of mine. She doesn't get to waltz in and tear at Willow when she's so vulnerable. She's obviously done that on purpose, like the vindictive bitch she is.
She has no proof of us. And I’m pretty sick of hiding my feelings for Willow now.
“I’ll deal with her.”
Willow shouldn't have to.
I tighten my hold on her, just enough that she feels it.
“But don't give up on this. On us.”
There's no version of my life that doesn't have her in it. I don't even want to imagine one.
I know this is the vodka talking. The unbearable grief. The old wounds Rose knows exactly how to press and when. Because even now, through the tears, Willow is still looking at me the same way I look at her.
That has to mean something.
Her hands slide over mine and gently pull them away from her face.
“I… I need to go to bed,” she murmurs weakly. “I need to clear my head.”
Nope. I don't like it. She shouldn't be alone, and I don't want to be.
“Okay,” I say anyway, because pushing her will only make it worse.
Her hand rests against my chest for a moment—light, hesitant. Her fingers twitch like she wants to say more.
But she doesn't.
She just walks past me and heads down the hallway, leaving me alone.
I exhale calmly.
I’ll do whatever it takes to prove to her that she is everything I want. Not because of where she comes from, not because of who her mother is, but because she's Willow.
My Willow.
Rose crossed a line tonight. The past was mine to explain when the time was right.
If Willow needs space, I’ll give it. But there is no way I am letting her walk out of my life because of that bitch.
Not now.
Not ever.