Chapter 23 Magnolia #2
“Ah…” Ellery got up and, god, when would I stop noticing her height?
She moved closer to me, wide-eyed with obvious nerves, and my heart burst into a gallop as she neared.
“So…” She was right in front of me now, and the apartment felt so tiny, so silent, every single sound we made painfully audible.
The thud of my heartbeat, the rustle of our clothes, the sound my throat made when I swallowed.
“I would really like it if you stayed here.”
I swear, every drop of blood inside me drained from my body. I gaped at her stupidly. Then I managed to say, “What?”
“Stay,” she said so simply, as though it were an easy choice to make. As though it wouldn’t tear up my entire life, and suddenly, I was angry.
The thing is, just because I was in love with Ellery didn’t mean I was no longer angry at her.
And when I really thought about it, when I finally allowed myself to stop lying to myself and cut through all the layers of bullshit I’d wrapped around the truth, I realized I was furious at her.
Because when it came down to it, she’d continuously chosen every other thing but me.
She chose London over me. She chose Trish over me.
I was never her first choice. And now here we were, and we’d just spent close to two years seeing each other almost every day, and when I wasn’t studying, my thoughts were consumed by her.
Just like before. I’d fallen into Ellery’s spell and, god, I felt so fucking stupid.
Nothing about us had changed. I was still the little kid who latched on to her, and for her, everything was so easy.
“Stay,” she said, and that was it. Nothing more to it.
Stay and remain as the friend who was obsessed with her.
Stay and just hang out at her place, talking about dumb shit and wasting time until we grow old.
Stay and give up everything while she gave up nothing.
“Just like that, huh?” I said.
“Yeah.” Ellery’s eyes burned into mine, her gaze unflinching. “Just like that, Tulip.”
“Well,” I snorted, “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” I turned away, and she caught my wrist. Her touch seared my skin, and I pulled away, but her hand only trailed down until it was clasped around mine.
“I wasn’t joking. I want you to stay here in LA. You belong here.”
With you, I thought. Say that I belong here with you. But she didn’t, and then I was so angry I could hit her. “Oh, okay, Ellery. Yeah, let me just fuck up my entire life so I can stay here and be your buddy.”
The word “buddy” was spat out with such venom that Ellery blinked. Her mouth dropped open. Then she said quietly, “I don’t want you to be my buddy.”
My insides threatened to melt, and I forced myself to harden them. I couldn’t afford to go soft, not right now. “No, I would just be your consolation prize.”
“What?” She looked genuinely confused.
“Please,” I sniffed. “I was always an afterthought. You never chose me. You were with Trish, and I was just some kid you hung out with who you never took seriously.”
“I never took you seriously?”
“You didn’t even tell me you were applying to schools in England.” There was no going back now. I ripped myself open and bled in front of her. My voice shook as I said, “You chose everything else but me. You left me behind and never looked back.”
“No.” Ellery’s eyes were filled with pain. “You really think that?”
“Yes. What else was I supposed to think?”
“That I was in love with you!” she cried.
“You were not.”
“Yes, I was, you dumbass. I was so in love with you that I broke up with my girlfriend because of it.”
All thought screeched out of my head. Time stopped. The world stopped spinning, and in this moment, there was just me and Ellery and the truth. “What?”
Ellery’s voice softened. “You were my best friend and I was so in love with you, Tulip. All I could think about was you. I was so messed up thinking about you. I couldn’t—of course I couldn’t be in a relationship with anyone else, not when I was so into you.
So I broke up with Trish. God, that time that we were messing around and you rolled on top of me…
” She sighed. “Every muscle inside me just froze. I was like, Holy shit! It’s Tulip!
On top of me! I was freaking the hell out. ”
I recalled that moment too, when my body had been on top of hers. I remembered how it felt like I’d caught fire and how, when I looked at her, she hadn’t seemed at all affected by it. Now I knew it had touched her the same way it did me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tulip, you were sixteen.”
“You were still around when I turned seventeen.”
“Still a teenager. Still would’ve been really, really wrong.”
“You could’ve waited. Was I not worth waiting for?” It sounded so desperate, I know, but I’d waited for her for years, and she couldn’t do the same for me.
“You told me you were straight!” she blurted out.
“You were always checking out cute guys and you had a crush on James…What would I have been waiting for? God, I was so mad at myself. Still am. How could I have fallen in love with a straight girl again? Especially after what happened back in Ohio? So fucking stupid.”
“I—I’m not—I don’t—” The words fought me all the way out. I’d never said them out loud, not even to myself. But I had to now. I had to tell her the truth. “I’m not straight.”
Ellery’s hand tightened around mine.
“I don’t know what I am. Up until I met you, I thought I was straight, but then we became close, and…”
“Yeah. But see, I didn’t know that back then, Tulip.
I just thought you were only into guys, and I felt like the dumbest shit alive, and I just—I couldn’t stand the thought of being around you anymore.
And having to watch you date guys, knowing I had no chance.
I freaked out. I applied to London. What can I say?
I was stupid and in love and so heartsick. ”
The thought of past us broke my heart. Both of us so young and foolish and so utterly in love with each other, and neither of us with the courage and wisdom required to tell the truth.
We were best friends, closer to each other than anyone else could be, and still we managed to erect a giant wall between us.
“How did we fuck things up so badly?” I whispered.
The last decade unraveled before me, a never-ending series of what-ifs every step of the way.
What if we’d just been a little bit more honest with each other?
What if I’d told her how I felt?
What if she’d told me how she felt?
I knew, of course, what would’ve happened.
We would’ve fallen into each other’s arms, laughing, crying, and I would never have left California.
I wouldn’t have met Parker, wouldn’t be the trophy wife I was now.
I would’ve stayed and done some internship after school, and maybe I would be a licensed therapist by now.
Or maybe it would’ve been a disaster, and we would’ve crashed and burned because I was young, so young, and so was she, and we were just a beautiful mess with nowhere to go.
“Tulip,” she said before taking a deep breath. “I have something to tell you.”
I looked up at her, my mouth dry. What else could she possibly tell me right now that we hadn’t already said to each other?
“I moved back here because of you.”
“What? How—what?”
“Iris. She reached out to me online months before you came and asked me for my mailing address.”
Oh shit. Dread coiled in my stomach.
“She sent me a box of photocopied letters. Letters you’d written over the years to me.”
“Oh my god. No,” I gasped.
“Yep.” Ellery rubbed her hands up and down my arms. “Tulip. I can’t believe you did that.
I read them all, I’ve read them multiple times, actually.
And they were so sweet. I just—I was swept away by your words.
The last ten years, I’d wondered so much about your life.
I wanted to know so badly what you’ve been up to, but of course I was always too chickenshit to reach out.
When I read your letters…god. I cried, I laughed.
I fell in love with you all over again.”
My mind spun, scrambling through the years of unsent letters, each one raw, holding back nothing because I wrote them with the confidence that came with knowing they wouldn’t be read by anyone.
And now I was finding out that Ellery had received them after all.
Had read each and every single one. Jesus. Should I be horrified or glad or…?
“Are you mortified?”
“Uh, yeah? No shit!”
She laughed and pulled me into her arms, and I let her. I rested my cheek on her chest, and slowly, my mind went from its frantic spin—ohmygodwhatishappeningohgod—to a slow quiet. I could feel Ellery’s heartbeat under my cheek, and it was fast too, as fast as mine was.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “I loved them. I love you. Only you.”
I refused to believe her, even then. It was too good to be true. Too much. Too unreal. I buried my face in her chest and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Remember when you asked why I was still single?” she said.
I could only nod. Her hand came up to the side of my face, her fingertips brushing back my hair before going down to my chin and tilting my head up. Our eyes met, and I knew she wasn’t lying. This was true. Everything else was noise, and nothing made much sense anymore, but this moment was pure.
“Because this whole time, I couldn’t find anyone like you,” she murmured. “God knows I’ve tried.”
And because it was so raw and so heavy, I couldn’t help but make a joke out of it. “I raised the bar too high.”
Ellery said, completely serious, “You ruined the bar.”
My smile disappeared, the last layer of defense I had evaporating. No more jokes. No more anger. No more misunderstandings.
“I love you, Magnolia. Always have.”