Chapter 12 – “i’m worried it will always be you” – Katie Gregson-MacLeod
ELENA
“I’M WORRIED IT WILL ALWAYS BE YOU” – KATIE GREGSON-MACLEOD
AGE TWENTY-THREE - FEbrUARY
“ Ad Elena, la mia ragazza perfetta. Non potrei essere più orgogliosa di essere tua madre .” My mom raises her glass, and everyone politely blinks at her because they don’t have a damn clue what she’s saying. However , I know she’s proud of how far her Italian has come in the last few years.
“She said Elena’s her favorite child and we should all raise our glasses.” Everett smiles, lifting his beer from the center of the table.
My mother rolls her eyes but doesn’t bother correcting him as everyone lifts their cups, congratulating me.
My parents, both brothers, August, Zach, and their parents, plus a couple of my coworkers from Harbor Coffee, are here.
We rented out the upper deck patio at the Seaside Sunset on the pier, the sun sinking over the Pacific behind us as we celebrate my publishing deal.
I released my first book last year, and it did a lot better than I ever imagined it would.
I landed an agent about six months ago and spit out two more books in this same series.
My agent pitched them to traditional publishing houses, and a few weeks ago, we received an incredible deal: the three books I’ve already written, plus three more I’ve got planned out within the same series.
The advance allowed me to quit my job at the coffee shop and pursue writing full time.
I might have deadlines, a book tour, and an entire team of people putting pressure on me now, but it’s more than worth it to have this be my whole life.
I take a sip from my drink, meeting August’s eyes across the table. His smile is wide and genuine, emerald eyes sparkling as he mouths, I’m so proud of you . Emotion pricks in my eyes; none of this seems real right now, and I know more than anyone else, I wouldn’t have made it here without him.
There is a pressure on my thigh, and I glance down to find Zach’s massive hand splayed against my leg, squeezing gently.
I look up at him, and he’s smiling too, though it doesn’t appear quite as genuine.
I force a smile back. My writing’s been a sore spot between us these last couple of years.
Zach continues to bounce around from job to job, and I know he’s still resentful of my success, but at the very least, he doesn’t say anything negative about it anymore.
“So, Elena—how did you come up with the name Violet Rose?” Sadie, August and Zach’s mother, asks me from the other end of the table.
“Oh.” My eyes meet August’s, and Zach squeezes my thigh again. “Well, Rose is my middle name, so that made sense. I almost used my real first name, but I decided to go with Violet instead. I thought two flowers as a name flowed well together.”
Violet was actually August’s idea. He came up with it when he was tattooing the flowers along my forearm last year.
I’d finally convinced him when I graduated high school to get a matching tattoo with me.
It started with constellations. Mine is behind my ear: Libra, his sun sign.
He has a Leo constellation on his wrist for me.
It wasn’t until last year that I convinced him to do something more detailed, and that’s how I ended up with wild violets dotted between my wrist and my elbow, along with matching vines and leaves.
The same flowers he used to draw on my skin with pen, that he picked for my birthday every year.
Those flowers belong to us. It’s another secret of ours, so choosing that name was my way of thanking him for all his support.
“I love the sentiment behind it.” Sadie smiles, but like her oldest son’s, it's unconvincing. She has never liked me. She thought I was a bad influence on August when we were younger, and she convinced herself I corrupted Zach’s purity by taking his virginity.
That thought always makes me laugh, as if he wasn’t a seventeen-year-old boy with raging fucking hormones.
I know she especially doesn’t like the content of the literature I write, but I couldn’t care less about her opinion, honestly. She’s a washed-up soap actress everyone forgot about twenty years ago.
“Thank you,” I say, forcing kindness into my voice.
Zach leans into me. “You’re coming home with me tonight, right?”
He doesn’t sound seductive and smooth like he normally does when he’s propositioning me like this. No, his voice sounds tight and distant, like he’s not fully invested. Still, I nod all the same, because I seem to be physically incapable of turning him down.
Zach lightly kisses me behind the ear, right over the tattoo his brother put there. As his lips touch my skin, I lift my eyes, gaze clashing with August’s. He watches the gesture, and an unmistakably painful expression washes over his features before he turns his head and looks away.
Suddenly, my appetite is gone.
“Did you enjoy dinner?” Zach asks as he shuts the door to his small studio apartment and we both kick off our shoes.
“Yeah.” Tension hangs thick in the room, and every part of me feels on edge. “Did you?” I ask, turning to face him as I awkwardly sit on the edge of his bed.
He shrugs. “Wasn’t my party.”
I tilt my head, attempting to read his face—and failing, just as I always have. Deciding to go ahead and address whatever weirdness is floating between us, I say, “You don’t seem happy for me.”
He slowly closes his eyes, as if preparing himself for what’s about to come. “That’s not it, Elena.”
“Want to tell me what it is, then?”
He lets out a long sigh, leaning back against the kitchen counter, like he’s trying to keep as much space between us as possible. “I want kids.”
What the fuck. “Umm...”
He shakes his head, dragging a hand down his face. “I don’t mean right now. I mean in general.”
“With me?” The question comes out apprehensively.
I definitely don’t want kids. Not right now, and probably not ever.
“I don’t know.” He pushes off the counter and takes a step forward. “And isn’t that a problem? I mean, it’s been a decade of this back and forth. I should know by now, shouldn’t I?”
All my internal organs feel like they’re about to fall out of my ass. “We’re still young,” I murmur.
“Yeah, but I want to settle down soon. I want to get married. I want to have kids and own a home. I want to make a life, and you’re just starting your career.
You have so much ahead of you.” He closes the distance between us, taking my face between his hands.
“I’m so excited for you. For that. But I…
I don’t think it’s something I signed up for, Elena. I don’t think we make sense anymore.”
“We’ve never made sense, Zach.” My chest feels hollow, but my throat feels stuffed. My nose stings as it attempts to hold the pain behind my eyes. “That hasn’t stopped us before.”
“We were kids.”
My jaw strains, lips trembling as I fight to halt my tears.
I close my eyes—fighting a war to maintain my composure.
Zach has broken up with me a million times, but this is the realest it has ever been.
Because he’s right. We’ve reached the point in our lives where our decisions have harsher consequences.
Time starts to move faster, and infatuation isn’t enough anymore.
“I wish you would’ve figured this out before you made me fall in love with you,” I whisper.
“I didn’t make you do anything, Elena. I didn’t ask you to fall in love with me, and you didn’t ask me if I wanted to run alongside you when you decided to chase your dreams.” His touch is soft where his words are sharp, as if he’s shoving a blade through the center of my chest and then asking me why I’m bleeding all over his clothes. “I think maybe we should just end?—”
“No.” My brain didn’t give my mouth permission to say the word, but somehow, it floats in the air between us anyway.
I grip Zach’s forearms, pushing him back.
He lets me flip us so he’s sitting on the bed, and I’m crawling atop him.
“Please don’t say that. Don’t do this,” I beg, moving his arms to my waist and dragging my hands up his chest, burrowing my face in his neck.
I don’t know why I’m doing this right now, delaying the inevitable, but I can’t stop myself.
His scent is too familiar, his touch too well known.
He’s all I’ve ever had, and I physically don’t know how to get up and walk away from it—even when I’m certain I should.
We’re heading toward disaster; I can see it on the horizon, but I’ve spent my entire life trying to make this love work.
To throw that all away would deem it worthless.
The pain, the tears, the fights, all of it for nothing.
No epic love story, no happily ever after.
Desperation swallows me whole as I grind against Zach’s lap, wanting—needing—him to feel my anguish. If I can’t do anything else, I can remind him of our chemistry, the burning desire between us that we can’t ever seem to snuff out, no matter how hard we try.
“One more night,” I plead, kissing his neck. “Please.”
“Elena.” My name leaves his lips like a curse.
“I need you,” I cry against his jaw. “I need you. I don’t care about the rest of it.”
He pauses, pulling back to meet my eyes. Swiping a thumb beneath my cheek and taking my tears with it, he drops his forehead against mine. “Why can’t I let you go?” he whispers, voice breaking with torment.
“I don’t know.” Our heartbeats pound together, rough and dangerous and broken.
He swallows, hand snaking behind my head, grip tightening in my hair. No words left to be said, he hauls his mouth to mine, cementing our descent into the madness of each other’s souls.