Chapter 40
forty
ELLIE
I woke up the next day, staring out of my bedroom window. The sun cascaded through the thin curtains, a summer breeze pushing past them and into the room. Last night, I dreamed about what Rowan, and I did in this bed yesterday. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would ever happen again.
Not just what happened between us, but also my willingness to bake—and enjoy it—even though we made a mess.
I didn’t have any hesitations when I told him we would make cookies. I didn’t think about my anxiety, work, or messing things up.
Plus, Rowan desperately needed to know how to make good cookies. I don’t know what he did wrong with his, but they tasted like I was eating chalk.
I saunter from the guest house to my parent’s house in a pair of cozy sweatpants and a shirt and open the patio door into the kitchen. I see my dad sitting in a lounge chair, reading a book. He looks over at me and smiles.
He closes his book and takes off his reading glasses. “Hey, kiddo. What brings you here?”
I sit on the sectional, pulling my feet up with me, and let out a sigh. “I need to talk to you and Mom about something. It’s actually really important.” I pick at the string hanging from the band of my sweatpants.
Dad sits up straighter. “Is everything okay? Apart from everything else you’ve been dealing with?”
I let out another sigh and gave him a tight smile. “It’s part of why I came back home, to think, but I didn’t tell anyone about it until the other day when I told August.”
He nods slowly and gets up from the chair. “Let me go grab your mother.”
He walks past me and pats my shoulder. His footsteps sound further away as he walks up the stairs to the bedroom. I hear the clock that hangs from the wall in the living room tick. Each tick reminds me that each second that goes by, the closer we get to summer being over and me having to return to New York. A place that doesn’t feel like a home anymore.
I sit with my thoughts and think about the offer that was given to me. I was in the middle of preparing dishes for the night's menu. Chocolate mousse that was sprinkled with gold flakes. Chocolate mousse and gold flakes. That was when I knew what I was doing wasn’t passionate but pretentious.
Ellie, in culinary school, would have found that incredible, different, and spectacular. Gold on chocolate? What an insane concept. I laugh at myself when I think about it now. There’s no passion in that. No heart or love. It was just the next thing to get in a magazine and be bragged about.
“Honey,” Mom says to me.
I look at my parents, who are sitting in front of me. I didn’t hear or see them come in. I don’t know how long they’ve been here waiting, how I look to them. I shake the thoughts from my head and pull myself together.
“You wanted to talk to us about something?” Mom asks.
I swallow before saying, “Yes. There is something I didn’t share with you guys. Something I knew I should have told you once I found out.”
I watch my mom grab my dad's hand, something she does when she isn’t sure what is coming her way.
I let my body fall back against the couch as I tell them what happened the day Charlie told me his news. As I tell them, I feel this weight lift off me, this shift in my life that I didn’t know would come. I feel like I can breathe a little easier with each word that comes out.
This is the first time that I’ve felt at peace.
I know what I need to do.
* * *
Three hours later, I walk back to the guest house exhausted. It’s the type of exhaustion you have after you’ve cried your eyes out and gone through so many emotions that your brain needs to catch up to process it all.
It’s the type of exhaustion that I welcome.
My parents didn’t say a word until I was done talking. They took a moment to themselves to process the whole thing as well. I didn’t realize that it would affect them too. Or August. And if it affected them like that, then I know it’s going to hit Rowan even harder.
They spoke their minds, being truthful about everything. Living in New York, my relationship with Charlie, and moving up the ladder in the restaurant industry. They didn’t mind Charlie, but they saw my light start to dim the longer our relationship went on. Now they know that it was partly because of work as well.
I made sure not to leave out any details. I shared what I told the girls the night of emergency movie night. The panic attack and not giving the time to listen to Charlie. Blaming myself for that entire situation, which they did not allow. But at the end of the conversation, they held me in their arms while I cried again.
Now that it was all out in the open with my family, my body broke down. It released everything that had been building up for years that I’d stuffed down and never allowed to break free. I couldn’t let myself fail with work and my relationship, and this is where it had gotten me.
I get to the couch and fall onto it, letting the cushions absorb my body. I can feel the dry tears along my cheeks. The adrenaline that was shooting through my body is finally at bay but still hovering around.
Now that all of that is said and done, there is only one person I want to talk to, to be around. And that’s Rowan. I need to tell him everything. I need to tell him how I feel about us. He needs to know that I need him. I look over at my phone that’s on the coffee table and when I reach to grab it, my phone lights up.
Charlie. A photo of us at a time when it was nothing but love and happiness. The fall leaves surround us in our scarves and knitted hats. I know I need to talk to him. I sit up, and my thumb hovers over the green button. I answer.
“Ellie? Oh my God, Ellie, cupcake, I can’t believe you picked up. I thought I was never going to hear your voice again,” Charlie says, and I hear him trying to control his breathing. His heart is probably pounding as hard as mine. But mine isn’t pounding out of love or excitement.
I thought I cried all my tears away, but I guess I didn’t. Hearing his voice, my heart breaks all over again.
“Ellie are you there?” his voice cracks.
I still say nothing. I knew what I was going to say. I prepared what I was going to say, but now my mind has come up blank.
I hear Charlie sigh on the other end.
“Alright, if you won’t say anything, then I’m going to take this opportunity to talk to you.” He pauses, waiting to see if I will speak, but I don’t, so he continues, “I am so, so sorry. What I did was terrible, unforgivable, and I wouldn’t blame you for hating me. I didn’t handle the situation well. I should have made more of an effort to grab your attention. I felt abandoned and left behind. I couldn’t handle it. You were the love of my life, and I was losing you. I didn’t know what to do, and I did something that made no sense. It was nice to talk to someone, but after what I did with that woman, I wanted to throw up. I wanted to take it all back because it wasn’t what I wanted. I was a fool. An absolute idiot.
“I will do anything to prove to you that I will never do something like that again. Ever. Anything you need. If you want me to move out so you can have your space, I will do that. If you want us to go to couples counseling, I will do that. Please. Just give me another chance. We can’t just give up after five years together, Ellie. We talked about getting married and having kids. What our lives will look like when that time comes. And I don’t want that to go away.”
I pull the phone away and put it on mute because I can’t hold these emotions in any longer. I sob on the other end of the phone as I gasp for air. The man I once loved wants me back, and there’s the smallest part of me that wants to take him back. To try again.
I put the phone on speaker, the screen drenched in tears, and I look at it. I hear him continue to talk, and I listen. I listen to him plead. I listen, and I stare at my phone, thinking back to memories of us and when we were happy. Just as I’m about to press the button to unmute myself, it’s like the universe is playing a fucking joke on me because Rowan’s name comes up on my screen.
He’s calling. As if my heart isn’t already on the brink of pounding out of my chest, the other man that I’ve loved longer than Charlie, the other man that I grew up with and trusted with my entire life, is on the other line.
I battle with my emotions and my mind. I battle with my heart. Charlie continues to talk, and I count down the seconds I have until Rowan goes to my voicemail. I need to decide right now, or I’ll hate myself.
So, I do.