Chapter 10
ELLIE (PRESENT)
The wind whips through my auburn hair as I watch ferry boats pass by in the harbor.
The plastic lawn chair I’m sitting on digs into the back of my thighs, and my silky purple pajama shorts do nothing to cushion the sharp edges.
I look down at the indents left on my skin and push down a little harder.
The pain is far more welcome here than I am.
I’m sitting on Katie’s balcony while she does her best to avoid me inside.
It’s been six days since our uncomfortable interaction at dinner.
When we’d returned to our table, awkward silence plagued the rest of the evening.
Dimitri didn’t ask me out at the end of the night.
Actually, he barely even glanced at me again.
Katie hasn’t spoken to me since, but I’m spending the night here to save her the trip to my house in the morning. She is taking Nate and me to the airport.
To pick up her wedding dress.
I can’t believe I am going through with this.
I should have backed out of this trip and told Katie the entire truth.
Guilt consumes me with that thought. I just don’t get it, I don’t understand his intentions.
From the outside looking in, they always seemed like they were happy, if not a little superficial.
It might not even appear that way to others, but I know the real Nate, and this adaptation was not the version of himself he saw as an adult.
There has to be more to this. I know my sister loves Nate, so much so that it makes me ache with envy.
But the dynamics of their relationship don’t make sense.
They were together for a year and a half before I ever even met him.
I remember the alarm in his eyes, sincere shock that indicated he’d never even seen a picture of his fiancée’s sister before.
My parents hadn’t met him prior to that day either.
Did he not care to know anything about the family he was marrying into?
Did she not question it? Something just doesn’t feel right.
I know my sister better than anyone, and these actions don’t align with her values.
Our family may not be important to her, but I am.
I don’t understand why she wouldn’t even tell him about me.
How could Nate look at her and not see me?
Even with different fathers, there is a strong resemblance.
We may not share a last name, but we are sisters in every way that matters.
Katie is my mom’s daughter from her previous marriage.
Her father, Michael, was a Marine who didn’t return home from his deployment overseas.
My mom found out she was pregnant shortly after he passed away.
She suffered from severe depression, losing the love of her life took an unhealthy toll on her.
She couldn’t fathom raising his baby without him, so she scheduled an abortion not long after finding out she was pregnant.
On her way to the clinic, she got into a minor car accident.
My dad hit her at a stoplight, and he recognized her immediately.
It turns out my dad was deployed with Michael and was with him the night he died.
My mom calls their meeting divine intervention.
We call their union a traumatic nightmare.
Six months later they were married, and our mom’s family disowned her.
They own a number of businesses that have garnered a lot of generational wealth, and they refused to allow a stranger to be involved in those family businesses.
They didn’t trust his intentions or the fact that they’d married so quickly.
Michael’s family was never even made aware that they had a grandchild—my father’s request.
While our backgrounds indicated we should have been thriving, we grew up mostly poor.
We didn’t have a good relationship with our parents, and we certainly had our struggles growing up.
Regardless, family has always been a central element in Katie’s life.
She craved the love we never knew, the safety we never felt.
When our mom left my dad, she begged for a chance to prove herself, giving Katie the opportunity to reconcile that longing.
Which is why the details surrounding her and Nate’s relationship seem… suspicious.
It’s not like I can just ask Katie. I think she is choosing to remain ignorant, ignoring the obvious red flags in her relationship.
I also think there is more to the foundation of Katie and Nate than I know.
I tell myself I am going on this trip to get answers and protect my sister from subsequent heartache.
I’m getting really good at lying to myself.
Lying to Katie is more of a challenge, and I hate that I’m even doing it.
I don’t think my assurances at the restaurant put her at ease.
She hasn’t been herself, despite insisting she’s fine.
The distrust and heartache in her eyes is obvious, and it is distressing knowing I am partially to blame for it.
I can’t blame her for not wanting to be around me, I wouldn’t either.
Not when the person I love is so clearly lying to me.
Normally she would join me out here on the patio, but she is keeping her distance with mundane tasks.
The detachment feels like my soul is being ripped out of my body.
Before Katie left for boarding school, she was my lifeline.
She shielded me from the toxicity of our family, detailing a future of fairy tales and princes.
She always had her head in the clouds, escaping the reality we were subjected to.
It was an escape we both desperately needed.
“Hey.”
I startle at the sound of Katie’s voice, so lost in my thoughts I didn’t hear the patio door open.
She settles into the chair next to me, a sherpa blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
She has two cups of chamomile tea in her hands, and I love the familiarity of this moment.
Katie and Ellie, sitting on the porch at night with a cup of chamomile tea.
It’s a fond memory from my childhood. Even better now that our parents’ fights no longer ring out in the background.
“Hi,” I reply, a bit subdued. I’m worried any bit of eagerness will turn her away. She looks over at me and gives me a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She hands me my teacup, and we sit in uneasy silence for several moments, waiting for the other to speak first.
“He’s in love with you, Els.” I cough on the swallow of tea I just sipped. My eyes snap to her, but she’s looking straight ahead at the lake. Her shoulders lift with a deep breath, and a tear escapes the corner of her eye.
“He isn’t, Katie. He’s marrying you,” I state as a matter of fact. I decide right now that I no longer care what details surround their union. He chose her, he asked her to marry him, so he has to love her. It’s not fair if he doesn’t. To her, or to me.
“He does, Ellie,” she says so softly it’s almost a whisper. The pain in her voice, so heartbreakingly evident.
“If you honestly believe that, then why would you send him with me to get your dress? You can’t believe that, Katie. You have to know he’s marrying you because he loves you.”
“I love him, Els. I really, really love him. So much that it’s physically painful to think about a life without him,” she says quietly, staring straight ahead.
“But I’ve always known that I love him more than he loves me.
Sometimes…” she takes a deep breath, preparing to say this next part out loud, “sometimes I don’t even know if his love goes beyond friendship.
When he asked me to marry him, I was honestly surprised.
Our relationship had only started to get more…
serious. But he was the first man to ever make me feel safe…
protected.” Tears stream down her face, but her eyes remain vacant.
After several moments of silence, she continues.
“I thought all we needed was time.” Her breath catches in her throat, and her blank expression breaks before my eyes.
I scoot my chair closer and wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her against me.
I rub her back the way I used to when we were kids, when my sister, who always protected me, needed comfort instead.
When our father would get so drunk that he’d scream at her, telling her she wasn’t a real member of our family, that she was an implant left behind by a weak man who couldn’t hack it in war.
He’d tell her that getting stuck with her and our mother was his penance, words he would only say while intoxicated, but the truth of them rang loud long after he uttered them.
She lays her head against mine, sniffling as she tries to get control of her emotions.
“Nothing changed. He still loves me at a distance, while I give him my whole entire heart. I…I need him to figure out if he loves you more than me. Even though I already know the answer,” her voice hitches on a sob, “but I can’t be the one to walk away.
Ellie, I never will. I know that makes me sound pathetic and desperate, but my heart is entirely his whether he wants it or not.
I know you’d never hurt me in that way.” Overwhelming remorse engulfs my entire body like a thousand pinpricks of shame.
I feel nauseous with the guilt, but I let her finish.
“But I need him to decide whether he can be with me, at the cost of you. I think… I think time with you will help him decide if these feelings he has are just nostalgia…or if they mean more. God, Els, I love you, but I hope his time with you makes them go away,” she finishes on a sob.