Chapter 36
ELLIE (PRESENT)
Times up.
Nate has been playing island hero for days, making sure I’m safe and protected.
I love him for that, but it doesn’t mean he’s entitled to my heart, or my love.
Or to my goddamn forgiveness. It doesn’t mean we kiss and make up, and he doesn’t have to explain the heartache that he’s caused. The path he put me on.
The shame.
The disgust.
The loss of control.
I don’t care that we are stranded in the jungle. I don’t care that we are barely surviving. I don’t care that we might never make it home. Hell, we could be swirling around in a tornado and the end result would be the same.
Time. Is. Up.
Just because I still love this man doesn’t mean I have to forgive him. Just because he still has a place in my heart doesn’t mean he deserves a place in my life. I already know I will love Nate Westin until the day I die. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be at my side when that time comes.
That will be up to him.
I’m through waiting. He needs to make me understand.
I deserve the whole truth. Starting with why there was a naked woman in his bed.
The same bed that he held me in. The same bed that he took my innocence in.
Whatever the reason. Whatever the cause.
He needs to make me understand why that was the answer.
Why breaking me to pieces was the right thing to do.
Why shredding my heart until it was nothing but dust was his grand plan.
I hold the cards now. He loves me? He wants me? He needs to fucking earn me.
“I don’t want it to hurt anymore. I don’t want to be mad at you anymore. Make it stop, Nate.”
“Ellie. I promise I’m going to tell you everything, but…”
“NO. No ‘buts’ Nate. This is it.” I raise my hands in the air, then let them fall to my side.
“This is your chance. Prove to me you deserve it. Prove to me my sister’s pain is worth it.
Because when I look at you? I remember the pain you caused me.
It’s fresh, and it’s agonizing, and I hate you for it, Nate.
I hate you for it!” My voice rises with my emotions, but it stays strong.
I won’t let him see me break. “So, convince me why I should put my sister through that same pain. Why I should curse her with the pain of losing you! A pain I know better than anyone!” Saying it out loud hurts, because that’s where this will lead…
to Katie knowing the loss of Nate. A loss so brutal, I hardly survived it.
I lost Nate to nobody, but she’d lose Nate to me.
Her best friend, her fucking sister. I can’t put her through that if I’m not convinced that we are forever.
“You know I still love you. You know I still want you. But I’ve spent the last eight years without you, Nate.
I can spend the next eight without you too!
I won’t lie to you and say it would be easy.
I won’t lie and say I’d be able to move on.
I’d survive, though. Knowing you were still out there, at least?
Living? Breathing? I’d survive. But my feelings for you don’t give you free access to me.
So, start explaining…or keep your hands to yourself!
Keep your pretty words and promises to yourself!
Because I’ve heard them all before! ‘I’ll keep you safe, Ellie.
I’ll protect you, Ellie.’ Tell me why I should believe them this time! ? Tell me!”
“Because I was keeping you safe!” he roars, his chest heaving as his eyes water. His anger is laced with so much pain it nearly breaks me. I won’t let it, though. I deserve this anger. I deserve these answers.
“Explain,” I demand.
He looks down and takes a shuddering breath. When his eyes meet mine, there is a resolve there I haven’t seen before now. He’s ready to talk.
“Two months before the end of my senior year, my father came to talk to me.” He blows out a breath and shakes his head.
Mentioning Nathaniel can cause anyone to have a visceral reaction.
I had a feeling he had something to do with this.
Nate hated him, so I never truly believed he’d go to a school he didn’t want to, only to lock himself into the future that asshole wanted for him.
“Somehow, he found out about us. We weren’t exactly hiding our relationship, but I assumed he didn’t care to figure out who I spent my time with.
That as long as I was doing what he wanted, it wouldn’t matter. ”
“He didn’t expect you to be dating trash,” I bite out. The amount of hate I feel for a man I’ve never met is insane.
“You’re not trash! Don’t fucking talk about yourself like that, Pip. You are the most important person to me. You always have been.”
“Then why did you let him control you? What did he have on you?” He had to have been holding something over Nate’s head. That’s the only way this makes sense.
“It wasn’t me, Pip. It was…shit.” He takes a deep breath and rubs his face with his hands.
He’s stalling because he knows what comes next is going to hurt me.
“It was your dad, Ellie. He was stealing money from his company, embezzling. I…I don’t know if your mom knew about it, but she made him replace your college funds, so I think she might have.
I guess her family left you and Katie some money, and Chris had taken it.
” Nate looks me in my eyes, and I see how worried he is to tell me the rest. “Fuck. Fuck, Ellie! I don’t know how to say this. ”
“Just tell me, Nate,” I whisper, suddenly terrified of what he has to say. It’s too late to change my mind. I can’t turn back time. I’m in this now, and I need to know.
“Chris…he didn’t meet your mom by chance. He arranged the accident that led to their meeting.”
“What? Why?” My voice is shaky. Why is my voice so shaky?
“He was deployed with your…with Michael. I guess Michael’s death was suspicious, but they really had nothing to go on.
They suspected Chris, and he was already being investigated for sexual assault of a…
teenager.” He cringes, the words enough to trigger us both.
“She was the daughter of his Sergeant, but it was her word against his. They offered him a deal to get out early, and he took it. I guess he realized that Michael’s wife came from money and devised a plan to get rid of him and meet her. ”
I’m sick, disturbed, but I’m not at all surprised.
I steel myself for the rest. “How does this tie into us, Nate?” I ask quietly, as if speaking louder makes all of this more real.
I scoot closer to the fire, craving the warmth.
I feel like I’m frozen on the inside, like my body is trying to keep all of this information from seeping in and poisoning me.
“Ellie,” Nate whispers, tears in his eyes. He looks at me with such heartache, I can’t help the tears that slide down my cheek in response.
“Just say it,” I mouth back, sound no longer escaping my lips.
“Chris isn’t your father. Michael was.”
“What? How? Michael died before I was born. That doesn’t make any sense!” I almost laugh at how crazy that sounds.
“Your mom and Chris couldn’t have a baby.
I guess Chris thought if he gave your mom a kid, her family would accept him into their lives…
and their wealth. When she couldn’t get pregnant, she decided to do IVF.
Michael didn’t know your mom was pregnant when he deployed.
The risks of war were high, so he left sperm in case he came back unable to reproduce.
Your mom went behind Chris’ back and used that sperm to get pregnant. ”
Shock doesn’t even begin to describe what I am feeling right now.
I always had a feeling I wasn’t my dad’s…
well, Chris’ daughter. I just don’t think I really expected it to be true.
“I appreciate you telling me this, Nate,” I mutter, still trying to make sense of it all.
“But I am having trouble connecting the dots…”
“Ellie, Chris put the money in your mom’s name.
All of the documents were in your mom’s name.
She even signed them. Nathaniel had copies, he had proof.
He threatened to prosecute your mom if I stayed with you.
If I didn’t go to Columbia. He told me about Chris and his charges, then told me how he’d have legal custody of you.
If he…if he hurt you, and you told? Nathaniel said he would represent Chris, and that he would win.
He would, Ellie. He’d win, and you’d get hurt.
I…I couldn’t let that happen. I knew you wouldn’t let me live under Nathaniel’s thumb if I told you the truth, so I lied.
I hurt you. But I did it because I loved you.
I loved you so fucking much I would have thrown away my entire life to protect you. ”
“You made a decision—about my life—without me? That wasn’t your choice to make!
It wasn’t about you and your life. It was about me and mine!
We were supposed to be a team, Nate. That means we don’t make decisions without each other!
That means I’m not more important than you!
That means we come up with a plan together! ”
“There was no plan! There was no way to beat this, Ellie! I had to leave, and I had to make it real. I always…ALWAYS planned to come back. It was just supposed to be two years and then I…”
“Just two years? I let my neighbor fuck me for just two years.”
Nate (present)
I didn’t hear that right. I couldn’t have heard that right.
“What?” I whisper, barely able to get the word out, barely able to breathe.
“I let my neighbor fuck me for two years,” she deadpans, staring straight ahead. Her eyes are glassy and distant, like she’s remembering all the pain and trauma that transpired. Trauma that I caused her.
My heart shatters, the pain of hearing those words too intense to even describe. Did I do this? No. No. No. Leaving was supposed to keep her safe. Did she want this? Did she love him?
“I let him take from me. I let him take what was never his to have. I closed my eyes when he came to my room every night. I kept them closed when he crawled on top of me, when I opened my legs for him.”
“I don’t… I can’t hear this, Ellie.” I practically beg. This didn’t happen. This couldn’t have happened.
“Too fucking bad!” she screams, the raw pain in her voice cutting through me like glass.
“I said I OPENED MY LEGS FOR HIM, NATE. I laid there, an unmoving corpse, as he fucked me. EVERY NIGHT. I let him have it so that he wouldn’t take it, Nate!
I was back in my own bed, unprotected…dead inside!
I was numb to everyone and everything! You promised me!
You said you’d keep me safe! And you left me in the hands of monsters.
You lied to me!” The grief and agony in her cries feels like tiny knives plunging into my heart.
“No…” My pained whisper hardly makes a sound. I’m going to throw up. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to be safe. It was only going to be two years, and I was coming back for her.
“You broke something inside of me that night, Nate. You took back the safety of your arms. You took back the kind of love I had never felt before you. You took back the protection you promised me. You took back your heart…and you crushed mine. I had nothing left. I couldn’t feel anything.
I was numb, Nate, and I liked the feeling.
Anything else would have felt like death.
So, I did things…things that would keep me numb.
” She cries out, her pain almost palpable.
“Randy…Randy kept me numb.” Her words are calm and emotionless.
Almost like she is transported back to that time when she felt nothing.
“I chased that feeling, Nate. I let Randy into my bed. I gave him my body. I GAVE HIM MY BODY! All because YOU decided what was best for ME!”
“Baby…” I rasp, my voice no longer sounding like my own. Everything hurts, everything.
I failed her.
I fucking failed her.
I left her behind with the monsters in her life, thinking I was keeping her safe from the one in mine.
I didn’t think…I didn’t realize what I was taking from her.
The only safety, love, and protection she’d ever known.
I left her on her own to fight her battles alone.
I didn’t trust her to make a decision that was best for us both.
Instead, I made the decision I thought was best for her.
And she paid the price.
“You’re not done yet, Nate.” Her voice is hard, anger radiating off her in waves.
I can’t even meet her eyes. I can’t see the pain I put there. I force myself to look up, anyway. She doesn’t deserve a coward. She glares at me from the other end of the cavern. When did she move there?
I can’t help but think the space she is putting between is metaphorical.
“I’m not.” I know what she’s asking, but I wait. She’s in control of this. I wait for what feels like an eternity. Finally, she crosses our shelter, planting herself face to face with me.
“How the fuck did you end up with my sister.”