Chapter 39 #2
I cross the cavern so that I can explain the truth behind those words. That I love Katie, but I could never fall in love with her. Ellie races out of the shelter before I can even reach her.
Shit!
I run to grab my shoes. I removed them earlier so that they could dry by the fire.
I put them on quickly and run after her.
By the time I exit the cavern, she’s no longer in sight.
The weather is becoming more severe, worse than earlier in the day.
I need to find her before she gets herself into trouble.
“ELLIE!” I call out, the desperation I feel is reflected in my tone. I look at the muddy terrain and see small footprints headed in the opposite direction we had walked earlier. I run in that direction, looking left and right into the dense jungle to see if she ran off the footpath.
I’m not going to lie.
I’m pissed.
This was a stupid fucking thing to do. I recognize that she’s hurt.
I understand that she is pissed about everything I told her today.
It was a lot to absorb. I made decisions for us that affected her life in the worst possible way.
But being reckless like this, when we are barely surviving this environment, is enough to make me want to take her over my knee.
“Ellie!” I yell into the vast jungle. It’s been several minutes, and my gut is telling me something is wrong. I can’t see her footprints anymore, so I’m running blind. I see a cave system to my left, and head in that direction. That would be the smartest place for her to wait out this weather.
“NAATE!” Ellie’s panicked scream has my heart jumping out of my chest.
“Ellie!? Where are you? Keep yelling, Pip!”
“OH GOD! Nate! I’m on the cliffs!”
The cliffs?
I fight through the intense wind, making my way to where I see a drop-off. I inspect all along the ridge, but I don’t see her anywhere. My visual acuity is impaired, the rain coming down so hard it’s almost painful.
“I don’t see you!”
“Over the edge! I fell over the edge!”
I run to where I hear her voice and grab ahold of the nearest tree as I peak over the edge of the cliff.
Holy fuck.
She’s hanging onto a branch, the high winds swinging her back and forth. I need to move fast. I look around me, trying to find something I can use to get her back up.
Nothing.
There’s fucking nothing.
Without thinking, I strip down to my boxers. I tie my shirt and pants together, making a rope of sorts. I hang on to one of the legs of my pants and toss the other end over the edge of the cliff. She’s only a couple feet down, so the length is perfect.
“Grab a hold of that, Ellie. Tie the shirt around your waist as tight as you can and then wrap your arms around the pant leg. You’re going to have to climb, okay?”
She looks up at me like I’ve lost my mind. Honestly, this is a stupid idea, but it’s the only one I’ve got. There is a hurricane coming, and she’s not going to be able to hang on much longer.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” she shouts up to me, desperate for me to hear those words.
“Later, Pip.”
“No, now, Nate.” I know why she is saying that.
I’m not going to let her have those thoughts.
“Tell me when you get up here,” I say sternly. She takes a deep breath and gives me a small nod.
She ties the shirt around her waist, switching hands so that she can maintain her hold on the branch.
She double knots the sleeves and then holds onto the pant leg, wrapping it around her hand to ensure she has a strong hold.
I sit down, wrapping my legs around the tree near the edge of the cliff so that I don’t fall over.
“Okay, I’m going to pull, and you’re going to use your legs to climb. Do not let go of the pant leg, okay?”
“Okay,” she yells back, a semblance of confidence in her voice.
“Okay, I’m going to start pulling you up, I need you to slide down the branch and stand up. Once you feel yourself start to lift, lean back a little and use your feet against the cliff wall.”
“Got it!”
I wait until Ellie is standing at the end of the branch.
I can feel the gusts of wind try to yank her small body off of the cliff, but she stays steady.
I start to pull, and she starts to climb.
She climbs up several feet when the shirt that is tied around her small body tears apart from the strain.
Her dead weight yanks down on the pant leg in my hand.
The wind whips my shirt down the cliffside, the only thing keeping Ellie from falling is her hold on the pant leg.
“Oh my god!” she screams, sheer terror in her voice.
“Hang on, baby!” I have never felt fear the way I do right now, but I need to keep it together for her. “I’m going to keep pulling, and I need you to climb fast!”
I pull on my pants as fast as I can, but easy enough so that I don’t yank them right out of her hand.
She’s only got a couple more feet to go, so I lean over the cliff and reach for her as I continue to pull.
I loop my arm underneath hers and pull her body as I pull on the pant leg.
She doesn’t weigh a lot, but the force of the wind makes her feel fifty pounds heavier than she is.
Finally, I pull her over the edge, and she lands in my lap, breathing heavily and shaking from the adrenaline. I wrap my bare arms around her, hugging her close to my body as she wraps her legs around my waist.
I pull back so I can look her in the face. “What were you thinking?” I cry out, panting heavily. “What the fuck were you thinking?” My voice shakes both with fear and relief. I palm her face and bring her closer to my lips. I pepper kisses everywhere I can reach.
The wind around us amplifies, and I can tell the hurricane will reach the shore soon.
We need to get somewhere safe. I’d noticed a cave system about twenty feet from the cliffs.
That will be the safest place for us to wait out the hurricane.
I just hope other wildlife in the area don’t have the same idea.
I pull her to her feet, grab my jeans, and we run. The rain pelts me in the face, leaving a sting behind. It doesn’t slow me down. The need to get Ellie somewhere safe is the only thing driving me. Finally, I see the caves up ahead.
We enter the cavern, soaked and out of breath. I look around the dwelling, noting there has definitely been wildlife in here before. It doesn’t appear that anything is living here now, but this is a deep cave system, so we might not run into the same luck if we explore any further.
“Well,” Ellie pants. “We are back to being cold and wet.” I know she is just trying to mask her fear, but I laugh anyway.
“Who are you telling? I don’t have a shirt anymore,” I throw back in jest.
“Dammit. I’m sorry, Nate. That was a really stupid thing to do, and it put us both in danger. I wasn’t even thinking. I just needed to get away. I needed a minute alone.”
We stare at each other for several seconds.
“I’m not in love with Katie,” I tell her.
“I don’t regret loving you,” she says at the same time. She waits a few seconds before adding, “Then why did you stay with her? Even after Nathaniel died…you stayed with her.”
“I care about Katie, Pip. She’s important to me.
I have never been in love with her, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love her.
When Nathaniel died, I had already won. He wanted me to be like him so badly, he never considered I could be better than him.
” My lips curve to one side at the fond memory.
Besting Nathaniel Westin was a pipe dream at one point, but I had finally done it.
“What did you do?” she probes.
“I dug…and I found out that my father had his hands in a lot of criminal activity. I had enough evidence that I finally had leverage of my own. Leverage I could use to finally escape his hold on me. When I was on my way to confront him, I got the phone call that Emmy had found a donor.”
“God, Nate. I’m so happy she is okay. I had no idea she was so sick.” Ellie gives me a sad smile. Her affection for Emmy is still apparent after all this time.
“Thank you. I am too. After that phone call, I realized that not only did I have everything on him, but he no longer had anything on me. The day I went to confront him was the day I was going to talk to Katie and tell her the truth. But she surprised me first, telling me she wanted me to meet her family.” I pause, hating the memory of this day.
“I was fucking sick, Ellie, when I saw you standing there.”
I take a shuddering breath. I still remember the look on her face that day.
Vividly.
Complete and utter devastation. It was our first time coming face-to-face since my senior prom…and I was holding the hand of her sister.
“Nathaniel fucking won,” I continue. “I didn’t know how you could ever forgive me, but I was still going to try.
When I met with him later that night, he was enraged that I had evidence against him.
Even pissed to learn that Emmy had a donor.
So that’s when he told me that he had incriminating videos that might change my mind.
If I ended things with Katie, he would release them.
He didn’t know that I already knew about them. ”
“What kind of videos, Nate?” The underlying sadness in her voice tugs at my heart.
“I think he was blackmailing Katie, Pip. I…I think he was using you to do it, but I don’t know the details.
I couldn’t let anything happen to her. Especially because I was the reason she’d gotten involved with Nathaniel to begin with.
He mentioned his living will that night.
He said unless I married Katie, the estate went to the bank.
I didn’t give a shit about the money, but his will also gave instructions to release the videos if we didn’t get married.
It was his insurance card. To make sure nothing happened to him, while also continuing to fuck with my life.
Even in death, his name meant everything to him. ” I scoff.
Nathaniel, a tried-and-true narcissist.
“He died that night, Nate. He died the night Katie introduced you to us. I remember that.” She scrunches her nose, trying to make sense of it.
“He did.” I stare at her, waiting for her to ask.
She stares at me a few moments before giving me a tiny nod, acknowledging what we won’t say out loud.
“I’ve spent the last six months fighting the courts, but I had already found a way to win before he died.
I bested him, and he knew it. I just needed to go through the legal channels.
The courts signed off on his estate, giving me ownership of those videos, the day I told you I wasn’t walking down the aisle. ”
Ellie takes a deep breath, absorbing even more life-changing information. She furrows her brows, deep in thought. “Why did he make you propose?”
I sigh, ready to tell her the rest. “He realized—”
“No…wait,” she says, stopping me from continuing the story. I stare at her, a question in my eyes. “I don’t want to hear anymore tonight. God, maybe ever. I’ve heard enough.”
I nod my head. This is it. She’s going to tell me she can’t forgive me for my role in all this. She’s going to truly end us before we even have a chance to start, and it’s all my fault.
“I’m… Fuck!” I yell out, unable to control my emotions.
I’ll accept anything she tells me, but I’ll never accept that we are over.
I will spend the rest of my life making up for my mistakes.
“I’m so sorry this happened to us, Pip.” Everything she endured since the night I left her was my fault.
“I’m so sorry that I failed you, that my actions disappointed you. ”
“I…I don’t want to think about that anymore, Nate. I don’t want it to hurt anymore.” She breathes deeply, masking her pain with something a little lighter. “Plus, I’m the reason you don’t have a shirt right now.”
I let out a rough laugh. “Oh yeah, Pip. We’re even, I guess.”
“I was thinking you could take mine,” she says, staring into my eyes. She looks serious, not even a hint of humor in her words.
I raise my brow and grin. “I think your shirt might be a little too small for me.”
“I was thinking you could take mine…off.”
The temperature in the cave shoots up a hundred degrees.
I clear my throat. “And what happens after I take it off?”
She gives me that shy smile I love so much. “I guess you’ll have to take it off to find out.”