Chapter 20 #3
Ellis didn’t play games. She was honest and raw when she needed to be. It was refreshing to know someone who just let out what they were feeling, not hiding behind pretense or performance. And it made me feel brave. Brave enough to be just as honest right back.
“Well,” I began gently, tapping my fingers against the glass of water, “I’m giving you full permission to be selfish with me, Ellis Langley.
In fact, I think you have the right to be selfish, whether you think so or not.
I think you’ve gone so long living in some lifeless void that you deserve everything and anything you want. ”
My mouth went dry as my next words balanced on the edge of my tongue. I eyed her smooth skin, full lips, and delicate collarbones.
“I’m more than willing to give it all to you.”
My words earned both a nervous laugh from her and a deep flush to her cheeks. I didn’t miss the subtle swallow, or the way her eyes roamed my face, lingering on my lips, only a small spark of hesitancy flickering in them. She licked her lower lip—likely subconsciously—and took a sip of water.
I let her off the hook.
“People fake things all the time, Ellis,” I said softly. “Especially life. Everyone fakes life, it’s the coping mechanism for both the emotionally stable and unstable. And considering you’re out of practice with living it, you’re pretty much up to speed with everyone else.”
She huffed a laugh. “So we’re all just faking it till we make it, then. If we ever do.”
“Exactly,” I said, smiling at the disbelief in her eyes.
That earned a laugh from her—the sound making my heart ache in this gentle, unbearable way. She flicked a lock of auburn hair over her shoulder, her eyes shining with a lightness that had only seemed to grow these last couple of days. She was here. She was present—faking it or not.
I frowned softly and toyed with the necklace at my throat. “I’ve been faking it too, you know.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Yeah?”
I nodded and glanced at my nearly finished glass of water.
“Yeah. I mean, since Margaret died, I’ve been acting like I know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing, but I have no clue.
” I ran a hand through the hair I’d pulled down tonight, out of the usual space buns.
“I mean, I know the business side of running the shop, but it feels like there’s this expectation for me to just slide into the lineage Margaret left me.
Like I’ve put on a robe that’s too big. Not meant for me. ”
“You don’t want the shop?” Ellis asked softly, her eyes searching when I met them.
“I don’t want the pressure,” I admitted with a sad sigh.
“And I’m starting to realize it comes with the territory.
My mom doesn’t believe I can run the shop—that I’m too disorganized, that I don’t have the drive.
My uncle thinks I’ll burn the place to the ground and rob him of money he thinks is his.
And, you know, some days I believe them. ”
My eyes burned.
“I’m not Margaret. I don’t feel powerful. I don’t have her aura, her charisma.”
Ellis’s eyes held mine firmly as she studied me with such softness that I nearly looked away. But I couldn’t. I was too pulled in by those green orbs that saw straight through me.
“I didn’t know Margaret,” Ellis said slowly, biting her lip. “But she knew you. She basically raised you, from what you’ve told me. And I don’t think she would’ve left her life’s work and legacy to someone she didn’t trust—someone she didn’t believe in.”
The words hit me harder than I expected, and my throat tightened. I couldn’t speak.
Ellis leaned forward then, reaching across the table to rest her warm palm over my hand.
“Maybe it’s not about the performance, Dove,” she whispered, her eyes flicking between mine. “Maybe it’s in the presence. The same as life.”
Her hand tightened on mine, and I gripped it back, her words floating over me as I looked at her—the way her copper hair caught the glimmering light, the tenderness in her eyes so barely contained it made me hold my breath.
Something shifted in me in that moment—quiet and seismic—a rigidity buried deep in my chest finally beginning to soften.
We sat like that in silence for a while, just looking at each other—seeing each other in a way that other people couldn’t, and maybe never would.
I had never felt more euphoric.
We were silent as we traipsed back down the pathway to the lookout point where we’d all screamed earlier.
Liv was still nowhere in sight, as if determined to give us as much privacy as possible—like it was her final wish that Ellis and I have time together, come together the way she had always seemed to be planning.
Ellis’s hand found mine the moment we stepped outside, her fingers curling into mine, and I nearly forgot how to breathe as I let my own wrap around hers.
She moved with a steady ease, a quiet confidence that I wondered had been slowly building in her over time.
The air outside was cooler now, night beginning to settle in. The steady chatter of tourists had faded with the setting sun, and now it was just the two of us as we approached the same railing, surrounded by mountains and a whispering wind that had picked up since we’d gone inside for dinner.
Ellis released my hand as we neared the railing, and I dug into my jacket pocket, tugging out the small sandwich bag of ashes I’d stowed back at the motel.
A careful scoop of Margaret—ready to be scattered 10,300 feet above sea level—to let this piece of her join our journey, just as she had in every state we’d stopped in.
Ellis said nothing, but she stood close. I could feel her body heat, and the sound of her breath behind me grounded me.
“She loved the sky,” I murmured, gazing at the bag in my hand. “She said she felt closer to something bigger. Something more.”
Ellis tilted her head back and looked up at the stars. It felt like they were watching us—twinkling with something unknown as we stood beneath them.
“Then this is the perfect spot,” Ellis said softly.
I nodded once and swallowed, unsealing the bag slowly. It had been easy, I mused, scattering her along the journey, but as we got closer to the final destination, closer to saying a final goodbye, it felt as if it were becoming harder.
As if I were truly letting her go forever.
But she was already gone. I knew that. And I was fulfilling a final wish she hadn’t gotten to experience. Part of me wondered if she had orchestrated this whole thing—Liv and Ellis, Route 66. Had she shaped the afterlife to suit herself, to get her way one last time?
I smiled, despite the growing sadness in my chest. As a breeze swept in behind us, I tossed the ashes into it. They floated—scattered like dancing flecks of light—and were carried across the valley, far, far away from us.
Something further loosened in my chest this time, and it didn’t feel like loss.
It felt like freedom.
I cleared my throat and pocketed the sandwich bag again, making sure it was empty. We both stood there in silence, hands on the railing, watching the traces of Margaret vanish into the dark.
The lights of Albuquerque glimmered in the distance, and Sandia Peak stretched below us like a dream I’d never be able to capture artistically. True beauty had to be experienced in real time.
Ellis stood quietly beside me, the side profile of her face lit by the silver glow of the moon—almost full, but not quite. I bit back a smirk at the memory of the first scattering, when some of the ashes had blown back and hit her square in the face.
The horror she’d felt.
But she always stayed. Solid and unsure, but still there.
She was so breathtakingly beautiful it made my breath catch and my head spin.
She glanced over at me in that moment, catching me staring. I blinked once—hard—and without allowing myself to overthink it, I moved.
My arm slid around her back, gently tugging her toward me, shifting her from beside me to in front of me, her back now pressed against the cool metal railing.
Ellis’s eyes widened only a fraction, her hands settling just below my shoulders as she steadied her feet.
It felt as if my whole body burned for her. It had felt like that for a while now. My fingers found her hair, sweeping it from her face, and I cupped her cheek, relishing the soft, almost inaudible gasp she gave. It was as if I felt it more than heard it.
And then I kissed her.
God, did I kiss her.
It was slow and unrushed, my lips brushing hers like a vow I hadn’t yet spoken aloud. I poured every ache and fear into it, every electric thrum pulsing through my veins, my breath shaking, my hand trembling slightly where it held her face.
She kissed me back with a gentle urgency, the same tentative need I’d felt from her in the tent last night. Her hands found my waist, her body pressed firmly to mine as she arched into me, and I shuffled closer, until her back met the railing and her palms rested on either side of my neck.
It felt as if we were trying to memorize the shape of something we were only just beginning to admit was real.
I parted my lips slightly, and the answering heat from her sent my blood rushing. A quiet moan escaped her, nearly swallowed by the wind.
Jesus.
We broke apart for air, barely an inch between us as we gasped. Her nose brushed mine. Our foreheads touched. The dazed look in her eyes nearly made me laugh.
She trembled.
“You’re shaking,” I whispered as the cool air bit at us. “Do you want my jacket?”
She shook her head, clearly holding back what I was sure was a wide grin. “I’m fine.”
And just because I could, I grinned and leaned back in, pressing a soft, delicate kiss to the corner of her beautiful mouth—tender and slow—before the wind wrapped around us again, growing a little stronger. I squeezed her to me.
“Come on,” I murmured, loosening my hold and taking her hand. “Time to head back.”
She fell into step beside me, her other hand wrapping around my upper arm as we walked, as if she couldn’t get enough of me—enough touch. And for the first time since Margaret died, I didn’t feel alone. That cold bleakness I so often buried and hid behind grins and jokes had faded, just a little.
I felt chosen.
Chosen by something more real than anything I had ever felt before.
I tightened my grip on her hand and spotted Liv waiting by the tram platform, her legs dangling off the railing as she stared out at Albuquerque, pink hair fluttering in the wind.
And I realized I owed her.
Owed her more than I’d ever know.