Chapter 29 Ellis
ELLIS
Dove dropped me outside the diner where Thomas and I had agreed to meet, the Mustang humming low before she pulled away toward the laundromat around the corner, our dirty clothes in a wash bag in the back seat.
Liv stayed beside me, though she had promised to give me some space while I did what I had to do.
I glanced at her as Dove disappeared. Liv stood on the sidewalk, toying with a strand of her pink hair, looking thoughtful.
“So,” I began lightly, “did you spend the night with Jedd?”
Liv shot me a look but smirked slightly.
“I did,” she said with a shrug. “I lay next to him all night. And he knew I was there—or hoped I was. He talked to me the whole time, catching me up on everything I’d missed, then reminiscing.
He finally passed out around four in the morning.
It was like he was scared to fall asleep and have this all be a dream. ”
I smiled sadly at her, resisting the urge to reach out and rub her arm.
Instead, we turned and headed inside. The bell above the door jingled as I entered, Liv slipping in behind me as though walking through walls was beneath her now.
I slid into a free booth, and Liv dropped into the one behind me with a dramatic sigh. I quirked a brow as I picked up the plastic menu. If this was her idea of giving me space to talk to my brother, we needed to have a serious talk.
A waitress wandered by, filling my cup with coffee. I asked for some table water and shuffled through my bag to make sure I had brought my pill case.
“Stop fidgeting,” Liv said from behind my booth. “It’s your brother.”
I sighed and leaned back, taking a calming breath, but my palms had already started to sweat. When the bell jingled again and I looked up, I wasn’t ready.
Thomas stood in the entry, scanning the diner. When he spotted me, he strode forward with confident steps, and I took the chance to truly look at him. I had seen him at my birthday, but—I also hadn’t. I hadn’t really looked at him that night.
He looked like my brother, obviously. But he also looked like a reflection of myself I hadn’t seen in years.
His red hair was clipped short in that precise military way, his green eyes sharp but tired, and freckles—our freckles—dusted across the bridge of his nose.
Even out of uniform, in a fitted gray shirt and jeans, he still looked pressed and orderly, as though discipline would never quite leave his body.
He set his keys and wallet on the table as he slid into the booth across from me, a small smile on his face. Without thinking, I smiled back, and for a heartbeat it felt like we were kids again, sharing a secret across the table.
His eyes flickered—stunned, almost—as if he hadn’t expected me to look happy.
“I have about a million questions, Lis,” he said, leaning back and watching me carefully. “When Mom told me what you were doing, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, driving across the country with some girl you just met?”
A soft laugh escaped me, and I shook my head. “I shocked myself, to be honest. But it’s been one of the best experiences of my life.”
I left out the part where a ghost had forced me into it.
“I’ll bet,” Thomas said, a spark in his eyes.
“I felt that way the first time I flew overseas. I mean, I was flying into a war zone, but it was just…being so far away from home, far from the life I knew and the pressure I felt. It was liberating and terrifying all at once. And I’d do it all over again. ”
I nodded quickly, my heart tugging toward his words. “Exactly. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of meltdowns, but Dove, the girl I’m traveling with… she’s been amazing.”
Thomas’s eyes sharpened at the name, and he tilted his head. “So, does this Dove mean something to you?”
Heat rushed to my face immediately, and I heard Liv cough behind me in the other booth. I nearly scoffed. Ghosts don’t cough.
Before I had to stammer out an answer, the waitress approached, topping off Thomas’s empty coffee mug and setting down a pitcher of water.
I thanked her a little too robustly and fumbled for my pill case like it was a lifeline.
I didn’t miss the way Thomas’s eyes flicked to it, softening slightly, though he made no comment.
Instead, we ordered food. I took a lunch special while Thomas asked for a burger and a milkshake.
As soon as the waitress left and I had downed my pills and tucked my case away, Thomas leaned back in, relentless.
“So,” he said, raising a brow. “Does she?”
I swallowed, my thumb worrying the edge of the table, and shrugged. “I mean, yeah. She does.”
Thomas grinned widely. “Good. You look good, Lis. Alive. Far better than you looked at your party. You even have a bit of a tan, I think.”
His words hit me like a bullet.
Alive.
For so long I had been defined as sick. Frail. Dying. And here was my brother, staring at me across the table, telling me I looked alive.
My throat ached as I studied him, taking in the older face of my brother, though I could still see the boy. The boy who grew up pushed to the side because of me. I bit my lip and sighed.
“Thomas, I need to say something.”
He looked at me across the table.
“I… I feel like I stole so much from you growing up. Like my sickness just swallowed the entire family, you know? And you—you just seemed to disappear into the background. I knew it. Even when I was young, I knew. I saw you so many times just standing in the hospital doorway when you thought I was asleep, watching me, and I hated it because I knew what you were seeing. But you weren’t being seen at all.
Because everything was about me—my meds, my pain, my treatment—and you were just there.
I hate myself for it. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I stole your childhood from you.
I’m sorry you felt like you had to leave. ”
Thomas’s hands tightened around his mug ever so slightly, and he sighed, his green eyes burning into mine.
“Look, I was angry. I was just a stupid kid, and I felt like no one cared or had any space left for me. But I never hated you. Not once. I mean, I sure as shit resented the situation—resented Mom and Dad for not seeing me when I needed them most. But you? You were fighting for your life—for nearly all your life, Ellis. There was no competing with it. It just fucking sucked. Sometimes I wanted to scream at you.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his cropped hair.
“Only because I wanted you back, and I felt so helpless. I couldn’t help you. ”
I swallowed my tears, though my eyes burned. “I—I thought you hated me.”
Thomas grimaced and sighed. “I never hated you, Ellis. I—I mean, I definitely pulled back as we got older and I understood more and more. I thought the more I pulled away from you, the less it would hurt. If you died.”
My chest tightened at his words, and instead of seeing my adult brother across from me, I saw the boy hidden deep inside him.
“I spent so long just waiting,” he murmured, his face thoughtful.
“Waiting?” I echoed.
He nodded, swallowing. “Yeah. I mean, waiting for the call. Waiting for the moment the doctors said, ‘She didn’t make it.’ Waiting for Mom to wake me up in the middle of the night, or for Dad to pick me up from school and tell me you were gone.
I lived with it every single day, and I hated myself, because sometimes I almost wished it would just happen already. ”
He met my eyes across the table, regret in them, and I breathed shakily.
“It wasn’t because I didn’t love you,” he said, his voice unsteady.
“Because I did. I do. More than you’ll ever know, Lis.
But… living in that constant state of fear was exhausting.
I felt like I was holding my breath for years.
I’d lie in bed some nights and think, maybe tonight.
Maybe tomorrow. Then I’d wake up and get ready for school, and you’d still be there, fighting.
Part of me would be relieved, but another part of me felt angry, because I knew I’d have to go through it all again.
Another day filled with dread. I was just a kid.
I didn’t know how to carry any of that. Then I would think of you, carrying that same feeling. ”
His words struck me hard, the raw honesty in them, and I couldn’t look away, too afraid that if I did, the spell would be broken and he would stop being so open with me.
“Mom and Dad were falling apart, and I was watching it happen. Mom’s whole world was wrapped up in you, and Dad was trying to keep things normal, but he wasn’t really there either.
And I just felt like an extra. For a while, I prided myself on being the healthy one—the one they didn’t have to worry about.
I felt so powerless in my own life that the only control I had was not being a worry for them. I had to be okay for them.”
He let out a breath, his voice cracking.
“Inside I was just a boy waiting for the worst moment of his life.”
Tears blurred my vision, and I reached across the table, gripping his wrist, desperate for him to feel that I was here, that I had heard him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice breaking.
“Don’t apologize, Ellis,” Thomas said, shaking his head, his hand coming to cover mine.
“You didn’t choose to be sick. You didn’t choose any of it.
When I finally enlisted, part of it was duty, sure, but the other part?
It was escape. Because it was so unbearable to keep watching you almost die, I couldn’t take it anymore. I left.”
A tear slipped from my eye, and I brushed it away, sniffing. “I thought you hated me.”
“I never hated you, Lis,” he said, his eyes softening, filled with unshed tears. “I hated the disease. I hated what it did to all of us. But you? No. You were the reason I even learned what it meant to fight for something and never give up.”
My chest ached with the weight of his words, and I pressed a hand to my mouth, as if I were afraid a sob might escape.