Chapter 25 #2
‘Yes, I think so. I mean, I understand.’ And she did.
However perfect it would feel having Murray living at the cottage with her, it wouldn’t be the right thing and it would put pressure on their relationship when they’d only just found one another again.
Balancing the can on her knee, she twisted it around so the writing was facing her.
‘If we’re talking about tricky topics, can I ask you something? ’
Murray smiled. ‘You can ask me anything. Always.’
‘Okay.’ Filling her lungs with the warm air filled with the scent of freshly cut wood, Ellie then breathed out slowly before closing her eyes and forcing herself to ask the question she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to.
‘Why didn’t you stay? Back then? Did you just not love me enough to stay with me? ’
‘What? I…’ Murray slumped back against the sofa cushions, a hurt expression covering his features. ‘I loved you. You knew I loved you.’
She glanced towards him before looking quickly away again.
She hadn’t meant to hurt him by asking, but she did want to know the answer.
No, she needed to know. She needed to know the answer if they were going to go forward in this relationship together.
She couldn’t have those niggles of doubt plaguing her mind.
She couldn’t be thinking he’d never loved her back then and probably didn’t now.
She forced herself to dive deeper. ‘No. If you’d loved me, properly loved me, you wouldn’t have let anyone or anything come between us. You wouldn’t have left.’
Murray took a shaky breath as he ran his palm across his face. Leaning forward, he placed his half-empty can on the floor before turning to her. ‘Eleanor, look at me. Please look at me.’
Slowly she turned to face him, working hard to stop her eyes darting elsewhere.
‘I loved you. Heck, I loved you more than anything or anyone in the world, but I felt pressured to leave. Pressured by my dad, by my family. He was going to lose the business, lose his house, everything. I had the skill set to help him avoid that. If I hadn’t gone over, not only would my dad have suffered, but his wife too, my half-brothers.
However much I wanted to tell him that I didn’t owe him anything, that I didn’t care if he lost his livelihood or not, I had my half-brothers to think of too. ’
She nodded. She’d known all this. Of course she had. He’d told her before he’d left, but still…
‘Every single day I was there, I missed you. I was heartbroken and threw myself into the challenge of saving the business. That was the only way I could cope, and when he proved time and time again that he just didn’t care about me, about taking the right steps to avoid bankruptcy, then I walked away.
There was nothing else I could do. His fate was sealed by his own inaction. ’
She watched as he reached out for her hand and quickly pulled it away, wrapping both of them tightly around her warm can. He still hadn’t explained why he’d left. He’d told her nothing new.
‘Eleanor, the truth is I’d never have forgiven myself if I’d done nothing and those little boys had suffered because I’d put my own happiness over their well-being.’
‘You didn’t care about my happiness. You didn’t care about me.
’ Her voice came out as a croak, and she knew how heartless her words must sound.
She got it. He’d done it for his half-brothers.
They had been the innocent party in all of this.
They’d been the ones with the most to lose.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, that was unfair.
I wouldn’t have asked you to put me above your half-brothers, I just… it was hard. So hard.’
‘I know. And I didn’t not put you above them. The love I felt for you was never in question, I just…’ His voice cracked.
‘You were stuck between a rock and a hard place. You couldn’t win.’ She felt tears begin to fall and quickly scrubbed at them with the back of her hand.
‘Yeah, that’s what it felt like. I didn’t choose to hurt you; I just chose not to hurt them.
I know my dad had never been in my life when I was growing up – well, besides the few times my mum and stepdad took me over to visit him – but my half-brothers had been.
My stepmom had always ensured that I built a relationship with them, through phone calls and video calls, and although we didn’t get to see each other in person very often, we spoke a lot, at least every week.
I felt like I knew them, that even though they lived halfway across the world we were still family. ’
She nodded. ‘I remember.’ And she did. His stepmom had gone to great lengths to ensure the three of them felt like family despite his father’s constant lack of involvement.
Looking down, he pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘If I could have done anything to stop the pain I caused to you, I would have done. A million times over.’
Looking at him, she could see his own eyes welling up with tears, and she knew he was speaking the truth. She knew he hadn’t meant to hurt her and that his parting hadn’t been the sign of him not loving her that she’d believed it to be. ‘Sorry, I had to ask.’
Shaking his head sadly, he leaned forward and took her hand in his. ‘I know. I’m glad you asked. And I am sorry, so sorry, I made you feel the way you did. It breaks my heart to know you felt that way.’
She squeezed his hand and gave him a quick smile through the tears she could now feel cascading down her cheeks. ‘Just don’t go running off again. Promise me?’
Giving a short chuckle, he gently took the can from her hand and placed it next to his on the floor before wrapping his arms around her and drawing her to him. ‘I promise. There will be no running off. We’re in it for good this time.’
She closed her eyes, the warmth and strength of his embrace calming her fears and drying her tears.
This was it. They were really together again.
And nothing would break them apart. Not this time.
And she understood his decision not to move in straight away.
She knew that even though they felt so strongly about each other, with all the best will in the world they couldn’t just pick up where they’d left off.
They needed to get to know each other again.
They needed to discover what each of them had been through during the missing years.
And it would be worth the wait.