19. Sully
CHAPTER NINETEEN
sully
DURING THE DRIVE FROM Winwood to the pharmacy, I thought about nothing but Ellie admitting I was her only ex. She was dismantling everything I’d been telling myself over the last several years, all my hopeless attempts to move on from her, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I’d convinced myself she must be dating.
When she was in her graduate classes at MIT, I told myself she’d probably find another nerd like me, someone else who could talk to her about all our favorite things, someone else who would sit and stare at her pretty side profile while she played Animal Crossing, who’d pick apart scenes in Reylo fanfiction, who’d understand the same level of code that she did.
I told myself that she’d probably find someone better than me. I braced myself for the possibility that one day I’d call my sister, and she’d tell me that Ellie was engaged. That she really was going to have a future different than what we’d always talked about.
Even after she told me she was pregnant and then convinced me there had been no one else, that this baby was mine, I’d assumed she was talking short term. I’d assumed she meant she hadn’t been with anyone else this summer, hadn’t dated anyone else recently. I hadn’t dared to believe beyond that.
Over the years, Natalie never gave me any updates about Ellie or her dating life, and because, like Ellie, I didn’t want her to become a middleman, I never asked for confirmation. I just let my brain spin stories instead.
Because I knew hope was dangerous.
Hope is dangerous, I reminded myself as I drove Ellie to the pharmacy.
And yet, I was feeling it in abundance.
“You really haven’t dated anyone else?” I asked, because fuck, I needed to know more. It would either feed the hope or dispel it, and I wasn’t sure which was worse, but it didn’t matter because I needed to know.
The car had been quiet since we left the park, and Ellie cleared her throat before answering me.
“I went on dates,” she said, and there was a sickening twist in my gut. Images of Ellie sitting across from faceless men entered my mind, and I hated all of them. “But I’ve never seriously dated anyone, no.”
“Casually dated anyone?”
I knew my line of questioning would probably hurt me in the end, but I couldn’t help myself.
“I never made it past a first date with a guy,” Ellie said, and hope surged. Silly, foolish hope. “They were never…”
She drifted off, apparently not realizing that I was dangling off a fucking cliff here while waiting for her to finish her sentence.
“What?” I urged.
“Nothing, never mind.”
I groaned internally.
They were never a good match? Never kind? Never a gentleman? Did they hurt her? Did they make her feel uncomfortable?
I decided I hated them, all of them, whoever they were.
I wanted to cast curses on them, hack into their high school AOL and air their dirty laundry, subscribe them to Highlights, those infernal magazines my mom made me read as a kid.
And I wanted to press Ellie for more, so I could hate them more, plot more, but we were already parked outside the pharmacy, and Ellie had unbuckled her seat belt, with her hand on the door handle.
“I’ll be right back,” she promised, and then she was gone.
I watched her walk away, trying not to stare at the fluttering hem of her little black sundress as she walked. It was so short and looked so good, I wanted to fucking scream.
Twiddling my thumbs on the steering wheel, I contemplated turning off the engine and following her inside, but that was overbearing, wasn’t it?
I was already pushing my luck by being here tonight, so I waited.
I waited and waited for what felt like an eternity before Ellie returned to the car.
She carried a bulging bag that had to have more than one prescription in it, making me frown.
“What’s all that?” I asked as soon as she hopped back in the jeep.
“It’s the medication MFM prescribed to me,” she said as though that explained everything.
“Right.” I nodded, pretending I wasn’t having a panic attack and trying to keep my hands from twisting around the steering wheel, knowing she would notice. “Can you tell me more about that now, and why it looks like they prescribed you an entire pharmacy?”
The laugh that burst through Ellie’s lips trickled over me like a sprinkler on a hot day, putting me more at ease.
“It’s just one medication.” Her voice was patient and calm, and that made me feel better, too.
“But they also gave me this—” She paused as she rummaged in the shopping bag, pulling out a red box with a white lid that I immediately recognized.
And all the ease I felt vanished. “Sharps container,” she finished.
“Why…” The word came out strangled, and I had to retry. “Why do you need a sharps container, El?”
Even to my own ears, my voice sounded wooden.
She put the container in her lap and angled her body toward me, a placid expression on her face.
She was so calm.
How was she so calm?
“Do you remember…” she began, and I wanted to interject that yes, I did remember.
I remembered everything about her, and I had this horrible, horrible feeling that she was about to bring up one of my least favorite memories.
“So, after I left the hospital when I had the pulmonary embolism,” she restarted, “they gave me a medication called Lovenox to take for a few days. Do you remember that? It was a shot administered in my stomach, and you helped me with it.”
I blinked a few times, wondering how this was even a question. Did I remember the way she squeezed her eyes shut, wincing as I injected a blood thinner into her stomach in the days after she’d been hospitalized? Of course I fucking remembered. And I hated every goddamn minute of it.
“Yes,” I rasped, pushing the word out. “I remember.”
She nodded and then pulled out a paper pharmacy bag from the plastic one. “This is the same medication.”
I’d been half expecting her to say it, but my stomach still lurched. Panic rose to my throat, making it hard to get the next question out. “You don’t—you don’t have another clot, do you?”
“No,” she reassured me, and I dropped back into my seat.
I hadn’t even realized my body was moving across the jeep cabin, as though I would have been able to perform some kind of first aid right here and now to help if she had said yes, despite knowing it didn’t work like that.
“No, I don’t. But they are worried that the increased hormones in my system put me at a higher risk of clots throughout the pregnancy, given my history.
So I’m supposed to take this as a preventive measure. ”
“How long…” I gave a wary once-over at how big the sharps container was and the bulge of the pharmacy bag. “How long do you have to take it? Just for a few days again or…”
My words dried up at the look that crossed over Ellie’s face.
She’d hated those shots, the ones I’d needed to give her in her stomach, and something told me she was about to say—
“The whole pregnancy,” she confirmed, and when she saw my enraged expression, she quickly added, “But it’s a low dose, and it’s safe, and it significantly decreases the risks that my doctor is concerned about.”
“When you say the whole pregnancy, you mean…”
“One shot every day, yeah.”
“Fuck, El,” I groaned, tipping my head back against the car seat. “That’s…”
I shook my head, struggling to find the right words.
Unfair, I wanted to say. It just felt so fucking unfair that she had to do that, experience that, and it was so goddamn unfair that there was nothing I could do about it.
That I couldn’t take on some of the medical burden of reproduction.
That we’d had sex, and it was so unbelievably amazing, and now she was the one going through this. And all I could do was…what?
I squeezed my eyes shut, and all I heard was her soft voice reassuring me, “It’s okay.”
It was not okay.
But mostly, it was not okay that she was the one comforting me and not the other way around.
“Eleanor.” I opened my eyes again and found hers quickly. They were wide, understanding, and in that moment, I was in awe of her. So beautiful, so brilliant. “I—I don’t know what to say. How are you feeling about all of this?”
“I’m doing…” Her eyes flicked to the medication in her lap—the huge pile of medication—and it was the first time I’d noticed slight hesitation, tension in her expression.
“I’m doing alright. I’ve known this was what they’d tell me, so I’ve been preparing myself.
I’d rather take the medication than be worried about the risks of clotting and how it might affect me or the pregnancy. ”
“Of course, b—” I cut myself off just before an endearment slipped through my lips. “Of course.”
“It’s safe,” she repeated, needlessly readjusting the bag on her lap. “For the baby.”
“And for you?”
She nodded, and I’d needed that—to hear that again, that it was safe for them.
“And you’re sure this is what you want?”
How could I ever blame her if she didn’t want to put herself through this? Especially when it was so unexpected and uncertain.
But she looked confident when she said, “It is. I know I have other choices available to me, but this is what I want, Sawyer.” I nodded, accepting that. I’d asked twice now, and she hadn’t wavered either time. So I’d stop asking. She wanted this. “How do you feel about it?”
“I want what you want, El,” I said without hesitating. “But this is…” I waved a hand over the pile of meds, unable to find the words. As much as I wanted this with her, I fucking hated that it had to be like this, in a way that felt risky and scary. “How much did all that cost?” I asked instead.
Ellie pursed her lips. “I have good health insurance.”
“That was a spectacular nonanswer, Eleanor.”
“I’d rather not talk about money right now, Sawyer.”
“Okay, fine.” I was trying hard to follow her lead. But shit if it didn’t drive me up the wall feeling helpless. “What can I do, then? How can I help?”
To her credit, she did think about it. But all she ended up saying was, “I really don’t think there’s anything.”
I wanted to groan. Especially when Ellie gave me a smile that I knew she’d meant as reassuring but actually gutted me inside. I could tell that she was putting on a brave face. That she didn’t want me to see all of her yet, and even though I understood it, I hated it so fucking much.
“Maybe just drive me home?” she offered up, and I wanted to argue. Wanted to beg for her to tell me something else I could do to help. But I suspected that wouldn’t go over so well right now.
So instead, I focused on how she’d asked me to drive her home. I focused on how that home was also my home. And I drove her across Rosewood until we were back on Maple Street, pulling up outside the slightly lopsided front porch, likely burdened by all the memories it had to carry.
“Do you have any dishes you’d like me to do?” I asked as I put the car in park.
She laughed. “Considering we ate dinner in your car, no.”
“Want me to come in, read you a bedtime story?” I tried, and when her lips parted, undoubtedly to turn me down, I added, “If you’re not interested in The Hobbit, I’m open to other options.
We could opt for some sci-fi, switch it up a bit.
Or maybe you want something lighter? A rom-com?
Perhaps something that’s been recently adapted?
Oo, or a classic. I don’t have any Austen, but I’m sure I could find it online.
Although there is something a little oxymoronic about reading Austen as an e-book. ”
Ellie was blinking, waiting patiently for me to finish.
Her eyes roamed my face, even as silence grew between us.
Whatever she saw there—my desperation not to leave, not to have to say goodbye after she told me information that slightly terrified me, not to drive home while thinking about her being here alone with those shots—must have made an impact.
Because when she finally spoke, it bolstered my hope. My silly, foolish hope.
“Maybe not a bedtime story, but what would you say about coming in to watch a movie?” She glanced out the window at the disappearing sun. “It’s not too late yet, and it is a Friday night.” A shrug. “Company might not be so bad.”
It was a miracle I didn’t get out of the car and jump for joy. A miracle that I calmly responded, “A movie sounds great, El.”