Chapter 16 #2
She looks up at me. “I guess you’re right. What was I thinking?” She laughs her comment off, but I didn’t like the remark. She immediately backed down from her earlier stance the moment I questioned her.
Turning her to fully face me, I give her all my attention.
“I wasn’t asking that question to ruin your joy. I was just wondering where you would put it?”
She cuts her eyes down and shakes her head. “Sorry. It’s a bad habit. Andrew use to frame questions like that to make me feel dumb.”
I shake my head. “I’m not Drew. And you don’t have to apologize for reacting in the way that’s instilled in you. It’s going to take me a while to break you from the shit he planted in you. But I’m a patient man.”
I smack her ass, drawing a smile from her. Grabbing her hand, we moved on to the next stall.
“You say you’re going to break me out of the things he taught me as if we’re going to be together.”
Although her comment pissed me off, I didn’t let her know. I know El sees an expiration date with us. It’s not because she isn’t happy; it’s because she’s scared. At least that's what I’m telling myself.
“I know what I said.”
She looks over at me, her brow raised. “You know that eventually this will end, right? Like, at some point you’re going to find someone that you can be seen with and you won’t want to hide in the shadows with me.” Again, she laughs her comment off.
I stop walking and turn to face her, causing her to do the same. “You need to understand something. I will not be calling this off. However, I can’t control what you do.” I lie.
She’s not ready to hear my truth. The truth that I’m not letting her go...ever. She’s still too afraid of what others will think. Eventually she’ll realize she’s mine and will always be mine.
“If this ends, it will be because you ended it.”
She ducks her head. “I don’t want you to hold off on falling in love just for me. I won’t trap you like that.”
When she looks back up at me, I can read the fear and insecurity in her eyes.
This fear isn’t just about people finding out.
Ella is afraid of falling in love with me.
The divorce from Drew broke more than her heart.
Even the thought of how he hurt her makes my fists clench at my sides.
Placing my hand on her back, right above her ass, I tug her into me. She comes willingly.
“I’m where I want to be.”
She stares back at me. I can tell she’s mulling over those words. She’s trying to determine if I really mean what I said. There is a reason I emphasized the word want. If I know Ella like I do, she’s going to pretend that she didn’t pick up on that. I’m not mad about it. It’s a defense mechanism.
She cuts her eyes away from me. “Alright. I’ll drop it for now, but if you ever grow tired—"
I cut off the rest of the nonsense she’s speaking by kissing her full lips. She whimpers against my mouth. I pull away from her before I give these people a real show.
“Come on. I brought you here for a reason.” I pull her alongside me.
We stopped at a few more stalls, including the handcrafted wood cutting boards I brought her here to see. We ended up walking away with two of those.
By the time we head back to the truck, the sun is setting. The sky is a beautiful hue of purple and orange. Taking the bags from Ella, I placed them in the back seat of the truck.
“I didn’t see that when we pulled up.” Turning to see what has her attention, I find her pointing to a playground close to the fairground.
It was an old-school playground where everything was made of wood and metal.
“Just looking at that brings back memories. Do you remember how hot those slides used to be in the summer?”
I flinch at the memory. “I remember the monkey bars giving me blisters and coming home with hands full of splinters.”
Ella laughs. “Those were the good old days.” Silence sits between us.
I’m assuming we’re both caught up in memories of those times when the only thing you had on your mind was what you’d eat for dinner and how much time you’d get to play before the streetlights came on.
Grabbing her hand, I pulled her forward. “Come on.”
“What? Where are we going?”
Looking over my shoulder at her, I smile. “To play. When’s the last time you got on a swing?”
I continue to move us closer to the playground.
“Probably not since Cameron was a baby.”
We stop at the edge of the woodchips where the swing set is. I turn to face her without letting her hand go.
“Exactly,” I say. “Today is all about letting go. When you’re with me, I want you to be as carefree as you can be. No overthinking, no worries.”
She ducks her head. “Mitch, that isn’t—”
I cut off her words. “It is realistic. When you’re with me, you don’t have to think. I got you. Remember?”
The grin that lights up her face is so breathtaking, I can’t resist kissing her. I caught her off guard, so my lips came into contact with her teeth instead of her lips.
“Did you just kiss my teeth?”
“Yes. Now come on. Let’s see how high you can go on this swing.”
I pull her over to the swing set; only then do I let her hand go.
El takes one swing, and I hop on the other.
It’s been decades since I last got on a swing, but like riding a bike, you never forget the technique.
We both kick our feet forward and back, gaining height with every swing.
We get up so high, El squeals with joy. When I look over at her, there is a huge, joyous smile on her face.
Her eyes are bright and free. She looks happy, which is all I want.
“Alright, let's jump.” I shout.
She swings her head over to me so fast with a look that screams, ‘Are you crazy?’. I laugh at her reaction.
She joins in my laughter. “You have lost your mind. I’m too damn old for that. Just my luck I’d land wrong and break my ankle.”
We both slow down the swings. Once we come to a stop, neither of us gets up. She stares in silence at the sinking sun, and I stare at her. Never in all my dreams did I think I’d be here with Ella.
“Why are you staring?” she asks without turning to me.
“How do you know I’m staring?”
She turns on the swing to face me. “Because I can feel your eyes on me.”
I continue to watch her for a minute longer before I answered. “Seeing you today, on this swing, made me realize I haven’t seen you at peace in a long time. Not since our college days. I didn’t realize how much I miss it.”
She cast her eyes down. The peace from earlier is replaced with sadness.
“Sometimes, I look back at my marriage and think how stupid I was. There were so many signs that I ignored. Hell, we weren’t even dating when we got married.
The only reason he agreed is because I was pregnant with AJ.
” She goes quiet after that statement. I allow her this moment of reflection. I can tell that she needs it.
“He asked me to abort the baby.”
I fight to keep my emotions off my face. However, it doesn’t stop the anger from boiling through my blood. When she turns to me, there are tears dancing in her eyes. The more she speaks of her past with Drew, the more I realize how much she suffered in silence.
She shakes her head and looks away. “When I told him I was pregnant, he asked me to get rid of the baby. I was so shocked by his words that I just stared at him, unable to speak. The most disturbing part is that for a moment I thought about it. Just because he asked, I thought of aborting my baby.” She shakes her head.
“That’s how stupidly in love with him I was. ”
“You weren’t stupid for loving the way you did. He just never deserved that type of love.”
Call me a hater or whatever the newest equivalent to the word is, but I was telling the truth. Drew never deserved Ella. A part of me knew it the first day he asked for her number. I should have intervened then, but at the time I didn’t think I deserved her either.
She laughs, but it isn’t humorous. “So much time wasted loving a man I should’ve let go a long time ago. How do you recover from that?” Although she asks the question I knew she didn’t want me to answer it.
“I feel like I’ve given the best years of my life to the wrong person and now all I have is this.” She rakes a hand down her body as if she’s nothing.
I grab her hand and place a kiss on the back of it.
“Don’t do that. Don’t act like you have nothing to offer.
Yeah, Drew got your youth. But there is something special about being a woman who knows who she is.
And so what your body has changed. So has your mind.
You’re a brilliant, loving, talented, and independent woman.
You’re not the gullible teenage girl he married.
With your age has come wisdom and life experiences that make you unique.
I’ll take that and this body...” I dip my forehead toward her. “...over your youth any day.”
The smile that spreads over her face makes my chest expand. Anytime I make her smile makes me feel like a fucking king.
“How do you always know the right thing to say?”
I chuckle, letting her hand go. “I just tell the truth.”
For another hour, Ella and I sat on those swings and talked.
There is never a lull in our conversation.
We talked about everything from our past, our fears, and even the boys.
By the time I glance at my watch, the parking lot across the street is empty.
All the vendors have packed up and left for the day.
The only light around us is the glow from the moon and the streetlights.
“So why didn’t you open up your bakery?” I ask.
We were talking about how things had changed for us after college. I remember having conversations with her back then about her bakery and what she wanted to do.