Chapter Thirteen #3
She placed her palms against his chest. Something kept him frozen, rooted to the spot. Bigger than the fear that was whispering at him to walk away. To find something to accomplish. Something concrete. Something real.
“For two years, I haven’t lived my life,” she said to him. “I’ve lived someone else’s. And it didn’t even matter, because here a threat is all the same.”
“It matters,” he managed to reply. “Because you have been safe.”
She shook her head. “I remember. Maybe not everything, I’ll grant you that. But enough. Enough to…know who I was. Know who I am. Enough to know that what you’re so afraid of isn’t true.”
“I’m not afraid.” He couldn’t afford to be afraid.
“You’re afraid I didn’t love you anymore. That our marriage was over. I was mad at you for sure. I was afraid I didn’t know how to make our marriage work when you always ran away, but my God, Ellis. I never, ever stopped loving you.”
KIRSTEN DIDN’T CARE if she remembered everything, because she knew that with a certainty that couldn’t be dispelled by concerns over how she felt.
She had loved this man practically from the moment he’d come up to her in a little college courtyard, cocky and handsome and…
Hers. He’d always been hers.
And she remembered it all. Clear as day. Maybe there were gaps, she couldn’t deny it was a possibility. But everything she reached for came up. Maybe Kirsten felt a bit like a ghost, but it was a real one, with memories and truths and feelings.
Love didn’t go away, even if it had been hidden under a wall these past two years. The wall of her fake identity and Ellis keeping his distance. But it was gone now.
And she didn’t really care about a threat when she remembered how much she loved her husband—even when he frustrated her, ran away from what they needed to work through.
Because she’d done her own version of running away, and that wasn’t going to happen again. She’d rather be thrown off that balcony again.
Though she shuddered at the thought, at the memory. The terror of it all over again. How…disposable she’d felt.
“I think you should talk to Dr. Leigh.” He put his hands over hers on his chest before she could get riled up. “Not because I’m trying to avoid this. But, Kirsten, you had a severe reaction to remembering last night. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
She breathed through her frustration with him, because she didn’t think he was lying. She could feel the concern radiating off of him, but she also knew he was distancing himself.
It was what he did when he was afraid. And there was something about fear he couldn’t admit to himself. Like he had to be brave or nothing mattered.
Because whether he liked it or not, she did remember his issues. With his stepdad and his upbringing. He couldn’t see them or admit them to himself, but she could. She always had.
And probably given him too much leeway because of it. He’d always had to be brave. A solitary figure with no one to lean on. Through his father’s death, his mother’s, and then a teenage boy with just a taciturn stepfather. Neither of them knowing how to deal with each other.
But it made her realize… She’d been so focused on herself, what her family might know or not know. But if Ellis was here, with her, that meant…
“Where does Jason think you are?” she asked.
He blinked at the subject change. “Most people think I took a remote job in Alaska.”
Because he’d left everything behind too. For two years, he’d been here, shadowing her, essentially. No doubt looking out for her. Waiting for signs of danger. But he’d…held himself back and away. Because Dr. Leigh had told him to.
Dr. Leigh had said that she had to be ready. That for most of the past two years she’d rejected reaching out for answers, for her past. No doubt out of fear, but she wasn’t afraid with Ellis. He’d always been her safe place. Even when they had their issues.
“Maybe I’ll talk to Dr. Leigh,” Kirsten said. It wouldn’t hurt to work through remembering with a professional. “But not now.” She turned her hands in his, then pulled them around her, pressing her body to his.
She felt him shudder, before he stiffened, and all the emotions in his eyes shuttered behind that blank FBI wall.
“Someone who hurt you and caused all this is out there. Ready and willing and waiting to hurt you and me again. That has to be my focus. Last time, I was too wrapped up in myself, in the job, in—”
“In running away.”
His mouth firmed, but he didn’t push her away, didn’t drop his arms from her waist when she wrapped hers around his neck.
“Fine,” he bit out, still holding himself back even if he wasn’t creating space between them. “Maybe. Maybe in some subconscious way that’s what I was doing, but I didn’t do it because… I wasn’t trying to. I was just trying to make sense of something, and work always made sense.”
“And I didn’t?”
He studied her with those hazel eyes that had always fascinated her. The things she saw that no one else did, and still the little pockets of secrets he kept hidden. Maybe even from himself.
“Sometimes, the things you needed from me didn’t make sense,” he said very carefully. “Which is still on me.”
Always so willing to take all the blame, but not always willing to mine into why that was.
Now it felt like… Even with this threat it felt like they had the answers within reach. If they could be honest about what they’d messed up, there was still a chance for them. Forget threats and danger.
She remembered her husband. She remembered everything that had been between them. And it didn’t matter how traumatic the past two years had been, how many ways they were screwing up their marriage before that—there was one simple truth at the middle of all of it.
They loved each other.
So she moved to her toes, ready to press her mouth to his. Ready to remind herself in all the ways she preferred.
But his phone began to ring.
“It’s going to be Zach,” he said. “I have to take it. I can’t put that off. Not unless you want to stay up here forever. That isn’t running. It’s what needs to be done.”
She looked around the room. Tempted to consider just…never facing any of this. But he was right. They couldn’t avoid the danger. Couldn’t hide from it forever.
“Fine, but we’re in this together now. Whatever you need to talk to Zach about, I’m going to be there for. And add my own two cents.”