Chapter 11 #2
The quiet surrounds us again, and my heart severs just a little. There was never silence between us, and if there was, it was comfortable, but this is anything but. Copeland was my best friend, the love of my life, and then one day, he was just gone.
He closes the burrito box and places it back in the bag. I do the same. I’ve lost my appetite. “I’ll put this other meal in the fridge for you to have tomorrow, or your sisters, whoever,” he says, standing and moving toward the fridge. When he turns around, I know the stalling is over.
“Why did you leave?” I blurt the question before he can ask one of his own.
Copeland grabs his beer, then mine, and heads toward the living room, leaving me to follow him.
He nods toward the couch, so I sit. He offers me my beer, and I take it gratefully, needing something to do with my hands. Only then does he sit. “I wanted to have something to offer you,” he says quietly.
I furrow my brow. That’s not what I expected him to say. “What? I don’t understand.”
He nods. “I know. I’ll explain it the best that I can.
When Chandler came home, I was stoked. I’d missed him so much.
We were sitting outside chatting one night.
I’d just dropped you off, and he said something that resonated with me.
He said he joined the military and opted for the spousal benefit so that when he came home to marry Macie, if something were to ever happen to him, he knew she would at least have that.
” He pauses, collecting his thoughts, while I process what he’s telling me.
“I saw what losing my dad did to my mom. She had to work the family business and another job to make ends meet, and I didn’t want that for you.
I wanted to have that peace of mind for you and for me, that if, God forbid, I left you and this earth too soon, you’d be taken care of.
Not rich, by any means, but that little extra goes a long way when you have nothing. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“I did, Ells. I wrote you letters. My decision to enlist was fast, and fuck me, Ellison, the thought of saying goodbye to you, even for a short period of time, tore my heart out. Then I never heard from you. Not one single reply to any of my letters.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say. “We said we would talk today for answers. I assumed that meant honesty. There were no letters, Copeland.”
“Ellison, I promise you, I wrote you so many letters. You never replied to a single one,” he rasps.
“That’s because I never got them!” I yell, jumping from the couch. I slam my beer bottle down onto the coffee table and start to pace. My mind races, thinking back to all those years ago. I would have remembered a letter, multiple letters. I would have clung to every damn word he wrote me.
I hear his bottle also connect with the wood of the coffee table, and his boots as he makes his way toward me.
He steps into my path, and I have no choice but to stop my pacing.
My chest is heaving because I can’t comprehend what he’s telling me.
His index finger lifts my chin, and I quickly close my eyes.
“Look at me, Ells.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to look into his brown eyes and see that his pain matches mine. I don’t want to face the fact that the fucking postal service or military mailman or who the fuck ever tore us apart. That’s not right.
“You never came back for me,” I say, finally opening my eyes. We’re standing toe to toe, and he’s leaning in close. “You might have written letters that I never received, but you never came back for me. I wasn’t enough for you. All the plans we made weren’t enough for you.”
“No, baby,” he says, his voice trembling. “You are enough. You were always enough, and I did come back for you.”
“What?” I take a step back, but he follows me, not letting me get away. “Four years. It took you four years to come back to Magnolia Ridge.”
“I came back after twelve weeks.” His gaze bores into mine.
“I came back for you, Ells, just like I promised you I would in my letters. I couldn’t fucking say goodbye to you because you’re my heart.
” He slaps his hand over his chest, right over his heart.
“Right fucking here,” he rasps. “I came back. I thought maybe the mail was slow. Hell, I didn’t know.
All I knew was that I had a week free before my four-year assignment, just like my older brother, and I needed every fucking minute of that seven-day break to be ours. ”
“I-I didn’t see you,” I whisper.
He nods. “I know. But I saw you. You were with Bowen, Macklin, Dixon, and Kinzie. You were with my friends, and everyone was laughing and having a good old time. My heart was aching to lay eyes on you, to hold you. I knew leaving the way I did was wrong, and I expected to find you sad and missing me as much as I was missing you, but when I spotted you that night at the diner in town, you were laughing, and smiling—all of you were. I’d been gone twelve weeks, and suddenly, my life was no longer mine. ”
“Copeland,” I breathe his name.
“I walked away that night and never looked back. You didn’t answer my letters while I was gone, and when I came back to see you, you’d moved on, or so I thought.
Whenever I talked to my family or the guys, I refused to let them talk about you.
All these fucking years, I assumed you were done with me. ”
“You were here? Then you left?” I ask because I’m having a hard time processing that he came back. “You saw me, you were here, and you didn’t come to me? You just walked away from me just like that? For the second time, you just left me?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“I came back for you, Ellison.” He steps closer, raising his hands, and they cradle my cheeks. “Never once since the moment my lips first touched yours have I stopped loving you.”
A sob breaks free from my lips, and I bite down on my cheek to keep more from exploding inside me.
He’s saying all the right things, but there were no letters.
I can see one getting lost in the mail, but multiple?
My family, my parents, my sisters, my grandparents, everyone knew what Copeland meant to me.
They would have told me if there were letters.
Copeland moves in closer. “Still today, you take my breath away, Ells.”
He leans down as if he’s going to kiss me, and I start to panic.
Do I want him to kiss me? His eyes roam from my mouth to my eyes, silently seeking permission, but I can’t move.
I can’t push him away, and I can’t pull him closer.
Instead, I wait, frozen as he moves in, and when his lips touch mine, the darkness of my world that’s blanketed me since the day he left explodes with color.