Chapter 13
Thirteen
Ellison
As soon as the door closes with a soft click, I fall to the floor, curl into a ball, and cry. I let out all the pain, the heartache, and the hope.
Pain for the years that we missed out on. For the fact that so much damn miscommunication has landed us where we are today.
Heartache, because when he told me he loved me, all I wanted to do was scream the words back at him and hold on tightly. I want the last seventeen years to disappear, and I want to be his.
Hope, because even through the pain and the heartache, I still love that man with everything inside me. I don’t know if we can make this work between us, but I saw the determination in his eyes. He meant what he said, and I can only hope we’re able to work through this.
I don’t know how long I cry on the floor, but eventually, I pull myself together enough to drag my ass to the couch.
I know I should head to my room. My sisters are going to come home and find me a hot mess and want to know what happened.
It’s not that I don’t want to tell them, but I’m not exactly sure what to say.
How do you tell your best friends that the only man you’ve ever loved showed up, spoke some truths, and you ended up in bed together, having unprotected sex?
So. Stupid.
It’s been years for me, and well, there’s no point putting my body on a medication I don’t need.
I didn’t expect tonight, and now, well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Reaching for the tissues, I blow my snotty nose, pull the throw from the back of the couch, curl up, and watch some mindless television.
Not even thirty minutes later, I hear the front door. It’s too early for my sisters to be home, but sure enough, it’s their voices I hear. It’s not just Courtlynn and Leighton, but my best friend, Kinzie, too.
“What’s going on?” I ask, my heart falling to my gut. Is someone hurt? Oh, God, please don’t let it be Copeland. He was upset when he left. He just went to his room, right? “Please, no,” I say, sitting up, fighting back the lump in my throat.
“I got this.” Kinzie hands me her phone as she plops down on the couch next to me.
Copeland: I don’t know if this is still Kinzie’s phone, but this is Copeland James.
Kinzie: It’s me. What’s up, Copeland?
Copeland: My girl needs you and her sisters, too.
Kinzie: What did you do?
Copeland: All I’ve ever done is love her.
Copeland: I’ve made some mistakes, but I won’t make them twice.
Copeland: She was upset when I left. I’d go back, but I know she won’t let me in. Please, go to her. I don’t want her to be alone.
Kinzie: What about you?
Copeland: Just let me know she’s okay, and I’ll be fine.
Kinzie: I’ll rally the troops.
Copeland: Thank you, Kinzie.
Kinzie: I’m doing it for her.
Copeland: I love her. I never stopped.
My heart shatters all over again reading his words. I hand Kinzie back her phone as I wipe tears from my eyes.
“What happened?” Leighton asks. She pushes the coffee table away from the couch, grabs a few throw pillows, tosses one to Courtlynn, and they both sit.
“Did he hurt you?” Courtlynn asks cautiously.
“No. Not physically. Copeland would never lay a hand on me,” I tell them.
“I know.” Courtlynn nods. “But I still needed to ask.” Always a fierce protector, my baby sister.
Three pairs of eyes watch me, waiting, giving me time to gather my thoughts. I know they’d sit here all night with me, but I don’t want that. I need to talk to someone about this. About tonight, about him, and our past. Besides, they know everything up to this point anyway.
“Who wants to call Bay?” I ask. I don’t want to have to go through this again when Baylor finds out. I might as well include her in the conversation now, if she has time.
“I’ll call her,” Leighton says, reaching into her back pocket and pulling out her phone. Baylor answers the video call immediately.
“Lei? What’s going on?” Baylor asks, and I can hear the concern in her voice.
“I talked to Copeland tonight,” I say, loud enough she can hear me. Leighton turns the phone, and I wave. “You busy?” I ask her.
“Nope. I’m holding down the couch, reading.”
“Where’s Todd?” I ask, but I already know she’s going to say he’s working. I really don’t like that guy.
“Working on a case,” she says, as if it’s no big deal that she’s sitting home alone, again, on a Saturday night. “I’m all yours,” she says.
I nod. “Okay, so he texted me last night, checking to see if I still had the same number.”
“Is this before or after he carried your ass out of the Hideaway?” Courtlynn smirks.
“Fine. Let me rewind.” I tell them all about last night, and how he, in Courtlynn’s words, carried my ass out of the Hideaway.
“It was after I was at Kinzie’s and in bed that he texted me.
I agreed to meet with him today. I was going to do it in the conference room at the Manor, but at the last minute, I changed my mind and told him we could meet here.
I knew Lei and Court were going to be out and figured we’d have more privacy. ”
“I’m guessing from the red-rimmed eyes and the gathering of troops, it didn’t go so well?” Baylor asks.
“He brought dinner, which was not a part of the plan. We ate, mostly in silence, and then we talked.” I pause. “We ended up in bed together.”
“I want to high-five you, but you’ve been crying, so I’m going to wait for the coochie cobweb eviction celebration,” Courtlynn tells me, making me smile.
“It just happened.”
“You still love him,” Leighton says gently.
“And that’s okay,” Kinzie adds.
“Do you regret it?” Baylor asks.
“No, I mean, the only true regret is that I’m not on birth control, and we weren’t prepared.”
“I could get down with being an aunt.” Courtlynn smiles. Reaching over, she takes my hand. “All joking aside, no matter what happens, you have us. You know that, right?”
“Why, pray tell, are you not on birth control?” Baylor blurts.
“Well, dear sister, I’m not seeing anyone, and what’s the point? It’s been… far too long.”
“Did he freak out? Is that why you’re crying?” Leighton asks.
“Do I need to kick his ass?” Kinzie offers.
“No, he didn’t freak out. Not in the slightest. He was calm as hell when he looked me in the eyes and said we’d always planned to have a family.”
Silence.
Gaping mouths.
They’re speechless, so I keep going. “He left me all those years ago. He came back and saw me laughing with his friends and Kinzie, and just left again. He didn’t let anyone know he was home.
He said he came for me, and when he saw that I’d moved on with my life in such a short time without him, he left again.
He claims that he wrote me letters.” I look at each of my sisters, then at the phone at Baylor. “Do you remember letters?”
A chorus of “Nos” surrounds me.
“That’s what I told him. I can see one getting lost in the mail, but from the way it sounded, there were a lot of them, and I never got a single one.
I wanted honesty from him. And hell, maybe he did mail them, and they all just never made it to me, which I find highly unlikely.
He was here, in Magnolia Ridge, saw me with a smile on my face, and just left again.
He didn’t make himself known. Didn’t fight. Just walked away for the second time.”
“Why did he go in the first place? His decision to enlist came out of nowhere,” Kinzie says.
I tell them about Chandler coming home, his choice to enlist for Macie, and Copeland wanting to do the same.
“I know everything seems jumbled right now,” Kinzie says. “But I’ve told you from day one that man loves you, Ellison. He never looked at anyone else. You were the only person in his orbit.”
“That’s how he made me feel,” I confess.
I can’t recall how many times I’ve closed my eyes just to imagine him looking at me like he did back then.
I never doubted his love for me, not until the day he left.
He told me he was leaving the night before.
It was a blow to the chest, learning he’d enlisted.
He’d never talked about the military outside of his brother, Chandler.
I was blindsided. I cried, he held me, told me he loved me, and then the next day, he was gone.
He promised to write, but those letters never came, and I thought he’d lied to me.
Copeland never lied to me. That’s not who he is.
Tonight, standing here in this very room, when he said he wrote to me, I could see it in his eyes.
It was true. My heart wants to rebel and say he didn’t, but I know that’s not right.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand why the universe kept his letters from me, but he’s home, and he says he wants me. He says that he still loves me.
“And now?” Leighton asks.
“Now, I’m confused. How can I trust he’s not going to leave me again?
How can I trust if tonight’s slip-up turns into something more”—I place my hands over my belly— “that I won’t be doing this all alone in the end?
” I’d like to think he would stay, and I believe him when he says that he loves me.
I love him, too. I always will. But I don’t know if my heart would survive losing him a second time.
“First of all,” Baylor says through the small phone screen, “you are never alone. Secondly, I think you both were young, there was a lot of miscommunication, and call me a romantic, but I believe him.”
Kinzie clears her throat, picks up her phone, and starts to read. She reads through tonight’s text conversation with Copeland. “We’re all here because your man didn’t want you to be alone, and he knew you needed someone.”
“How are you forgiving him so easily?” I ask my best friend, before turning my eyes to my sisters, silently asking them the same question.
It’s Leighton who floors me. “We know how much he means to you, even after all this time. He’s the love of your life.
People make mistakes. His weren’t unforgivable, but he made those mistakes out of love.
Out of his love for you. It’s hard not to forgive a man who breaks his own heart to take care of your sister. ”