45. Eli
Eli
Itold Kendra I was going to prove to her that she was mine, and that also meant publicly claiming her in front of our friends.
The ones that all thought we couldn’t be in a room together for more than five minutes without snapping at each other.
Halloween was the perfect opportunity for that.
It meant acting like a real couple, because in my mind we are a real couple even if she isn’t there yet, so I wasn’t acting.
I’m going to show her what life is going to look like; the three of us—me, her, and Wren—really living life together. I need to solidify the picture in her mind and hopefully in her heart, convince her to give me a real chance again.
Work on Kendra’s house starts this week, and I want us to be on the same page before it’s complete and she announces that she is moving back there. Just the idea of not having her under my roof anymore makes me up the speed on the treadmill, my blood pumping, mind racing as fast as my feet.
“Are we gonna talk about it now?” Rem asks, leaning on the wall of the fire station gym, watching me punish myself.
I slam my hand on the stop button and my legs uncomfortably grind to a stop. “Shit,” I pant. “You startled me, asshole.”
“We didn’t get to talk with all the kids and chaos, so I thought now would be a good time.” Rem walks over to a lifting bench and sits down, like he’s got all the time in the world. His navy FGFD T-shirt stretches taut across his broad shoulders as he crosses his arms, waiting.
“Yeah, I can hardly suck in a breath. Great time to catch up.” I roll my eyes at him and grab my water. Truthfully, I am anxious to talk to him, but nervous about what he will say. How he will see me after he knows the truth of how I treated Kendra.
“I’ve never seen you like this around a woman before,” Rem points out.
“That’s because there’s only one Kendra,” I admit, taking a seat on the adjacent bench.
“What happened?” I know he’s asking about the past, and it’s time to rip off the bandage.
“The summer I was here, working at the library for my special community service project credits? You had stayed back at school for summers after switching to fire science and were still loaded down on coursework to try and catch up.” I go back in time, jogging his memory.
“Yeah, sucked not being together, but I’m obviously happy now that it’s the path I took. And you helped me so much with all the classes,” he says sincerely.
“I know, brother. This is what we were born to do.” I clap hands with him. “Anyway, Hannah was a camp counselor that summer for the first time and away. Normally she and Kendra were attached at the hip when Kendra came to Fox Grove each year to stay with her nana.”
“She was always at the library.” Rem nods with a knowing look.
“Yup, and that summer so was I. It was like I walked in and saw her, truly saw her for the first time, man.” I shake my head, like the image of Kendra in her flirty blue sundress will dislodge, but it’s inked into my mind like a tattoo.
“Fuck,” Rem mutters.
“We snuck around, spent all our spare time together. I had never been so happy.” I look down at my shoes shamefully.
“Why did you let her go then?”
“Because I don’t, because I didn’t think I deserved her, Rem.
” I look up at him, feeling the tears in my eyes.
“You know my life, my history. I wasn’t capable of loving her, so when she told me .
. . she told me that she loved me,” I whisper.
“I broke both of us to save both of us from myself.” Burying my face in my hands, I can’t hold back the emotions that are flooding back in; unlocked from long sunken wounds that I cast out to sea, snagged in the net of my mind and yanked to the surface for Rem to bear witness to.
Seeing the pain on Kendra’s face that night on the beach plays like a movie behind my closed eyes.
I feel Rem sink down next to me, slinging an arm around my trembling shoulders.
“And what do you think now? It’s been a long time.”
“I never stopped loving her and I’ve also never told her.” I wipe my eyes with the bottom of my shirt. “And now, I know I am actually capable of love, real, committed, true, deep love. Having Wren changed everything.”
“Yeah it did.” Rem nods his head.
“How could he leave us?” I ask. “How does a man do something like that? Not wanting to be married anymore is one thing, I get it. Divorce happens. But abandon all his children that he’d been with for years?
Nobody, nothing could rip me away from Wren, and I have only had her for a few months.
I can hardly force myself to walk out the door to come to work.
And I feel that way about Kendra too, so I know that the things I believed to be true when I was young and stupid were wrong. ”
Rem grins at me. “My boy’s all grown up.”
“Fuck off.” I shove him.
“No, seriously. Eli, that’s love. And you are capable of it.
Your piece-of-shit sperm donor is not a dad and not an example of your potential.
You have loved the people under this roof and your family for your whole life.
Now you’ve just uncovered a whole different kind of love that you’d burn the world for—and that says a lot considering our profession.
” We both laugh and give each other a hug.
“Thank you for being here for me,” I say.
“Always. You’re family. And I love you,” Rem says.