For the longest time, he doesn’t move.
All I can do is bury my face in his chest andbe there.
Let him know his darkest secret doesn’t scare me.
I’m here, I’m listening, and I’m not going anywhere.
More importantly, I don’t blame him.
He acts like he killed her with his bare hands, but he didn’t.
Eventually, his arms find their way around me. He sighs, slowly running his hands up my back, my sides, his fingertips brushing under my breasts.
I smile. I can almost feel him thawing.
“You weren’t there,” he mutters, gentler now. His head dips to mine until we’re forehead to forehead. I can taste his ragged breath. “And I love your generosity, Pages, but I was wrong. Absolutely fucking wrong. You can’t escape that. You can’t lie to me.”
“No lie. It’s not your fault she died. It was a freak accident. You didn’t steer her off the road.” I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. “That’s no burden you should carry around for the rest of your life.”
He says nothing, just breathes.
I can feel the reassuring weight of his embrace.
His palms make gentle, soothing circles likeI’mthe one who needs to be calmed, and it cuts my heart in two.
“Gramps was the one who told me to leave,” he says into the silence, resting his chin on top of my head. “When he found me, when I sobered up, I told him everything. He warned me Portland would be poison if I stayed, and the only way I’d everget the venom out of the wound is with time away. Go, he said. Go and don’t look back.”
And that’s exactly what Ethan did.
He ran, because he was a boy and he was scared, trapped in the kind of trauma no one should have to suffer so young.
Tears sting my eyes again, but I hold them back with sheer will.
I’m not falling apart, no matter how much my heart aches for him.
I need to be strong.
I need to help heal him, even just a little bit.
Until now, no one else knew.
Just finding out, it’s a huge deal and I need to do this right.
Hearing the truth feels like such a precious thing. Even if I don’t know what to do with it except cradle it to my chest.
Hetoldme.
“I’m amazed you ever came back,” I say. “But I’m glad you did.”
“Yeah?” His lips brush my forehead as he turns my face up. “Some days, so am I.”
“I do have a question, though.” I hold him tighter in case he pulls away from me. But I need to know. “Why me? Why now?”
He’s so quiet, and the silence makes me nervous enough to keep speaking.
“You’ve spent over ten years sworn to secrecy, never telling a soul, but now…”And now you’ve told me. After avoiding the subject every time I tried to bring it up. “I didn’t even have to ask.”
His fingers trail my shoulders. “You asked plenty of times, Pages. You wore me down.”
