I had to figure out how to cope with this. Ella deserved better than a man who ran at the first sign of trouble. She and Grace needed someone they could count on. How had I become this person?
The look on Ella’s face when I’d snapped at her flashed in my mind, and her words haunted me. She thought that I didn’t feel I needed to take care of her, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I wanted nothing more than to take care of her and Grace—to protect them the way they deserved. But in order to do that, I had to get my mind right.
I needed to call Delilah.
Without thinking, I reached for my phone in the center console and scrolled to her number. She answered on the first ring.
“Cash,” she said. “Are you alright? I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I’m sorry, Delilah. I’ve just been… I’ve been really struggling,” I admitted. “I haven’t answered because I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to say anything,” she assured me. “I’m here for you, Cash. We can talk about what’s got you feeling down or we can talk about something else. Or we don’t have to talk at all. I can just sit here with you.”
“Maybe you were right the other day.” I sighed. “Maybe some time away would do me some good, help me clear my head.”
“I’ve always believed that a change of scenery can be healing,” she said. “It’s hard for us to see the expanse of the forest when we’re sitting amongst the trees.”
“Can I come stay with you?” I asked, trying to disguise the break in my voice. “Just for a few days?”
“Of course you can, dear,” she said. “You can stay as long as you like. When do you think you’ll come down?”
“Tomorrow,” I answered quickly. “I’ll see if I can get a last minute flight out, and if not, I’ll drive.”
“It will be so good to see you.” Her voice was warm, like a cup of chicken noodle soup when your throat was sore. It instantly soothed my restless soul. “I’ll get the guest room ready.”
* * *
I pressedthe last of my clothes into my suitcase, scanning it one last time to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Once I was satisfied that I’d remembered everything, I zipped it up and hoisted it to the floor. I still hadn’t heard anything else from Ella, nor had I tried to call her.
What I needed to say was best said in person, so I’d decided I was going to have the Uber stop by Ella’s place on the way to the airport. I’d show up and explain everything as best I could, though, I admittedly didn’t know how to do that yet. I’d tell her I needed a few days to recalibrate. I’d be back in a week, and hopefully I’d have a clearer perspective on things. This wasn’t a break up, I’d say. This was about me trying to be the man she and Grace deserved. It might not be what she wanted to hear, but she’d understand, right?
The clock on the nightstand showed that it was just after eight a.m., and the Uber was supposed to pick me up at eight-fifteen. I rolled my suitcase through the house, turning the lights off as I went, making sure I’d left nothing plugged in that wasn’t supposed to be. I propped my suitcase by the door and was starting toward the kitchen to get a bottle of water when the chime of my doorbell echoed through the house.
I stopped in my tracks. Did Uber drivers normally ring the doorbell? Every car I’d ever called had only honked the horn from outside.
“One second,” I called as I padded to the door and turned the dead bolt. When I opened the door, Ella was standing there, her eyes red rimmed and her hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head.
My eyes widened. “Ella… what are you doing here?”
“I hate what happened last night. I hate the way we left things,” she said. “You wanted to go home, and I wasn’t listening to you. That shouldn’t have been a huge deal, but I made it one. I overreacted because I wanted to be with you. Because all week it’s felt like you were pulling away from me, and I thought that if I could keep you there, I could somehow make that feeling go away. ” She dabbed at her eyes with the pads of her fingers. “I should have been more understanding. I should have told you what I was feeling, but I was selfish.”
“Ella, you weren’t being selfish,” I began, but she cut me off.
“No, I need to say this.” She looked at me with tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m in love with you, Cash. I know I was scared at first, but I was only scared because the last time I felt this way it was for the man I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I’ve leaned on you hard these last few weeks, too hard probably. But at a time when everything in my life was confusing, you were the one thing that made sense.”
“You didn’t lean on me too hard,” I said. “I wanted to be there for you.”
“I didn’t stop to think about what you may be going through,” she continued. “I didn’t consider that this was so different for you because you aren’t just getting me in this relationship. You’re getting Grace too. I realized the accident probably reminded you of that. The next thing you knew, we were together all the time, and I was relying on you the way a wife relies on a husband. It was too much too soon, wasn’t it?”
I shook my head, trying to think of the words to say what I needed to say.
“I didn’t stop to think…” Her eyes fell to a spot behind me, and she trailed off just as the Uber pulled to a stop in front of my house with its sign illuminated on the dash. She looked at the car that waited on the curb and then back to me as she registered what that meant. “Are you… are you going somewhere?”
I squeezed my eyes shut briefly before opening them again. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“No?” she asked. “Because what it looks like is you were about to skip town without so much as an explanation or a goodbye.” She choked back a sob, turning to head down the walkway, but I reached for her hand and stepped in front of her.
“Ella, wait. That’s not what was happening. I was going to come see you on my way to the airport,” I explained.
