“Then what do you need to tell me?”
He went quiet for a moment, sighed, and slid his fingers through her hair, rubbing at her scalp.
She moaned. “No. I’m not letting you distract me from whatever bomb you’re about to drop on my head by massaging it with your magic fingers first.”
“You think my fingers are magic?” Amusement laced his words, but she was too anxious to find the funny in the moment. What could he want to tell her?
“Focus, Elliott. I’m getting worked up. And not in the fun way.”
He shushed her and went back to stroking her hair. “Don’t panic, I promise I’m not leaving.”
“Then what is it?” Her voice was small, childish, fragile. She hated how his leaving her had impacted her self-worth so severely all those years ago, but she hadn’t found a way to let go of it, even as a fully grown adult.
“I came back.” He cleared his throat. “Back… then… in high school.” His voice was slow, heavy, thick with emotion, and charged with caution.
He’d come back? What did that mean? Of course he’d come back. If memory served, Catriona was still a drooling, shitting, sleep-hating monster at the time. Clare had seen Eli in the store over Thanksgiving break when she was in college.
Is that what he meant? He’d come back for vacation? He didn’t go to college locally so he didn’t mean that. And if he hadn’t come back home they wouldn’t have been having this conversation.
“Twice, in fact.”
She barely breathed, letting him continue, though her heart pounded so fast she wasn’t sure she’d survive long enough to hear the end of his explanation.
“I went to your work to see you. The shop was busy, but I still saw you behind the counter. Flushed cheeks, bright smile, and so very heavily pregnant I wondered how you were defying gravity.”
The words sat for a moment before the realization dawned. He’d come back, and left again? When she was pregnant with Cat? When she was alone and afraid? Isolated and ostracised—both for becoming pregnant in the first place, and for deciding to have the baby.
He’d come back?
“You… But…” She bolted upright, folding her arms as though that would somehow protect her naked vulnerability. “But you never said hi. You never told me you were back. You just… You left again, for college?” Her voice climbed higher, louder with every word.
His ashen face was crinkled by a frown, and his lips pursed together. To his credit, he didn’t break eye contact with her. He sat up in bed and swept a soft hand across her cheek. “I thought you were in a happy relationship and I didn’t want to wedge myself into that.”
Bitterness rose up in her throat. A happy relationship.
Happy?
Cat’s dad had bolted like he was being pursued in a high speed car chase. And never came fucking back.
“H-happy?”
“I’m sorry. I walked in that day, saw you pregnant with some other guy’s child, and I lost it. I thought you were happy with him, together. I thought you’d made your choice and picked someone else. I was just a kid too, Ceecee, but I didn’t want to fuck things up for you all over again.”
Tears poured down her cheeks. “I was so alone.”
He nodded and pulled her to his chest. She let him. His arms banded around her, holding her as she sobbed.
“I think my parents kept the truth from me. They knew your parents, right? They knew you weren’t happy. They knew you were struggling and alone but they didn’t tell me. I think it was because they knew I’d stay if they did.”
“S-so you just left again?”
He nodded. “Kind of. I didn’t know any different, and I had been given another offer. Turned it down to come back home, but when I saw you, I didn’t think there was anything left for me here. And staying here while you were…” He swallowed, the agony in his voice mirrored what she carried in her chest. “With someone else. Having everything we talked about having as kids… I just couldn’t face it. So I ran.”
“And then?” A whirlwind of emotions careened through her like a tornado. He’d come back. He’d come back, seen she was super pregnant, and left without even talking to her about it.
Fuck.
“When I came back from college, you were married. Mom told me it wasn’t to Catriona’s father, but she said you were happy, and I’m not a homewrecker.” Sourness coated his voice. They had both married homewreckers.
