"I would've learned," he said quietly. "If you'd told me how to love you properly, I would've learned."
The grief in his voice hurt more than anger would've.
"I know."
"You could still tell me now." He added.
His hand lifted carefully, hesitantly, like he was approaching a frightened animal instead of a woman he used to share a bed with, and for one awful moment I saw exactly how badly he still wanted this to become something salvageable.
His fingers brushed lightly against mine. I pulled my hand back. He stood very still, although I could see the effort it cost him not to reach for me again. The silence between us no longer felt uncertain now. It felt like something grieving while it died. He looked at me carefully, his eyes moving across my face as thoughhe was trying to memorize me while I was still standing in front of him.
"You love him."
The words came quietly, not accusing, not bitter, only tired in a way that made my chest ache.
I swallowed hard before answering because even now speaking too much at once felt like trying to hold water in shaking hands.
"I feel safe with him."
Ellis lowered his head slightly at that, and for several seconds he said nothing at all. I watched his jaw tighten before he exhaled slowly through his nose. When he finally looked back at me, his eyes had changed.
"I kept thinking," he admitted quietly, "that maybe you only needed time. That if I gave you enough space you would eventually remember us differently and come back when things stopped hurting so much."
His mouth curved faintly then, but the smile disappeared almost immediately.
"I think part of me believed you walking through that door tonight meant I had been right all along."
Guilt twisted painfully through me because I had known the moment he opened the door exactly what hope he had attached to seeing me there.
"I don't want to hurt you."
"I know." His voice roughened slightly. "That's honestly the worst part, April. You've never tried to hurt me. If it is any consolation, I never wanted to hurt you either."
Emotion climbed hot and painful into my throat. Speaking still did not come easily to me, especially not when someone was looking at me with that much honesty, but I forced myself to hold his gaze anyway because disappearing into silence now would only leave both of us trapped inside the same unfinished ending forever.
"I don't hate you, Ellis."
The reaction was immediate. His face crumpled before he could stop it. He turned away sharply, one hand covering his mouth as his shoulders tightened with a sudden uneven breath, and for a moment I realized with horrible clarity that he had truly believed some part of me must hate him for how things ended. When he looked back at me again his eyes were wet, his composure visibly slipping in a way I had never seen during our relationship.
"Jesus Christ," he laughed weakly, although the sound broke halfway through. "I think I needed to hear that more than anything else."
A tear slid down his face before he wiped it away quickly, embarrassed by it despite everything.
"I keep replaying everything, all the awful things I said followed immediately by every good memory we ever shared, and the regret of knowing I hurt someone I loved started eating me alive after a while." His voice thickened painfully as he looked down at his hands. "I thought eventually you would look back on us and decide I had destroyed something fragile beyond repair."
"You didn't ruin me."
The words came softly, but firmly enough that he closed his eyes briefly when he heard them. Another silence settled between us then, though this one no longer felt sharp around the edges. It felt exhausted.
Ellis moved closer after a while, slowly enough that I never felt cornered by it, and stopped only when there was still space between us.
"I would've waited for you forever," he confessed quietly. "I don't even think that's romantic anymore. I think it's just the truth. I keep hoping there would be one conversation that would fix everything because losing you never stopped feeling temporary to me."
For a moment neither of us moved. Then, Ellis lifted his hand carefully toward me again before stopping halfway there, giving me enough room to refuse before he touched me at all.
"Can I hug you goodbye?"
I wanted to say yes simply because I knew how badly he needed it. I wanted to say yes because I still cared about him deeply enough to hate causing him pain. But I also knew myself well enough now to understand the danger of giving comfort that sounded too much like reconsideration.
