The news from the specialist hadn't been good. It wasn't entirely unexpected, either. It was the exact scenario I had been secretly terrorizing myself over for weeks: she needed another round of surgeries. The excruciating pain she’d been enduring was a direct reaction to the metal hardware inside her body. The doctors had even casually tossed around the phrasemedical malpractice, but the clinical legalities didn't register. All I heard, pounding against my skull like a relentless war drum, was a single, devastating reality:more surgeries.
I knew the sheer thought of it was triggering its own brand of PTSD for her. I wanted to be her anchor, to prove she would never have to face the clinical nightmare alone again, but the terror was currently paralyzing me.
When we finally sat down on the living room couch, the silence followed us. I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead, but I could feel Vanessa watching me carefully, trying to read the storm of anger and raw panic I was doing my best to hide beneath a flat expression. Steve came running from wherever he’d been hiding, his tiny paws clicking against the floor as he yipped at Vanessa's feet. She scooped the dog up into her lap, letting him lick her chin before pressing a kiss to his head. Together, the two of them sat there, observing the quiet meltdown I was having in real time.
Steve eventually crawled off her lap and onto mine. My hand moved on pure instinct, absentmindedly stroking the dog's fur while my mind spun out of control.
Vanessa leaned her weight into my side. “I’m okay,” she whispered against my shoulder.
A violent shudder racked my frame.
“I’m okay,” she said again, her voice dropping into a softer, steadier register.
Hearing her try to comfort me hit like a physical blow. I realized how transparent my panic must have been. My parents had died in a horrific car crash. Vanessa had been broken to pieces in one. We were two people haunted by the exact same metal-and-asphalt nightmare, and right now, the walls were closing in on me.
I swallowed hard, the tight motion of my throat the only indicator that I had heard her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked carefully, like she was walking across a minefield.
I knew asking me personal questions when I was shut down felt like walking a high-wire tightrope for her, but I could hear the desperation in her voice. She was trying to force us past the old barriers. Vanessa always had a million questions; I remembered her mom joking once that if Vanessa ever got stranded in a cemetery, the poor ghosts would beg for purgatory just to escape her endless chatter.
I kept my mouth shut, unable to find the words.
“You can tell me you don’t want to talk,” she added, her voice starting to shake. “Just… please don’t push me away, Elliott.”
That broke the paralysis. I turned to her, instantly catching her hand in mine. “I’m not going to do that again. I’m never going to hurt you like that again.” I reached up, my thumb gently wiping away a stray tear I hadn't realized she was shedding. “It took me years to stop obsessively driving Morgan everywhere after the accident, Ness. Richard used to have to reassure me over and over that she would be fine. It got so bad that they literally forbade me from asking how she got from place to place.”
The confession felt raw, scraping at my throat, but I forced myself to keep going. I needed her to see inside the cage.
“Why do you think I insisted on driving you everywhere the second you started staying here? It’s my own sick, messed-upway of trying to maintain control over an uncontrollable world. Sometimes the sheer worry feels like it’s going to completely suffocate me. It wasn’t until recently that I finally realized that, in a very real way, a part of me died in that wreckage ten years ago, too.”
The words seemed to hit her hard. She looked entirely shattered, her eyes searching mine with a deep, aching empathy. Because I knew her better than anyone else alive, I didn't wait for her to struggle for a response. I moved first. I lifted her gently by the waist and settled her directly onto my lap, her legs straddling my hips. Steve immediately took the hint, jumping off the cushions and scurrying away in search of his favorite toy.
“It hurts a little less when you’re right here,” I whispered, my breath uneven as I leaned my head back against the cushion.
Her fingers slid into my hair, a grounding touch that made me want to completely unravel.
“That night in your bedroom... ten years ago, when you told me to go...” she started softly.
My head snapped up, an old defensive reflex screaming at me to stop her from digging up the ghost of my worst mistake.
“No—let me finish,” she insisted, her gaze fierce and unyielding. “You need to know the rest of it, Elliott.”
I forced myself to relax back against the couch, nodding silently.
“After I left your room, I fully intended to just drive straight home. It was your house, and you had demanded space. I felt incredibly guilty for leaving Morgan alone, but I promised myself I’d check on her first thing the next morning. But once I got out to my car in the driveway, my dad called. He needed a ride home from the bar. My siblings weren’t answering their phones, and it was incredibly late. He knew he was in no condition to drive—he was trying to do the responsible thing. The rest, as they say, is history.” She offered a weak, self-deprecating smile that completely tore at my chest. “I won’t bore you with the gruesome details. The point of me telling you that is that whether or not you asked me to leave, I would have answered that call. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome.”
My eyes never left hers. The guilt was a heavy weight in my stomach, but the honesty between us was a lifeline. “One day, when you’re ready, I want to hear every single bit of it. Gruesome details and all.”
She nodded, the trust passing between us absolute.
I slid my hand down to her left knee, my fingers tracing the skin with a quiet reverence. “I know we didn’t get the news we wanted at the doctor’s today. But if it makes you feel any better... I’m just glad you were there with me to hear it.”
My hands slid slowly up her thighs, tightening slightly. “I’m always going to be there from now on. I'm not going anywhere.”
The brilliant, breathless smile that broke across her face made my own chest ache. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against mine, letting us just bask in a moment that had been ten agonizing years in the making.
“I love you, Ness. I’ve always loved you,” I murmured, my grip tightening on her hips to emphasize every single syllable.
