I stumble out of the driver’s seat, leaving my passengers behind as I force one foot in front of the other. So much careful planning, all in anticipation of this single moment. I smooth my dress and inhale before launching the speech I’ve been practicing for several days.
Yet, despite my preparation, my first sentence tumbles out in an inelegant squawk.
“I kept the straw!”
He frowns at my contextless outburst, the wind ruffling his hair. “What?” he asks, confused.
Fair.
I was supposed to build up to that. When I rehearsed this speech, I must not have accounted for just how much being inEthan’s presence would unsettle me. Maybe it’s that I expected him to be more affected by seeingmehere, in the woods, unannounced. Seeinghimfeels akin to swallowing a beehive. At the sight ofme, he’s startlingly at ease, running a hand through his hair as if I were anyone.
On my inhale, I consider all the ways I’ve loved Ethan and felt loved by him. The years of messages, jokes, and restrained touches. The way being near him soothes my brain and lights me up all at once. The way he makes me feel normal and weird in all the best ways. His passion for life, the environment, music, and now, me. His fearlessness. His generosity. His kindness. His patience. Ethan’s so tender and wholehearted. To be the person he gives all his love to, even if only for a little while, I’m almost certain would be worth any risk.
“That night at the hospital, you told me you loved me, and you were right—I wasn’t ready to hear it. But I couldn’t let you go either, so I kept it. I kept the straw.” I pull the straw out of my pocket and use it to ground my thoughts. “Even when I didn’t hear from you for a year, I kept it. I use it all the time, you know, which is insane because it looks ridiculous—I look ridiculous—but I can’t get rid of it. It’s my last piece of you, and I think you’re one of the only people that’s ever made me feel safe. You’re this stabilizing force, and it keeps you with me even when we’re apart and I’m missing you so much. Ithurtshow much I miss you, Ethan.”
He doesn’t say anything in response. He just stares, and it sends a strange twinge of anticipation through my abdomen.
“So I quit my job.” My words are spewing out of my mouth and collecting at his feet in a jumbled mess. “Then I fully freaked out, because I can’t pay my mortgage without a job. I mean…I couldn’t pay itwitha job. Now I’m hearing myselfsay the word ‘job’ a lot, and it feels like someone is scooping my lungs out of my chest, but it’s fine.”
This is not going at all the way I planned, but I can’t make myself stop. “I’m honestly fine, because it occurred to me that Ihatemy house. It’s big and cold and the air-conditioning does this clicking thing at night that drives me nuts. And that bed is so giant and empty, and I don’t want to sleep in a bed you’re not in, because I don’t want to be anywhere you aren’t.”
His expression remains impossible to read. God, this is terrifying. Like I’m dangling over the ledge of a very tall building, waiting to see if the man of my dreams will yank me back into the safety of his arms or let me fall to my bitter end.
“So…since I can’t pay the mortgage on a house I hate, and it’s not like I have furniture or anything, it only made sense to sell it to my neighbor’s son. I worked my entire life to put down roots, and I undid it all in a single week, but I kind of feel…amazing. Growing up, I always thought that it was the constant change that scared me, but it wasn’t. To me, love was this…delicate thing. A rope that could slip right through my fingers if my feet weren’t firmly planted on the ground and the conditions weren’t exactly right, and it was up to me tomakeit right. But you…” I step forward, feeling emboldened by his nearness. “You love me, and it makes me braver. You make me feel like I can jump off cliffs.”
His eyes trail all over my face. “Yeah?” His voice is so quiet. Reverent.
“Yeah.” I chuckle, wiping at the tears forming in the corners of my eyes with the back of my wrist. “If you give me another chance, I know you’ll wake up every day and love me, because you always have. Even when I didn’t know it, I felt it.”
In the way he treated me, accepted me, valued me. It was always there. I was simply too stubborn to see it.
“And I know I’m going to wake up every day and love you,” I promise him. I won’t have a choice. I’ve been doing it so long it’s the only thing I know for sure how to do.
An ache settles over his face.I’m too late, I worry.No.I won’t accept this as the end. Not without telling him everything.
“I have it all figured out, you know. Well, the broad strokes anyway, since I’m homeless and jobless. I’ll have to return my car too, since that’s a lease.” I shake my tumbling thoughts back into place. “But that’s fine, because I’ve recently come into possession of a gently used van home.” He smiles a little. Just enough to make my stomach swoop. “I bought your van. I made the offer under an assumed name.”
His brow furrows. “An assumed name?”
I nod solemnly. “ ‘Sutton River’ isn’t a person. I made the offer with a fake email account.”
“No.” He gasps. “Two fictional characters fromAurora Fallsaren’t joining as one to buy a van from me?”
“I didn’t think you’d put that together,” I mutter. “But it’s my van now. Our van. I don’t want you giving anything up to slot into my life, and I don’t want to twist myself into yours. I want to try something new, together.”
His lips lift. It’s tiny, almost imperceptible, butIcan see it and nearly collapse in relief at the sight. It’s a raft in choppy waters, and I grab on for dear life.
“But I’m not living in a vanallthe time. I need things like a home base and a mailing address. We could have a place together or I could rent my own…and I’ll need a job, of course.But I’ve been rethinking my whole career plan, asking around about remote opportunities, so we can take long trips or travel to your shows. It’s not the natural next step for my résumé, but I don’t care how our life looks on paper. It only needs to be right to you and me, because I’m just so pathetically in love with you.”
I add on the last bit because I don’t think I’ve mentioned that critical detail in all my ranting. I’m in love with him. I always have been. Even when I told myself it wasn’t possible, it never stopped. My love for my best friend was a plant in hibernation, ready to bloom.
I take a much-needed breath, waiting inside his impossibly long pause, until he breaks the silence to say, “Okay.”
What?“Okay?” I clarify, in case I missed a syllable. Or ten.
His face bursts to life with one of his familiar crinkly-eyed smiles. It’s a privilege to know every one of this man’s smiles, and I won’t be taking that for granted again.
“Okay,” he repeats. “That sounds good.”
