“Why didn’t you talk to me?” Elliot asked, bracing his hands behind his head.
“I don’t know.” Her eyes pinched shut as the world spun around her. “I thought I’d fixed it.”
“Why would you even agree to this in the first place?”
“I don’t know. Okay?” Her hands flew up in defense. She was exhausted and wired and not at all ready to have this argument, but she couldn’t stop it as the sun plunged into the lake like a ticking clock. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have. I know I should have. I-I’m not used to talking to people about things before I do them. I’m not used to people caring about what I do or my choices having an impact on other people.”
“How could you not think this would affect me?” he asked, not unkindly, but truly baffled. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice hundreds of people camping next to our house? I met more than one woman named Sedona today and a man wearing a literal tinfoil hat. Were you hoping I’d just miss that?”
“Elliot,” she cut in, her voice bone tired. “I grew up in a house that belonged to somebody else, and now I own it because nobody noticed I was there. My life is so small, sometimes it feels like I could just disappear in it. And then you showed up. And you noticed.” She could barely get the words out as years of repressed sadness gripped her throat. “And I love it, I do, but I don’t always know what to do with it. I’m still learning how to trust it. So when my car broke down, and you left mymedication in your truck, and I was alone, in pain, and absolutely terrified…” Her voice shook, making her feel even more out of control. “I fell back into what felt familiar, and going it alone and risking everything for ‘a little bit of money’ is familiar to me. But the second you came home, I knew it was the wrong thing and I was scared I’d ruined everything, so I tried to fix it. Alone. Because that’s what I’m good at.”
“But don’t you see?” He ran a hand through his hair, his sad eyes scraping over her like the broken bottles at her feet. “When you push me off to the side, even when you think you have a good reason for it, I’m alone. And Ifeelit, Lainey. I feel you walling off, and I never know why or for how long. What we have…I can’t make it work alone. You have to talk to me. You have to let me in.”
“I don’t want you to ever feel alone,” she sniffed. “But I’m scared I’ll get used to this, and then one day, you’ll notice I’m a mess and change your mind. Then you’ll go, and it will hurt so much worse because I let myselfwantthis.”
Lainey didn’t allow herself to need people. People had a tendency to let her down. Every time, that betrayal—that crushing disappointment—took something from her. It left her feeble and hollow—and somehow, lonelier than ever.
He seemed to sit with her words, taking them in. “That’s never going to happen.” He said it like a promise. A vow. “I’m not going to change my mind about us.”
He reached out a hand to her. It was warm and rough and exactly right in hers. Perfect.
“Just let me be in this with you,” he nearly groaned. “I’ve wanted us to get to this place for so long. I think I’ve been hoping for it since you agreed to marry me.” There was that wordagain.Hope. “Can you believe that everything in your world matters to me, just because it’s yours? Yours and mine.”
She pressed her head into his shoulder, breathing in and out until their chests rose and fell as one. They stayed that way—time elastic, stretching around them with each shared inhalation—until the alarm pinged on his phone. She gathered the strength to let him pull away, but he held the back of her head in one hand and canceled the alarm with the other.
“That’s for the sunset. We have to get on the deck,” she reminded him.
“Only if you want to.” His voice was velvety smooth.
“Yes, I want to,” she replied, almost laughing. She wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’ve only been hearing about this for months.”
He considered her for a moment, then said, “Okay.”
She led him onto the deck. They sat down, scooching back against the wall for what they hoped was the perfect view.
“What if this is how we find out we built it wrong?” she whispered into his shoulder.
His head shook. “We built it perfectly. If it’s wrong, it’s a design flaw.”
“Wow. You’re going to come for your main guy like that? Oh! I think it’s happening.”
The yolky sun had nearly sunk into the lake, melting into a perfect river of orange light, and as they sat in the center of their cedar deck with unfocused eyes, they were a part of the sunset. They were on a bridge leading all the way into the sky. Her small life in that odd little house suddenly seemed like a miracle.
“Perfect,” he hummed.
When she looked over at Elliot to check if he was seeing it just as she did, he was looking back at her.
And in that moment, bathed in sunlight, basking in a view only they could’ve seen, she knew she loved Elliot Hodges.
Elliot: I can’t believe you did this every night. These people are awful.
Elliot: Actually, it would be one thing if every passenger was uniformly awful so I could get my bearings, but it’ll be two normal rides and then, BAM, someone slides into my back seat with a ceramic bowl of hot soup and demands that I “drive smoother” so she doesn’t scald herself.
Elliot: Please tell me you’re having better luck with the lawyer than I am as an Uber driver. Also, I miss you.
Lainey: You text too much for someone who’s supposed to be safely operating a vehicle.
Lainey: Miss you too.
