Page 107 of If I Didn’t Have You

“Sweetie, are you okay?”

She sighed, her eyes remaining closed. “Peachy.”

“Is Ryder working today?”

“He’s out of town,” she mumbled.

“When will he be home?”

“Later tonight. He was supposed to be home last night, but…”

That explained why she was practically getting drunk on wine.

We pulled up to the house a few minutes later, and thankfully, Jeff was just slipping away as we arrived. I helped Ellie inside, surprised at how drunk she was. I hadn’t seen her pouring wine, but then again, my mind had wandered during the whole meeting.

We stumbled inside, and I put her on the couch while I went in search of bottled water. We usually kept a case in each rental for storms. When I returned, she was bent over, crying in her hands.

“Ellie?”

“God, I’m so pathetic,” she cried.

“What? Why would you say that?”

“I can’t even sleep with Ryder,” she sniffled. “He holds me and takes care of me, but I can’t—” She bit her lip, shaking her head as the tears poured down her cheeks. “How long until he leaves me?”

The words came out as nothing more than a whisper, but every ounce of them was filled with pain and grief.

“Ryder isn’t going to leave you.” I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her in close. God, what I wouldn’t give to make this right for her.

“I can’t—” She choked on her words, but I already knew what she was thinking.

“You will when you’re ready, and he knows that.”

Sniffling, she looked up at me, desperate for her life to be different. I could read it in her eyes, in the pleading look on her face.

“He’ll leave me if I can’t give him that,” she whispered, completely broken.

“Ellie, does that sound like the Ryder you know? Really think about this. He was desperate to find you when you were missing. He would have burnt the whole world down to get you back. A man like that doesn’t walk away because you need time.”

“But what if I can’t ever…”

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when “ever” comes. But I don’t think that will be the case. You need time to heal, and one day, that horrible feeling inside you won’t feel quite as powerful. And when that day comes, you’ll decide to test the waters. And maybe it won’t go as planned. Maybe it’ll be too much for you. Or maybe you’ll find that you want to try more. Only time will tell.”

Swiping her face, she leaned back against the sofa, taking me with her. “I feel like such a failure.”

“You were traumatized.”

“It was just —” But her lips trembled, and the words she tried to force out wouldn’t come.

“Just rape? Is that what you were going to say?” I asked gently. “Is that how you’re going to justify that you should be past this?”

“Other women don’t fall apart,” she grumbled. “Other women move past it.”

“That may be, but I don’t think you can sweep it under the rug as if it never happened. And you weren’t just raped, Ellie. You were taken. You thought you were going to die in that basement. No matter if it was rape or being held hostage, you went through something traumatic, and telling yourself it wasn’t that big of a deal is not going to help you push past what you’re feeling.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I just want it to be over. I want the pain to stop. I want to feel normal again, and have the life I once had with Ryder.”

“You will have that again, but Ellie, you’re always going to be changed by this. There’s no magic pill to make it all disappear.”