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“I am. And if you don’t believe me, all you have to do is see how I was after your bro—after Brandon—showed up here. It—it wasn’t a good two weeks, okay?”
Ethan’s face crumples then. His shoulders hunch and his whole body sags. For the first time since I’ve known him, he looks as ruined as I feel. “Chloe. Chloe, I’m—”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry!” I throw his words back at him, albeit louder and more shrilly than he ever said them to me. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault any more than it’s mine and I don’t want your fucking apology. Got it?”
He looks like he wants to argue, but in the end he just shoves his hands through his hair, and nods slowly. “Yeah.”
“I love you, Ethan. More than I ever thought I’d be able to love anyone.”
“I love you, too, Chloe.”
“I know you do. Which is why I’m doing this. There’s no one else on this earth I would rip myself open like this for, not once but twice. I want to be with you. I want a real chance to make things work. But you need to understand that I can’t do that if the past is constantly there between us. I can’t do that if I’m constantly thinking about Brandon or my family or how many pieces inside me just don’t fit together right.
“I’ve survived this long because I locked the past up deep inside of me. I don’t think about it, I don’t bring it out and poke at it when I need something to do. I don’t acknowledge it at all.
“And before you say anything, I know that’s not healthy. More than one shrink has told me that repression isn’t acceptance. But you know what, I can’t accept this. I will never accept it. And I can guarantee that if I dwell on it, if I let myself really understand what it means that Brandon is your brother, and that the woman who paid my parents all that money to get him out of trouble is your mother, then we will never be together. Never.”
Ethan blanches, looks sicker than I’ve ever seen him. “Chloe, that’s not—There’s something—”
“Stop!” I shout it at him then. “Just stop. I’ve never been one to give ultimatums, Ethan, and I know you’ve never been one to follow them. But I can’t see this going any other way. If you want to be with me—”
“I do.”
“Then be with me. With me, how I am now, not how I used to be. I don’t want to talk about the rape. I don’t want to talk about Brandon. I don’t want to meet your family. I can’t handle that. Not now. Maybe not ever, but certainly, not right now.
“And I’m sorry that I’m so messed up. I’m sorry that I have all this baggage, and that if you take me on that it becomes your baggage, too. And I’m sorry that one day I might wake up and not be able to take any of this for one second longer. And that I will never be normal. You deserve normal.
“But I love you. I love you, Ethan, and I want to try to make it work. Because life without you … it isn’t good. It isn’t—”
I don’t finish because Ethan’s yanking me against him then, burying his hands in my hair and devouring my mouth with his own.
I can taste the salty remnants of tears I didn’t know he was shedding, can hear the ragged exhale of a breath I didn’t know he was holding. Fine tremors wrack his long, lean surfer’s body and his arms are locked around me like he’s never, never going to let me go.
They ground me as nothing else could have, give me tangible proof that this thing between us is as important to him as it is to me.
Brandon or no Brandon, I can’t ask for more than that.
He kisses me and kisses me and kisses me and it feels so good, so right. Like the specter of the past has been banished forever. That’s all I want, all I can ever ask for.
I wrap my arms around him then, kiss him back with every ounce of love and need and strength I have inside of me. And pray that it’s enough.
“I love you,” he tells me in between long, lingering kisses. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I never doubted that, Chloe. If I had, I would have gone insane.”
He turns us around and then somehow we’re back on the bed. Only this time I’m lying facedown across it and Ethan is stretched out on top of me, his mouth at my neck and his hands … his hands are everywhere else.
“It’s my turn to talk,” he tells me, yanking the sheet from between us. He’s licking my spine now, long, lazy forays of his tongue that send splinters of heat racing through me.
“I’m sorry that that happened to you,” he tells me in between wet, open-mouthed kisses and gentle, sharp-toothed nibbles across my back.
“I told you—”
“No.” He puts one calloused hand over my mouth. “You don’t get to contribute right now. This is my turn.”
He takes his hand away, but the warning look in his eyes remains. He’s serious about this. I had my chance to speak, now he wants his. I press my lips together, letting the protest die away. After everything I said to him, it’s only fair that he gets a shot, too.
