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Chapter Twenty
I’m not sure how long we stand there. Long enough for people to load a cart full of groceries into the SUV next to us and pull away. Long enough for the little girl sitting on the bench in front of the store to finish her ice cream cone. More than long enough for me to feel it as those pieces that had lined up so well last night get all mixed up again.
We wait and wait and wait.
I keep expecting Ethan to say something. For him to tell me that he understands, that it’s okay—or that he doesn’t and we’ve made a gigantic mistake. At this point, I’m not sure which of those would be worse. I just know that I can’t stand the waiting much longer. Not if I have any hope of staying sane.
He won’t even look at me, hasn’t let his eyes meet mine once since I told him I’d tried to kill myself.
Finally, I can’t take the silence any longer. “Ethan.”
His eyes jump to mine. They’re blurry and out of focus and goddamnit I must be crying again. Except when I scrub a hand across my cheek, it’s dry. That’s when it hits me. I’m not crying. Ethan is.
“Oh, baby, please. Don’t. Don’t do that.” This time I reach for him and he’s the one who flinches away. It slices deep. Not just the rejection but the knowledge that once again I’ve inadvertently hurt him. Rejected him.
“If you would let me, I would give you every penny that I have and every penny that I’ll ever make.”
“Is that what you think I want? Your money?” It’s like he hasn’t heard anything that I said.
“Not even a little bit. But it’s what I think you deserve.” He wraps one big, calloused hand around my neck and pulls me gently toward him. “It doesn’t matter how many times those little bastards called you a whore. It doesn’t make you one. And it doesn’t matter how many times you told yourself you were weak. You will never be anything but the strongest woman I have ever met.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t put me on some kind of pedestal—”
“I wish. I wish I could put you on a pedestal. I wish I could put you somewhere under glass, where I could keep you safe from all this shit you never should have had to deal with. I wish I would have known what Brandon was like a long time ago, wish I could have kept you out of his hands that night and every other one you had to put up with his bullshit.
“And I want you to know—I need you to know—that when I buy you a present, it’s not because I think that you expect it. Or that I feel like I have to do it to make you happy. Because that’s not it at all, Chloe.” He leans over, presses his forehead to mine. “It’s only that I love you and I want to give you the world.”
My throat is tight before he’s even half done with his speech and it takes everything I’ve got to keep from breaking down all over again. But he’s still sounding pretty shaken and I figure in any couple, at any one time, there’s only room for one of them to be losing their shit. And right now, that one appears to be Ethan.
And so I swallow a few times, wait it out. And onl
y when I’m certain that I can sound normal do I say, “You know, right, that I feel the same way about you? I think you deserve everything and it bothers me that you’re stuck with me. I’m neurotic and broken and so far from normal that I probably wouldn’t recognize it if it hit me over the head.”
“Stuck with you? Jesus, Chloe, I’m not stuck with you. I’m blessed with you.”
“Oh, Ethan, love, I think you’ve got that backward.”
“No. No, I don’t.”
He brushes his lips over mine and this kiss, our first kiss in what seems like forever … it’s a tapestry. A thousand stories and a thousand mistakes and a thousand glittering strands of light all threaded together to make something beautiful. To make something real.
“I love you,” he whispers against my mouth.
I laugh and if it’s a little soggy, there’s no one around but us to notice. “I don’t know why. I’m crazy.”
“Yeah, but you’re my kind of crazy, so …” He steps back then, starts to open the car door back up.
“I thought we were going grocery shopping?”
“Fuck grocery shopping. I’m taking you home.”
“Why? I mean, I’m still full from lunch, but presumably at some point we will want to eat again.”
“Yeah, well, this is where being rich comes in handy. Because I actually do have someone who’s job it is to stock up my kitchen.”
“But we’re already here. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, and this time it sounds like he thinks I really might be crazy.
