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“That’s amazing,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And they’ve been appreciative. Aiden feels we should take the company in a different direction, and Connor agrees. They’re my friends, my partners. I haven’t been listening to them, but I am now.”
He cleared his throat, then leaned back against the counter. “I even rescheduled the investors meetings. I’m leaving later this week.”
“And this time you’re going to actually go to them?” I joked.
For a moment he only smirked at me. Then his expression went serious again. “And what about you, Jordyn?”
“What about me?”
He unfolded his arms, and his whole body language changed. Rubbing at his freshly-trimmed goatee, he seemed hesitant, almost as if he was considering something.
And Elliot Chase wasneverhesitant.
“Go on,” I told him. “You can say it.”
His eyes met mine. I saw the softness there, behind the intelligence. The part of him that few people got to see.
“I was going to say that you need to let go yourself,” he said. “You’ve been carrying this fear for most of your adult life, and you refuse to let it go.”
“It’s not fear,” I said defensively. “It’s protection. It’s armor, if anything. But it keeps me safe.”
“Maybe,” he shrugged. “But safe from what?”
For the first time in my life I didn’t know. I didn’t have the answer.
Maybe I never did.
“Nothing is safe,” he smiled gently. “Everything is a risk.”
“Touché,” I smirked bitterly. “Congrats, you get a point.”
“I’m not trying to score points,” Elliot countered. “But this fear is weighing you down. It’s keeping you from allowing your life to move on. From your parents. From Jocelyn…”
Normally I would’ve raged. I would’ve pointed out how far my life had come since then, how I’d picked myself up and totally moved on. I would’ve pointed out all the things I’d done so far, and the places I’d been. The accomplishments I’d made.
Only right here, right now, I saw them for what they were: substitutes. They were victories, but they were also hollow. They were a way of filling the hole in my heart — not with emotion, but withthings.
Things that didn’t matter so much, if there was no one around to enjoy them with me.
“I know it must be hard,” he said. “And I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you. I won’t use the words ‘I understand’. That would be a lie.”
I glanced up again, and Elliot had taken a slow step toward me. For the first time in as long as I could remember, the little voice in the back of my mind wasn’t screaming for me to retreat.
“You’re so alone,” he said. “And you don’t have to be. That fear you’ve been carrying — you can throw it all away.”
“I don’t have fear,” I protested again softly.
“Yes you do,” he replied. “Not of dying — you’re fearless in that regard, I’m sure. But you’re afraid of actually living. You’re so afraid of leaving someone behind, because you’ve been left behind, that you’re not seeing the bigger picture.”
His gaze shifted gradually downward, to my pregnant belly. I followed along, using my hands.
“You love us, Jordyn,” said Elliot. “And we love you. That bond between us is never going to change. If anything it’s only going to get stronger, just like the one between Aiden, Connor and I.”
“I…” I was choking up. “I know, but—”
“This child could beours,” he said softly. “The four of us. We could throw away the paperwork and tell the lawyers to fuck off. We could raise it together, here, as a family…”
