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Dark eyes delve into mine. “Ella, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“After a month, you came out in a snowstorm to tell me that?”
“You deserve to hear it in person.” He brushes my hair off my cheek. “Can we talk? Are you busy?”
“I was just reading.” He follows me into the living room and sits beside me on the couch. When he reaches for my hand, I pull it back. Not this time. We aren’t a couple, and I’ve come to accept we never will be. That wasn’t my expectation when I decided to move back. But he’s supposed to be my friend.
“You’re angry, I know,” he says.
“No shit. The difference is I don’t ignore your calls and messages because you pissed me off. That’s not how I treat my friends. And it’s not how I’m going to allow my friends to treat me.”
“You’re right.”
“I know.”
His lip twitches up in amusement but he knows better than to let it turn to a grin. “It won’t happen again, El. That’s why I’m here. I want to explain and apologize.”
My phone beeps with a text message from Tori.
Tori
You believe this bullshit? The roads are awful and they’re closing the highway. I’m not driving all the way home. Sleeping at my parents’ place.
I send her a quick text telling her to be careful getting there and set the phone aside. “Tori says they closed the highway, and the roads are becoming impassable. Are you sure you want to get stuck here all night?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Do I? I’m pissed and hurt. It took him showing up to realize how much, but I also want to hear him out. “You can always sleep on the couch, I suppose. We may as well grab a drink and get comfortable.”
I’m not a big drinker, but I like to have a vodka and cranberry some nights. Tori keeps a couple of flavors of schnapps, and there’s a nearly full bottle of bourbon one of her friends left here over a month ago.
“Take your pick,” I tell Alden. “There’s pop and juice in the fridge.”
I mix my drink while Alden grabs a glass and the bottle of bourbon, then follows me out to the porch.
One thing I love about this house is the side porch. It’s been completely enclosed into more of a sunroom, with glass windows lining the upper half of three walls. Tori says it gets too hot in the middle of summer, but with the little space heater I bought, it’s perfect in the winter. It’s furnished with an overstuffed sofa and a coffee table that’s seen better days.
We sit on the couch, and I take a sip of my drink.
Alden swallows a mouthful of bourbon, refills his glass and turns to sit facing me. He opens his mouth twice and closes it again. Whatever he’s trying to say, he’s struggling to get started.
“Just tell me why you wouldn’t talk to me. You couldn’t have been that pissed when I suggested talking to your dad. It’s not like I was pressuring you.”
“You weren’t. It wasn’t your fault. I overreacted. I had a lot of stuff going on and I took it out on you. It wasn’t fair. You didn’t deserve it. I’m sorry.” Sincerity floods his words.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing for your reaction in the cemetery. I never held that against you. You were grieving. I know you still are, but it was the weeks since that hurt, Alden.”
He scrubs his hands over his face. “I was stressed. It seemed like everything was happening at once. Mom died, Dad showed up, then you came back, and there was something else I’ll get into in a minute, but it felt like everything was piling on.”
“I added to your stress? I’ve never asked anything of you.”
“Ella, fuck, you don’t understand. It’s taken everything in me the last few years not to come find you. I missed you like hell and thought about you every day. It didn’t matter if you had a boyfriend or if I was seeing someone. They didn’t mean shit to me. All I could think about was you.”
He swallows hard and looks me in the eye. “Then suddenly you were here and every reason I had to leave you alone wasn’t enough to keep me away. I couldn’t. All I wanted to do was spend every second with you. Despite knowing I shouldn’t.”
His confession nails me in place. He’s describing the way I felt without him those first couple of years. When I would still think back on him saying it wasn’t the end, just a pause. When I still believed we had some chance in the future.
Before I grew up.
