I’m watching so I see the exact moment Ethan gets home the next day and I’m out the door, crossing the yard, before he can close his car door behind him.
“Hey,” I say, but he’s already seen me. His movements slow, giving me time to reach him.
“Hi.”
I look down at the napkin I found on my window ledge and rub the paper between my fingers. “I didn’t see this until today. When did you leave it?”
“Couple nights ago.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He nods before glancing down at his boots and for the first time I notice they aren’t solid black. The marks I’d dismissed as scuffs and wear are drawings. More flowers, figures I can’t make out, and one that looks exactly like Old Man in an epic battle with a seagull. I want to wheel around and see the other sides but his words stop me. “But you like it?”
“I do.” I’d only been half telling him the truth before when I said I hated the ones he left me when we were kids. They were beautiful, less skilled than this one, but even knowing what they signified—him leaving—I couldn’t help but love them. “I kind of freaked out when I first saw it before I spotted the words.”
“I’ll never do that again,” he says, staring intently at me. “Leave that way, I mean.”
He’ll still leave though. That’s the part he’s not saying out loud, but we both hear like a shout. I’m tempted to let the conversation drift into safe, neutral topics until we can both forget the discomfort that has lingered between us for the past few days, but I’ve been doing that too much lately and I owe him better than that. I let silence bloom up for only a moment before rooting myself and opening my mouth.
“I’m sorry about the other night,” I say and at the same time he blurts, “So you and Neel have been hanging out more.”
It’s not like in the movies where we both laugh, instantly breaking the tension. Instead, we adopt matching frowns, waiting for the other to continue.
“Wait, you’re sorry? For what?”
Embarrassment washes over me like an upended bucket of water. I don’t look away though, no matter how much I want to. “For unloading all that stuff on you and then getting upset.”
He stares at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “What part of any of that do you need to apologize for?”
My brows draw more closely together. Why is he making me say this twice? “I just told you.”
“Rebecca.” He takes a step toward me, then seems to consider the fact that I might appreciate the distance between us in that moment. “I’m glad you said everything you did that night. I wondered—” He shakes his head sharply. “No, I wanted to know what you went through, what you thought and still think about everything. If anything, I’m the one who needs to apologize to you.” He doesn’t give me time to do more than blink before he rushes on. “I didn’t know what you’d be like when I got back, but you were—” he stops here to kind of smile and let that sudden happiness trickle into his words “—kind of amazing with everything, from your jewelry to the way you adapted to swimming and driving and I’m sure a million other things that I haven’t seen—can I say that? Is that...?”
I shake my head, dismissing his concern. Maybe from someone else those same words might feel patronizing but they don’t from him. “No, it’s fine.”
“Right. Okay. So, I stopped there. I mean I knew you were probably still dealing with things, but I thought you were mostly okay. You acted like you were and I let myself believe it because it was easier, it was familiar. And then we jumped right into my stuff because that’s what we do. Maybe we didn’t talk about it as kids, but it was always there, my messed-up mom and messed-up life, filling up the space between us. I never left any room for anything else.” He lets out a huff. “I never even thought to try, not really. Neel was the one who pushed me to look and see that maybe you weren’t dealing as well as you want everyone to think.”
“You talked to Neel about me?” I say it as though that’s what I’m upset about and not the way his words are backing me into a corner I don’t know how to escape from.
He doesn’t let me bait him, and worse, he doesn’t retreat.
“Yeah,” he says, “And it still took me too damn long to get it. I didn’t think about more than I could see in front of me and I should have.” He inhales deeply and holds my gaze like a lifeline. “I know better than most people that the real scars, the deep ones, are always on the inside.”
His words pierce through me like an arrow, right where I never want anyone to see. I feel my eyes threaten to well up but blinking fast will only betray that fact, so I try to brush his words—his stare—off. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine. I just got caught up with things and memories and...” I smile as if to say, See how fine I am? “Anyway, let’s just forget it, okay?”
“I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to be fine with me.” He bends down so slowly that I don’t even notice him moving until he’s right in front of me. “Give me the hard and the hurt, all the messed-up shit you’ve been carrying these past few years.” He’s close enough now for me to see the pulse racing against his throat when he swallows. “The guilt? Nothing is heavier than that.”
My hands drift to my push rims, ready to roll back, to reclaim physical distance when emotionally he’s drawn way too close. “I had one bad night.” My voice wobbles but I keep going. “Don’t make it into this huge thing.” I’ve been fighting to blink regularly, but I don’t think he’s blinked at all, not once, and it’s like he’s seeing everything, all my worst thoughts laid bare and raw. Almost to myself, I add, “This isn’t why I came out here tonight.”
He seizes on that. “Then what?” He moves closer, his gaze lighting all around my face before returning to my eyes. “Tell me, Bec, and I’ll give it to you.”
My breath catches and I’m grateful because otherwise, I’d have shouted out everything, all those quiet longings that I can’t give words to.
“Tell me,” he urges again, tugging lightly at my chair.
That moment spins out in front of me. All the things I could say without him pushing me away...and the ones that would make him pull me closer. I glance down at the napkin in my hand to see the flower and the words he left. I drag the side of my finger over the surprisingly soft paper, so at odds with the rough scars I feel inside, the ones he wants me to rip open, and I fold it closed again.
“I wanted to ask if you’d heard back from Bauer, or maybe someone else. Because I was thinking, maybe we should...” I trail off when I look up at Ethan and see the way he draws back, shoulders slumped and weary.
“Don’t do that.”
“What? It’s important, right?”
“Yeah, it’s important,” he says, gaze locked and steady. “But it’s not the only important thing. You’re important and so is what you said the other night.” His eyes soften as his lids lower slightly. “About it being your fault? You know that it wasn’t... Rebecca, what happened to you and your dad was a stupid, tragic accident. You’re not responsible for any of it.”
He reaches for me again, me, not my chair, gripping my hands with aching gentleness. His touch may as well be laced with acid for all the comfort it gives me. Needles march along my skin, scratching up my arms and shooting through my veins. “Is that how you feel? About your mom? Will it be okay if something happens to her and you weren’t there to stop it? Will you ever be able to believe someone saying it’s not your fault?”
The softness in his face hardens, tightening his jaw before relaxing and I think finally I’ve pushed him too far and he’ll leave the way he used to, but he doesn’t move. Nothing so much as twitches when his flat, raspy answer comes out. “No, I’ll never be able to believe that.” When his hand moves toward my face, I almost flinch until he brushes his fingertips along my cheek. “But you’ll still say it, won’t you? You will say it? No matter what happens.” His fingers tighten infinitesimally before he drops his hand. “Even if I never find her, and you know that I won’t believe it, I’ll need somebody who loves me to say it.”