There would be a lot of I’m sorrys and I suck monkey balls. I thought I’d throw in an I’m not worthy for good measure, though I figured the Wayne’s World reference would be lost on him. It was worth a shot.
But now, with him standing in front of me, looking distant and unsure, I couldn’t summon up any words at all.
“I wasn’t sure you would come back,” he said, his carefully neutral.
“I remember you saying once that you knew I’d come back,” I said, my words cracking and breaking.
But I know that one day I won’t need to miss you anymore because you’ll come back and find me again.
He had been so sure, so confident in my love for him all those years ago. There had never been a question that we’d end up where we belonged…with each other.
But now he didn’t look at me like a man who trusted his girlfriend not to break him. He looked scared.
“That was different,” he stated.
“How was it different?” I asked him, carefully putting the guitar back on the stand. I didn’t get to my feet. I stayed where I was, never sure exactly how close Flynn would let me come. Especially not now with the odd tension that filled the room.
“Because then you were going to school. This time you left because you didn’t want to be around me. You were unhappy. People don’t come back when they’re unhappy,” he said firmly.
“I was unhappy, Flynn. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t come back to you—“
“When I asked you if you were coming back, you said ‘I don’t know’. Your eyes were wet and your mouth was sad. I’m trying to read you better. To pay attention to more than people’s words. And you didn’t want to come back. I could tell.” He sounded so hurt. His face reflected his feelings of betrayal.
“I’m so sorry, Flynn. I was being selfish. I was only thinking about myself,” I apologized, knowing the words just weren’t enough.
Not this time.
In the entire time I had known Flynn he had always forgiven me. Even when I didn’t deserve it, he had always trusted me.
But I could tell by the resolute set of his mouth and the distance in his eyes that this time may be different.
And that terrified me.
I was such a fool.
“Leonard says I wasn’t fair to you when I expected you to come back here. That I should have thought about your feelings. I thought you wanted to be with me. I thought that was all that was important.”
I finally got to my feet and closed the gap between us by a few inches. It still wasn’t close enough to touch, but it was all I knew he could handle right now.
“I chose to come back here—“
“But you had told me you didn’t want to. That’s why you would never come back the whole time you were in school. Why you wanted me to come see you. But I couldn’t. I was scared. So you came here. To live with me. And now you’re unhappy. It’s my fault.” Flynn’s normally expressionless voice shook.
“Stop it, Flynn,” I said softly.
“Stop what?” he asked, confused, his eyes still so sad it made my heart ache.
“This isn’t your fault. I’m the one letting my fear, my past to dictate how I live. I associated this town with every bad thing that had ever happened to me. I thought that by coming back, I’d lose the parts of me that I had discovered once I was on my own. But that’s ridiculous. Nothing has that sort of power. And definitely not a damn town,” I said.
“Bad stuff happened here. I know that. Some of it happened to me too. Because of you! But I love you anyway. I forgave you. I thought that was enough. But if it’s not, you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be. I love you, but you should go. You should leave,” he said with a finality that caused my heart to thud painfully in my chest.
Flynn Hendrick had just said that he loved me.
I had been waiting years to hear those words from his mouth. I hated how I had to hear it now, when he was telling me to leave.
“You don’t mean that,” I whispered, not able to speak any louder.
“I do mean it. I don’t want you to yell anymore. I don’t want you to look like you want to cry. I wanted us to live in this house together and have a family. But if you don’t want that, I won’t make you stay.”
Flynn was giving me an out.
He was saying I could go without the guilt. That while he loved me, he wouldn’t hold me back.
Living with him hadn’t been easy. Building a life with someone when you had only just learned what it meant to live sometimes felt impossible.
But hadn’t I learned that loving Flynn, that being with him, was worth it all?
I looked at Flynn now and saw the boy who had once smiled at me shyly, telling me that I was pretty and that he wanted to draw me.
I thought of him holding out a Black-eyed Susan that night in his yard under the moon, having planted them because they had been my favorite.
He painted the living room yellow because I had mentioned once that I had thought it would look nice.
And now, just minutes ago, he had finally told me that he loved me.
He was banana bread and holding hands. He was soft smiles and warm touches. He was whispered words and solemn declarations.
He was love.
He was home.
He was forever.
“Flynn, I know leaving like that wasn’t right.” My voice caught and I had to take a deep breath before continuing.
“I know how that must have hurt you and I should have talked to you instead of leaving. It’s always been easiest for me to run. I’d rather avoid than deal with the messy and hard stuff. But I don’t want to run from you. I want to stay here. I want to live a life that’s meant for us alone.”
“You make my heart hurt, Ellie. I don’t understand why you do the things you do. I don’t understand a lot, I know that, but I try to understand you. But it’s hard. And then you leave or you won’t talk and I feel scared and worried because I just want you to stay. I want you to feel better.”
I took the last few steps until I was in front of him. I reached up and cupped his face in my hand. He didn’t pull away. He had let me in. And I swore to deserve him.
“You make me feel better by just being you, Flynn,” I said softly.
“But you always leave. It hurts so much when you do that,” he said tightly.
“I don’t know how to do things any differently. I never had a mom who baked me banana bread and made sure I had a packed lunch every day. My mom left me. I didn’t have the best role model for a healthy relationship. I think that it’s time that I dealt with all that. And I don’t think I can do it on my own. That I need more than you and me to work through my past,” I told him. Flynn slowly covered my hand with his.
“You could talk to Leonard. He helps me a lot,” Flynn suggested and I nodded.
“I think that would be a good idea.” Wow. I had just agreed to therapy. I never thought I’d see the day that would happen. But I couldn’t let my demons destroy anything else in my life.
I wouldn’t let them destroy this.
“This is hard. Leonard said it would be. I didn’t believe him. I should have listened.” Flynn shook his head.
“Leonard’s right. Being in relationship with someone is difficult. You have to figure out how to live in someone else’s space. I’m not used to it. In the years you and I have been together, we haven’t really ever been together. Does that make sense?” I asked him.
“We didn’t live together. You were in Maryland and I was here.”
“And now we’re having to adjust our normal routines to accommodate each other. And we’re hitting some road bumps. And I haven’t handled them the best.”
“You yell a lot,” Flynn said.
“And you flip out when I’m not home for dinner,” I point out.
“You don’t put your dishes in the sink and leave hair in the drain in the shower,” he continues.
“You won’t let me touch your art stuff,” I lobbed back.
“But I love you and I want you here. Even when you make me mad,” Flynn said and I in the end that was really all that mattered.
“I do think we need to talk about something. Something important,” I began, not hesitating. Knowing this needed to be said.
“You look serious,” Flynn said, looking anxious.
“I can’t stay in Wellston forever, Flynn,” I said, getting straight to it.
“I thought you said you wanted to stay here. Now you want to leave.” His voice started to rise and I grabbed a hold of his hands and squeezed.
“Listen to me. I’m saying that I know you like your routines, your schedules, your predictability. I know that new places make you anxious and uncomfortable. But Flynn, I need to experience new places. I want to see what else is out there. I can’t live here and never leave.”
Flynn didn’t say anything. His face was completely unreadable. I felt sick. I worried that once again I was being selfish. But I knew that if this was ever going to work, this was something that I needed.
“But we’ll always come back,” Flynn said after a time.
I smiled and nodded. “We’ll always come back. This is our home.”
He took a deep breath and leaned down to kiss me. “And when you get mad, don’t leave. I hate it when you go.”
“I will really try, Flynn. But that’s something I need to work on. I promise you that I will.”
“And we’ll go places together. And you’ll help me stay calm. We can see things that you want to see. And then we can come back. To our house. Where we belong,” Flynn agreed.
“Where we belong,” I said, wrapping my arms around him.
I had thought that I needed more than Wellston. More than what this place could give me. I had only ever associated it with bad memories, bad choices, bad people.
But there was one thing that trumped all of that.
It was here, in this quiet town where I had lived my entire life that I had found Flynn.
A lost girl had met a sad, lonely boy and had found her heart.
“I love you, Flynn.”
I felt him kiss the top of my head. Soft, light touches that I felt to the tip of my toes.
He leaned down and whispered words in my ear that erased everything that had ever come before this.
This one perfect moment.
“I love you, Ellie.”
Epilogue
-Flynn-
A few years later
My collar is too tight. The fabric makes my skin itch. I pull it away from my neck so I can breathe.
“Here, let me do that.”
Ellie walks into our bedroom and loosens the tie around my neck and unbuttons the top button.
“I usually button the top one,” I say.
“Yeah, but it will be more comfortable like this,” Ellie says and smiles.
I love her smile.
I love her.
I like telling Ellie that I love her and see the way her eyes smile like her mouth.
“Do I look all right?” Ellie asks. She looks nervous. Her hands won’t stop moving.
I reach out and take a hold of her hands and hold them.
I love touching her more than I love anything.
Because today, Ellie and I are getting married.
“You look pretty,” I say and she does. Her dress isn’t white like I’ve seen in movies. It’s a pale yellow with flowers. Yellow like our living room that I painted just for her. The material feels soft when I touch it.
“You look pretty, too,” she says, laughing.
I laugh. I like laughing with Ellie.
“I’m glad you think so,” I say and I can feel my cheeks ache from smiling.
We smile a lot.
We laugh a lot.
I’m happy. Ellie’s happy.
“Are you ready?” she asks me, and I know that I am.
I’m marrying Ellie.
We talked about marrying each other one day and I asked her. She had cried and laughed and smiled. I felt warm all over when she had said yes.
Yes.
My favorite word ever.
She puts her fingers between mine and we walk out of the bedroom together.
We’re not getting married in a church with lots of people. I still don’t like crowds and I still don’t like people staring at me a lot.
Ellie said we could get married at the courthouse with just a few people there. I liked that idea.
Because getting married didn’t need to be about a bunch of people. It’s about Ellie and me.
I loop Murphy’s leash around his neck and he follows us out to the car.
The courthouse didn’t want us bringing Murphy. But Ellie made sure that he could come.
Murphy is part of our family. He should be there.
We only invited a few people. Ellie asked Dania and her daughter Lyla to come. Dania is nicer now, and I like her daughter. She’s loud but she makes me smile.
Julie, the social worker, would be there. Ellie said she was the closest thing she had to a mother. I pointed out that Julie is too young to have been her mother. Ellie told me that sometimes family was more than who shared your blood. It was the people you loved and trusted.
I liked the sound of that.
Nadine will be there too. I promised Ellie I wouldn’t say anything about the way she looks. I try hard not to say things I’m not supposed to anymore. I know it makes people feel bad.
I don’t want anyone to feel bad today.
Because today is going to be happy.
Ellie also invited two of her co-workers from her job. She works at a non-profit organization that helps kids from bad homes. She writes their grants and gets the word out in the community. She likes it there. I like it that she likes it.
I invited Imogen from college and Kevin, my counselor from North Carolina. I invited Leonard but he said something about professional boundaries, but he gave us a card. It was pretty with a white flower on it.
They are the only ones I want there.
It is sad that my mom can’t see this.
She always worried that Ellie wasn’t a real friend. That she didn’t really care about me.
She’d be happy to see that she was wrong.
She would be glad to know that we are going to be together forever. We are going to have kids and go on vacations. I am still learning to be okay with going places that are new.
I’m getting better, but it’s still hard. Ellie understands. She’s been learning how to be more patient and to not get so frustrated. She has a therapist that has been helping her the way Leonard helps me.
I open the back door and let Murphy in the car. I had put a blanket down so he doesn’t scratch the leather.
Ellie looks up at me and her eyes are bright. “Today I’m going to be your wife,” she says and I feel a fluttering in my insides. It’s not a bad feeling.
It’s the best feeling in the world.
“Today I’m going to be your husband,” I tell her. She kisses me. I love it when she kisses me. She tastes good. Like toothpaste and candy.
“Did you ever think we’d get here?” she asks. Her arms are around my neck and I like feeling her fingers in my hair. It doesn’t bother me that she’s so close. I don’t think about her messing up my hair or my clothes. I just like her being with me.
“Yes I did,” I tell her.
“Really? You didn’t ever doubt that at the end of all this, we’d be together?” she asks.
“I know that people that love each other should be together. And we love each other. Of course we would be together. Even when you left and you said you didn’t know if you were coming back. Even when you went away to school. I always knew that one day you’d be here. And we’d get married. And we’d have a life together.”
Ellie’s eyes are wet and I wipe away a tear. “Why are you crying? Did I say something wrong?” I ask, frowning.
Ellie sniffs and shakes her head. “Sometimes people cry because they’re happy.”
>
“You’re happy. I know you are. I can see it,” I tell her.
“I’m happy,” she says and I hug her.
We get in the car. Murphy is panting in the backseat so I roll the window down. It’s hot. Too hot for May.
I look over at Ellie. She looks at me.
“We will never have to miss each other again,” she says.
I smile.
She’s right.
We are home.
“True love stories never have endings…”
-Richard Bach
Chasing the Tide Page 26