I nod. “I have. We did telehealth the weeks I was at Everlasting.”
“Does he know about Ella and the kids?” she asks.
“He does.”
“What does he say?”
“He doesn’t say anything specific about Ella, but he’s helped me work through some of the anger I have with her over our breakup.”
“So you can understand where she was coming from all those years ago?”
I sigh. “Yeah. She commented once that she thought we may have both been hearing what we wanted to hear for the final year or two of our relationship, and I can see that now. I kept thinking if I could just get her to North Carolina, everything would be fine. She’d be there, I’d come home to her. We’d get married, and everything would turn out as it was supposed to. But I wasn’t factoring in how abundantly clear she’d been about moving. I wasn’t taking into consideration how I’d told her I wouldn’t reenlist, and then pulled the rug out from under her when I did it anyway. I was being a selfish prick, and expected her to come to me. For her to make all of the changes to make our relationship work.”
Gianna nods. “It took me quite some time to see it from her eyes as well. I was so hurt for you, but she pulled away from me too. I didn’t realize how painful it would be for her to be surrounded by our family. Pulling away from everyone was theeasiest thing for her. I can’t imagine how it must have felt at the time.”
“I really want to talk to her, G. I want to tell her that I’m here. I want to be with her. But now it’s been so long that I don’t know how to move forward.”
“What if she doesn’t want to get involved with you again?” Gianna asks quietly.
“Then I’ll have to be okay with that. All I know is I’ve been in love with her since I was fourteen. Even when we’ve been apart, no woman has ever caught my eye. I have to at least try, right?”
Gia gives me a small smile. “I’m rooting for you, big brother.”
ELLA
Ithink I’m dying.
Okay, I’m being overly dramatic. But between the fact that I can’t catch my breath, and my heart rate currently has my watch sending me alerts, maybe I’m actually dying? I don’t know.
“Girl, I need you to take a deep breath,” Whitley says quietly, rubbing my back. “In and out of the paper bag. Slow breaths.”
I inhale slowly, a shaky breath that barely takes the edge off my hysteria. How can I do this? What do I say? What if it happens again? I don’t know how to handle this right now. I’m barely getting by, and now everything is up in the air.
“Are you sure?” Whitley asks, her voice soft and soothing.
“N — no, not completely sure.”
“So there’s a chance you’re wrong?”
“I know my body, Whit. I’ve only felt this way one other time.”
“And you’re late?”
I nod, a fresh set of tears filling my eyes. Yeah, I’m that kind of late. The kind where periods don’t show back up for almost a year. Where the body either changes as it grows a human being, or decides to stage a battle with the uterus by ending a pregnancy.
“Do you want to take a test?”
I nod again. I’m about ninety percent sure I’m pregnant, but I need to know for certain. Figures that I have sex once — ONE TIME — in years, and get knockedup. “I can’t waltz into a drugstore to buy a test. I’ll have to drive out of town to get one. Too many nosey people here.”
“I have one at home,” Whitley says. “Would you like me to go get it? That’s easier than you dragging the kids out of town.”
“Why do you have a pregnancy test?” I ask.
“Long story that I don’t feel like explaining right now,” she replies. “I’ll go grab the test. Sit here, keep breathing slowly, and don’t spiral.”
Thankful Whitley lives only a few minutes from the bookstore, I stay behind the register, focusing on my breathing. When the bell over the door jingles, I assume it’s Whitley returning, then jolt in surprise when I find Jeremy smiling at me.
“Hey, Ella,” he says smoothly.
