Ethan wrapped his hands around the back of his neck. “I know. I replay it in my head, over and over and over again. If I could do anything, anything in the world, to take it back, I would.”
He obviously doesn’t love you, since he wasted no time in getting rid of you, did he?James’s voice repeated in her head.
Now the tears did leak out.
I need you to go….
It was exactly what her parents had done. Five minutes after Elizabeth arrived in the counselor's office, Kay and her gran had been heading to Wales, no argument from her parents. No fight. Nothing. She was their only child.And they had wanted her to go.
Never again.
Kay slid her hand down to her throat, trying to soothe the agony creeping up from her chest, and his eyes tracked the movement. “I don’t think that you can take it back,” she admitted in a hoarse whisper.
Ethan flinched, but he never looked away. “That wasn’t how I feel about you. That was hurt and fear and all the poison I carried around after—”
“But can’t you see?” she interrupted. “That’s exactly my point. What’s to stop you from doing it again?” Another hot tear slid down her face and she swiped at it, doing everything she could to hold in the sobs that threatened to burst out. “We will always be ‘after Amanda’ for you. Why should I believe that anything would be different next time something goes wrong?”
Ethan leaned forward, fisting his hands in the bedding beside her. “Because I love you.”
How could he say that? Especially now. She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe that. Not when you don’t even trust me.” He rocked back as if struck, and she shakily wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Please, can you get Elizabeth?”
His eyes gleamed wetly in the dim light as he stood, moving as slowly as an old man. He stopped at the door, turning to look at her. “I know I fucked up, Kay,” he said quietly, “and I know I didn’t fight for you when I should have, but you need to know—that is not a mistake I’m ever going to make again.”
She couldn’t find it in her to answer. Long moments passed, and then he turned and walked heavily from the room, the door clicking closed behind him.
His footsteps moved away as he went down the stairs. Voices murmured. The front door opened and closed. Cars started and then drove away.
A minute later, lighter feet pattered up the stairs and her door opened to reveal Elizabeth carrying pancakes and orange juice on a tray. Kay had never seen Elizabeth look so shattered, with dark rings under her eyes and her hair pulled back in a messy braid.
Her gran set the tray down on her desk and then sat sideways on her bed and pulled Kay into a deep, enveloping hug. Elizabeth’s arms wrapped around her with such warmth and love, such patient understanding, that Kay couldn’t help herself. The sobs she’d been holding in shuddered up through her throat until she was shaking as she wept. She was a small child again, lost and wounded, desperately clinging to the steady beat of her granny’s heart.
Elizabeth whispered nonsense words of love, stroking her hair and letting her cry until she had exhausted herself, until her tears slowly dried and the shudders wracking her body subsided.
“Kayleigh, my sweet girl.”
Kay tried to smile, but she couldn’t. “What am I going to do?”
Elizabeth kissed her gently on the forehead before standing up to fluff her pillows and straighten her blanket. Then she walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open to stare out at the rolling green farmland and the mountains rising in the distance.
“I loved a boy once,” Elizabeth said, still looking out the window.
Kay stilled.
“I loved him very much,” Elizabeth continued, almost too quietly to hear, “and he loved me.”
Elizabeth looked so sad, shoulders hunched as she stood, looking out, that Kay slid from the bed and walked across to join her, standing shoulder to shoulder in the watery sunshine. Elizabeth glanced sideways at her. “He left.”
“He left?” Kay whispered back.
“I think… I think he’d never known enough love. His mother was unmarried at a time when that was almost entirely unacceptable. Nobody realized that she was an alcoholic with severe depression. He looked after her far more than she ever looked after him. He was serious and stern, and he found it difficult to trust, even as a young man.”
Elizabeth sighed softly, turning to face Kay. “He said that he didn’t want to drag me down, that he thought it would be best if he left. That it would be better for me to love someone else. I couldn’t change his mind. He was a Guardian—stubborn, honorable, a perfectionist, always driving himself harder than anyone else. Unforgiving, too, especially of himself. You remind me of him.”
God. Kay felt her tears returning, burning up her throat. “What happened?”
“I told him I would wait. And I did. I waited for him for years, but he never came back. Eventually, I fell in love with Alasdair—your grandfather—we got married, and… well, you know the rest.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Kay asked softly.
