She stares at the photo.
At Ella’s face.
At Ivy tucked against her.
“You know her?
Maddison hesitates
“No… I don’t think so…but we owe her more than she knows.”
Maddison sets the photo down carefully.
Chapter 48
Nathan
Subject:I don’t know how to say any of this.
Ella,
I’ve been sitting with this cursor blinking for twenty minutes, and I still don’t know where to start, so I’m just going to say it plain.
I’m sorry. For all of it.
For being shut down.
For walking toward you and pulling away in the same breath.
For taking everything you gave and offering nothing back.
You didn’t deserve that. Not once.
There were days I didn’t know why you came near me, why you bothered, why you didn’t run the moment you realized I was incapable of giving you anything real. I still don’t fully understand it.
But I need you to know this: It wasn’t because I didn’t feel anything. I did.
I do.
I have a confession.
I noticed you long before you ever noticed me.
It’s embarrassing to admit, but for the last few years, the elevator became my favorite part of the day. I must have walked past your bakery a hundred times and never had the courage to step inside.
But every time I saw you through that window—laughing with a customer, helping someone, giving away whatever was left at the end of the night—I saw something I thought had disappeared from the world a long time ago.
Kindness.
And for a long time…it was the only light I could see left in the dark.
I’ve been fighting it since the first day I saw you, but reaching for light after losing Ivy just felt…wrong. That moving toward someone meant betraying the little girl I failed to protect.
You helped us save her…
I don’t even know how to put into words what that means. How do you thank someone for giving you your child back? There isn’t a sentence for that. There isn’t anything big enough.
Ella, I don’t know who you are to this world, but you’ve been a lifeline to mine long before I deserved it. I’m grateful—more than you’ll ever understand.
