Page 84 of Look What You Made Me Do

He made it in eight, screeching to a halt in front. Ella, who was sobbing into her hands looked up in time to see Jake practically hurdle over the gate to get to her. He took the steps in two strides, throwing himself down beside her and pulling her into his arms.

“I’ve m-messed everything up.” She’d reached the hiccoughy stage of her crying jag.

“Hey, hey,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

“No… Please. Go find Cam.” Ella shrugged out of his arms. “He’s so angry… I don’t know what he’ll do.”

“Cam can wait,” he dismissed, his voice firm. “He’ll be fine for a few minutes. Tell me what happened.”

Ella opened her mouth to tell him but her face crumpled again and nothing came out but a sob.

“Shhh,” he crooned, stroking her hair, pulling her into his lap like he had that night in his office and they sat for a few minutes while Ella’s tears subsided.

“What happened?” he murmured when she’d grown silent and all that could be heard was the drone of distant car engines.

Ella raised her head from the comforting curve of his neck, took a deep breath and the whole messy argument tumbled out.

“Damn it, how can Rachel still be causing this much trouble so many years down the track? I thought we were both putting it behind us, but it just won’t let us be. Why can’t Trently just let us be? It’s always there, between us. She’s always there.”

He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “Maybe she’s always there because you’ve never let go of the anger? Maybe Trently keeps sucking you back because you keep trying to erase it from your memory banks instead of coming to terms with it?” He dropped a gentle kiss on her head. “You never even grieved her passing, Ella. Maybe it’s time to just let it all go?”

Ella’s heartbeat filled her head. She knew he was right, even as the rejection came to her lips. “No.”

“Yes,” he whispered, looking directly into her eyes. “Instead of railing against your origins, maybe you need to embrace them? Whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, Trently’s part of us. Rachel’s part of you. And Cam. Just like my drunk, gambling father’s part of me. Like them or loathe them, they made us who we are today.” He brushed his thumb across her mouth. “Stronger. And better.”

“What about you?” Ella searched his face, looking for an out. He was asking too much. “Have you let go of your anger?”

He nodded. “Over Trently? Sure. Mostly anyway. I had to, years ago. It was interfering with my game too much.”

Somewhere, amid the storm of her emotions, the irony that the jock was more emotionally evolved was not lost on Ella.

“Have you ever thought that maybe Rachel was just doing the best she could with what she had?” He paused. “I think by and large, people just do the best they can. Even my father. They’re not all strong like you, Ella.”

Ella gave a little laugh, her voice wobbly. “I’m strong?” Frankly, in that moment, she felt like she was going to break into a thousand pieces. She’d cried three times in the last two years and Jake had been there for each meltdown.

He grinned, easing away from her again. “You’re one of the strongest women I know.” He stroked her cheek. “It’s okay to have loved her, Ella.”

Ella felt a lump in her throat. “I did love her.”

“Of course you did,” he murmured. “She was your mother. It’s okay to miss her and to grieve for her. It’s also okay to admit you didn’t like her. You don’t have to make excuses or atone for her sins, no one’s asking you to do that. She was a grown woman and her actions were her own. But you do have to find a way to make peace with them, with her. Or you’re never going to be able to move forward. Neither will Cameron.”

Ella’s eyes filled with tears. Maybe he was right. She’d spent the last nineteen years in a knot of conflicted feelings about Rachel. She’d always thought admitting she loved her mom was tantamount to approving of her. But maybe she could love Rachel and not like her all at the same time and that was okay.

“She used to dance with me. When I was little. She’d put on ‘Blue Moon’ and she’d pick me up and waltz me around the room.”

“She used to feed me,” he said with a smile. “When I came to pick Dad up. I think she knew with my aunt gone there wasn’t a lot of routine. She’d say, Jake, you must be starving. I’ve made some choc-chip muffins for Ella, help yourself. Then she’d whip up this shake with honey and ice-cream and she’d sprinkle the top with cinnamon and she’d sit and chat with me while I ate.” He rubbed his forehead against her hair. “She asked me about school. About football. She talked about you. A lot. She was proud of your achievements, Ella.”

A single tear trekked down Ella’s face as she remembered the garnet glow in her mother’s room, the choc-chip muffins that had been such a staple of her childhood. When she’d cried in his office that night after the Roger Hillman debacle, she’d been crying for herself, for the sucky hand that life had dealt her. But now she was crying for her mother, mourning the person Rachel was beneath the label Trently had given her.

The real person that no one, including her as she’d grown older, had bothered to see.

Ella dashed the newly falling tears away. She’d cried enough for one day and this wasn’t finding Cam. Wriggling off Jake’s lap, she sat beside him again, her head on his shoulder.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded as a rush of the love that had been growing inside her for this man pressed against her vocal cords, wanting out. If she’d had to pick anyone in the world to fall in love with, it wouldn’t have been Jake, but she’d done it anyway.

Or maybe she’d always been in love with him – even back in Trently – and this moment had always been inevitable?

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