Page 141 of Old Acquaintances

He pulls me back in for another kiss, one where our friends on the other side of the door and the one on the patio can see. I have a split-second thought -bad idea, abort- when Wyatt whistles behind me. They’re going to think we’re together, but we’re not. I’ll have to explain that Tucker doesn’t want to love me. We’ll go back to divorced vacations and separate group messages. It ends tonight for him.

Tucker pulls away with a smile and snatches his shirt off a chair before walking toward the boat.

I look sideways. Johnny holds his phone by his side and exhales, shooting me a frustrated look.

“I don’t want to hear it, Johnny,” I begin.

“We need to talk, Ella,” he says.

We watch Tucker start the boat and Johnny grabs my arm, pulling me to a patio chair. I keep an eye on the sky.

Johnny angles his chair toward me and rests his arms on his knees. “Listen, I know I’ve come across like a dick about you two on several occasions, but I have reasons.”

“You don’t want me to be romantic with him, I get it, Johnny,” I try.

“That’s not it.” He pauses. “Do you know why you went home that night you had your accident?”

I shake my head. I’ve never thought much about it, it seemed like an inconsequential question to have answered. I explain, “No, I don’t know why.”

“And your parents don’t know why.”

“I don’t remember anything about the days leading up to the accident.”

“But Tucker was there, at your house, waiting for you.” His eyes follow mine, checking to see if this makes any sense. “Ella, you left Alabama tosee himat your parents’ house.”

I always assumed I was going home for a random visit. My mother said Tucker just happened to stop by. He did that. He would come by to see my dad or pop in for dinner if his parents were eating out.

“Why would I go see him specifically?” I ask Johnny.

“Because you called him the night before and told him you loved him.”

I’m thrust into a state of shock. “What?”

He tilts his head sympathetically. “And he told you he loved you back. Y’all were going to start a life together.” Johnny looks out at the ripples the boat made in the water. “That’s why he feels so guilty. Tucker thinks it was his fault. He thinks you would have never been on the road if he didn’t ask you to see him.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Love

I had spent all night crying about it. Panicking. I laid naked in the bedroom of my tiny apartment in Birmingham, stripped bare except for tears and socks.

That night I had gone on a date with a guy from the ballet company, Erik. I’d been working for about two months, and we had been together for one. We’d been paired together for Nutcracker as the Columbine and Harlequin, we spent a lot of time together. However, that night, after I came alone home from dinner, I found myself boarding a train of thought from which I couldn’t jump off.

I didn’t know where it came from. It could have started when Erik tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. It picked up momentum when he told me he played baseball for a bit growing up. I felt whiplash when he spoke about how he wanted a family one day.

He wasn’t asking me. We’d just started dating, but I knew the implied purpose of having dinner with him, kissing him, letting him walk me to my door, feeling his hands on my toes when I asked him to stretch my feet in rehearsal. Either we dated until it further solidified, or we broke up and I chose someone new. Then, that cycle would continue. I knew, no matter what, with every touch and kiss I’d imagine someone different.

I’d think of Tucker. Telling me I’m perfect. That he lovesme. He’d marry me when we’re thirty.

That’s when I got panicky and took off my clothes, something I hadn’t done in years. I’d gotten good at my emotion words, but these emotions spilled from compartments I didn’t know existed. When I opened them, everything fell out in a waterfall of tears and heartache, stopping only when I realized I didn’t flounder at the bottom of this well alone.

I loved Elijah Tucker. I would love him for the rest of my life.

I loved him when he wrapped me up on the airplane when we were fifteen and when he held my hand on our seventeenth birthday. I loved knowing he thought I was beautiful. I wanted to spend every day together like we did on that cruise, learning every spec of information about the other. I loved the way he always knew when I needed him. I loved that he spent the night in a car just to be near me. I wanted him to make love to me the way he did that first time, making the experience about me, coaxing bliss and peace from my body. I wanted a proposal that might belong to someone else one day.

I had to tell him.

My hands shook when I called him. It was a Friday night. He could have been too busy to answer.

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