Page 109 of Old Acquaintances

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he stops me. His face ripples with discomfort.

“Well, I do.”

He walks off toward our bedroom and I pursue, begging, “Tucker, tell me why this was some big secret!”

His shirt falls to the floor. His pants go next. “Because of this. This moment right here.” He slips on a pair of sweatpants and snatches his pillow off the bed. “I don’t want to relive it.”

“I deserve an explanation.” I step in his way.

“Ella. I have had years of fucking therapy to stop those images of you from popping into my mind all of the time.” He grounds his jaw. “You don’t know what I went through that night.”

“Then tell me,” I plead.

The pillow falls and he grips my shoulders, and I think he’s going to move me away from the door, to run away, but his eyes fill with tears.

“I pulled you out of the car.” His voice is small, distant. “And I thought you were dead. I wanted to die with you right then.”

“Elijah.” I need to touch him. My fingers go to the center of his chest, to his shoulder, to his hand. I coax my fingers into his.

He squeezes me tighter. “I was so alone in that moment. I was with you, but I was alone like I’ve always been.”

I don’t know what that means.

“I didn’t want to look at you or talk to you because I would only see that night.” He wiggles out of my grip to cup my jaw and gently pulls my face to him.

Thisis my Tucker. He’s holding my face as though it’s the most precious thing in the world, wiping my salty tears with his thumbs. Our breath combines. I finally found him, and my pain both eases and intensifies by seeing the struggle in his eyes.

“I would have understood,” I insist, holding his wrists. I step closer. “You could have told me.Anything. I would have done anything you needed.”

“You shouldn’t have been on that road in the first place. You should have been home, safe, and it’s not fair that this happened to you.”

I groan, “Things happen, Tucker. Toeveryone. I’m fine! Everything turned out fine!”

He focuses on the scar on my forehead. “That’s not fine.” He pulls my right arm back and strokes the mark on my forearm from where the bone had been set, the skin sewn back together. “Neither is this.” His hands fall on my hips. “You barely being able to move? Not fine, Ella.”

“They are just scars.”

He drops his hands. “But I can’t stop running my mind in circles about it. You shouldn’t have a single fucking scar. That bone popping out of your arm and that glass stuck in your skin –Jesus Christ.” He backs away as I reach for him again. “I can’t talk about it anymore. I’m going to sleep on the couch.”

“Tucker!” I follow him into the living room. “Okay, we don’t have to talk about the accident.”

“Good, because I’m not going to.”

“But there’smore. You know there’s more.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I’m frozen, watching him angrily throw couch cushions on the ground. I cry, “If all of that is true, then you haven’t changed at all. You’re still the man I knew!”

He gestures emphatically with a crab-shaped throw pillow. “Ihavechanged, Ella. Trust me. I already told you that.”

Serena steps out of the hallway, sees us, and turns back to her room. She’ll be at the door listening, but she already knows what we’re fighting about. They all know. They’ve known this whole time, and they kept his secret even though it causedfriction between all of us.

I’m at a loss to know what else to say. He’s not looking at me. He’s laying his pillow down and taking his watch off. Tucker says, “Do this one thing for me, please. Let it go. You have your answers. We’ve talked about us. Now, just let it be. Nothing is different than it was an hour ago.” He instructs, “Turn off the kitchen light. Please.”

I waver.

“Go to bed, Ella.”

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