Page 89 of Wrecked
I amhanging off the side of a cliffduring a hurricane!
“Nate!” I scream manically into the open air. He has no ideawhere I am. No idea where I ran to. The last thing he heard me tell him was that I regret ever loving him. That I wished I had never met him. I’m going to die, and those will be the last words he would have heard from me.
I can’t let those be the last words.
“NAAATE!”
Nate (present)
Ellie’s facefalls as I say the words that I canneverregret.
I love Katie.
I refuse to lie and say I don’t. She became important to me. Honestly, she became one of themostimportant people in my life. Ellie can see me as a villain, and she can accuse me of planning to hurt Katie. It’s all true. But she can’t tell me that I don’t love her.
I love the way she says goodnight to her fish before turning off the tank light for the evening. I love the way she scrunches her nose when I offer her a bite of something with mushrooms. I love the way she cares for her clients, only taking cases when sheknowsthe person is innocent. I can spend hours pinpointing every little thing that I love about Katie Nolan, because I loveher.
But I love her the same way I love Emmy. The way I love Asher.
I could never love her the way I love Ellie. I was neverin lovewith Katie, though there was a time I tried to be. A time when Ellie and I felt hopeless.
It was the day I met Katie’ssister. The day my entire world imploded. I’d been making moves to get her back for years, and the time finally came. I was going to tell Katie the truth. I beat Nathaniel at his own game. It was about to be over.
Until I walked into the small colonial to meet my fiancée’s family for the first time.
It was Nathaniel’s last card, and he played it well.
Unfortunately for him, he died later that evening, and I was left with the realization that Ellie was more out of reach than ever before. How could she be with me after I was engaged to her sister? Even if it wasn’t real for me, it was real for Katie.
That was the day I finally broke down. I let Nathaniel destroy my life for over seven years, but I never lost hope. That moment? Meeting Ellie’s eyes in the living room, I could feel the faith I held onto so tightly slip away.
I thought about Katie later that night and wondered if I could fall in love with her. I imagined loving her with my whole heart. With my body. I imagined her walking down the aisle in a beautiful white gown. But when she got there, it was always Ellie’s face. As hard as I tried to see it, I couldn’t.
Ellie has had a firm hold on my heart since I saw her sitting in the library when she was sixteen years old. I fell in love with her the day she showed up at my house and stopped me from leaving Emmy behind. The feelings only got deeper the more she inserted herself into my life. She didn’t just bring me happiness. She became my happiness. That is something no other woman can compete with.
I cross the cavern so that I can explain the truth behind those words. That I love Katie, but I could never fall in love with her. Ellie races out of the shelter before I can even reach her.
Shit!
I run to grab my shoes. I removed them earlier so that they could dry by the fire. I put them on quickly and run after her. By the time I exit the cavern, she’s no longer in sight. The weather is becoming more severe, worse than earlier in the day. I need to find her before she gets herself into trouble.
“ELLIE!” I call out, the desperation I feel is reflected in my tone. I look at the muddy terrain and see small footprintsheaded in the opposite direction we had walked earlier. I run in that direction, looking left and right into the dense jungle to see if she ran off the footpath.
I’m not going to lie.
I’m pissed.
This was a stupid fucking thing to do. I recognize that she’s hurt. I understand that she is pissed about everything I told her today. It was a lot to absorb. I made decisions for us that affected her life in the worst possible way. But being reckless like this, when we are barely surviving this environment, is enough to make me want to take her over my knee.
“Ellie!” I yell into the vast jungle. It’s been several minutes, and my gut is telling me something is wrong. I can’t see her footprints anymore, so I’m running blind. I see a cave system to my left, and head in that direction. That would be the smartest place for her to wait out this weather.
“NAATE!” Ellie’s panicked scream has my heart jumping out of my chest.
“Ellie!? Where are you? Keep yelling, Pip!”
“OH GOD! Nate! I’m on the cliffs!”
The cliffs?
