Page 112 of This I Know
Avery
I close the truck’s door as gently and silently as Ethan was when he first came into my life.
He offers to walk me back inside, and insists I should at least take something to shield me from the rain, but I refuse. The rain seems all too appropriate for this moment.
I hear his truck sputter and rev as he shifts it into gear, and I dare to turn around one last time. I see him leaving me.
He’s actually going.
And I have no idea when I’ll see him again. The images of all the things we’ve shared together, all we’ve fought for and that we’re now losing in this instant, flash before my eyes.
The rain picks up.
My mind starts to churn, but I stop it. Screw thinking. I’m tired of thinking. It’s time to act on what I feel, because my thoughts are chaotic but my feelings I trust.
So I run to him. I run as fast as my stupid leg can carry me. He hasn’t gone far, but he is in a damn truck, after all, so I have to run to catch up to him.
“Ethan!”
Somehow, he sees me coming; his truck instantly jolts to a stop.
Ethan throws himself out the door and jogs to me.
Then he turns around, one hand on the truck’s bed and the other on his hip. He refuses to turn to face me as though he’s ashamed. I understand, but why can’t he see that he has nothing to be ashamed of after all he’s done for me?
I say his name through fast, tired breaths. “Ethan.”
Still he doesn’t turn.
So I slowly walk to the front of him. His chin is no longer high in defiance, and he looks down at me as though he expected me to do all of this – to chase him down and arrive at this very spot. His eyes are welled up and I can tell he’s trying to hide his emotions.
“Ethan,” I say again.
“Avery,” he replies. I see in him a broken man.
Then it happens. For the first time since the attack, it happens – I truly and completely break down.
All at once, the emotions hiding within me decide to come out. I break down slowly, but before long their speed picks up until I’m no longer in control of myself. My hands cover my face and I cry into them. My shoulders shudder under the weight of all that I’ve been carrying, and the wonderful complications Ethan has put me through.
But still, I’m mad. There are some angry tears there, too. I can’t help it.
I clench my teeth and raise my hand up to him. I would never hit him, but there’s an energy rushing through me that I feel powerless to control.
Ethan seems to know this; he grabs my arm by the wrist and safely holds it. Together we fall to the ground, me falling to my knees in hysterics and him holding me as best he can.
He places his dad’s hand on the back of my head, at that now-familiar place at the base of my neck, as though he’s trying to protect me from hurting myself. And I feel it there, and I actually trust it there.
He touches his forehead to mine. I feel his breath against me, and it calms me down. I still can’t open my eyes, but I can clutch at his shoulder as the feelings pass.
When I do open my eyes, his own are there to meet me. And there, on the ground, I sink into him. And I kiss him again, the exact way I’ve been longing to for so long – slowly, and with the purpose of showing him how I’ve truly felt all this time. I kiss him because I realize I was wrong about him in so many ways; and I realize I was right, too. I realize what kind of person he truly is, now with a certainty I’ve never before known.
As the rain hits us, I let him kiss me back because I realize, finally, that he loves me, too.
And when his plush lips meet mine, it feels perfect and right. And for now, I trust what I feel.
I wake with the sun. Through the hotel room’s window, I can hear that it’s no longer raining, and judging by the brightness of it all, there doesn’t seem to be a cloud in the sky. I turn over in my sheets, snugged tight against them but managing to do it all the same.
The bed is small, but Ethan has managed to spend the night beside me. He’s facing me. His head is resting comfortably on a spare pillow, one arm under his head and the other straight against his side.
