CHAPTER 35

ELLIS

I take the trail slowly back to our campsite, thinking I’ll let Wren sleep in, so I’m surprised to find her dressed and ready to go on our hike when I get back. She’s lacing up her boots, a small backpack set up beside her on the stairs outside the tent. I pass her one of the coffees I snagged, and she smiles softly at it.

“Thank you,” she says. There’s something a little shy in her expression. Uncertain?

No. I’m determined not to get too deep in my head about it after last night. Not when I know my own nerves are heightened today.

“Welcome. Good morning.” I bend to give her a brief kiss. Grin at her messy hair thrown up in a bun.

“You ready?” she asks.

“Sure. No rush, though. We can finish these, if you want?” I hold up my paper cup.

“I’m feeling pretty wired, actually.”

“Oh, uh, all right.” My heart gives a little stuttering kick. “Yeah. I’ll just grab my pack.”

We head out silently a few minutes later, and I try to steady my nerves and root myself in everything surrounding me. There are a lot of things here that feel reminiscent of home. There are the epically tall trees that get scragglier the closer we get to shore. The rocky, dramatic cliffs on either side of the beaches. The shifting, spotty sunshine and the salty-thick air. Hard-water air , my Mom always called it. It can warp wood and weather stone, but that’s the stuff that builds character. When something can withstand it, you know it’s better made.

We come to a narrow rope bridge over a rocky creek, and I hesitate because it looked sturdier in the pictures I saw online. Wren pushes past me and starts to cross it without pausing, though, and my feet carry me behind her automatically. Push and pull. Where one of us leads, the other one will follow. At least I hope. I hope she’ll let this tie between us stay now.

We coast over a small bracken-covered slope, and I hear the waterfall before we see it. We round another corner, and there it is, gushing over the mossy rocks like a veil and ending in a misty cloud below. It smells earthy and damp in a way that grounds me, makes me ready for this final, hard conversation. When I turn to her, she’s already sat herself on a rock and is looking at me. Her hair is wilder here in the spray, but the look in her eyes is indecipherable.

“Wren,” I start, then have to swallow hard. “Last night, when I said I had more I needed to tell you, I…” I realize it would be easier to show her, so I slide off my pack and unzip it, squat down, and start digging around for what I need.

“Looking for these?”

The bag drops with a thud, and I look at her, at the stack of letters in her hand. “Wren.”

“I wanted to see if you were going to tell me,” she says, so quietly I almost miss it under the sound of the rushing water. “I just figured it out this morning.”

I feel my brow crease. “I don’t know that I like being tested , baby,” I say with levity I don’t feel. Her expression only gets sterner.

“ I don’t like feeling deceived. Or feeling like the last to know. I realize now that you were pretty clever about not outright lying to me, though, weren’t you?” She moves to stand, and I slip to my knees—kneeling, because I don’t trust my legs right now. “I want you to tell me what you need to tell me, Ellis. I—” Her chin quivers, and she inhales deeply. “I can’t see you trying to manipulate me. Tell me why you didn’t tell me before.” Her shoulders drop, the envelopes wobbling against her thighs.

My hands start to shake, and I need to press them into my legs.

“At first—” I croak. “At first, I lied to myself and convinced myself I could just find out about the horses and get you what you needed. And then I just wanted… I just wanted to talk to you again, even if you didn’t know it was me. But then everything came pouring out, and I realized how I still felt and that I hadn’t been brave enough to own up to everything. For that alone, I thought I didn’t deserve you. I thought I’d stolen that link to you again and…” I work at clearing my throat and force myself to hold her gaze. “Do you remember when you asked me if I believed in something like fate? Well, the truth is, I don’t want to. I hate that fate or chance or fucking luck can get any of the credit for us finding our way back to each other. Not this time. Not when we’ve worked so hard. I don’t want it to be because we got pregnant that we ended up together. I shouldn’t have needed my stupid brother and his friend to toss you in the ocean for me to kiss you for the first time. I hate—” I have to blow out and take in a steadying breath. “It terrifies me to think that I might’ve let this life go by without finding my way back to you. Never again, Wren. I promise. Never again. I’m not letting you go. And if you’re mad at me about this and if you think I kept this from you to manipulate you or something, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you that I didn’t, if you’ll let me. If you won’t have me back anymore, then I’ll find you in the next life. You are the only thing that makes me believe in that. In something bigger than myself. The way I have felt about you has been the only thing that’s felt like… like it can’t be contained in one body or lifetime.” She hasn’t moved, and I fight to swallow my building panic. “I only stopped the letters because I knew I had to get my shit together, Wren. And maybe I still don’t have it all figured out, but I’m working on it, and I’ll keep working on it. I’ll keep going to therapy. I’ll go with you if you want to go together. I’ll talk to you about everything. I’ll listen about everything. Talk my fucking ears off, baby; I’ll beg you to every day if I need to. I’m begging you to fight with me, do anything with me. Just be with me.” I blink, and hot tears slip down my cheeks. “I saw that paper on the counter and I couldn’t wait a fucking minute longer. I knew part of me still lived in you, and I couldn’t let it die. I would’ve done way worse than keep one last secret a little while.”

She’s quiet for too long. “Quite a speech,” she eventually says. Tears spill from her big brown eyes.

“Yeah, well…” I can’t tell if she’s angry or sad or what she is, and it’s making my pulse go insane. “I’ve had a long time to think about it. I just… I wanted you to choose this.”

She comes closer. “Are you done?” she asks.

I stare at her again. “Done what? Talking?”

She shrugs, her chin bouncing chaotically now. “That, too,” she says, breathing out a single, teary chuckle. “But are you about done trying to prove yourself?”

“I don’t know,” I say, heart in my throat. “You tell me.”

She closes the distance between us and slides to her knees, laying her hand against my face. I start to cry like a fucking kid again the moment she touches me. I reach up and hold her palm tight to my skin.

“I wanted it to be you, anyway,” she says wetly. “I wanted it to be you.” She coughs out a tiny cry that I feel in my chest. “But then I saw that fucking text on Thanksgiving, and I misread everything and oh my god, Ellis, I panicked. I thought you’d moved on, and realized I’d stayed there, still loving you somehow. I panic-dated! It was awful!” Relief collapses me into her, and I wipe at her tears while mine flow freely. We laugh, and our teeth clink in a frantic kiss. “I’m so sorry I misread it all. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner.”

“Hey, no. No, baby,” I tell her, my rough laugh a little hysterical. “It sure as hell wasn’t you. My timing has been shit for a lot of things. And I’m sorry you panic-dated. If it’s any consolation, I died a little every time I heard about it.”

Her head falls back with a wail. “Some of them were so bad! I should be so mad at you.”

We’re both laughing again. “That’s okay, baby. Be mad at me forever,” I say. But then she kisses me sweetly and it feels like forgiveness.

“Thank you. Thank you for doing this. For making this trip happen,” she says. The high tightness of her voice has me kissing every corner of her face. When I get to her lips again, we lose a few minutes. “Would you be offended if I asked you to bring me home a day early?” she asks, punctuating it by nipping my jaw. “I want to come home now.”

I can’t help it—I break into a full-bodied laugh. Hugging her tight around the shoulders like she’ll keep me from floating away, I say, “I’d move into the truck with you just to live with you again,” I say. “Care if we take one more little segue, though? It’s the last thing I wanna do.”

One last thing to get right.