Ethan

“Ethan, you’re not ready. You haven’t been here long enough. The doctor wanted you to stay at least 3 months. It has barely been one.”

“Well I’m walking and I can get around by myself. They’ve done their job and I’m ready to get out of here. That’s all that matters. What more could I want from them?”

Mom wasn’t happy about my decision to leave, though it wasn’t her choice. She’d done a lot for me since the accident, I would be the first to admit it, but at the same time she had gotten into the habit of controlling what I do and I don’t like that at all. She’d shooed away Denise, I found out a week after I woke up and somehow thought that she was going to slide Sandy in front of my face and I was going to forget the reason we broke up.

I hadn’t forgotten that she’d slept with her boss at work and gotten pregnant. That was something that I couldn’t really get over. She got rid of the baby and expected me to take her back. It wasn’t going to happen. I don’t care if she was by my side in the hospital. It was guilt that kept her there, not love, just some sort of duty to try and get back into the good graces of my family. She’d always worried about it more than I had.

“I just want to make sure that you’ve got your head on straight and aren’t going to do anything stupid.”

“I’m going back to Nome. I think you know that though.”

She didn’t want to even look at me. She wanted me to be with Sandy, badly, but it was the last thing that I wanted. She was not right for me. How could I be with someone if I couldn’t even trust them?

“Yes I know that you’re going to try and find that woman. There is no telling where she would be now.”

I didn’t tell her that I knew exactly where she lived and I knew she was still there. I was under no false assumption that she was going to welcome me with open arms. The fact that Sandy had been there and mom had introduced her like she does to everyone as my fiancée, there was a good chance that I was going to have to explain some things to her first. It wasn’t true of course, but to hear that was most likely a very big shock and I was sure that she wasn’t going to be very happy about it.

“I’m grateful for everything that you and dad have done, but I’m ready to get back to my life now. I have a woman that I love and I’ve been away from her far too long. It’s never going to work with me and Sandy, so please stop with that. It’s not fair to you or to her, as well as tiresome for me. I never told you about her, the truth, but she was pregnant with someone else’s baby about a month before I left for Nome. She got rid of it, but I can’t forget and I wish you could see that.”

She was shocked and I knew that Sandy hadn’t told my mom the truth. She’d probably said that it was some small tiff and that everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t. I didn’t want it to be okay. Sandy was hot and had a way with her body that was hard to match, but she wasn’t for me. It wasn’t enough.

“You never said.”

“Why would I? I knew how much you liked her and I didn’t want there to be any ill will, but I will not be going back to her, ever. I wouldn’t have ever told you if it could have just been dropped, but waking up to her was the very last thing that I wanted.”

“Oh Ethan, I thought since you loved her so much, that you’d want her there.”

“I did love her, once, a long time ago. I love Denise now and I have to go to her. It’s been so long. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“Well just tell her that and if she doesn’t forgive you, then she isn’t worth your time Ethan.”

It was the right thing to say, but since she had started it, what else could she say? We’re always told that the next good thing is coming, but what if it isn’t? Denise was that good thing that I’d been waiting for and I wasn’t going to be able to just write it off so easily. There’s no way.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that because there is no one else for me.”

“You are still thinking about her after all this time?”

“Yes, strange, isn’t it?”

She smiled and told me that it wasn’t. “It’s all going to work out the way it is supposed to. Are you coming back home?”

That was a question that I didn’t have an answer for. I know that I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay with Denise, in Nome for a while and then wherever else she wanted to go. We’d talked about traveling together and it was an idea that had stuck with me and gave me the strength every day to get myself fixed. The therapy had been hard, but it had been Denise in my mind that got me through it all.

I said some goodbyes to family that was there, as well as some of the staff that had taken great care of me. I don’t know what I would do without them all, but my time here was done. I was on the mend and it was now time to get the girl, if she wasn’t already gotten.