TWENTY-TWO
EPIPHANY
Present Day
New York City
The Diary of Cassandra Taylor
Dear Diary,
Good news! Ethan wants us to get back together, so I’m now magically healed and we’re off to live happily ever after!
In case you missed it, I typed that sarcastically.
The truth is, as much as I believe Ethan’s changed, it’s not enough.
If only I could go back in time and beg myself not to fall for him so hard. Not that young me would have listened. I knew he was damaged, but I figured what we had was strong enough to smooth over all the cracks and fissures.
For a while, it was, but it was just an illusion, like when snow covers over giant holes, making it look like the ground is perfect and solid.
Holt and I have never been solid. Just varying degrees of screwed up. Always teetering on the edge of our vast insecurities.
And now, he’s asking me to walk that slippery slope again, and he’s taking such care with me, I’m tempted to believe it’s safe.
The problem is, no matter how careful he is, I’ll always remember the other falls, and no matter how much he tells me he’s different, I’ll always know it was at my expense.
It took breaking my heart twice to grant him an epiphany strong enough to make him change. Fucking good for him.
What’s going to grant me mine?
I stand at the bar and sip my vodka cocktail. It’s my third, and I’m finally starting to feel less. Or maybe I’m feeling more. It’s hard to tell.
I can hear my castmates in the far corner of the restaurant, laughing and talking. They’re celebrating our move into the theater next week. Tech rehearsals. Previews. Getting the play as perfect as it can be before the world judges us on opening night.
I should be with them, but I’m not in the mood.
Marco raises his glass to me and smiles. So happy with what he’s created. Onstage, Ethan and I are flawless. It’s made him confident in my abilities.
I give him a smile before looking into my drink.
He doesn’t realize he’s trusting someone whose emotions are slowly choking them.
Deep laughter rumbles across the room, and I turn to see Holt chuckling as Marco gestures wildly. He looks so happy.
I finish my drink and order another. Maybe four is my lucky number.
A man sits on the barstool next to me. He gives me a smile as he orders a Scotch. He looks a bit like Ethan. Dark hair and blue eyes. Attractive. Expensive suit. Tie loose, shirt unbuttoned.
I must be staring because he glances at me as the bartender delivers his drink. “I’d offer to buy you one, but it looks like that one’s still fresh.”
I blink and look away. “Uh … yeah. I’m good.”
“Are you here alone?”
That’s not what he’s asking, but I answer anyway.
“I’m here with friends,” I say and gesture to the loud table in the corner. Holt’s doing an impersonation of someone. Possibly Jack Nicholson.
The stranger nods. “Ah. Taking a break from the fun?”
“Something like that.”
Heat prickles up my spine, and I turn to see Holt, his gaze sharp and blazing from across the room. He’s stopped mid-impersonation. I’ve felt subtle glances from him all night, but this is different. I’m no longer alone.
I get a flashback of him before his personality makeover. Always so jealous.
I turn back to the bar and try to ignore him.
The stranger leans over, and the Scotch on his breath makes him smell like Ethan.
“You’re far too beautiful to be alone,” he says. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I’ve heard variations of that line countless times over the years, and on many occasions I let those men help me. And when I fucked them, I did so desperately. Using them and hating them afterward for not being Ethan. Hating myself more for still wanting him so much.
Hating him most of all.
The stranger is still waiting for an answer, hopeful my delicate emotional state will result in him getting laid. In the past, it probably would have.
“I’m just going to drink for a while,” I tell him and smile, aware that Holt is watching my every move. “But thanks for the offer.”
I touch his arm. Start at the tricep and run down to the elbow. My words say “no” but that touch says “maybe.” I don’t mean “maybe,” but Ethan doesn’t know that, and perhaps I want him to squirm. Perhaps I’m petty enough to test his newfound serenity and see if he’s really changed as much as he says.
I chat with the stranger. Give him a coy smile.
Ethan’s glare burns me every second I continue. I take sick comfort in it.
I wonder how far I’d have to push him before he breaks.
Another cocktail. More conversation. I can feel Ethan’s frustration like a ripple in the air, vibrating against me, telling me that what I’m doing is wrong.
It’s hurtful.
Vengeful.
After five cocktails, I’ve lost the ability to care. The stranger has his arm around me as he whispers in my ear. Tells me how beautiful I am. How much he wants me.
I laugh, because I don’t feel beautiful. I feel like trash.
The man plants a soft kiss on my neck. I don’t tell him to stop. When he does it again, Holt appears beside me, muscles bunched and expression brooding.
“Okay, Cassie. Time to go.”
“Wait a minute, pal,” the stranger says and tightens his arm around my waist. “The lady and I were having a conversation.”
Ethan practically growls at him. “Your conversation is over, pal. Take your fucking hands off her.”
Ah, the caveman cometh.
It’s kind of a relief that he’s not so perfect after all. Makes my imperfections seem less vast.
The stranger frowns and puts down his drink. “Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?”
Ethan leans over into his face. “I’m the guy who’s going to put your fucking head through the bar if you touch her for one more second. Anything else you want to know?”
With a flash of fear, the stranger lets me go, and Holt helps me up. I feel guilty for leading the stranger on, but not as guilty as I do for screwing with Ethan. I can’t even look at him as he walks me outside.
When we’re on the pavement, he stands me on my feet. I stumble over the gutter and brace myself against a parked car as I try to hail a cab. Everything is tilted and wrong, and I know that only he can make it right again, and that makes me fucking angry.
“Cassie, what the hell is going with you tonight?”
Another cab passes as I wave sloppily, and I almost fall before strong arms wrap around me and pull me up.
“Jesus Christ, would you stop? You’re going to get yourself run over.”
I grip his shirt as my legs sag, and all I feel is warmth, and arms, and lips on my forehead as I breathe in the so-right smell of him.
“Come back inside.”
“I have to go.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“No. I can’t do this.”
“What?”
“This!” His face is too close. Mouth too enticing. “This!” I push on his chest, hand over his heart. “You!”
I’m agitated. Bitter about things I can’t change and too frightened to think about the things I can.
He glares at me with barely repressed anger. “Would it make it easier if I was some douche in a suit who just wants to fuck you? Could you deal with me then?”
My legs give out again. He pulls me tight against him. Now I’m off my feet, and we’re chest to chest, face to face. He’s killing me with closeness.
“That’s it. I’m taking you home.”
I shake my head, wishing he could understand that if I stay with him any longer, he’ll unstitch me, and I really can’t fall apart now. Bitterness is the only thing holding me together. Without it, I’m shapeless.
Lost.
My breath hitches, and he loosens his embrace. Puts his hand on my cheek.
“Fuck.” He hugs me to him. Whispers in my ear. “Don’t cry. Please. I’m sorry. Whatever’s going on tonight, you’re going to be okay.”
I don’t believe him.
He holds me with one arm as he hails a passing cab. It stops, and he puts me in the backseat and passes the driver money with instructions to help me to my door if necessary. Then his face is in front of mine, concerned and unhappy.
“Call me when you get home, okay?”
I study the back of the seat.
“Cassie, I’m serious. Look at me.”
My head is so heavy. It’s all too hard.
He cups my chin to help me lift it.
Somber eyes look into mine. “Promise you’ll call me when you get home, otherwise I’m coming with you.”
He stares until I nod.
A knot tightens in my throat as he kisses my forehead.
Why does he insist on making everything seem easy, when it’s clearly impossible?
He disappears, and the door slams. When we drive off and I know he’s not watching anymore, I crumble.
When I stumble into my apartment, Tristan’s there. He’s seen me like this before and knows what to do. He helps me into the bathroom and orders me to shower. Makes the water cold. Then he helps me into bed, brushes my hair away from my face, and whispers that everything’s going to be all right.
I must doze off at some point, because when I open my eyes again, he’s gone, but sitting on the nightstand are two Tylenol and some water. I take them and gulp the water down.
I feel dry inside.
Emotionally desolate.
I grab my laptop and open Holt’s e-mails, needing some part him. Feeling too full and inconsolably empty all at once.
I pour over every word. They’re filled with vague ramblings of regret, but there’s one thing he never said. One thing I needed to hear so much back then to reassure me that what I’d felt for him wasn’t completely one-sided.
I’m nearly asleep when my phone rings, and without looking at the screen, I know it’s him.
“Hey.” My throat is dry.
“You said you’d call.” His voice is hard. Worried.
“I’m sorry.”
“Dammit, Cassie, for all I knew that cab driver could have raped you, murdered you, dumped you in Central Park. What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” And I am, for so many things.
He sighs. “You just— You can’t do that to me. You have no idea how much I— I mean, I want to…”
He’s quiet for a second. “I’m sorry for snapping.” He sounds as tired as I feel. “I’m just worried about you. I’ve tried to give you space for the past few weeks. Distance so you can get a better perspective, or whatever. But you let that guy paw you tonight and I … Dammit, you had to know how I’d react.”
“I know.”
“I haven’t felt like that in a long time. I wanted to annihilate him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I wanted to break his fucking fingers. Was that reaction you were after? To drive me insane? To hurt me?”
“I guess.”
“Yeah, well, mission accomplished.”
The admission doesn’t give me comfort. In fact, it makes me feel like crap.
I’m so tired of feeling this way, but I don’t know how else to be.
A long time ago, I thought that two people who cared for each other could work out any issue as long as they talked about it, but now I see it’s not that easy. Talking actually requires a person to have the courage to express what they’re feeling, and I’m all out of courage.
“Would you have gone home with him if I hadn’t been there tonight?” he asks.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” I struggle to find the words. “If I’d taken him home I’d…” I sigh, prickly and defensive. “I would have just pretended he was you, anyway, so what’s the freaking point?”
There’s a long pause. My heart is pounding erratically as I wait for him to respond.
“Have you done that before?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“All the time. Every time.”
He inhales. “What does that mean?”
He’s pushing, but despite my discomfort, some part of me wants to be pushed. I’m not going to be able to do this without him.
“Cassie?”
“After you left…” I swallow. “I missed you so much, I wanted them to be you, so I closed my eyes and tried to make them you. All of them. Even Connor. Especially Connor. It didn’t work. None of them even came close.”
My breathing seems obscenely loud in my quiet bedroom, and the tick from my clock fills the long seconds.
“Jesus … Cassie…”
So now he knows. For better or worse, he knows.
“I thought…” He stops, regroups. “When I found out about the men you’d been with after I left, I figured you did it to forget about me. Or punish me.”
“That was part of it. But not the main part.”
“And tonight?”
“I wanted to push you. See if you’d revert back to your old self. And, like you said, hurt you.”
Saying it makes me realize what a low blow it was. How far I’ve fallen. How poisonous I’ve become.
“I get that. I know you think I deserve some pain, considering what I did, but you don’t understand.” He takes a breath. “I know you suffered when I left, but I suffered, too. That European tour was the most miserable time of my life.”
My resentment flares. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure parading around all those exotic places with beautiful girls adoring you was really hard. Deciding which one to take home each night. It must have been like a freaking smorgasbord.”
“Is that honestly what you think happened? That I could do that? Jesus, Cassie, when we were together, I never so much as even looked at another girl. Do you think I could forget about you so easily?”
“After you gave up on us, I thought you were capable of anything.”
He laughs. “Yeah, well, the reality was a little different.”
“How different?”
I wish I could see his face. But all I have is his voice, low and resonant.
“In Europe, even though I was always surrounded by people, the time I spent apart from you was the loneliest I’ve ever been. At first I couldn’t handle it. I was drinking a lot, sometimes during the shows. I’d go to bars. Get into fights. Then, I’d go home and think about you. Google you. Dream about you. I missed you so much, it made me physically ill. Sometimes I considered taking someone home with me, so I could wake up beside another body. No sex. Just … company.”
I feel his pain. So similar to my own.
At least I’d found Tristan.
“So, yeah,” he says. “Other stuff happened that made me reassess everything about myself and what I needed to do to get you back, but that’s a story for another time. The point is, I wasn’t having a party while I was over there. I was completely miserable. And alone.”
“But surely you had other … relationships … while we were apart?”
“No.”
His answer confuses me. “But you had … sex. I mean, I’m not sure why I’m asking because the thought of you and other women is…” I shudder. “But you did, right?”
I close my eyes and wait for his answer, tensing in anticipation.
Say “hundreds.” Give me fuel for my fire. Let me be hard.
Please.
He’s quiet, but every word is filled with heavy sincerity. “Cassie, you have no idea how many times I wanted to have meaningless sex, just so I could get you out of my mind, but I couldn’t do it. Every time I tried, I felt like I was cheating. Eventually, I stopped looking at other women. It was fucking pointless. None of them could ever come close to replacing you, even if I’d wanted them to, which I didn’t.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Are you telling me that … the last time you had sex was…”
“With you.” It’s hushed, like he’s confessing.
No.
Not possible.
“But that was…” That night. The night. “The night before you left?”
“Yes.”
It takes a moment for my brain to respond. “But … that’s … that’s … goddamn, Ethan, three years?!”
He laughs. “Believe me, I know. I don’t say this to make you feel bad, but between my self-imposed dry spell and doing this show with you, my balls are bluer than the entire cast of Avatar.”
I still can’t comprehend it. “Unbelievable.”
“You’re making me feel like a freak.”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t understand—”
“Look, it’s simple. I didn’t have you, and I didn’t want anyone else. End of story.”
“So, if we don’t get back together, you’re just going to continue being celibate?”
There’s dead silence for a second, then he says, “First of all, us not getting back together isn’t even a possibility in my mind. And secondly, I was never celibate.”
“But, you said—”
“I said I hadn’t had sex with anyone, but being celibate means abstaining from all sexual pleasure. I’ve had plenty of sexual pleasure, usually while having erotic thoughts about you.”
The thought of Ethan masturbating to images of me instantly turns me on.
“In fact,” he says, “I’m having some very erotic thoughts about you right now.”
He lets out a quiet moan, and I have to draw my knees up to my chest to cope with how much I burn for him.
“Can we please talk about something else?”
“Definitely,” he says, quiet and lustful. “Talk about something that will distract me from how much I need to make love to you. Please.”
“Ethan—”
“Fuck, yes, say my name.”
“I’m only going to keep talking to you if I know both of your hands are in plain sight.”
“I can see my hand perfectly well. It’s wrapped around my aching—”
“Ethan!”
I hear fabric rustling, followed by a resigned sigh. “Fine. Hands are above the covers. Killjoy.”
His tone is so petulant, it makes me laugh.
“So,” he says before yawning. “You in bed, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Doing anything interesting?”
His innuendo isn’t lost on me, but I don’t bite. “Actually, I was reading some of your old e-mails.”
There’s a pause before he says, “Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to figure out how I feel.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
Another pauses. “Did they help?”
“Not really. I keep looking for something that isn’t there.”
He’s quiet for few seconds before saying, “Did you know that I have a whole folder of draft e-mails? Stuff I wasn’t brave enough to send?”
“What sort of stuff?”
I hear shuffling and the tapping of fingers on a keyboard. “Hang on. I’ll send you some of the less embarrassing ones.”
Almost immediately my inbox lights up with two new messages.
From: EthanHolt
To: CassieTaylor
Subject: Too much of a pussy to send this to you.
Date: February 9th 1:08am
Cassie,
We’re in France. I’ve stopped drinking and have been getting help for over six months now. I’m learning to take responsibility for my mistakes.
I take responsibility for hurting you. If you’d never met me, you wouldn’t be in pain right now. I hate that I did that.
Of all the people in my life that I fucked up, you are the one I regret the most.
I think about you a lot. Dream about you.
I wish I had the guts to send this to you, but I probably won’t. Still, writing it soothes me. I’m working on being open and honest with you, but I guess I’m not there yet. When I am, rest assured, you’ll be the first to know.
France is beautiful. I stood at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower today and looked up at it. There are very few times in my life I’ve felt so small. The day I left you was one of them.
I miss you.
Ethan.
I opened the second e-mail.
From: EthanHolt
To: CassieTaylor
Subject: I need you.
Date: June 9th 12:38am
Cassie,
It’s my birthday. I don’t expect to hear from you, but fuck, I really need to.
I want you here, in my apartment. In my bed. Kissing me and making love to me and telling me you forgive me.
I need it like air. I’m drowning without you. Please.
Please.
Earlier, I was sitting on a bench on the banks of the Tiber, and there were all these people there holding hands and kissing. Happy and in love.
They made it seem so easy. Like giving their heart to someone else isn’t the scariest thing in the world.
I still don’t understand that.
Don’t they know the power they’re giving to that other person? The absolute future-forming dominion?
Don’t they understand how much it’s going to hurt when it all goes wrong? And let’s face it, ninety percent of those couples won’t still be together a year from now. Even six months from now.
And yet, there they are, hugging and lip-locking, completely oblivious to the pain that’s coming for them.
Unconcerned and trusting.
That was always something I struggled to be.
It was almost impossible to turn off the internal countdown clock that screamed at me daily about all the ways you could hurt me. After all, history proved that eventually, everyone leaves me. Why would you be any different?
Now I know that you were.
Are.
The thing is, underneath all the bullshit that made me push you away, there were parts of me that clung to you when I left, and now, without you, I struggle to function.
The thought that keeps me up at night is that I had my chance to be whole and right, and I blew it.
Please tell me I’ll get another chance. Don’t tell me this is how I have to live now.
I can’t. Being without you is too hard.
I miss you so much it hurts.
Ethan.
I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest.
This is exactly what I’d needed to hear, so many times.
I realize I’m gripping my phone to the point of pain. “They … God, Ethan … They’re beautiful. Why didn’t you send them?”
He sighs. “I don’t know. I thought you hated me.”
“I did, but … if I’d read those e-mails, maybe I would have hated you less.”
“I wish I’d had the guts to lay it all out for you back then, but I just wasn’t ready.”
“And now you are?”
“Ask me anything you like, and I’ll give you a straight answer.”
“Anything?”
“Absolutely.”
I take a breath and ask him the question that’s haunted me for years. “In all your e-mails, why didn’t you ever say you loved me?”
I can almost hear his shock. “What?”
“You never said it. In any of them.”
“Cassie, I did say it. All the time.”
“I’ve just read through them all for the hundredth time, and you didn’t say it once. You said you missed me, that you wanted to be friends, but there’s nothing about love.”
“There’s no fucking way that’s true. I … I—” He takes in a shaky breath. “I thought it all the time. It seemed to be in every word I wrote to you but … I— Shit, Cassie.”
He growls in frustration.
“Ethan, it’s fine.”
“It’s really fucking not. Of all the things I should have told you, that’s at the top of the goddamn list. But whether I said it in the e-mails or not, you have to know that I— I really do—”
“Ethan, stop.”
“Cassie—”
“No. I don’t want you to say it just because I brought it up.”
“That’s not the reason.”
“Still, just don’t, okay? Not tonight.”
He exhales, and thankfully, he doesn’t push it.
We make small talk about the show for a few minutes, but when I stifle a yawn, he tells me to go to sleep. I don’t argue.
In the morning, I feel like crap. My hangover isn’t too bad, but I had terrible dreams in which Holt left me, over and over again, and each time, I took him back, all the while getting angrier with myself each time I did it.
I’ve barely shuffled out of the shower, when my phone beeps with a text from him.
<You have mail.>
Intrigued, I open my laptop and find a single e-mail.
When I open it, my screen explodes.
I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU,I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU,I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE
I scroll down pages and pages, stunned, until finally, I reach the bottom.
Just in case you didn’t get what I was doing, I’ve written “I LOVE YOU” 1,162 times—one for every day I was away. And please don’t think this was some quickie copy and paste declaration. I typed each and every one individually as penance for being too much of a dumbass to make it crystal clear how I felt about you.
I know you think I left because I didn’t love you, but you’re wrong. I’ve always loved you, from the moment I first laid eyes on you. I ranted and railed about love at first sight, because the concept is fucking ridiculous to me. But the very first day I saw you at the auditions for The Grove, it happened, and you ruined me without even saying a word. I saw you there, trying desperately to be something you weren’t just so they’d like you, and I wanted to pull you into my arms and tell you it was going to be okay.
From that moment, I knew you were meant for me. But I was pigheaded enough to refuse to accept it.
I have no idea how or why you were able to love me. I was an asshole, so busy trying to run from my feelings, I didn’t figure out you were my gift; the precious reward I’d somehow earned with all my pain. I’d spent so long believing I got what I deserved when people left me, that I didn’t stop to think I got what I deserved when I met you. I couldn’t comprehend that if I stopped being an enormous insecure jackass for five minutes, that maybe … just maybe … I could keep you.
I want to keep you, Cassie.
That’s why I came back. Because as much as I used to think you were better off without me, you’re not. You need me as much as I need you. We’re both hollow without the other, and it’s taken me a long time to realize that.
Don’t be as stubborn as I was and let the insecurities win. Let us win. Because I know you think loving me again is a crapshoot and that your odds are grim, but let me tell you something, I’m a sure thing. I couldn’t stop loving you if I tried.
Am I still terrified of you hurting me? Of course. Probably the same way you’re terrified I’ll hurt you.
But I’m brave enough to know it’s absolutely worth the risk.
Let me help you be brave.
I love you with everything I am, and I swear to God, I’m not going to hurt you again.
Let yourself love me back.
Please.
Ethan.
I sit there and look at the screen for a long time, alternating between laughing and crying.
Somewhere in there, the fire in my bitterness sputters and dies. The sensation is strange, because it’s what kept me going when nothing else would, and without it I feel naked in the worst way. Soft and vulnerable and more fragile than glass.
Yesterday I’d wondered what it would take to grant me my epiphany to change. I guess Ethan baring his soul in an e-mail did the trick.
One of Tristan’s favorite sayings is, “Be the change you want to see.” I guess that’s what Holt’s done. He’s made himself strong enough for both of us.
My hands tremble as I send him a text.
<I need to see you.>
I’ve barely pressed send when there’s a knock at the door.