The tears were pouring down my cheeks as I raced down the stairs, trying to hold in the gusty sobs that were ready to blow.
“Ellie, please!” Adam was suddenly in the stairwell, his footsteps pounding hard behind me.
I ran faster, ignoring his shouts for me to come back and talk to him.
By the time he made it out of the building I was already racing across the street toward a bus that was about to pull off. I got on it and the doors closed behind me. I sagged in relief and glanced absentmindedly at the route number.
I didn’t care where it was going as long as it took me far, far away from the biggest mistake I’d ever made.
***
There had been a few times in my teen years I’d cried myself to sleep. A couple of those times had even been over Adam. But when I was a teenager, like most teenagers, anything remotely negative seemed like the complete and total end of the world. Thankfully that flair for the drama usually disappears as you enter adulthood. It did for me anyway. So when I say I sobbed myself to sleep that night, it was without a sense of faux melodrama. The pain inside of me was real. It was genuine. It was raw.
For a good eight hours I believed that not only had I been given 100% proof positive that Adam Sutherland didn’t love me the way that I loved him, I also believed that I’d ruined us and destroyed one of my favorite things in the whole world —my friendship with him.
I barely slept and woke up early to make myself tea, sitting in my big flat alone and puffy-faced wearing mismatched socks on my feet and a broken crocodile clip in my hair.
A pounding on the front door made me jump and sent hot tea over the rim of my mug and splashing onto my skin. I bit back a curse and placed the mug carefully on the table, scurrying out of the room and into the darkened hall.
“Ellie, open up!” Adam shouted through the thick wood. “Ellie!”
I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to somehow fix things and rewind the clock, but I knew if I let him inside the flat he’d take one look at my face and realize that I, Ellie Nichols Carmichael, was completely and utterly in love with him and that last night had devastated me.
So I didn’t open the door. I leaned against the wall in my hallway and slid down until I was sitting on the cold hardwood floor. I listened as Adam pounded my door and called my name. I listened as my phone rang in my bedroom. I listened as Adam left a message on it. I listened as he walked away…
When I woke up I was curled up on the cold floor. I blinked, trying to get my bearings and as I did, everything came flooding back. I didn’t have time to dwell on it, however, because I realized what had woken me up was my phone ringing. I got to my feet with a groan, my back and neck hurting from my awkward sleeping position, and I ran into my room to pick it up. According to the clock on my phone I’d been asleep for just over two hours.
My stomach flipped at the sight of the picture of Adam on my phone. I sucked in a deep breath and answered it.
“Ellie, thank fuck,” he breathed in relief and I could just imagine him tugging at his hair in anxiety. “I came by earlier.”
“I was sleeping. I had more wine last night so I was kind of dead to the world,” I lied.
“Els, I don’t even know where to start. I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”
“Adam—”
“I can’t lose you, Els. I can’t believe I fucked up like this but you have to forgive me. I can’t lose you.”
When he said stuff like that it made it hard to hate him. Worse it made it harder to get over him. But I knew from now on that I really needed to try. And not just say that I was going to try. I had to try. I couldn’t live my life pining after him. So I made my decision to do just that. “Adam, it’s okay,” I promised him softly. “It was a mistake. We got carried away in the moment. And I’m sorry for running out on you. I was just embarrassed, that’s all.”
I heard his heartfelt sigh of relief and attempted to force the sting of tears out of my nose.
“Els, you’ve nothing to be embarrassed about, okay.”
“Okay.”
“So…” his voice grew even quieter. “We’re good. We’re still us?”
“We’re still us,” I managed, blinking back tears.
“I don’t want there to be any awkwardness between us.”
“There won’t be. I won’t let there be if you won’t.”
“Good, Sweetheart. Good. We’ll just forget this. It didn’t mean anything.”
I choked back the pain. “Right. It didn’t mean anything.”
Chapter 6
“It’s like a car crash,” Adam sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face as he handed me back the diary. “It’s painful reading this from your perspective but I can’t look away.” He pointed to another diary. “I want to know more.”