“I was in a dark place. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“God, Ethan, if you’d died…” I can’t finish the thought, let alone the sentence. Even at the height of my enmity, I couldn’t imagine living in a world without Ethan. The mere concept was distressing beyond words. “Okay, tell me what happened next before I freak out about the death thing.”
He wraps his arm around me and pulls me in to his side. “I don’t know how long I was lying at the bottom of that hill. Most of the night, at least. I slipped in and out of consciousness, and as time passed, I realized no one was going to find me down there. Unless I did something, I was going to die. I had to get back to the road.”
“But your injuries…”
“Yeah, I found out later that I had a dislocated shoulder, a fractured wrist, three broken ribs, and a punctured lung, as well as a concussion and multiple lacerations.”
“Oh my God! How did you even move?”
“Willpower. Stubborness. The thing is, I knew that climbing up that hill was going to be the most painful thing I’d ever done, but it was necessary. I had to survive, because if I didn’t, I could never get you to forgive me, and that was not fucking acceptable.”
He touches my face, soft and reverent. “So, I climbed. Every step made me scream in agony, but I kept moving, one foot in front of the other. By the time I reached the top, I was sure I’d died and gone to hell. The pain was blinding. I managed to crawl over the guardrail before collapsing on the road.”
“How did you get out of there?”
“A delivery driver found me a couple of hours later and called an ambulance. When I woke up, I was in a French hospital, tubes everywhere, dosed up on morphine. Elissa and the company manager were there. They told me I’d been out for a couple of days. Elissa was fucking furious. She’d been lecturing me for months about my drinking and self-destructive habits. When she was done yelling, she started sobbing. I’d never seen my sister cry like that before.”
“Of course she was upset. She could have lost you. We all could have.”
“But the ironic thing is, the way I was living … it was like I was already dead. It took the accident to bring me back to life. While I was recovering in the hospital, I had a lot of time to think. It occurred to me that, for most of my adult life, I’d had this thing for self-sabotage. When I broke up with you the second time, it was me slamming into the barrier of my goddamn issues. I knew if I didn’t do something to fix them and find a way to get you back, my life was pointless. So, yeah. I decided to live. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I tracked down a therapist who specialized in abandonment issues and climbed the fucking painful hill of recovery. Three years later, here I am. Scarred, but grateful.”
I want to be grateful, too, but I’m too busy being fixated on a mental image of him lying in a hospital bed, crumpled and broken.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You could have asked Elissa to contact me.”
He shakes his head. “I couldn’t. I mean, I’d almost killed myself because I was pining for you. How fucking lame is that? Plus, I vowed the next time you laid eyes on me, I’d be the man you deserved, not some scared little boy.”
I look up at him. “And now, here you are.”
He brushes his thumb over my lips. “Here I am.”
He leans down and kisses me, warm and open and soft. When he stops, I’m boneless.
“You were always my incentive to get better, both physically and mentally. You were my reward.”
He wraps around me before burying his face in my neck. “Thank you.”
I take in a shaky breath and try to keep it together. He tightens his arms around me, and I almost can’t breathe.
“You know,” I say, and wheeze for effect, “there’s a difference between snuggling and holding someone captive.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve waited a long time for this, so I’m going to enjoy it.”
Nevertheless, he loosens his grip.
We stay like that for long time, intertwined and breathing each other’s air. Seeing who’ll pull away first. My bladder makes sure it’s me.
When I come out of the bathroom, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.
I stop in front of him, and he takes my hands. “I want you to come to my place for dinner tonight. I’ll cook. I have something I want to show you.”
I smile and shake my head. “Ethan … I think we really need to take things slowly for a while. Besides, I’m pretty sure what you want to show me, I’ve seen before.”
“Not that,” he says, and pulls me onto his lap. “Although if you play your cards right, I could be persuaded to show you that, too. In fact, cards aren’t necessary. A simple eyebrow raise would do it.”
I roll my eyes.