Chapter Twenty-Six

Today

I spin around, holding my phone with such a light grip that it could fall into the ocean, and I look for him through the sliding glass doors. My brain processed one single thought from what she said: he was there. He found me. He called 911.

He didn't ignore me.

He didn't not show up.

All I wanted to know for seven years was that he cared one ounce for me.

I find Tucker in the light of the window, laughing and drinking a glass of water. His eyes dart around the living room as if looking for someone.

My mother continues, "He came over to the house that night. I'm not sure why, but he knew you were coming home for the weekend. He wanted to see you, I guess, so he stayed for dinner and waited. He kept waiting. He called you, but there was no answer. I figured maybe you got stuck in traffic or you left Birmingham later than planned. Hal and I weren't worried at all, but Eli was beside himself. He left to find you. I said to your father, ‘How does he think he's going to find her?' thinking, of course, that you were on the freeway in Georgia or something. But bless him, you two share some kind of connection ."

Her voice cracks. "Ella, you would have died if he hadn't found you, that's the truth. I still don't know how he did. I kept looking at him in the hospital you were both born in and thinking, this is why you were brought together. This is why Lori and I met that day. So that he could save your life."

A tear drips down my cheek. "I'm confused, Mom," I say quietly. "I thought a stranger found me?"

"No. It was Elijah."

"But someone performed CPR."

"It was Elijah ." She sniffles. "He pulled you from the car and called an ambulance. You didn't have a pulse. He performed CPR. When the ambulance showed up, the EMTs said he was hysterical and refused to leave you, so they let him ride to the hospital. He called us and when we showed up, the first thing I saw was that boy covered in your blood. You were in surgery before we had a chance to see you. Seeing him like that – pale, shaking, absolutely covered in blood – God, I can't imagine what you must have looked like when he found you in that car."

I can't imagine it either. I'd always been told the story of a stranger finding me, some Good Samaritan driving through the outskirts of town. I even wanted to know who that person was, but my parents claimed they didn't know.

"An angel," my grandmother had said when she brushed my forehead in the hospital. "It was an angel that saved you."

I close my eyes, fighting to recall anything. Tucker's palms pressing into my chest cavity. Him screaming about leaving my side.

I put a hand over my mouth to stifle the sound of my sobbing.

My mother explains, "Elijah was a wreck. I had to call Lori just to come to calm him down. He was screaming at the doctors, demanding to see you, it was such a scene. The hospital staff wanted him to leave. Christian finally got a hold of him long enough to talk sense into him. Elijah just held on to him and cried and cried.

"We told the hospital staff he was your fiancé, otherwise they wouldn't let him in the ICU while you were in a coma. After that first day, Lori had to drag him home to shower and change out of those bloody clothes, and I've never seen anyone have such a panic attack. Well, except for maybe you. He kept saying, ‘ I have to be here. Something's going to happen if I'm not here .' When he came back the next day, he only left to sleep. He stayed for the entirety of visiting hours every single day."

I wipe my eyes. "Why? I was in a coma. What did he do the whole time?"

My mom actually laughs, which I think is a little irreverent. "He sat right next to you and talked to you. He'd hold your hand. He'd kiss your fingers. He'd stroke your face and brush your hair. He kept such a hold on you that Lori had to remind him he didn't own you, that we had just as much of a right to be by your side as he did."

"He wasn't, though," I say. "When I woke up, he wasn't there."

"He was in the hallway."

"Why didn't he come into the room?"

"He threw up!" She laughs. "I forgot about that. Poor thing. Your dad came out to tell him you were awake, and he vomited, right there, all over the hospital floor."

"But, Mom, he never came to see me."

She exhales. "I think, once he knew you were okay, he had a lot to process. Anger, obviously, otherwise he wouldn't have attacked that man. But it was traumatizing for him. Lori said he had night sweats and panic attacks. It takes a lot of emotional strength to see someone you love in a vulnerable position. And for him to pull you out of that car and perform CPR when you looked like you were already dead…gosh. I don't know how he did it."

I pull my legs up and cry into my knees. "Mom, why didn't anyone tell me?"

"He asked us not to tell you."

"But why ?"

"He didn't want to talk to you about it. He didn't want to be associated with the event at all and he didn't want to see you while you were recovering. He was still recovering himself and it must have been triggering for him. Then, you were so angry that he didn't call, and he just asked us not to tell you any of it."

"That still doesn't make sense," I cry.

"I don't know, honey. You'll have to ask him that yourself."

I'm a little mad at her. "You know how much I hated him for all this time. If you had told me, then I wouldn't have been so angry!"

"I'm sorry, Ella, it wasn't my truth to tell."

"You still should have said it! I went seven years without talking to him because of it."

My mother defends herself, "All we did was not tell you he saved your life. Oh, and the jail thing. You two not talking to each other for seven years is between the both of you. I mean, heavens Ella, you always claimed you and Elijah weren't even friends." She pauses. "I assumed you had a sexual past –"

"Mom!"

"Well, it's the truth. We all thought that. But you two didn't keep up with each other like friends. You just had Johnny in common. I did think it was strange for him to not clear the air eventually, but I never understood your relationship, so who was I to get in the middle of it?"

I pull my phone away before I throw it into the water. Eventually, I say, "Mom, I'll call you later."

I hang up and linger alone in the darkness. She painted such a vivid picture that I cry. For Tucker, having to find me like that, and for myself, in a coma, not knowing he held my hand the whole time. It wouldn't have changed anything if he told me the truth. I would have understood why he wanted to stay away, I just needed to know that he cared.

It's relieving to be able to love him now without the anger. I don't have to beat myself up for pining after someone who chose to abandon me despite giving every inkling that he would do the opposite. Of course, he didn't leave me. He's Elijah Tucker. He'd fly to Saturn and steal me a ring.

We have to talk about it.

I finally get up, my head heavy, my jaw tight. I'm drunk on crying and joy as I walk back to the house and find Callie walking past with her hair wrapped up, in her pajamas. Wyatt and Tucker stand in the kitchen. My heart leaps when I see him. When I push open the screen door and walk inside, Tucker's face jolts.

Wyatt says, "Ell, are you okay?

I'm sure I'm splotchy and pale and tear-stained. I lock eyes on my target. "Yeah, can I talk to Tucker?"

Wyatt leaves us, confused, and I walk around the island to stand opposite Tucker. He eyes me with concern. He stops himself from reaching for me.

"What's wrong?" he demands.

"I just talked to my mom."

"Is she okay?" His voice rises, panicked. "Did something happen?"

"Everyone's fine." I swallow. "Tucker…you saved my life?"

His breath hitches. The refrigerator buzzes in the silence made by my expectation and his hesitation. He places, "She told you?"

The marble is cold and firm on my shaky hand, and I look up into his stern, unreadable eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He drags his palm across his face. "Is that why you've been crying?"

"Of course! I can't not think about you without wanting to cry." I take a step toward him. "And when my mom told me what you did –"

"I don't really want to talk about it," he stops me. His face ripples with discomfort.

"Well, I do."

He walks off toward our bedroom and I pursue, begging, "Tucker, tell me why this was some big secret!"

His shirt falls to the floor. His pants go next. "Because of this. This moment right here." He slips on a pair of sweatpants and snatches his pillow off the bed. "I don't want to relive it."

"I deserve an explanation." I step in his way.

"Ella. I have had years of fucking therapy to stop those images of you from popping into my mind all of the time." He grounds his jaw. "You don't know what I went through that night."

"Then tell me," I plead.

The pillow falls and he grips my shoulders, and I think he's going to move me away from the door, to run away, but his eyes fill with tears.

"I pulled you out of the car." His voice is small, distant. "And I thought you were dead. I wanted to die with you right then."

"Elijah." I need to touch him. My fingers go to the center of his chest, to his shoulder, to his hand. I coax my fingers into his.

He squeezes me tighter. "I was so alone in that moment. I was with you, but I was alone like I've always been."

I don't know what that means.

"I didn't want to look at you or talk to you because I would only see that night." He wiggles out of my grip to cup my jaw and gently pulls my face to him.

This is my Tucker. He's holding my face as though it's the most precious thing in the world, wiping my salty tears with his thumbs. Our breath combines. I finally found him, and my pain both eases and intensifies by seeing the struggle in his eyes.

"I would have understood," I insist, holding his wrists. I step closer. "You could have told me. Anything . I would have done anything you needed."

"You shouldn't have been on that road in the first place. You should have been home, safe, and it's not fair that this happened to you."

I groan, "Things happen, Tucker. To everyone . I'm fine! Everything turned out fine!"

He focuses on the scar on my forehead. "That's not fine." He pulls my right arm back and strokes the mark on my forearm from where the bone had been set, the skin sewn back together. "Neither is this." His hands fall on my hips. "You barely being able to move? Not fine, Ella."

"They are just scars."

He drops his hands. "But I can't stop running my mind in circles about it. You shouldn't have a single fucking scar. That bone popping out of your arm and that glass stuck in your skin – Jesus Christ ." He backs away as I reach for him again. "I can't talk about it anymore. I'm going to sleep on the couch."

"Tucker!" I follow him into the living room. "Okay, we don't have to talk about the accident."

"Good, because I'm not going to."

"But there's more . You know there's more."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

I'm frozen, watching him angrily throw couch cushions on the ground. I cry, "If all of that is true, then you haven't changed at all. You're still the man I knew!"

He gestures emphatically with a crab-shaped throw pillow. "I have changed, Ella. Trust me. I already told you that."

Serena steps out of the hallway, sees us, and turns back to her room. She'll be at the door listening, but she already knows what we're fighting about. They all know. They've known this whole time, and they kept his secret even though it caused friction between all of us.

I'm at a loss to know what else to say. He's not looking at me. He's laying his pillow down and taking his watch off. Tucker says, "Do this one thing for me, please. Let it go. You have your answers. We've talked about us. Now, just let it be. Nothing is different than it was an hour ago." He instructs, "Turn off the kitchen light. Please."

I waver.

"Go to bed, Ella."

My eyes itch. My lips wiggle, fighting back more tears, and I march back to my bedroom. I hit the light, bathing him in darkness. In the quiet, I take my clothes off and change into pajamas. I brush my teeth and stare at my scars in the mirror: above my eyebrow, under my jawbone, on my collarbone.

I broke my arm and suffered a compound fracture in my leg. I had so many cuts from the shattered windshield and the impact to my head that I'd almost died from blood loss. The way my mother described it, that he was covered in my blood, I imagine a horrific scene. I don't know how I would react to finding someone like that.

Someone I loved.

I look at my face, clean and tan, and think of how Tucker held my cheeks the night I came to him for sex. I feel his forehead pressed to mine when I agreed to a date. I hear his loving, specific words when he fake-proposed to me and the sweet way he kissed me when he wanted a final ending to our day.

I once dated this asshole of a guy sophomore year in college. He was in the music program. One time, he pushed me into my car door when I confronted him kissing another girl at a concert and he thought it was no big deal. I wouldn't talk to him anymore, but he didn't leave me alone. I told Johnny about it, and the next day Tucker showed up at my dorm.

"Where's this guy?" he demanded.

I assured him that I had ended it and he had finally left me alone.

Tucker checked my face, made me turn around for him, then grabbed my hands and held them, saying, "Don't be with anyone who puts their hands on you, ever. Okay?"

I promised I was fine, that I knew my boundaries. He breathed heavily and kissed my right palm. He then dropped my hands and walked down the hallway. He had just driven four hours from Clemson.

"Tucker!" I ran after him, expecting him to stay the night, but he walked back in his truck, saying he needed to go back.

"You drove eight hours just to tell me that?" I grabbed his arm.

"I had to see you for myself." He looked at me one last time. "You're okay?"

I nodded and he left.

I fold my hand, closing the spot where he kissed me, and walk out of the bedroom. He doesn't hear me coming, my sock-covered feet are quiet.

Laying on his back, eyes steady on a crimson lamp, he finally notices me approach. He huffs, "Ella, I told you –"

"Shh." I sit by his feet. He's surprised when I lay on my side beside him. He turns to me, and I press my face into his chest. "At least let me have this . Please."

"What's this?" he whispers.

"I just want to be with you." I put my hands between us, up to my chin, and scoot higher so our heads are aligned. His feet hang off the couch. "Put your arm around me," I say.

After a moment of reluctance, he snakes his arm around my back until I'm resting on his bicep. His hand curls around my shoulder. "Like this?"

"The other one, too."

He wraps me up until we're cocooned together on this small couch. I snuggle my face into his neck and press my legs into his. After a quiet moment, Tucker relaxes and begins running his hands down my back and sides, in my hair.

I pretend I'm on that hospital bed, floating from pain medication, listening to Gracie complain about something that happened at her wedding and my mom asking the nurse about the temperature in the room. I try to pull snippets from the accident, but there's nothing.

I imagine that, in the midst of a white haze, Tucker comes into the room. He lays beside me like he's doing now, and he holds me to him. He breathes into my ear. His lips dance on my hairline. He pulls me tighter every second, just like I want him to. I can't float away if he's holding me steady.

"You can't sleep here," he mutters. His nose tickles the side of my face. "You'll get cold."

"Not like this."

"You're not going to be comfortable."

"I am comfortable."

I think about what my mom said: This is why you were brought together, so that he could save your life.

I knew the pain, but not the worry. I didn't fear for my life. I don't know what it's like to have someone you care about become endangered. Tucker's the one who had to shoulder that burden.

I press a kiss to his jaw. "Thank you."

" Ella ," he sighs like a warning.

"Thank you," I repeat. I kiss his cheek. And the side of his closed eye. I lift and kiss his forehead, his nose, his chin.

He sighs against my mouth. "I kissed you like this in the hospital. When your parents weren't looking." A tear drips from his closed lashes. "I wanted to climb in that bed and hold you."

I press tighter to him, kissing his shoulder, the tear on his cheek.

He puts his forehead on mine. "Ella, the only thing I was ever good at was taking care of you. But I was so messed up, I had to stay away. I couldn't see you or talk to you without going through it all again. I knew you were safe and that was all I needed to know."

I kiss the corner of his mouth, noticing his lips reach, like he wants to meet me halfway. My lips drag against his. I need him to kiss me to confirm that everything he said in the restaurant was a lie. If he found me and pulled me out of that car and refused to leave my side, then he cares. He might still want me. It's might not be over.

Tucker jerks his mouth from mine. He whimpers, "I wish I could explain."

"You don't have to."

"I was being selfish." He hugs me closer. "But I had to become someone who didn't love you in order to survive it all."

I exhale into the dip of his throat.

"You know how I felt about you." He legs clasp mine, scooping them tighter.

"I can't get any closer, Eli," I breathe into him.

His hands don't relax. He doesn't stop making me as molded to him as possible and his tears silently fall. "Yes, you can."

I do exactly what he said I couldn't do in that position. I fall asleep.