Chapter Twenty-Seven

Tucker

In some way, I always knew I loved her. Even as a little kid. When it was just me and my mom, the Moynes family became our family. We did everything together. Hal was like an uncle to me. Fiona was like an aunt. When I was a baby, Hattie liked to hold me, and I have a dozen pictures of her playing mom. Gracie ignored me mostly, until we were older, then we could at least talk about movies or dumb shit just to have something to say.

Ella was fucking annoying. She always cried about everything. If I stepped on her foot - cry. When I didn't want to play with her - cry. She was so damn bossy all the time. She wanted to play her games her way and I didn't do that. I didn't cater to her or cave when she told me to. When she said she hated me, I said the only thing I could to piss her off.

"I love you, Ella."

I don't know when it became a joke or when I started to mean it. I know that when Christian married my mom I was seven, and he told me he'd always take care of her, and me. He bought us a nice house, he took us on vacations, and he liked being friends with the Moynes, too. He taught me how to fish and how to drive a boat. He took over for Hal as my little league baseball coach. He bought me a car and paid for my college. His sons became my brothers.

My mom didn't want for anything. He rubbed her feet when they watched television and all she had to say was, "I think I want some ice cream," and he'd be in the car. I understood my mom's vulnerable situation as I got older, but she seemed so tough to me. I didn't think she needed anyone to take care of her. That's how I learned what love is. Christian didn't check my mother's tires every morning because she couldn't do it herself. It's because he would have died if something happened to her and he didn't stop it.

Before middle school, I had been Ella's friend reluctantly. Mostly I angered her because I called her out when she was wrong and told her not to be so bossy. She was always hitting me. I didn't mind that. I liked getting under her skin. We'd play video games at Johnny's house, and she'd sit in the corner with her doll. Or she'd play with her hair. Or she'd put stickers all over her face. I'd think, why is she here?

I had to see her at school, at my best-friend's house, at her house, on my vacations. I couldn't shake her. Before we started sixth grade, I asked what locker she got and snuck a note in it. I love you, Ella. She would know it was from me.

Her eyes when she saw it was silent vindication for me. For all of the times she called me stupid or forced me to eat lemon cake for my birthday or showed up somewhere when I told Johnny not to invite her. She was embarrassing. Now everyone else thought so, too.

This funny fucking thing happens in middle school, though.

Puberty.

I started to look at girls differently. My friends started to look at Ella. She was pretty, of course, like a sunset was pretty, but she was Ella . She was the kind of girl who went from ice cold to on fire in thirty seconds and the next thing you know she's stripping off her Christmas Eve dress and beating you with it while her mother apologizes, "I'm so sorry about Ella, we're working on getting her to use her words."

I didn't want anyone looking at her because she wasn't worth it. She wasn't desirable. She wasn't for them. No one should do to her what we learned about in seventh-grade sex education. They should keep their fucking hands off of her and keep their mouths shut. She wasn't special to them like she was special to me.

The game started as a way to tease her.

Then, it became a way to keep her.

I didn't want my friends to see her as a romantic interest, so I asked her Aunt Zoey if I could go through the school lost-and-found a few days before eighth grade started. I had already stolen the locker number and combination that Ella tacked on her bedroom corkboard. I had already filled my backpack with little love notes I'd spent days writing.

When she opened the locker and tried to attack me, I didn't have a good reason for it. I tried to explain. I did it so we had this Ella and Eli thing between us. But she didn't like it and I stopped. Then, we were at the neighborhood pool a few days before freshman year started. I tossed a ball around with Chase Donner and he said, "Hey, Ella's cute, right?"

I looked at her in her one-piece bathing suit, listening to music and flipping through a magazine. She was fourteen. I hadn't seen her all summer because she'd been in ballet camps, and I'd been doing baseball stuff. She was cute.

I told Chase, "Stay away from her."

The game became: I know she's beautiful but you're going to have to go through me.

She belonged to me first, because I knew her best, and any guy who wanted to date her would know that.

I loved making her smile. I liked protecting her and bringing her gifts. I really liked touching her. Her skin was so soft, and she giggled when I dug my fingers into her waist. Somewhere along the way her butt became an ass and I told myself there's nothing special about it, but I couldn't stop staring. Then she grew these boobs she didn't know what to do with, and I had to be assaulted by a body she didn't know was tempting.

Other guys knew it. It wasn't fair. My Ella happened to have a gorgeous face and an attractive body - how is that fair? She'd never truly belong to me because other guys had eyes.

My mom kept telling me to treat Ella with respect. She wasn't an object, I knew that.

Of course I respected her because she'd done this miraculous thing: take me from hating her to loving her. Loving her for real . The way that Christian loved my mom.

I set aside all of my feelings for her. I broke up with Angel before prom even though I knew it was a shitty thing to do because Ella needed me. When Ella was mad about it, I backed off. When Johnny said that she kept texting him about being alone the first night in her dorm, I drove up there and slept in the parking lot. I wasn't going to tell her I was there. I knew it seemed stalkerish, but she might have been scared or sad and I wanted to be close enough that I could help.

When she came to me for sex, I thought my mind would explode. I wanted it to be perfect for her. I wanted to worship her and be close to her and show her how much I loved her. When it was over, I kept thinking, you dumbass, how are you going to get over her now? There is nothing more humbling than having women throw themselves at you, but spending your life groveling at the foot of a girl who barely sees you as a friend.

I kept my distance as much as possible in college. When the opportunity presented itself, I tried to lay out my feelings without scaring her away. I told her: I love you.

I love you.

I love you .

She thought it was the game. I was too fragile to spell it out and have her respond with, "Oh, no, Tucker, I don't see you like that."

At Steve's wedding, I had to walk away from her. She didn't want the same things I did. When I touched her and kissed her, it was just a touch, just a kiss, not the mind-blowing melting of our bodies into each other. I was so fucking lost in her.

When I sat in her parents' kitchen the night of the accident, in a chair that I'd sat in a hundred times, I knew something was wrong. I felt it. I drove around aimlessly for twenty minutes, calling her and having it go straight to voicemail.

I almost drove past her car. It couldn't be Ella, but it was. Her lights were on, smoke rose from the crushed hood, and I parked and ran to her. She had blood all over her face and was lying on top of her airbag. I screamed and my hands were shaking so badly I could barely open her door. I didn't care if it was safe to pull her out, I only thought about having her in my arms.

She was dead. I knew it. But she couldn't be. I could shake her awake. If I kissed her and held her and told her I loved her then she'd come back. I only let her go long enough to get my phone and call 911. She had no pulse when I found her. They told me to perform CPR.

I refused to leave her side in the ambulance and Christian had to restrain me in the hospital. I needed everyone to know that I could do this, just me, I could make her okay. I could always take care of her. If they made me leave, then I couldn't fix it.

When she finally woke up, I stood in the hallway and spilled my lunch. Everything I'd kept inside just released. Hal asked if I wanted to see her. I surprised myself by saying no.

When I went home right then, I knew she was safe, and I'd done the only thing I could ever do for her. I saved her life, now I needed to save mine. I couldn't look at her without imagining that beautiful face covered in blood, not breathing. I knew she'd want to talk about it, and I couldn't talk about it. If I kept on loving her, I would know what it felt like to lose her.

I was so filled with rage and anxiety and fear. When I found out that the asshole who hit her was still in town, getting drunk every night and living his best life, I lost my mind. He opened the door, I double-checked that he was who he was, and I clocked him. I'd never punched anyone before. I wasn't a violent guy, but I lost all control of myself.

While I sat in jail, I decided to be someone who didn't love her. Who didn't even know her. I just stayed away and pretended that she didn't exist, even when I got angry text messages saying, where have you been?

Our friends and families understood at first because they knew I was struggling. Then, enough time passed that they figured we just weren't that good of friends. It was as if that whole period where I was in love with her never happened. We were just two kids who never really got along. Who shared a best friend and a birthday.

I stopped loving Ella because of self-preservation. She'd always be beautiful and wild and perfect, but just a girl I know. I decided I could go on this Florida trip and be fine in her company.

I'll always care about her.

But I don't love her anymore.