7. Lia

I now know moreabout farm grants than I ever imagined. I worked from home today … well, Asher's home … and researched absolutely everything I could about community agriculture and festivals and pick-your-own operations. Which is why I missed my appointment to get blood drawn at the lab over in Climax.

I wasn't sure how long I'd be back here in Fork Lick. Richard was really grouchy about me leaving the city to begin with and blew a gasket at the idea of me getting blood drawn at a lab outside his sphere of influence.

He upset me with his tone, actually, and I ignored his texts. I've also been putting off calling his office to discuss my options for my next medication infusion. But I can't even have that conversation without my blood draw. Shoot. There are definitely drawbacks sometimes to dating my doctor…

A knock at the door startles me from the nightmare that is this bloodwork scheduling app. I walk to the door muttering about terrible web interfaces, forgetting to wonder why someone would be knocking on Asher's rural, secluded door at night.

When I pull the door open a crack, Ethan Bedd nearly falls inside, but catches himself with a hand on my shoulder. The contact shocks the breath from me. His hand is warm and strong and the nearness of him sends my tummy fizzing faster than a bite of fried food. "Ethan?"

He saunters in the door and kicks it closed behind him before stooping to remove his boots. I bend toward him, sniffing. "What is that smell? Are you okay?"

I forget that we've spent 14 years apart, that it's probably strange to move straight to direct personal questions with an adult man I've been away from far longer than we were together. I sniff again. "Is that alcohol?"

"Old Crow." Ethan breathes into his palm and sniffs, laughing. "Foul stuff. Not sure how Grandad could stand it." Free from his boots, Ethan makes his way over to the couch and sinks into it, thighs spread wide, taking up all the oxygen in the entire room. His cheeks are pink from the cold, and he seems to have walked over here in just a flannel shirt and jeans.

"You must be freezing." I look around for a blanket to offer him, but Asher doesn't keep things like that lying around. I'm guessing Asher doesn't lounge on the couch too often and I know he doesn't entertain visitors. "Hm."

Ethan clasps his hands together behind his head. "If this was before, I'd tell you to come warm me up."

I swallow, feeling like I have an entire crop of strawberries stuck in my throat. I perch at the edge of the armchair furthest from Ethan, looking around and wondering if I should offer to make him tea. "Are you here for my brother?"

Ethan's eyes widen, and I can tell he's just now remembered that Asher exists. Ethan shakes his head. "Nope." He pops the p. It's cute. Or it would be cute if Ethan was someone I was allowed to think of that way. I gave up that right when I cut off all communication and, from what I've heard, broke his damn heart irreparably. I lick my lips, waiting. One thing I do know is that Ethan takes his time before speaking, and if I'm patient he will tell me why he's here. The problem is that I'm scared his reason for being here will destroy me emotionally.

"I need to know, Lia. What happened to you? Why'd you give us up? And whose diamonds have you got around your wrist?" He drops his hands from behind his head, sagging further into the couch but never taking those blue eyes off of my face. I am held in place by that gaze, the depth of his feelings evident on every part of his body.

I close my eyes, hoping I can ignore the latter question and prepare to repeat the line I gave him years ago once I found the strength and concentration to make a phone call. "We are in different places, Ethan. I live in New York City, and you live on the farm."

When I open my eyes, he's leaned forward, scooting to the end of the couch closest to me. His breath whispers across my hands, twisting together in my lap. "I came looking for you, you know. To the city."

I suck in a gasp. "You came to the city?"

He waves a hand. "I asked at the college. They said you weren't a student there. It was like you disappeared off the earth. Asher wouldn't tell me a damn thing." He hiccups. "Stopped talking to me at all, actually. Lost a friend and my future."

Ethan speaks so matter of factly about the impact of our breakup, about his belief that we were destined for forever rather than just high school sweethearts. I'm trembling in response to the evidence of the pain I caused, and I start shaking my head, unsure what to say. I relax into the chair. "I've been so sorry about hurting you, Ethan. But I didn't know what else to do."

How do I tell him that the stomach cramps and pains were incapacitating? That I had to take a leave of absence from school because, despite what the doctors all told me, the "anxiety" became bloody, endless diarrhea. That I lost forty pounds in a matter of months, unable to keep anything in. How do I tell my ex-boyfriend that it took bleeding ulcers in my asshole for any medical professionals to take me seriously?

I stare at Ethan through my tears, remembering the months of pain and daily visits from a home health nurse who had to pack the open wound on my butt. I could barely tolerate staying alive, let alone focus on a boyfriend who already had his hands full with his family farm.

A puff of laughter escapes my throat at the idea of Ethan pulling bloody gauze from my backside every morning in between sowing rows of beans. I tuck my hair behind my ears and take a deep breath, uncertain if he will even remember any of this in the morning when the whiskey metabolizes. "I have Crohn's disease. It's an autoimmune disorder and basically, my body attacks my intestines." He frowns and presses his lips together. "For the first few years after I was diagnosed, it was all I could do to get myself to and from my treatments and focus on school."

A tear runs down my cheek and Ethan reaches for my face, but stops himself before he touches my skin. "You got sick, and you didn't tell me, Lia. How could you not trust me to take care of you?"

Ethan crosses his arms. "I would have waited for you, Lia. I would have helped you."

I throw my hands in the air. "When? During the harvest when you're in the fields 18 hours a day? In between tractor repairs? Ethan, you have commitments here and I absolutely could not leave the city where my specialists practice. Hell, a lot of the time I couldn't even leave my bed."

He shakes his head. "How the hell could you be so sick, and nobody here knew about it? Something like that doesn't just come on all of a sudden like a heart attack…you went to the doctors here. I took you …"

I nod my head. "I know you did, Ethan, and I know you were there when they all told me it was just nerves about leaving. And I was nervous about leaving you." A wave of pain shoots through my spine…not related to my illness, but the emotional heartache I still feel at the loss of what I thought was my forever. But people don't actually find their soulmate in high school. Ethan and I were always going to have an expiration date. "There are Crohn's specialists in New York. Doctors who study these specific conditions." And I'm in a relationship with one of them. I bite back that thought because it feels like the wrong time to mention it.

"Will they cure you?"

"No, Ethan. This is forever. It's part of me."

He sits back against the sofa, assessing me with those eyes of his. "You don't look sick to me." He licks his lips and doesn't add anything further, but I can feel the heat in his gaze.

I cross my arms over my chest. Now is not the time to explain invisible, chronic pain. "I've got a routine in place now. Medications. A list of foods that I can avoid to ward off most of the symptoms. Because of the medicine I take, I'm very susceptible to diseases. The common cold can send me to the hospital with pneumonia. And let's not get into how expensive it is to keep me alive."

I briefly remember Richard reminding me of that fact during one of our arguments about me leaving to come here. At the time I chalked it up to him not wanting to be without me for an indefinite length of time, but recently I've been ruminating on the implications of him emphasizing the difference in our incomes. Being home in Fork Lick has given me a lot of time to think about a lot of things.

Ethan's eyes bore into me. I watch his face as he takes in what I've told him and finally, after an eternity, he says, "I would have come to you. I would have left here and gone with you and been at your side."

I stand, my own eyes flaring with anger now. "How would that have worked, exactly? Would you have gone to college and sat inside at a desk every day? What would you do in a city for work? What would you do without your siblings nearby and without the ability to keep an eye on your grandparents? Tell me how that would have worked."

"I could have figured it out!" he yells. Ethan has never raises his voice, not with me, and the shock of it has me sinking back into my chair. His voice gets softer as he adds, "At least I would have fucking known what happened." Ethan tugs on his hair, leaving it standing up in wild tufts around his head. "It was like you died. Just like my fucking parents, Lia." His voice catches and I long to hold him, to comfort him. Ethan shakes his head, glassy eyes focused on mine. " My parents were here one minute and utterly gone the next. But it was worse with you because you wouldn't communicate with me and I knew you were out there somewhere, turning me away with no chance to make things right."

Now he flies to his feet, his chest heaving as he sucks in gulps of air and starts pacing the carpet. "You were my everything, Lia Thorne."

I stare up into Ethan's glare, silent. What is there to say? I was 18 and made a choice in the midst of a medical emergency. By the time my health was stable it had been more than a year since I'd communicated with him at all. I could tell him I hoped he'd move on by that point, but that's a lie. The truth is that if I never reached out, if I never asked about him or connected with him in any way, I'd never have to know if he moved on. I'd never have to see a photo of him getting married or holding the babies he always longed to father.

It was easier to shove him down as a memory of when life was simpler, and I was happier. It's not like I'm still unhappy. I have meaningful work and I'm with an amazing man who saves people's lives. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful to Richard, that he listened to me and got me on the path to better health.

These thoughts swirl in my head so loudly I don't hear my brother emerge from his office-cave. "What the hell is going on out here?"

Ethan whips his head toward Asher and frowns at him. He points an angry finger at my brother. "Fuck you for playing along with all this, Asher. You were my friend."

Ethan stomps toward the door and shoves his feet into his boots. He's out into the night before either Asher or I can say a word.