Page 62 of The Lover
I fell to my knees in front of her and rested my head on the womb that used to carry our child. I had never felt a sense of loss so strongly as I had when I realized she’d lost the baby.
Until ten minutes ago, when she said she was leaving me. So I did the thing I thought I would never be able to do again.
“I love you, Ellie. Please don’t go.”
Then I couldn’t control it. I did something I had never done in my life. I cried. I cried for the boy who lost his mother. I cried for my father and her father. I cried for the baby. But most of all I cried because the idea of losing Ellie, the best part of my life, was so damn scary there was nothing else I could do.
She soothed and rubbed my head. Told me to hush, and that everything was going to be okay.
Did she mean that? I pulled away and looked up at her but she was getting on her knees too. She took my face between her hands, looked me dead in the eye, and said the thing that I had so badly wanted my mom to say all those years ago.
“Okay, Jake. I’ll stay.”
“I love you.” It was easier the second time.
“I know that now.”
“I love you,” I sighed. It felt like some huge weight had been lifted off my chest. “I have. For years. I didn’t realize until now… why I couldn’t tell you. All this time I thought I was protecting you, making you sure you had choices…I was really just protecting that eleven-year-old boy. Ellie Samson, I love you.”
She smiled, and swear to God it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.
“See, was that so hard to say?”
She laughed and I laughed too. Then we kissed. Not a romantic kiss, but a hard one. One that felt like we had sealed some kind of deal.
Seventeen
Ellie
April 22
Istareddown at the ring on my finger and wondered if I was going to pass out. I was sitting in a small vestibule, trying to keep my arms away from my body so I wasn’t all pitted out in my white dress, while Chrissy constantly checked her hair in the small mirror on the wall.
You’re probably wondering how it all went down at this point?
After Jake told me he loved me, we’d both decided we didn’t want a rushed wedding. He’d said he wanted it done right, so that everyone would know we were doing this because we were in love and for no other reason.
That meant a church, a white dress, not just a few friends, but all of our friends (which was basically the town of Riverbend) and a big party afterward.
Together we’d mourned the loss of our baby. I had told him everything I felt, why I’d felt it. Some of it had hurt him, but it was the only way I knew how to really heal. To forgive myself for the feelings I had when I first learned I was pregnant. Then I had gone on the pill, because we both knew we weren’t ready for children yet and it turned out Jake loved sex without condoms. (Like really loved it.)
For Christmas, he’d given me an engagement ring. Something totally useless, as a rancher and jewelry didn’t often go together, but still I loved it.
The ranch was once again at full capacity. Thriving really. Enough so that we could offer Rich a full time position and still have work for Gomez and Javier whenever they showed up.
I told them both about the wedding when they came in February. I think they had a hard time understanding that we weren’t already married. But they had left at the beginning of April, so that was two less guests.
Still, the church was packed. I knew this because between checking her hair in the mirror Chrissy would walk over to the door of the vestibule and crack it open and tell me it was packed.
We picked my birthday, even though it was a Wednesday in April. We picked my birthday because I wanted the best present Jake could ever give me. Himself. Obviously the town didn’t seem to mind.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said.
It was Howard. “Ellie, you ready?”
Howard was going to give me away. I thought back to that first wedding, when Howard had come to get me then. How different everything had been. It felt like a hundred years ago.
