Page 116 of A Vine Mess
“I’m sorry, you guys,” I told them. “I have to go find Ella.”
“Sure thing,” Gramps said. “Go get your girl. I’m going to tell your mom all the ways to milk your father for all he’s worth in the divorce.”
I shook my head, that smile threatening again, and raced from the room.
Please be here, please be here,I silently chanted the entire way up to our floor. With shaking hands, I inserted the key in the door and pushed it open.
“I gotta go,” Ella said into her phone, then ended the call.
I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. Of the sweats. Of the makeup smeared across her face. Of the complete lack of clothes and shoes strewn about the room like they had been when we left for the wedding.
Then I noticed her bags on the bed.
Fully packed.
She was leaving.
But why?
“Wildflower,” I breathed. “What the fuck is going on?”
I chanced a step toward her, but she held up her hands.
“Don’t come any closer. And don’t call me that. That was a nickname from a man who loved me, and you very obviouslydon’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you, Liam,” she said. Her voice was flat. Entirely void of emotion. “I saw you with Mellie.”
Fuck. Fucking fuck.
“Ella, please. You have to let me explain.”
“No!” she shouted, face coming alive with anger in an instant. “Isawyou. There’s no talking your way out of this. No feedingme some lie to get out of it.”
“Goddamnit woman,” I said, rushing her and gripping her arms before she could dart away from me. “Did it ever occur to you thatshekissedme? And that I pushed her away immediately after? And that, after she insulted you, I told her you were the love of my life, a thousand times the woman she could ever hope to be, and to stay the fuck away from me?”
Ella stilled, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere in the middle of my chest. I had to admit, she was making a valiant effort not to look at me. Probably because she knew the second she did, she’d see the truth in my eyes.
Misunderstandings were embarrassing for the person who got it all wrong, but I understood why she’d reacted the way she did.
“Baby,” I sighed. “All the things we’ve said, all the moments we’ve shared…thelovewe’ve made—it was all real. I promised you I’m not like him, and I meant it. I would never do anything to jeopardize what we have.”
“You still let her kiss you.”
“I pushed her away immediately, which you would’ve seen had you stuck around.”
Ella’s shoulders relaxed, and at last, she looked at me.
The pain shining in her eyes fucking gutted me, and I hated that, inadvertently, I was the reason for it.
“I can’t do it again, Liam.”
“I know, baby.I know. I’ve been there too, remember?”
“It’s really over between you two?” she asked. “This weekend didn’t drag up any old feelings?”
“No,” I promised. “It’s been over for years. Since before you and I ever met. And then I laid eyes on this stunning, tattooed,purple-haired beauty, and I knew there’d never be anyone else. There is only you, Wildflower. There will ever only be you.”
