ELLIE
He didn’t leave. Damn it. Why was he following me?
“Don’t make me call hotel security,” I said as I unlocked the door to my room.
“I told you, I’m not going anywhere. Especially not now.”
“I just want to be alone. Please, just go.”
“No. Not this time.”
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I felt drained, out of strength to argue. My head was so full. But I knew he wouldn’t leave without me hearing him out.
“What do you want, Ethan? Why are you here?”
“We need to talk.”
The weight on my shoulders made them slump.
“No. We don’t. This is already over. You left. And I… my only mistake was going after you. I see that now. So please, don’t make this any harder. I already have enough to deal with right now,” I said, still staring at the door.
I felt him step closer, stopping behind me.
“Let’s talk inside.”
Being near him was the last thing I wanted right now. I felt devastated and furious at the same time.
An enormous emptiness was growing in my stomach. But I had no strength left to fight.
Opening the door, I went inside, leaving it open behind me. I heard him come in and close it as I threw my bag into a corner and kicked off my shoes.
“I don’t know why you’re dragging this out,” I said, avoiding his eyes.
“I never should have left without talking to you.”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses. They mean nothing to me.”
“I know you’re angry, but I need you to understand…”
“Understand what? What do you want me to understand? That you chose your job? That you left without a single word, as if I meant nothing to you? That you were with her a week after abandoning me?”
“No, don’t even think that anything happened between us.”
“You left… you left me without any explanation… and then she was there. How do you think that made me feel?”
“I just thought that if I listened to what she had to say…”
“It doesn’t matter what happened. You betrayed me in the worst way possible, and that’s exactly why I don’t understand why you’re here.” I wiped the tears that were about to spill over.
“I didn’t betray you. I was just confused, and I know I was wrong to leave without talking to you. I was a coward, but you left me with no choice.”
“Yeah, maybe all of this is my fault after all. For insisting and believing this was real.”
“No. Don’t do that…”
“No. Everything is perfectly clear to me now; I just don’t understand why you’re here.”
“Because I love you.”
“No, you don’t. You left.”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“And what do you think you did?”
Our eyes met.
“That’s the problem. It always has been. No matter how much I want to, I can never give you what you want. I’ll never be enough for you.”
“What? What are you talking about? You promised you’d try, and that’s what we were doing... We were making it work. So what the hell does this mean? Todd… the job… was it all just an excuse?”
Was he running away? Is that what this was? Did he use it all as a pretext?
“No, I didn’t plan any of this.”
“I don’t understand… Did you come all the way here just to tell me you can’t do this? Is that it?”
I couldn’t believe it. He was giving up once again.
“Is that it? Did you come here just to tell me once again that you’re going to leave me?”
“No. I came to beg you to forgive me for leaving without telling you how much I love you.” He stepped closer, his hands reaching for my face. “And as much as I can’t do this, I don’t want you to have any doubt about how I feel. I love you, Ellie.”
How did he expect me to believe that while saying he couldn’t be with me?
“I don’t need someone who loves me only with words,” I said, pushing his hands away and stepping out from the space between him and the wall.
As I walked away, my phone started ringing in my bag.
It was my mom.
“Mom?”
“Ellie?” she hesitated. “I’m so sorry, honey… She…”
She didn’t have to finish for me to understand what had happened, as a knot formed in my throat.
*She was gone.*
My body trembled, and I reached out to steady myself against the wall.
I shouldn’t have left. I should have been there with her.
“Ellie?” Ethan called to me.
Setting my phone aside, I walked toward the bathroom.
I closed the door behind me, feeling numb, as if I were outside my own body. And then the pain came, blending with the sense of exhaustion.
It felt as if all the energy had been drained from me. I couldn’t even cry anymore; I could only feel the emptiness in my stomach, making me want to throw up.
I was tired. Just tired. I just wanted it all to stop.