Chapter 55
Emily's POV
That made me look up. Ethan's eyes were still red but there was something vulnerable in them now, something that looked almost like the fear I'd been carrying around in my chest for weeks.
"I'm scared you're going to leave me," he continued, his grip tightening slightly on my hand. "I feel like we're getting farther and farther apart and I know it's not just in my head. I can feel it happening and I don't know how to stop it."
I swallowed hard. "You shouldn't be scared. There are plenty of good girls who like you. I've never asked but I know. You're exactly the type that girls fall for. Even if... even if we broke up, you wouldn't be short on girlfriends."
His expression shifted, something sharp flashing in his eyes. "Is that how you see this? Us? Like it's just casual dating and sex, nothing serious, something that's easily replaceable?"
My voice came out small, defensive. "I didn't mean it like that."
His eyes stayed locked on mine, serious in a way that made my stomach clench. "If I haven't made it clear enough how serious I am about this, about you, then let me say it now. I want you. Only you. Is that clear enough? Specific enough?"
It should have made me feel loved. Safe. Happy. Instead, all I felt was pressure crushing down on my chest, heavy and suffocating. Like I'd just been handed responsibility for someone else's life, for their choices, for their future. The thought that someone's path could change because of me—that terrified me more than anything. What if one day he looked back and resented me for it? What if he thought, if it weren't for her, I could have had something better?
But this was Ethan. Good, kind Ethan who'd shown up outside my building with red eyes because I'd ignored him for days. Ethan who deserved more than my fear and my constant calculations about exit strategies. Even if it felt like pressure, even if the weight of it scared me, shouldn't I at least try? He was worth that much, wasn't he?
I forced myself to ask the question I'd been avoiding. "What do you want me to do? Specifically. Practically."
He was silent for several seconds, his thumb tracing small circles on the back of my hand, and when he finally spoke his voice was barely above a whisper. "Promise me we'll never break up."
My heart sank. "Ethan—"
"I know." He cut me off gently. "I know you can't promise that. I know your parents probably loved each other when they got married too, and things don't always work out the way we want them to. But I need something, Em. I need to know you're not already planning your exit strategy, that you're not just waiting for the right moment to tell me this was a nice experiment but you've got bigger things to focus on now."
I looked at him—really looked at him—and saw everything I'd been too self-absorbed to notice over the past few weeks. The exhaustion. The hurt. The desperate hope that I'd say something, anything, that would make him feel like he mattered to me as much as he clearly felt I mattered to him.
And maybe I couldn't give him forever. Maybe I couldn't promise that we'd never fight or drift apart or wake up one day and realize we'd grown into people who didn't fit anymore. But I could give him this.
"I can't promise we'll never break up," I said carefully, watching his face. "I can't promise that nothing will ever go wrong or that we'll always feel the way we do right now. But I can promise you this: as long as you don't give up on us, I won't either. If you don't walk away, I won't walk away. That's the best I can do."
He studied my face for a long moment, his expression unreadable, and I held my breath waiting for him to tell me it wasn't enough, that he needed more certainty than I could offer, that he was done waiting for me to figure out how to love someone without self-destructing in the process.
I was waiting for him to end it. Maybe I was scared, but I was genuinely waiting for those words. Was this what I'd wanted all along? Had I always known, somewhere deep down, that Ethan was too good for me? Had I been afraid from the start that he'd leave, and was that fear the real reason I couldn't love him completely?
But then he pulled me into his arms and buried his face in my hair. "That's enough," he murmured. "That's enough."
The tears came immediately, hot and fast down my cheeks. I didn't know what I'd done to deserve this—this pure, relentless kind of love that kept bending, kept forgiving, kept making space for me even when I didn't know how to make space for him. I wrapped my arms around him tight, felt the solid warmth of his body, the steady weight of his embrace that always made me feel safer than I probably deserved to feel.
But even as I held him, even as I let myself sink into the comfort of being held, there was a small voice in the back of my mind that wouldn't shut up. It whispered doubts, questioned everything, asked what would happen when summer vacation started and I walked into The Echelon House and became someone he wouldn't recognize anymore.
I pushed those thoughts away and held onto him like he was holding onto me, and told myself that maybe, just maybe, this time I could be the person who stayed.