The Plight Before Christmas(94)

His voice is faint. “Of course, I do.”

He turns back, and his eyes find mine in the mirror.

“Oh my God,” I say. “Oh, my God,” I repeat, in disbelief as he keeps his gaze locked with mine, the truth so fucking evident, so plain to see. Eli had made zero plans for a future with me.

“You knew. You knew the whole time there were never any plans to make with me, didn’t you?”

“Whitney, I’m not capable of—”

“Fuck you!” I scream as tears of defeat gather in my eyes. “Tell me why,” I demand. “Just tell me why.”

Tears multiply down my cheeks, and his eyes follow their tracks before he drops his gaze altogether.

“Don’t! Don’t you dare. I deserve to know. Say something, say something you bastard! Say something! Just tell me why I’m not enough for you. Why wasn’t I enough? Tell me why you did this to me!”

Silence.

“Eli!”

When he lifts his eyes to mine, I feel the complete break between us.

“I’m sorry, Whitney. I just don’t think I can be the man you need me to be.”

“Jesus, I can’t believe this.” Gathering my purse from the counter, I fight the urge to slap him as my entire being shakes with betrayal. He’s so calm, too calm, and that’s what hurts the most. I couldn’t mean anything to him if he’s this unaffected. But it’s just not possible. Bleeding freely, I take one last look at him. “When you regret this—and you will—stay the fuck away from me.”

Gathering everything that belongs to me, I shove it in my purse as I try to breathe through it. Arms full, and knowing I won’t be making another trip back, I pause just outside the bathroom door trying to will myself to walk away—taking a breath and then two. Losing the battle, I glance back into the bathroom to see his face twisted in anguish as he steps into the shower before turning to face the stream. I hate him too much to try to decipher anything he might be feeling. Irony wraps around me that I’m leaving him where I found him eight months ago. He’s just brutally ripped my heart out and, not only that, made it clear he’d been planning to at some point. But for how long? It seems like I only sped up the inevitable by taking a pregnancy test.

I thought we were happy.

Did he fake every part of our relationship? Why did he stay with me so long and play into the illusion? A one-and-done would have been so much better because then I wouldn’t have memorized him so completely—his smell, his moods, his quirks, his preferences, every small detail that makes him Eli. Did I build him up? Was he ever that man?

He purposely deceived me. He allowed me to fall, only to step back and watch me shatter right in front of him. He allowed it all—fueled the farce—while I allowed him to brand his name across my heart.

But did he brand it? Or did I?

How could I have been so wrong?

How could I have given him so much of me without ample reason to?

With every step I take, I will my heart to beat differently—to heal differently. I demand that it piece itself back stronger. I will it to mend reinforced—like a scar—even if it becomes unrecognizable to me. I will it to mend together more selective, more attuned to my mind that warned me away from him. I will it to become far more resilient so that the weak version would have no inkling just how debilitating the pain would be.

Two weeks after I left Eli in the shower, he graduated from UNC and left Chapel Hill. He never contacted me. Not a call, not a text. Nothing. That was the most brutal blow—his utter and complete disappearance from my life.

In turn, I fled home and spent the summer willing my heart to grow back stronger.

For seventeen years, I convinced myself that it worked. Eli’s reappearance has completely destroyed that illusion for me. Inside dwells the same heart of the same girl he shattered, no matter how many fine lines she’s acquired or how much life she’s lived. No matter how many experiences she’s collected or how wise she thinks she’s become.

There is no separation from who I am now to twenty-year-old Whitney. Our heart beats exactly the same way, where Eli’s brand remains.

“I sowy,” Peyton says, climbing into my lap and placing a tiny hand on the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Ti Whit, I sowy, I not dowit gain,” Peyton says as I hold him tightly to me.

“No, baby, I’m not sad,” I sniff.

“No sad?”

“No way, Jose.”

“Way Jose,” Peyton repeats, his eyes filled with worry for the pain he believes he’s inflicted on me. My beautiful little man. It’s surreal just how much children are attuned to emotions that adults pretend to be oblivious of. They’re the ones who deserve the title of hero, living bravely, taking chances, leaping before looking, letting their emotions through—the definition of living out loud. As for adults, the more we grow, the more we seem to hide ourselves, our emotions—and it’s considered an act of maturity. Seems to me it’s more of an act of cowardice. The truly brave are those who can love and live with the fearless heart of a child.

It’s then I decide my nephew is right and fully take his advice. Whatever happened back then truly is in the past, and in Eli’s case, my past with him hurt. It hurt so much. But the present?

I’m growing quite fond of the Eli Welch of the present.