On Dublin Street(86)

“He talked you into being there for Ellie, and you have been. I’d say he helped.”


Stubborn determination gripped me. “I’m not telling him the truth. What I’m doing is best for him.”


“What I’m trying to say, Joss, is perhaps you should stop being a martyr. Perhaps what Braden thinks is best for him is having you in his life. And perhaps he’s willing to work through your anxiety and deal with your mile-high defenses.”


“Maybe you’re right.” I nodded, my eyes blazed as I tried to lock out the hurtful thought of Braden and me with a future together. “Maybe I am a martyr. And maybe he would. But he deserves better than that struggle. He deserves to be content in his relationship, the way my father was with my mother. And if their love has shown me anything, it’s that Braden’s right. Life is too damn short.”


***


Once the rain starts falling it’s hard to tell it to stop. I guess it stops in its own time. My tears, like the rain, kept falling as I made my way home through blurry vision. In truth it’s difficult to describe a broken heart. All I know is that unimaginable pain centers in your chest and radiates out, this throbbing, sharp ache that causes almost incapacitation. But there’s more than the ache. Denial lodges itself in your throat, and that lump is its own kind of pain. The affliction of heartbreak can also be found in a knot in your stomach. The knot contracts and expands, contracts and expands, until you’re pretty sure you’re not going to be able to hold down the vomit.


I somehow managed to hold onto at least that much of my dignity.


As soon as I got back to the apartment, through the pain of throwing away Braden came the fear. I stared down the hall at Ellie’s bedroom door, and I had to stop myself from going back on my promise not to run from her.


So I did the opposite.


I kicked off my boots, shrugged out of my coat and crept silently into her darkened room. In the moonlight shining through her window, I saw Ellie curled up in a protective ball on her side. I made a move towards her and the floor creaked under my foot, and Ellie’s eyes flew open immediately.


She gazed up at me, wide-eyed but wary.


That hurt.


I started to cry harder and at the sight of my tears, a tear slid down Ellie’s cheek. Without a word, I crawled onto her bed and right up beside her as she turned onto her back. We lay side by side, my head on her shoulder, and I grabbed her hand and held it in both of mine.


“I’m sorry,” I whispered


“It’s okay,” Ellie’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “You came back.”


And because life was too short… “I love you, Ellie Carmichael. You’re going to get through this.”


I heard her breath hitch on a sob. “I love you too, Joss.”


~22~


That’s how Braden found us the next day—lying with our heads tucked into one another, holding hands, sleeping with dirty, tear-stained cheeks like two little girls.


He didn’t wake me. In fact he didn’t even look at me.


I woke up because he was shaking Ellie awake.


“What time is it?” I heard her ask sleepily.


“It’s past noon. I’ve made you some lunch.” The sound of his voice might as well have been a fist punching through my chest. My eyes opened with difficulty, crusty from the salt of my dried tears, and swollen from the worst crying jag I’d had since losing Dru. Braden was bending over Ellie, brushing her hair back, his eyes bright with love. They were also still bloodshot and he had dark circles underneath them.


He looked like hell.


I would still bet I looked worse.


“I’m not hungry,” Ellie whispered.


Braden shook his head, his expression all no-nonsense. “You need to eat. Come on, sweetheart, time to get up.”


I watched as Ellie took his large hand and he pulled her gently up off the bed and onto her feet. Still holding onto her, he led her out, her linen pants wrinkled to the max, her shirt twisted around her body, and her hair a wild mess. She looked like someone whose life had just been upended. I hurt so badly for her. I couldn’t even look at Braden, because the pain I felt for him was indescribable.


“Joss, you coming?” Ellie looked back over her shoulder at me.


And for her, I nodded. Even though I didn’t want to be anywhere near Braden.


You know what was worse? He couldn’t even be outright petty about the breakup. Sure, he couldn’t look at me and wouldn’t talk to me, but… he’d made my damn lunch too.


Ellie and I sat at the kitchen table eating the tasty scrambled eggs and toast while Braden stood leaning against the counter sipping coffee. Ellie didn’t notice the quiet between us at first because she was stuck inside her own head, and silence at this point didn’t seem unusual.


I’ll tell you how unselfish that girl is: with everything she was going through she noticed what was going on with her brother and me. And a lot sooner than I’d expected her to. It was our fault—we weren’t exactly subtle about it. I got up to put my plate and mug in the sink and Braden moved to the other side of the room. I then moved to the other side of the room to get some orange juice out of the fridge and Braden moved back to the sink. I moved near the sink to get a glass out of the cupboard and Braden moved back to the fridge. I moved to the fridge to put the juice back and he moved back to the sink.