“No, you’re not.” I moved around the bed. “You’re back there.” I tried to swallow past the lump forming in my throat, but the longer I witnessed the pain etched into her features, the bigger it became. “Don’t let him drag you back there. Be here. Be with me.” I held my hand out and halted a few feet away from her. “Let me help you, Elodie. Let me be there for you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she choked out, shaking her head. “You’ll walk away from me.” She blew out a breath and looked down at the floor. “Everyone always walks away from me.”
“Not true.” I took another step toward her. “I haven’t walked away from you yet, and I have no intention of doing so.” My stomach churned as I waited for her to look up at me, waited for her to really hear what I was saying. “Sweetheart, please look at me.”
“I can’t,” she choked out. “I…I don’t want you to see me.”
“Too late.” My lips quirked on one side. “I see you, Elodie. I see all of you. The good, the bad, the crazy, the happy, the sad.” I paused, waiting for her, then finally she lifted her head. “I see you, and I’m still standing here, waiting for you to take my hand and let me be the one person you want to lean on.”
She flicked her gaze to my hand, and I watched as her chest moved up and down. “But what if you change your mind? What if you—”
“What-ifs are just that: ifs. No one knows what the future will hold, sweetheart, but what I know is that I want to be by your side. I want to be the one who holds your hand when we’re watching a movie. I want to be the one who holds you while you sleep. I want to be the one who wipes your tears away as you cry.” I stepped forward. “I want all of that, Elodie.” I paused and stared into her eyes. “But what do you want?”
Her gaze flickered over my face and finally settled on my eyes. “You,” she whispered. “I want you, Asher.”
“Then take my hand.” She lifted her arm, her shaking fingers reaching for me. “Take my hand and I’ll never let go.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Her fingers met mine, and I grasped them, tighter than was needed, but I had to make her understand I meant every word of what I’d said. I needed her to get that they weren’t just words. They were what I would live by for as long as she would have me. She stood there, staring at me, letting me see into the windows of her soul, and I felt the pain, felt the sorrow, felt everything she let me. And I knew then what we had to do.
“We need to leave,” I blurted out.
Her eyes widened. “Leave?”
“Yeah.” I stepped closer to her and wrapped my arms around her waist. “Just for a little while. My dad has a lake house. It’s a couple of hours from here, but it’ll give you the chance to heal. It’ll let us just…be together.”
“But I have school and—”
“We’ll figure it out.” I placed my forehead against hers. “Right now, you need to heal, physically and mentally, and the lake house is the perfect place for that.”
“But what about the tattoo shop? What about…” Her fingers bit into my biceps, and I knew what she was remembering that night.
“The guys can cover.” I rocked us back and forth. “I’ll head over there and pack up some of your stuff today, and then we can get out of here.”
I didn’t know what I expected her to say. I wasn’t sure how she was going to react to my idea. It had come out of nowhere, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was what we both needed. We had to get away from here, even if it was only for a few weeks. We needed to heal. We needed to be together. We needed to start over somewhere where the memories wouldn’t haunt us.
“Okay,” she whispered, and my body jerked from her voice.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” She tilted her head back and looked up at me. “Maybe getting away from here will help?” She sighed, and I wondered if she truly believed what she was saying. “I need to…” She moved her gaze off of me and stared over my shoulder. “I need to shower first.”
“Do you…do you want me…” I grasped the back of my neck as nerves flowed through me. I’d been so confident in what I was saying, but now I wasn’t sure what she needed. I wasn’t sure whether she’d ask for help when she needed it, or whether she’d try to push through. “I…do you need help?”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and I could see the anxiety swirling in her eyes. I hadn’t thought twice about touching her since I walked into this room, but now I was wondering if I should have asked her. Should I have checked it was okay? Should I have—
“I can do it,” she said, and her voice sounded more sure than I’d heard it since I’d walked into the room last night. She was determined, that much was clear. I was here whenever she needed me, but she was independent. It was what drew me to her even more. But she didn’t have to do it alone. She could lean on me. I’d already told her as much.
“I can help if you need me to.”
“I’ll be fine.” She stood on her tiptoes, placed a kiss on my cheek, and reverted back to the Elodie I’d first met. The one with fire in her eyes. The one with a determination like no one else I’d ever met. “You go and get everything else sorted out. The quicker you do that, the sooner we can leave."
I nodded, not looking away from her. I wasn’t sure whether we were running away from our problems, or trying to heal, but either way, we’d be together, and right then, that was all that mattered.
“I’ll go sort everything out and be back in a couple of hours.” I flicked my gaze down to her lips, wanting to place a kiss there, but it was too soon. For her and for me. We needed to take things slow, no matter how much I craved to wash away all the memories with my touch. Once we were away from here, we could start over, even if it was only for a fixed amount of time. “I’ll let my mom know.”
“Okay.”