Chapter 6
I followed his line of sight. He was looking at me.
The waiting hall was still crowded. Travelers moved nonstop with their luggage. Ethan stood there in the middle of it all, snow on his shoulders, staring at me.
I looked exactly the same as before. Leaning against the wall. Eyes closed. Quiet. So quiet I looked
unreal.
Suddenly Ethan didn’t seem in a hurry anymore. His steps slowed. He made almost no sound. Like he didn’t want to wake me up.
He stopped in front of me and looked down for a few seconds. Then he tapped my forehead with one finger.
“Ellie. You got what you wanted. You can stop pretending to sleep now.”
I didn’t move.
He actually laughed. In the old familiar way he used to punish me, he pinched my cheek. “If you don’t get up right now, I’m leaving. Don’t cry later.”
Then he shoved my shoulder.
My body tipped forward all at once. Soft. Boneless. It fell straight into his arms.
“Ellie!”
He caught me and snapped, “Get up. Stop messing around.”
Then something in him changed. Maybe it was the weight. Maybe the cold. Maybe the terrible stillness. For the first time, Ethan really looked at my face.
His fingers trembled as he touched my purplish lips. Then he lifted my hand and looked at my nails. Purple too.
“Ellie?”
He said my name again, but the anger was fading fast.
Little One jumped off her chair and asked, “What’s wrong with Miss Pretty? Is she refusing to get up?”
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Ethan picked me up and started moving fast. “She’s sick.”
The car was warm, but my body wasn’t. No matter how tightly Ethan held me, he couldn’t get any warmth back into me.
He called the hospital and said the patient was unconscious, severely hypoxic, cyanotic, and that doctors needed to be waiting outside.
The driver was already going as fast as he could. Ethan still kept pushing him.
His breathing had gone uneven, too fast to sound calm anymore.
The car tore through snow and traffic, braking hard sometimes and making my body jolt in his arms. Ethan held me so tightly it almost looked desperate.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t be scared. We’re almost there.”
My cold forehead rested against his neck. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not even him.
It’s too late, Ethan. There’s no saving me now.
I turned my head and watched snow slam against the window and break apart.
And suddenly I remembered another storm. Another time I’d gone after him.
He was in London for work and couldn’t make it home for New Year’s. So I took a red-eye flight just
to see him.
On the way down to Heathrow, the plane got caught in a snowstorm and lost contact for almost half
an hour.
When we landed, Ethan caught me in the arrivals hall. His hair was a mess. His eyes were red. He grabbed my wrist hard and shouted, “Who said you could come here without telling me?”
Then louder. Angrier.
“Why can’t you just stay home? What if the plane crashed? What if you died?”
I looked up at him and said softly, “Because I didn’t want you to be alone.” Then I apologized.
And after looking at me for a few seconds, he stopped yelling. Like everyone else in that arrivals
hall, he pulled the person he’d been terrified for into his arms.
He held me so tightly that I couldn’t tell if he’d forgiven me,
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But I liked it. Even when it hurt, I wanted him to hold me longer. Even if he never forgave me,
felt like love. Like I mattered. Like I was treasured.
it still
And that was what gave me hope. Too much hope. Enough hope to make me reach for more than I
ever should have.
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