"Well, I'm glad we established that," I said, kicking off the blankets to quickly get out of bed. As I went to stand up and escape to the bathroom, a sharp, painful reminder of my sore foot shot up my leg. "Faaaaaaaark."
"What's wrong? You okay?" Elliot rushed to my side of the bed and knelt down on the ground before me. "Show me."
He tried to take my foot in his hand, but I stopped him. "Don't. It's fine. It's just sore."
He tried to reach for my foot again.
"I said don't."
"Danielle, don't do this."
"Do what?"
He pointed to me. "This."
"Me?" I slapped my hand to my chest. "Don't do me?"
Placing his palms on my knees, he spread them apart then crawled in between my legs, moving his hands to my arse and abruptly dragging me across the bed, my pelvis slamming into his abs. "If you think for one second that I'm gonna let you ruin the past twenty-four hours because of some misunderstanding over a girl back in high school, you've got another thing coming. Because, unlike your past boy 'friends', I don't give up easily. And where you're concerned, I won't give up at all."
My chest tightened, and I tried not to let out the sob that was desperate to tear its way through me. But it was pointless, because I was fairly certain that sob had been buried for seventeen years, and now was the time to set it free.
"But you did give up," I cried, letting it burst out of me.
"Yeah, I did, when I was a kid that didn't know any better. But I'm an adult now, and I know that giving up on you was the single biggest regret of my life." He placed his hands on my cheeks and wiped my tears with his thumbs, his touch soft, soothing. "I won't make that same mistake again. I promise."
Unable to stop the tears that were now drowning my face, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my head against his neck. "Please don't, Lots. And please don't let me make that same mistake either."
During the car ride to my house to drop Dudley off before we headed to the garden, I had time to think about how such an inconsequential event could be misunderstood and therefore cause a ripple effect that would last half a lifetime, perhaps even longer had it not been for a series of fortunate events. But then … that was how life worked sometimes, how it challenged us. There were paved paths and roads with flashing, neon lights; options set out before us that seemed the best choice to make. They were easy, unmarred, often convincingly safe, but not necessarily the direction we were meant to take. Because if we looked harder, made more effort, and ignored the seemingly obvious, sometimes, just sometimes, the correct path was the one hidden beneath the security blanket often laid.
"Let me get this straight again," Elliot said, as we pulled up to the community garden. "You thought I was dating Maureen?"
"Yes," I drawled while undoing my seatbelt.
"And that's why you started plucking your eyebrows and hanging out with Kim Blaze and Lisa Clements-Baker?"
"Yesssss."
"And why you lost your virginity to Joe Webb?"
I snapped my head in his direction. "WHAT? How do you know that?"
"I had my methods for discovery, even as a teenager."
Glaring, I let out an embarrassed laugh, face-palmed, and groaned into my hands. "It was the worst thing ever. He was horrible. And keen. Super keen. Then again, the fact that he seemed to be trying to win a race was probably a good thing."
Elliot laughed, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes as he took my hand in his. "All I ever wanted was to be your firsts."
"You were, Lots. Many of them."
"Yeah, just not the right ones."
I squeezed his hand and went to ask him to elaborate but was interrupted by a rapping of knuckles on the car window beside me.
"You two lovebirds gonna leave the mobile nest, or am I gonna have to enter it?" Mum asked. "We've got a lot to do today, so get out of the car."
Opening the door for me, she stood back and held it ajar as I swivelled in my seat. "Sorry to say, Mum, but I'll be on light duties today." I pointed to my bandaged foot.
"Oh, dear, what did you do?"
"I slipped in the bathroom and sprained my ankle."
"Can you walk?"
"Kinda."
"Don't worry, Jeanette," Elliot said, as he stepped up to my door and once again took my hands in his. "I'll be carrying her to wherever she needs to go today."
"You will not," I stated with absolute certainty.