That Thing Between Eli and Gwen(84)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Six Little Words





Eli


I was sitting on the porch when a beer materialized right beside my face.

“Thank you,” I said to Masoa.

He sat down beside me, not saying a word.

It was our last night there before heading back. They had prepared a dinner by the lake, and I had even managed to get the campfire going. Just like on the first night, the sky was coated with stars.

Guinevere played with Taigi, chasing him around the campfire. She had spent the day showing me all of Cypress. It had about one of everything: one movie theater, one grocery store, one mall, and in each one, I noticed how they all welcomed her back, either with a hug, a kiss, or free things. Each of them also thanked her for the money she had loaned them; she had even helped fund a new arts center for the high school.

“You do know I still don’t like you, right?” he said to me, opening his can and drawing my attention.

“Yes. Maybe when we come again next time, I’ll convince you more,” I replied, taking a drink.

“Never going to happen,” he muttered.

It took me some time, but I finally just asked him, “Do you mind if I ask you some things?”

“Are they about my daughter?”

“Yes. And you, too.”

“Only if you answer mine.”

Risky. “All right.”

“Ask, then.” He waited.

“How do you know when you’ve fallen in love with someone?”

He was silent for a long time.

“Sorry, I’m not sure who else to ask. My mother, as amazing as she is, doesn’t always help.”

“Weren’t you about to get married?’ he asked me.

I sat straighter, my arms on my knees. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I should have been. I set a goal to be married, and I chose a person who I thought best fit what I needed. I never asked myself if I loved her. I thought: this is great, she is what I was looking for. I hurt her and she hurt me in return.” I had cared about Hannah. I couldn’t lie about that, nor should I have had to, but that was different; I felt different with Guinevere.

“I believe when you start thinking like that, you’ve already fallen,” he muttered.

“How did you know with her mother? Gwen said you ran off together to get married when you were only eighteen.” And after all those years, they still held hands while they went on walks.

He snickered, sitting tall and looking at her mother where she was staring into a telescope. “It first hit me when I realized I didn’t want her to go home. I wanted my home to be her home. Then I started to think about my life in ten or twenty years, and no matter what, she was there. Once I asked myself those questions, it was clear to me.”

I thought back to Guinevere’s first night with me. I’d said I didn’t want her to be just some one-time screw and asked her to stay with me. That wasn’t the reason…I may not have thought her home was mine, but I never once stopped her when she brought her toothbrush, hair dryer, and flat iron into my bathroom. I thought about how I couldn’t sleep on her side of my bed, even if she wasn’t there…because now it was her side.

“Do you want to know where I see myself in ten years?” I whispered to him when she moved to her mother, staring up at the sky.

“No, but I’m sure you're going to tell me anyway.”

I turned to look at him. “I see myself still trying to get you to like me.”

“It’s going to take more than ten years.” He frowned, drinking again. “Eli.”

He finally said my name. However, he didn’t look pleased.

“She’s my baby girl. I would go to hell and back for her, and I can’t bear for her to be hurt again.”

“I won’t hurt her.”

“That’s the thing. We don’t try to hurt the people we care about, we just do. Do you know she didn’t tell us how her engagement ended? She just called to say the wedding was off. We had to press Stevie to learn the truth. And again, I felt like I had failed my child. I told her not to go to New York, I begged her not to go, told her the city would chew her up and spit her out. I told her she could be an artist here, and teach at the high school. We had a huge fight about it. The next morning, she and Stevie were in her car, and she didn’t talk to me again until after she felt like she could tell me she’d made it. She wrote letters, made sure to call us while we were at work, or when she thought we were busy. If we answered, our phone calls lasted five minutes, if that. All because she didn’t want me to think I was right, that she couldn’t cut it. So I have no idea what she went through her first year. She wouldn’t take money or anything. But the day she was mentioned in the paper as an upcoming artist, she called me and talked for hours.”