I open the journal as I sink down onto the bed. “For all of you who think you know me, you don’t,” I read aloud, running my fingers along the faded script. That’s just the first page, and even reading it again puts goose bumps on my arms. It’s as far as I’ve read and it seems like far enough, yet it doesn’t. I’ve always wanted to get to know my mom better, the mom who didn’t lie, didn’t have panic attacks, the one who smiled, laughed, told jokes. Did she lie in these pages? Should I care so much? What’s done is done. She’s gone, and reading her journal isn’t going to bring her back. Yet I do care.
“Ella.” The sound of Micha’s voice startles the living daylights out of me and I jump, slamming the journal shut.
He’s standing in the doorway, completely naked just like he warned me he would be. Lean muscles carve his stomach and cursive letters tattoo the side of his rib cage in black ink, the first lyrics he ever wrote, which he swears he wrote for me: I’ll always be with you, inside and out. Through hard times and helpless ones, through love, through doubt.
Setting the notebook down on my lap, I cover my mouth. “Oh my God. You’re naked.”
“Don’t ‘oh my God you’re naked’ me.” He enters the room and his muscles ripple with his movements, causing heat to pool inside my stomach.
“What if Lila and Ethan saw you?” I ask, lowering my hand to my lap.
“Then they saw me,” he replies, his eyes fastened on me as he shuts the door. “I told you I’d come in here naked and get you if you weren’t in there in five.” He rotates his wrist, pretending to check a watch that he’s not wearing. “And it’s been five.”
I cross my legs because just seeing him like that makes me want to lie down on the bed and spread my legs open so he can slip inside me. “Well, I was coming.”
“Oh, you will be in a few minutes.” A grin flashes across his face but then it vanishes when he notices the box next to me and the journal on my lap. “What is that?”
I bite my lip guiltily. I haven’t told him yet, because I know he’ll worry about what it’ll do to me. Still, I’m not going to lie to him now that he’s asked. “It came in the mail yesterday. It’s a box full of stuff… my mom’s stuff.”
His eyes widen and his lips part in shock. “What? Who’s it from?”
I tap the top of the box with my finger. “Well, it says from a Gary Flemmerton, but the note inside is… well, it’s from my grandmother… my mom’s mom.”
“Okay. Didn’t your mom say she was mean?” he asks cautiously.
“Yeah, sort of.” I smooth my hand over the journal with my chin tipped down. “But sometimes my mom lied about stuff.”
He shifts his weight and sits down on the bed beside me. Then he hooks a finger under my chin and elevates it so I’m looking at him. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, looking at me with concern and making me feel at home, at peace, okay with everything, even the bad stuff.
“I can’t just yet,” I tell him and when he starts to frown, I add, “Not because I don’t want to, but because I haven’t even looked through all the stuff yet to know what I want to talk about.”
“Do you want to go through it now? With me?” he asks with understanding.
“Not right now.” I suck in a slow breath at the idea of reading my mom’s thoughts, concerned what they’ll reveal, what they won’t reveal. Who was she? Was she like me once? “But I will… I just need to process stuff one step at a time.”
He nods, but still seems uneasy as he moves his finger away from my chin and puts his hand on his lap. “So who’s this Gary guy? And why did he send it to you all of a sudden out of the blue? And why did he send it for your grandmother?”
“I have no idea, but here’s the note.” I pick up the scrawled piece of paper from out of the box and hand it to him so he can read it for himself. After he skims over the note he looks even more perplexed as he sets it aside on the nightstand. “So she was just cleaning out the attic and thought, Hey, maybe I should send the granddaughter who I’ve never talked to a box of her mother’s stuff? Or have this Gary guy send it for her?”
“Maybe Gary’s her boyfriend or something?” I lift my shoulders and shrug. “I have no idea because I’ve never talked to her before.”
Micha glances at the note again, strands of his blond hair falling into his eyes as he shakes his head, worrying just like I knew he would. “This is really weird. I mean, how did they even get our address?”
“That’s a good question.” My mouth sinks to a frown as I look out the window at my small two-story house just next door, the one I grew up in, with the one that is filled with painful, sad memories. There’s snow falling and landing on the roof, which is missing half of the shingles. “Maybe from my dad.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t he have said something to you about giving it to her?” he asks.
I aim a doubtful look at him because that doesn’t sound like my dad at all. “Even though my dad’s been better, he still gets weird about the past and my mom… Besides, I haven’t talked to him in, like, a week.” I swallow the massive lump lodged in my throat. “But I’ll go ask him in a while.”
Micha practically beams at me like he’s so proud that I’m doing the mature thing and not running away from the problem. It makes me realize that I am and that I shouldn’t be running away from marrying him, even though my initial instincts are screaming at me to bail out. It’s been in me practically forever. Run when things get too deep, too emotional, too complex. I’ve run a lot, but I’ve been good lately and I want to keep doing well.
“Do you want me to go with you?” he asks with compassion in his eyes.
I nod, tucking loose strands of my hair behind my ears. “I do.”
His smile broadens. “You remember those words very carefully. You’re going to need to say them again soon.”
“I do,” I repeat with a playful grin as I bump my shoulder against his and it makes his smile stretch to his eyes. “I do. I do. I—” He swiftly slides forward and his lips silence me. At first it’s a slow, warming kiss, but the longer it goes on the fierier and more passionate it gets. Suddenly his fingers are grabbing onto the bottom of my shirt and then he tugs the fabric up over my head. Chucking it aside, his lips crash back into mine again as he gets to his feet, pulling me with him. Then he picks me up in his arms and I can feel his hardness pressing up between my thighs as I secure my legs around his midsection. It feels so good and my body ignites with heat and eagerness and suffocates all the bad thoughts in my head. As he carries me across the hall, I don’t even care if Lila or Ethan walks out and sees us. All I care about is being with him.
When he steps into the bathroom, music is playing from his iPod in the dock on the counter and the shower is on, the mirror fogged up from the heat and steam. The humidity in the air instantly clings to my skin as Micha bangs the door shut with his foot, sealing us in the sweltering room without breaking the kiss. He mutters an “I love you” over the lyrics of “The River,” by Manchester Orchestra, and I utter the same thing back as he devours me with his hands and mouth. The feel of his lips, the soft sound of the lyrics, and the dampness of the steam absorbs into my skin and floods my veins with lust, need, and hunger. They flood me with love.
God, I feel so loved sometimes I forget how to breathe.
Maybe I should put that in my vows, too.
Chapter 3