Page 280 of Safe With You

“I was grateful. I don’t think he made all of it up in his head. I probably didn’t say thank you enough sometimes. I probably did ask for things when he was tired or busy. I wasn’t perfect.”

“Luna.”

“I know.”

“No.”

His voice was gentle, but there was something firmer underneath it.

“You’re doing it now.”

My eyebrows pulled together.

“Doing what?”

“Finding your part in it before you’ve even finished telling me what he did.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

Because I was.

I didn’t know what to say to that, and Ellis didn’t seem to need me to. His hand found mine between us.

“Keep going.”

I took a breath.

“After a while, I got good at knowing what would become a problem before it became one. If I wanted him somewhere, I’d make sure he knew he didn’t have to come. If I needed something, I’d try to figure out whether I could handle it myself first.”

Sunday flashed through my mind.

Asking Ellis if he was still coming when he’d already told me he would.

Thanking him for showing up like doing exactly what he said he would do deserved something more than trusting him to do it.

All the little exits I kept building for him before he’d ever asked for one.

“I stopped asking for things unless I really needed them.”

Ellis was quiet.

“And when he did something without me asking, I made sure he knew I appreciated it. Because if I didn’t…”

I trailed off.

“What?”

I stared toward the television.

“Sometimes he’d pull away. Not completely. He’d just get different. Quieter. Shorter with me. And I’d know something was wrong, but he’d tell me everything was fine until eventually I figured out what I’d done.”

I swallowed.

“Or what I hadn’t done.”

Ellis’s hand tightened slightly around mine.

“So I got better at figuring it out before he had to tell me.”