Page 83 of Rain Delay

I look up at her, watching as she takes another sip of her coffee. Has there ever been a time where he didn’t talk about me? Where I was just nothing but a memory he tried tirelessly to get rid of?

“You don’t have to look so nervous, Ellie,” Elena said, her tone warm enough to make my heart ache. “I’m not interrogating you.”

“I know,” I laughed weakly. “It just feels a little bit like one.”

She reached over, squeezing my hand gently. “Honey. You know you’ve always been family to us. That didn’t stop when things ended between you and Wyatt.”

One thing about Wyatt’s family is they treated me like one of their own. I was so lucky and blessed to be surrounded by loving people on both sides.

I blinked quickly, trying not to let tears well up. “I’m glad to hear that, because that’s something I thought about a lot.” I admit.

“Whatever is going on between you two right now,” she continued carefully. “I know that it’s going to work out.”

I took a deep breath, staring at the table, and then looked back at her. “I spent a long time trying to hate him after we ended,” I said softly. “Or at least trying to convince myself I’d moved on so if I ever saw him with someone else, it wouldn’t sting as much.”

Across the room, I glanced over to see Wyatt laughing at something with his younger brother before focusing back on Elena.

“And then by some twisted fate, we ended up back in each other’s worlds,” I continued. “At first, it was a little weird, I didn’t really know how to handle it. But once we got past that awkward stage? It was like no time had passed at all. Like none of the fighting had happened, none of the heartbreak.”

Emotion burned behind my eyes, and I refused to let it spill. I’m at the damn ballpark spilling my feelings; there’s no crying in baseball.

“I think that’s what’s the most nerve-wracking about everything,” I tell Elena. I really was going in on this, there was no turning back now. “That I could fall right back into this. Into him. Pretend like none of the hurt actually happened.”

She squeezes my hand again. “I told Wyatt the same thing, but we learn, and we grow from mistakes. We learn valuable lessons we’re able to take with us through any situation. It’s the way you handle yourself in said situations that’ll be the determining factor in the result of your actions.”

I nodded, my lips forming a tight line. Hearing these words from her felt reassuring – Like what I was doing was the right thing. Despite all the times I told myself in the beginning that what I was doing was absolutely foolish. It was reckless to put myself back in that world.

“For what it’s worth,” she said gently. “That boy was lost without you.”

My breath caught.

“And I’m not saying that means you need to rush everything and make up and act like nothing ever happened,” she added carefully. “But I’m saying…some people only truly feel like themselves when they’re with their person. And I think you two are each other’s person.”

Chapter 30

Wyatt

“WYATT, COME AND KILL THIS SPIDER!” I hear Eliana scream from downstairs, followed by a shriek. I get out of bed fast, making my way downstairs.

When I get into the kitchen, I find her crouched on a fucking stool while Maggie was trying to eat the spider.

“Wyatt, she’s trying to eat it! It’s going to kill her!” El exclaimed, shaking her head. “You need to kill it!”

I deadpan her. “Uh, no. You’re a big girl, can’t you kill it? Grab a broom or something.”

“You…” She trails off, the scared emotion now flipping to annoyance. “Did you just say I should kill it? Did we not hear me screaming a few moments ago?”

I groaned, grabbing Maggie’s collar to move her away from it, putting the spider in my hand and walked to the back door, opening it up and threw the spider out there. “There. Now it won’t bother you anymore.”

“What if it crawls back in here? Seeks revenge because you manhandled it like that?”

I can’t help but laugh at her, crossing my arms over my chest. “Ellie, baby, we’re fine. That’s why we have Maggie. She’s here to kill the bugs. She does a really good job with flies.”

She looks over at Maggie, who’s sitting next to me.

“She’s a family member, not an assassin, Wyatt.”

“Family member, huh? In what family?”