_OceanofPDF

“You’re right,” Ella said, and with a hitch of breath as if she had to stop
herself from saying more, she clamped her mouth shut and looked at me.
She wasn’t asking what to do, but if she should do anything at all.
“Teddy,” Mom crooned, “I told you this would happen.”
“I didn’t expect to be lied to.”
Dad walked away. Damnit.
“I’m so sorry,” Ella said to my mother.
“Let me talk to him,” Mom said, following her husband without
accepting Ella’s apology.
“I have no idea what the fuck just happened,” Colton said.
My wife had been hurt by two mothers, and she was about to be hurt
again. Without even realizing it, I’d let that happen. I had to fix it, and I
didn’t know how. I just wanted her out of the line of fire.
“Ella,” I said. “You should go.”
If I thought getting her out of the way would reduce the pain she was
about to suffer, I was proven wrong by her expression. She looked as if I’d
slapped her, and I couldn’t explain myself. Not right there. Not right then. I
needed to be in that room with my family, and huddled in a dark corner
with her at the same time.
“Just go,” I said urgently, trying to sound encouraging at the same time.
She had to know I would take care of it, that I wasn’t abandoning her,
but I’d clearly just slapped her again, reddening both cheeks and filling her
eyes with tears. “Okay.”
She left. She just did what I’d asked her to do and walked out, and
suddenly I was in a room I didn’t want to be in, getting pulled away with
every step that echoed against the high ceilings.
My family stared at me with wide eyes as if I was a man they’d never
known.
I had a moment to choose between them and Ella. We were partners.
She was my bulwark against the unexpected. The mitigation of all risk, and
yet, I’d told her she didn’t belong.
My family could wait.
I chased her into the house. “Ella. Wait.”
“You’re right,” she said, descending the stairs. “And I’m not family. I
never was. But I hoped…” She blinked, and lines of water dropped down
her cheeks. “I hoped you saw it differently, and you don’t.” She laid her
hand on my chest, where the honeymoon card stiffened the fabric. “It was