Never Close Enough (15 page)

   “I don’t understand why you said you would come to dinner if you were going to be mise
rable the entire time,” he said without looking at her.  She didn’t respond at first, just continued to push her food around on her plate with her fork.

   “You’re right Porter.  I shouldn’t have come.  I am sorry.  I am not trying to be rude.  Do you thin
k you could take me home?”

   “You want to go home?’

   “I think that would be best, yes.”

   He just continued to stare at her, silently willing her to just tell him what was going on.

   “If that’s what you want.”  He motioned to the waiter to bring the check.  He was busy signing it when his mom came back to the table.

   “Mom, I am sorry, we are going to have to take off.  Ella isn’t feeling well,” he said as he slid out of the booth.  Ella slid out after him.

   “Oh no, Honey, I am so sorry to hear that,” she said as she gave Ella a quick squeeze.  “Take her home and get her some tea,” she said to Porter.

   “I’m sorry to ruin your dinner.  I would take myself home, but I rode here with Porter,” Ella apologized.

   “Don’t you worry about dinner.  Just go home and feel better.”

   “Thank you.  Have a good night,” Ella said as she walked towards the door.  Tilly grabbed Porter’s arm before he could get too far.

   “Whatever is bothering her, you need to make it right Porter,” Tilly whispered to him urgently.  “Don’t let her sabotage what you have between you two.  She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”  He looked his mom right in the eyes.

   “I know, Mom.  I will see you tomorrow.”  He kissed her on the cheek and headed out after Ella.

   As they rode back towards Ella’s house, she was still silent and was giving no indication that she would be opening up soon.

   “What happened between this morning and dinner, Ella?  Why, all of a sudden, are you so unhappy?”  She didn’t answer right away.  She
kept looking out at the ocean.  Finally, she turned towards Porter and he saw tears running down her cheeks.

   “I am not unhappy.  In fact, this is the happiest I think I’ve ever been,” she said is whisper so quiet he almost didn’t hear her.  At her tear
s, he immediately pulled his truck over to the side of the road, threw the truck in park, and slid to her side of the seat.  He cupped her face in his hands and looked at her, completely out of his element.  He wasn’t sure how to deal with this new side of her.

   “Please tell me what is going on, Ella.  I can’t handle you crying.  I’m am losing my mind here,” he said as he wiped the tears off of her cheeks, a pointless task as more were rolling down even quicker than before.  She griped his shirt with both
of her hands and fisted them.  She was taking deep breaths and he was waiting for her to calm down.  Finally she looked back up at him.

   “Last night was so special, Porter.  I have never felt that connected to anyone before, ever,” she sniffled a little
, but continued.  “We’ve been spending time together and I don’t know if we’ve been naïve or just hopeful, but today after we talked on the phone, reality just sunk it.  It hit me hard.  I can’t get past the fact that in a few days I am going to leave here, leave you, leave all this behind.  Your job is here and there are people who rely on you and your business to survive.  You are tied here and I am tied to Portland.  I will leave and we will be over.”

   “Ella,” he said as he brushed a loose tendril of h
air off her face and behind her ear, “it doesn’t have to be that way.  I don’t want it to be that way at all.  It’s just two hours from here to Portland.  Two hours is nothing.  We can make this work.”  He was doing his best to soothe her by rubbing his thumbs over her cheeks gently.  She was shaking her head.

   “No.  The distance is not something I can get past.”  Her voice was quiet again and she wouldn’t look him in the eye.  “What happens when we haven’t seen each other in a while and another damsel in
distress shows up in town and you fall in love with her?  Can you honestly say you’d rather be with someone who lives so far away and you wouldn’t be tempted by someone else?  I don’t think I could handle that.”  He couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  “You think I would cheat on you?” He asked angrily.

   “Not intentionally, no.  But I do think that if the right woman showed up and was more convenient for you, it would be hard for you to turn her down.”

   “That’s bullshit, Ella.  I’m not Kyle, I don’t cheat on women.  You can’t give up on what we have based on some notion of an incident that hasn’t happened.”

   “I don’t expect you to understand,” she said icily.

   “Well, I don’t understand.  Besides, the threat of infidelity is something you risk in every relationship.  You don’t have to live far away to cheat on someone, Ella.  I am not worried about you cheating on me because what I feel for you, how much I care, is stronger than any fear I might have about the future.  Relationships are scary. So what?  But if you throw a good one away before you give it a chance to grow, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

   “There’s no future for us, Porter!” she nearly screamed.  “You’re here.  Your mom is here, and your job is here.  I can’t be the reaso
n you spend time away from Tilly.  And what about your boat?  All your free time would be tied to traveling and being out of town.  I can’t leave Portland; my business is there.  It just wasn’t meant to be.”

   “You think I care about a boat?  Do you hones
tly think that I would rather spend time building a boat than building a life with you?” He asked, desperately pulling her face towards his.  He was starving for her.  He needed to look into her eyes and make sure she understood what he was saying. “I love you, Ella.  Up until now I have just been waiting for you.  You showed up and I loved you the instant I saw you.  You were irritating, and stubborn, and smart, and sharp, and sexy as hell.  You rattled my world this past week and I wouldn’t change anything about it except this part, the part where you try to throw it all away because of fear.”

   Ella was looking at him with red rimmed eyes, tears still running down her cheeks.  He willed her to say something with his mind, but the silence was palpable.  S
he closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his.

   “I’d like for you to take me home now,” was what she whispered to him, but what he heard was the sound of everything he never knew he wanted being torn away from him.

Ella

      Breathe. 
Ella just needed to remind herself to breathe.  She was near a total and complete meltdown but needed to hang on to her composure for just a little longer until she was safely alone in her rental house.  She was reeling from how drastically her outlook had changed in just the last twelve hours.  Twelve little hours were all it took for her hope of “happily ever after” to come crashing down around her, smashing into tiny little pieces, cutting her wide open, leaving her wounded and scarred.

   This morning e
verything was nearly perfect.  She was still basking in the glow of their lovemaking the night before, remembering the way he had told her he wanted her always, and how tempted she had been to agree.  Even now, sitting in his truck, silently crying and trying to keep it together, she still wanted nothing more than to be with him.  All it had taken to rip her happiness away from her was the one phone call from him, outlining how great he was doing here in Lincoln City.  He was sharing with her how exciting the new job would be and how much all his men depended on him.  All of a sudden it occurred to her that he was rooted here and she was rooted elsewhere.  She couldn’t ask him to leave and she had a good reason to stay in Portland.

   The obvious solution wo
uld have been to just deal with the distance, but distance was ever increasingly becoming her worst enemy.  Distance, both emotionally and physically, drove a wedge between her and Kyle and she wasn’t willing to purposefully set her or Porter up for another disaster.  She couldn’t resign herself to a relationship full of missing him and wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.

   So she did the most selfish, but also self-preserving thing she could think of: she let him go.  Now, sitting in his truc
k next to him as he drove her back to her house, she was feeling to ramifications of her decision.  She knew he’d be upset, but she wasn’t prepared for the anger he seemed to be simmering in.  His knuckles were white from his grip on the steering wheel, and he hadn’t said a single word in a while.  Although, there wasn’t much to say.  She’d made it pretty clear her mind was made up.  As he pulled onto her driveway and slowly came to a stop, she felt as though the panic might become too much for her to handle.

   Porter turned the truck off, opened his door, and started to walk around the truck.  When she realized that, even after everything she’d just done, he was still going to open her door for her, she lost her last thread of composure.  Tears were flowin
g freely and she was trying her hardest to keep from making audible gasps as she transitioned into what could only be a really ugly cry. 

   He opened her door and stepped forward boxing her in, blocking her way out of the truck.  She was turned so her le
gs were hanging out of the truck and he leaned down to put his hands on either side of her thighs.  He wouldn’t look at her.  He was staring at the ground.  She wanted to reach up to hold his face in her hands, take everything back, and tell him that they would find a way to make it work.  But she wasn’t willing to put either one of them in that position.  She waited patiently for Porter to find whatever words he wanted to say to her. Finally, he raised his eyes to look at hers.

   “You really want this to
be over?” He asked her quietly.

    How could she tell him the truth?  How could she tell him that all she wanted was him with her?  She was torn between what she desperately wanted, and what she thought was best.

   “I think that is the best option, yes.” Every word she said broke her heart.

   “I think this is a mistake,” he said through gritted teeth.

   “I know you do,” she answered through sobs she could no longer keep at bay.

   With no more words, he took a step back and walked to the back of th
e truck giving her to space she needed to get to the house.  She slowly slid down from the truck, closed the door behind her, and walked towards the front door.  Before she made it to the porch she heard Porter’s door from his truck close and then he peeled out of her driveway, spewing gravel and dirt behind him.

   She ran the rest of the way into the house and didn’t stop until she hit the bed.  In the back of her mind she was chastising herself for the way the week had turned out.  Six days ago she had l
ain on this bed crying, mourning the end of one relationship.  Today she was crying, mourning a relationship that never really made it off the ground.  What hurt even more was that the depth of feelings she had for Porter made the way she felt about Kyle seem silly and insignificant.  Still, she felt the loss twice.

   She was stuck in this house, which now could only signify her inability to maintain any kind of relationship.  She couldn’t go home yet.  She had told Kyle he had until the end of the week to
move out.  She didn’t want to go back home and risk seeing him in the process of moving out.  She felt doomed to spend the next three days reliving every moment she and Porter had shared in this damned house.  She thought briefly about going to stay with her sister, but didn’t want to intrude on her sister’s house and life.  She decided, however, to call Megan.  She needed someone to talk to about everything happening and since Megan was the only one who knew about Porter, she seemed to be the obvious choice.  Her sister answered on the third ring.

   “Hey, Fella.  How’s it going?”

   Ella couldn’t bring herself to say a word because when she opened her mouth all that would come out was stifled sobs.

   “Ella, what’s wrong?  Why are you crying?  Is everythi
ng ok?”

   “No, everything’s all fucked up,” she managed.

   “Are you hurt?”

   “No, Megs, I’m not hurt.”

   “Ok, well that’s good.  What’s going on?”

   “I just ended everything with Porter.”

   “What the hell happened between yesterday and today?  Yesterday you looked like you were on cloud nine anytime I even mentioned his name.”

   “I know, I know.”

   “Spill it, woman,” Megan demanded.

   “I just got to thinking about how we are both so settled in our lives and to be together would actually mean being
apart.”

   “It’s two hours, El,” Megan said with softness.

   “It’s not just about that.  I lived with Kyle and he still managed to find someone else right under my nose.  Porter is an amazing man and soon some woman is going to realize that and I will be in a completely separate part of the state.  Who do you think he’s going to choose to be with?  How could I expect him to sacrifice being happy with someone he can actually
be
with, just to be with me?”

   “Wow, Ella.  You are not giving Porter or yourself
enough credit here.  First of all, just because you wouldn’t be around him all the time doesn’t mean he would cheat on you and secondly, you are not everyone’s back-up girlfriend.  The problem with you and Kyle was
Kyle
.  He’s a dumbass and that trashy skank is his punishment for treating you poorly, not his prize.  She’s a dirty slut-bag, but she did you a favor.”

   “Would you purposefully start a relationship with someone who lived two hours away?  Who was not in a position to move?”

   “Well, you went and fell in love with him before you thought about logistics, so what does it matter now?”

   “I never said I was in love with him,” Ella stated pointedly.

   “Oh please, Ella.  Give it up.  You know you love him.  Don’t be obtuse.”

   “I hardly know him,”
she whispered.

   “You know the important stuff,” Megan said, mirroring Porter’s words from the night before.

   “That’s what Porter said.”

   “He’s a smart man, Fella.”

   Ella tried to catch up with the thoughts racing through her head.  Love?  She cared deeply about him and felt more for him than she had ever felt for anyone, but she couldn’t love him.  It had been six days.  She wasn’t one of those women who fell in and out of love so quickly.  Everything her sister was saying was making her question herself.  If she loved Porter, then what had she felt for Kyle?  Why was it so confusing?  She quickly felt exhausted.

   “I think I’m going to let you go, Megan.  I can’t think about this anymore today.”

   “Ella, you cannot run away from him if the only reason you’re running is because you’re scared.  The things in life that scare you sometimes turn out to be the best parts.”  Ella took a deep breath and mulled her sister’s words over in her head.

   “I’m not scared, Megs, and I’m not running.  I am just t
rying to do the right thing.”

   “How about you do the thing that’s going to make you the happiest and then let everything else fall into place?”

   “Aren’t you a little young to be so wise?”  Ella asked snippily.

   “Ok, well, if you’re going to get crabb
y, I will let you go.  I will call you tomorrow.”

   “Thanks, Meg, and don’t worry about me.  I will be fine.  I always am.”

   “That’s what I’m worried about,” Megan said with sadness.

   “Bye.”

   “Bye.”