Eleanor & Grey

by Brittainy C. Cherry

“Still here, Ellie,” he whispered as my head lay against his chest. He was still there.

He moved in closer and enveloped his arms around me. I fell into him the same way I always did—effortlessly. Our foreheads touched, and we took our breaths together. In that moment, our timing was right. He was there, and I was there, and we were one.

“I love you, Ellie,” he whispered as his lips hovered ever so close to mine. “I know it’s bad timing, and I know I probably shouldn’t say it, but I love you. I love everything about you, even the parts you think are too sad to be loved. I think those parts are the most beautiful. I think all the parts of you are perfect, and I just wanted you to know that you are the first person I’ve ever loved, and it’s easy to do it. It’s so easy to love you.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks and I smiled because I knew. “I love you, too, Greyson. E...

We were so close that my mind had already decided it was going to be the best goodbye kiss of my life. “But do it anyway.” And then he did.

I also made a promise to myself that if life ever brought us back to each other, if the stars aligned and somehow our paths cross once more, I swore, like the waves on the shore, I’d completely crash into him.

I shouldn’t have been allowed around other humans. I fit in much better with fictional characters.

“Nothing in life is personal, not really. Some people will love you for who you are today, others will hate you for it, and none of their opinions matter either way—not the good or the bad. Only you can define who you are. No one else has that right.”

The whole world deserved to know what an exceptional woman my wife had been, and the whole world needed to know that we’d lost something so damn special the day she went away.

He nodded and lifted the cup on the railing. “I made you coffee. Two sugars, one pump of vanilla, extra cream.”

He parted his lips and softly spoke, “Live in a world where she doesn’t exist.” His eyes looked as if his whole world was set on fire.

He shook his head. “You just get tired of it, you know?” “Tired of what?” He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly as he brushed his hand against his beard and he softly said, “Everything.”

“He’s like a zombie from The Walking Dead. Just moving along day by day with random outbursts of sadness.”

“You’ve always been a good thing, Eleanor, since the first day I met you.”

I held out my pinky toward him. “Pinky promise?” He linked his pinky with mine. I tried to ignore the butterflies that began to stir in my stomach, because those butterflies had no right to even exist.

I started to walk away but stopped in my tracks. I turned back toward her, and without any thought, I wrapped my arms around her. I wrapped her so tight against me that I was almost certain I’d squeeze her to death, but I couldn’t let go.

He smiled a genuine smile and patted me on my shoulder. “For you, Greyson, I’m always in the neighborhood.”

“Thank you, Eleanor,” I said. “For what?” I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “Being my reason to smile today.”

“I’m not myself. I’m trying to be myself to get back to normal, but I’m not there yet. So, thank you for being there. They needed you today. I needed you today.”

I smiled. He smiled back. Greyson smiled at me.

It was the kind of smile I remembered, the kind of smile that had made me look at him time and time again in wonderment when we were younger, the kind I hadn’t known I’d missed until I saw it on his lips.

My lips parted, and I spoke softly. “More of that, Gr...

“Do you remember anything about me, Ellie?” he whispered. I felt his heart racing as my hand laid against him. “Only everything.”

“You ever think about kissing me, Ellie?” he asked, brushing his finger gently against my neck.

My body was betraying my mind as it reacted to every touch he delivered my way. I shut my eyes. “Only always.”

Then, she leaped forward and hugged me. Her arms wrapped around me, and she held on as tight as she could. At first, I stood still, taken aback by the embrace that seemed to come out of nowhere. Then, seconds later, I relaxed into it and held her back. I’d forgotten how good she was at doing that, how good she was at hugging me.

As a kid, her hugs had been one of my favorite things.

My heartbeats were untamed, and my gosh, I missed him. I missed Greyson so much. I hadn’t known I missed him to this extreme until I started to see the pieces of him that made up our youth. The parts that showed up for me when I needed him the most.

“Thank you, Grey.” She smiled back, and my heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t known it could still do that. I hadn’t known it could skip for another person. And it felt kind of beautiful.

“Only when you look at her. When you look at her, it’s as if the whole world lights up inside you.” Claire moved in closer and placed a hand on my forearm. “And that’s a good thing, Greyson. That’s a beautiful thing.”

“Because when she looks at you, it’s as if the whole world lights up inside her.

I remember parties not really being your scene, but you are more than welcome to bring your own book. I’ll make sure you have an antisocial corner to hide in.

Greyson must’ve noticed, and he placed his hand on my knee, squeezing it lightly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there the whole time to get you through it.”

Greyson squeezed my knee again, and I pretended it didn’t make every inch of me melt into his touch.

“What is this, Grey?” “I know how overwhelming parties can be for you. So, I made you a reading nook. You know, so you could escape if you needed to.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, smiling. I could tell how much it meant to him, and I didn’t want to miss it. “I’ll find you.”

He smiled, and I loved it. “Yeah, come find me.” With that, he left, taking my heart with him.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he confessed, placing his hands against the frame of the door and leaning toward me. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for some time, and I don’t know what that means. When I close my eyes, I see your face. When I daydream, it’s you who’s there.”

“Sometimes when I’m around you, I feel it,” he said. “Feel what?”

He looked up at me with the sincerest stare, parted his lips, and whispered, “Everything.”

“Tell me I’m crazy, Ellie. Tell me you don’t feel it when you look at me. Tell me you don’t see it when we lock eyes. Tell me I’m insane and there’s nothing between us.” “I can’t tell you that, Grey.” He tilted his head up a little. “And why’s that?” “Because I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”

He was him, I was me, and we were us. This was us. This was our story.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispered as his eyes dilated. “I want to kiss you back,” I replied, my words falling faintly from my tongue.

“I need you to understand that if I kiss you, I won’t stop. Everything will shift, and nothing will be the same. If I kiss you, we’re going to be something new.” “Yes, I know,” I said, sighing against him as I opened my eyes and stared into those gray eyes. “But do it anyway.”

Greyson made love to me as if he’d been waiting to claim my body as his, and I was his to claim. Every inch of me was his. Every part of me belonged to him.

He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, and then he pulled me into his arms and held me.

“You’re welcome. I hope tonight was…” He brushed his thumb against his bottom lip and somewhat blushed. “I hope tonight was as good for you as it was for me.”

Greyson and I together felt like a dream. It felt like the best dream in the world. Each day we connected, my breath was swept away from me. Each day we touched, I prayed he’d be mine.

We talked, and laughed, and I fell ever more for the first love of my life.

You are the most important person in my life, and you are worthy of having more than someone’s mediocre love. The best kind of love is the kind that fills one up completely, leaving reassurance, not doubts. You deserve that. You deserve to be someone’s whole.”