Suddenly, everything inside her stilled, and she understood why he’d been so pissy, understood his comments about being afraid. He believed, on some level, all the shit his father had told him about being a shallow dumb f**k with a pretty face and no substance.

“Then stop acting like a dingus and just love me. I’m here, aren’t I? Here waiting for you just like I was yesterday and the day before. Like I’ll be tomorrow. I’ve never wanted anyone but you. Even before we were together, I had dates, I had someone I lived with even. But I didn’t want any of them with the absolute certainty I have right now. I love you, Andrew.”

“You do?”

She laughed. “Yes, dumb ass. I do. How could you think otherwise?”

“What if I do something stupid, Ella? I’m a stupid type of guy, you just said it yourself.”

“I said you were a dumb ass, and you are.” She took his hand. “But you’re my dumb ass, and there’s a universe between dumb ass and stupid. You just told me you were worried about things, but the one thing you weren’t worried about was cheating on me. That’s pretty much my big no-no. Other than hitting me. You planning on that?”

His eyes widened. “No! The only person I want to hit is your ex. Well, and my dad. I’d like to punch him right square in the face. But you’re good and kind and, f**kall, Ella, you’re soft and fragile and everything to me. What if you get sick when you’re carrying our baby? What if you get into a car accident and die? What if I do something terrible and you hate me forever and I have to watch another man love you and make a life with you?”

She didn’t bother replying; he clearly needed to say it all, cycle through it. His anguish was so clear she ached for him, even as she wanted to shake him and tell him there was nothing to worry about. So she held his hand, resting her head against the back of the couch, and listened.

“I watched my brother fall to pieces yesterday over the thought of Erin dying. He’s a stronger man than I am. If he’s scared, what am I? I am not man enough, not brave enough to lose you.”

She leaned in and kissed his temple. “You’re the best man I know, Andrew. I wish you could see that. Ben is a lovely guy. He loves Erin, and she loves him back. He’d slay dragons for her, and that’s great. For Erin. I don’t love Ben. I love you. I love that you take pride in the beauty you’ve made with your hands at your house. I love that you read poetry. It makes me hot and tingly when you recite lines in Spanish when we’re having sex. There’s no one like you, Andrew Copeland.”

“All this anxiety is choking me. I snap at you for doing what you do, for being strong with my dad. For taking care of our friends. You let it pass, and I wonder if I’m like him.”

She burst out laughing at the very idea of Cope being a damned thing like Bill.

“I’m sorry, I’m not mocking you. But if I’d have confronted Bill’s father, or anyone for that matter, he’d have belittled me until I felt like nothing. I wouldn’t have been allowed to be at that hospital yesterday with Erin because he didn’t approve of me having any friends at all. My time was his. That’s how he saw our relationship, and I took it.”

He started to speak, but she stopped him.

“No. I need to get this all out too. I took it, and I hated myself for that. It was that self-loathing that allowed him to control me all those years. It took me a long time to get to the place where I could accept responsibility for my part in the situation. And to admit to myself that I was manipulated and gamed into being nothing. Nothing is easy to shape into something else. And he did. And it was bad. But I am not her anymore.”

She knew what she had to do, so she steeled herself against it. He needed to make the choice. He needed to be away from her and away from her apartment to look at the situation from a ways back and make his choice, out loud, on purpose and to himself, to stay despite the fear. If she let this go right now, how could she know for sure he really wanted to stay and take his chances with her and with fate? It would be there between them if they fought or if they hit a bad patch. She needed him to do this. For both of them.

So she knew she had to be honest and expose herself in the bargain.

“You are the reason. You’re the reason I can say to myself that I deserve love and kindness and a normal relationship where I make decisions for myself and with my partner. When I was afraid, it was you who stepped up to give me the tools to combat that last hurdle. The last remnants of fear that held me back.

“On my last full day at the café, I went to buy coffee. The street was crowded, and I had a panic attack. Right there in the open like the freak I am.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I got through it. I went in, spoke with the clerk, paid money and walked out with my coffee. The other day, it was getting dark and I had to get back to my car, which I’d parked in the lot at the RJC in Kent. The courthouse,” she added, to clarify. “It was creepy, and there wasn’t anyone around until I heard footsteps, and the part of me he used to control got freaked out. But the part of me who you’d been training three times a week? Well, that part won. I kept an eye out, had my keys in my hand and I got to my car and drove away. I came up here and we had dinner at your house, and I was fine.”

“You should have told me before now.”

“I’m telling you now so you understand something very important. You gave me the tools to stand up and do the brave thing. I can’t tell you I won’t ever die. I can’t promise that in some random chain of events I won’t get killed in a freak accident or in labor or from a f**king infection from a scratch I get on the asphalt. I can’t. You could lose me tomorrow. You could walk into a client’s house and fall instantly in love with her. You could die in a plane crash. Nothing in life is certain. This used to keep me awake at night because I needed things to be certain.