Bringing Back Hallie

Bringing Back Hallie: Chapter Twenty-Three

"So...yeah, I'm just gonna go get a burger real quick?" Cole says a bit awkwardly, casting worried looks over in Ethan and I's direction. Ethan hasn't made direct eye contact with me since that one millisecond he finally realized I was here, and my body hasn't quite made a recovery from that look yet.  

But Cole, poor Cole, looks so very awkward standing in the room with us now, and has made that ridiculous excuse. Why is it so ridiculous? Well, because Ethan walked in the room with a pizza for the two of them mere seconds ago. So basically, Cole just wants to get the hell out of here. 

And I can't really blame him because, well, I kind of want to do the same thing. Ethan's entire demeanor has changed since he noticed I was here. Instead of being calm and casual like he was when he first got here, he's not gone completely still and silent and just...cold. It scares the absolute shit out of me. 

Cole pretty much sprints out of the apartment door mere seconds after his announcement, and as soon as he's gone, I look over at Ethan. I haven't spared him a look since he won't freaking spare me one, and even though we're alone it seems as if he still won't do it. It's like he's not even going to accept the fact that I am here and that I want to talk. 

Feeling quite angry because I've made such a trip to see him, that I've spent so much of my mom's money on guess and had to endure the most mind-numbing nine hour drive here, I can't help but snap after a minute or two of silence on his end. "So that's it, then?" I ask, "I come all the way out here and you're not even going to say a word?" 

"What do you want me to say?" he asks after a moment's hesitation, still not looking at me but at the pillow on the couch a few inches away from me. "I said all I had to say yesterday." 

"Well I didn't," I tell him, gradually getting angrier and angrier that he won't just forgive me and kiss me and put all of this behind us. That had been my one deep hope, that I'd come in here and he'd see me and realize how stupid he was to believe that I'd cheat on him and that he'd come back to Tennessee with me. But as I sit here, looking at him and thinking of things that I could possibly say to him, I realize that it's really not going to be easy at all. 

Damn it. 

I continue, "I wasn't exactly able to get a word in yesterday, so that's why I'm here. That's why I drove here. To explain myself." 

This is when he finally looks me in the eye, looking angry and cold...but deep down, deep down in those fucking gorgeous eyes of his I see the start of something. Something that could mean forgiveness for me. And that's when I feel a little glimmer of hope start. He snorts, "Yeah? What's there for you to explain, Hallie? What I saw yesterday was all the explanation I needed." 

"No," I say hotly, "What you saw yesterday was Fred forcing himself on me and me too fucking shocked to do anything about it." When I see him roll his eyes at me, it stings, it stings a lot, but I add, "And I understand why you'd think I cheated. I was weird after he told me he had feelings for me and then you see him kissing me, so I get it, okay? It looks bad. I understand. But it's not...it's not what I looked like. And I know that phrase is used so much and it usually just means complete bullshit, but in this case it's true! Ethan, why would I tell you I love you and then cheat on you the next day? Do you honestly believe I'd do something like that?" 

"I didn't," he says quickly, but even after he speaks it's clear that he's thinking over what I said, that he's thinking it through and maybe, just maybe, realizing that I could never truly cheat on him. Not after what the two of us had. I may be stupid as shit in some aspects of my life, but I'd never be stupid enough to screw up a relationship like Ethan and I had.  

"But seeing the two of y'all...well, it made me look at you a bit differently," he says bitterly, showing me some kind of emotion other than anger. Thank God. At least he's doing something other than standing there and yelling at me.