The Forever of Ella and Micha (The Secret 2)

After everyone is seated, Caroline clinks her fork against her cup. “Okay, so my family has this tradition where we all go around and say one thing that we’re thankful for.”

“Baby, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Dean says, reaching for the gravy. “Not here, anyway.”

She swats his hand away from the food. “I don’t really care what you think. I think we should do it.”

We wait for him to react because the Dean we used to know had a f**king hell of a temper on him. Back when we were kind of friends and played in a band, he would get pissed over everything and he broke a lot of drumsticks.

He rubs his hand tensely on the back of his neck. “Fine, I’m really grateful for you cooking this delicious dinner for everyone.”

Caroline beams at him. “And I’m grateful every one showed up.”

My mom chimes in. “I’m grateful the kids could make it here. It’s been so lonely without them.”

Thomas glances around the table, looking lost. “Umm… I’m grateful the Vikings won the game.”

I roll my eyes and Ella covers her mouth to hide her laughter. My mom scowls at us, but then Ella’s dad clears his throat, seeming nervous.

“I’m grateful for being sober,” he says and sips on his water. “This is the first Christmas I’ve not been drunk in as long as I can remember.”

Ella lets out a shaky breath and her eyes water over, like she’s going to cry. No one speaks for a minute and finally Caroline looks at Ethan.

“What about you?” she asks.

He contemplates it with a smirk on his face. “I’m thankful for red lacy bras that have an easy-access clasp in the front.”

I restrain a laugh as Ella’s head falls onto the table, her shoulders shaking as she laughs under her breath and Lila and I join in.

“Ethan Gregory,” my mom warns. “That was uncalled for.”

He surrenders his hand in front of him. “Hey, I was just being honest.”

My mom rolls her eyes. “What about you, Lila?”

Lila twists a strand of her blonde hair around her finger with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “I’m thankful for candy canes.”

Ella raises her head up and smoothes her hair into place, looking as mystified as everyone else, except for Ethan.

He winks at Lila, who blushes a little. “That’s a good thing to be thankful for.”

Ella remains quiet for a while with this strange look on her face, like she’s thinking deep, and then she glances at me. “I’m grateful for Micha.”

I lean over and kiss her in front of everyone. “I’m really grateful you said that.”

“Wait,” Dean interrupts, gaping at us with a disgusted look on his face. “Are you guys dating?”

“Yep,” Ella says indifferently, scooting her chair closer to the table. “Now, can we please eat?”

We eat the rest of the meal making small talk. Ella keeps biting her lip and assessing everyone, but she doesn’t look sad, just genuinely interested in what everyone is doing and saying. There are even a few moments were she looks happy.

It’s a good look for her.

Ella

Dinner is as about as awkward as possible, especially when Caroline makes us admit what we’re grateful for. At first I try to think of something meaningful, but then I just listen to my heart. When dinner is over, we clean up in a drama-free environment. It isn’t anything special, but it’s normal, which is something I’ve wanted since I was a little girl. No drunken fathers, no screaming, no working my ass off to cook a dinner that no one will eat.

I help Caroline clean up and wash the dishes while my dad goes up to his room to unpack. Dean disappeared somewhere and Micha went home for a while because his mom had a present for him. Lila and Ethan are in the living room, attempting to put a small pine tree up that Dean cut down in the front yard.

When I take the trash out back, a cloud of smoke engulfs my face when I round the porch. Dean is leaning against the house in the shadows smoking a cigarette and wearing one of his old heavy flannel jackets with the hood pulled over his head. I have a flashback of when I was fourteen and caught him smoking something else in the garage.

“What are you doing out here?” I open the garbage lid and drop the bag into it.

He scratches his head and takes another drag. “Do me a favor and don’t tell Caroline I’m out here. She thinks I quit. And I did. Kind of.”

Nodding, I hug my arms around myself and turn for the house.

“So it’s weird, right?” he says abruptly.

I backtrack and squint through the dark to look at him. “What’s weird?”

He blows out a puff of smoke. “Having him here sober.”

Through the window of the house, Caroline is talking to my dad. He has a striped shirt on and a pair of slacks. His brown hair is combed neatly and his face is freshly shaven.

“It is weird,” I agree, returning my attention to Dean. “And he looks so clean.”

Dean bobs his head up and down. “I know… I swear there was, like, a year where he didn’t shower.” He takes another drag and kicks his shoes at the snow. “Did he… did he write you a letter too?”

“Yeah…” I trail off at the awkwardness of standing her talking to him about personal stuff. “I’m guessing he wrote you one.”

“I think his therapist or counselor or whatever made him.” The end of the cigarette glows in the dark as he inhales from it. “I’m not really f**king sure what I think of it yet.”

“Me neither.” I rock from side to side to keep warm. Without a jacket on, my skin is numb and probably turning purple. “I like that he did it, but it doesn’t erase the past.”

“Nothing can erase the past,” he states bluntly. “But we can f**king move on, which is what I’ve been trying to do for a while.”

“Me too.” I wonder if we’re going to go down that path again; the one where he tells me it’s my fault this all happened.

Snow floats down on top of our heads as I stare out at the street, where the lights from the streetlamp illuminate the ice on the sidewalk.

“She inherited the car,” he admits. “That’s where she got it.”

I whip my head back toward him. “What?”

He takes a long drag. “The Porsche. I guess she had, like, this rich great-aunt or something who no one knew really, and when she died, she left every single one of her relatives something and that’s where she got it from.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Yeah, a couple of weeks before she… before she died. It was the same time she told me that when she was gone, I could have it. I thought she was being weird at the time, but now that I look back I wonder if she was, like, preplanning her death.”

I force down the massive lump in my throat. “Are you sure she wasn’t lying, because she told stories sometimes. Like how she and dad met at a train station when they both missed their train, when really they just dated each other in high school.”

“The train story was better,” he says with a small smile as he ashes the cigarette. “And yeah, she was telling the truth. I could tell because it was one of her normal days.”

I let out a wobbly breath, thinking about her infrequent normal days. Those days clutch at my heart because I know there won’t be any more.

Dean offers me a cigarette. “It’ll calm you down. Trust me.”

I pinch it in my fingers and take a hit. “You know it tastes as bad as the last time you gave me one,” I say with a cough, covering my mouth with my hand.

Smiling, he drops the butt into the snow and puts it out with the tip of his shoe. “Yet, you still took it again.”

Shaking my head, I trample through the snow toward the door, but it swings open and my dad steps out, tugging his hood over his head. “Jesus, it’s cold out here.”

“Well, it is December,” Dean remarks with an arch of his eyebrows.

My dad pops a cigarette into his mouth and lights the end of it. “It seems like we should have decorated the house or something. We never really did that, did we?”

“We did once,” I say, scuffing the toes of my shoes along the snow. “But you weren’t here. I think it’s when you took off with Bill for that couple of weeks to go ice fishing. Mom wanted us to do it…” I trail off and we all get quiet.

“Well, maybe we should start making it a tradition.” He exhales a breath of smoke that floats toward my face. “Maybe we can all come back here during Christmas, decorate the house, and have a nice dinner like we just had.” He pauses, seeming nervous. “What do you two think?”

Dean flicks a glance at me and then shrugs. “Whatever. Sounds good. Although I’m not promising anything. I’ve got a life of my own.”

My dad doesn’t respond and it gets quiet again. I laugh under my breath. This is probably how it’s going to be with us, at least until we can all get over our issues. Things will be weird, we’ll have a hard time being around each other, and we’ll probably say things that are hurtful.

But what makes me able to handle it is the fact that I have people in my life who are there for me. I have Lila. And Ethan. And Micha. I can tell him about everything and I know he’ll make me feel better, he’ll listen, and he’ll be there for me.

I back toward the fence. “I think I’m going to go next door for a while.” I climb over the fence and they watch me, perplexed. “And I like the idea, Dad, about the Christmas thing. It sounds good. Count me in.”

He nods and continues with his cigarette as Dean leaves him and goes into the house.

I enter Micha’s house without knocking, just like I did when I was a kid. He’s sitting at the kitchen table eating a piece of pie he must have snatched from my house before he left. His blond hair hangs in his beautiful aqua eyes, and the way his mouth moves makes me want to kiss him.

He sets the fork on the plate as he looks up at me and his eyes widen. “God, you look like you’re freezing. Your cheeks are all red and your lips are purple.”

I press my lips together to warm them up. “I was standing outside for a while talking to Dean and my dad.”

He pulls a face as he puts his plate in the sink. “How’d that go?”

“Okay.” I shrug and walk across the kitchen to him. “No one said anything mean, so that’s always an added bonus.”

He rinses off the plate and then turns the faucet off. “Are you okay?”

I wrap my arms around him and embrace him with everything I’ve got. “I am now.”

His arms fold around me and he tilts my chin up to give me a soft but succulent kiss. When he pulls away, his eyebrows are knit. “Did you smoke?”

I bit my bottom lip to hide my guilty conscience. “Umm… kind of.”

He waits for me to explain and when I don’t he kisses me again, probably enjoying the taste. “What do you want to do for the rest of the night?” he murmurs against my lips.