The Forever of Ella and Micha

my hands on her shoulders. She doesn’t shrug them off, but tenses under my touch. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”
    She traces a circle around a woman with wings and a cupcake in her hand. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m not mad at you.”
    My brow knits with perplexity. “Then what’s wrong?”
    She shades in the eyes of the angel and then fills in the flame of the candle in the cupcake. “That I was right—about everything.”
    I brush her hair to the side as she writes
I love you
below the angel’s feet. “Right about what?”
    She writes,
I love you, Mom, and happy belated birthday
. Clicking the cap back on the marker, she stands up and turns to face me. “That I ruin you.”
    My eyes snap wide as she squeezes by me and rushes into her bedroom. That was not what I expected at all.
    I catch up with her right as she’s about to shut the door and brace my hand against, shoving it back open. “You don’t ruin me, Ella May. How could you ever think that?”
    “I think it because it’s true.” She chucks the markers onto her dresser. “My problems do anyway.”
    I bite at my lip, working to maintain a steady voice. “You know as well as I do that when people are drunk they say hurtful things they don’t mean.”
    She swallows hard. “But sometimes they mean them.”
    “I didn’t mean it. I promise. God, I wish I could have, like, a redo or something, because I’d slap myself for even thinking those words.”
    “Redo’s don’t exist,” she breathes softly. “And I don’t think I should do this anymore—I wasn’t even supposed to be doing this to begin with. I was supposed to stay out of relationships until I got my shit together, but every time I’m around you, it’s impossible. All you do is look at me and I feel like I’m drowning.”
    “I’m not sure what you mean,” I say with caution. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
    She puffs out a frustrated breath, collapses onto her bed, and buries her face in her arms. “It could be a good thing, if I wasn’t so messed up… When I’m with you, every part of me is consumed by you.”
    I climb onto the bed with her and place a hand gently on her back. “You know that’s the most honest thing you’ve said to me.”
    She peeks up at me through her veil of auburn hair. “I know.”
    I brush her hair out of her eyes. “Ethan suggested a weird thing to me today. That maybe you and I need to be more honest with each other, instead of always trying to protect each other.”
    “I think you were pretty honest in the garage,” she replies coldly. “Micha, if you want to walk away, then do it now because if things get any deeper, I swear it’s going to kill me next time.”
    “You have no idea how important you are to me.” I get off the bed and hold my hand out to her, knowing it’s time to pour our hearts out to each other. “Will you come somewhere with me?”
    She eyes my offered hand suspiciously. “Where?”
    “That’s a secret.” I wink at her, acting calm, even though I’m terrified she won’t go with me—that I’ve ruined everything I’ve worked so hard at with her. “But I promise, it’ll be good.”
    She sets her hand in mine, trusting me, and I can breathe again. I make a silent vow that I will never hurt her again.

Chapter 17
Ella
    “Okay, so sometimes I really don’t get you.” My gaze scans the park full of bent and broken bars and empty dreams. It’s the playground we grew up going to, but there were more drug dealings going on than children playing. The merry-go-round is crooked and the teeter-totter is missing a seat. The chains of the swing are rusted and the slide is buried in snow.
    He tugs me toward the swing set with a big grin on his face. “I can’t believe you don’t remember.” He dusts off the snow from the seat and sits down. “It’s like one of the best memories of my childhood.”
    I brush the snow off the swing beside his and drop down in it, wrapping my fingers around the cold metal chains. “You mean when we made the pact? I remember that.”
    He runs backward and picks up his feet, soaring up toward the sky. “Yeah, but do you remember what we were doing before the pact was made?”
    I twist back and forth as snow falls from the links. “We were playing truth.”
    Braking with his shoes, he halts the swing and twirls to face me. “So you do remember.”
    “Of course I remember.” I roll my eyes and spin around once with my legs stretched out in front