Page 39 of Take What Hurts

Elliott wasn’t sure Mackenzie had intended for the term of endearment to slip out, but Elliott’s stomach lurched with it, and with effort, she quelled the way her heart wanted to kick back into a hammering thrum. “I just—” Her throat tightened again, and she lifted her gaze to Mackenzie’s, focusing on the white ring around her pupils. “I don’t know. I started thinking about everything.” She swallowed and sucked a harsh breath into lungs that were tender—like they had been charred and were raw from it. “Us as friends. And work. And⁠—”

Mackenzie gasped, eyes widening as Elliott’s hand, still intertwined with Mackenzie’s, began to shake in earnest, the unraveling beginning again. “Okay,” Mackenzie breathed, bringing her cold hand to Elliott’s cheek, the temperature a clarifying balm. “It’s—you’re safe. Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

Despite her escalating heart rate, Elliott made a noise of protest. “The car⁠—”

“—will be fine,” Mackenzie said, cutting her off.

“But—”

“No, Elliott. If you get towed, I’ll pay to get it back. Now come on.” She brought out the tone she’d used during the roundtable conference in San Francisco. The one that had made Elliott’s heart race for an entirely different reason. Firm. No room for compromise. The feeling Elliott had now, like she could die in the gutter, mixed with dizzying arousal that shot to her core and was followed by a fresh surge of despair. Friends. It was all Elliott could do to stand up out of the car and walk on legs that were like jelly at the knees. Mackenzie pulled on her wrist and half dragged Elliott toward Mackenzie’s building. With trembling fingers, Elliott managed to hit the lock button on her keys as Mackenzie towed her into the lobby.

Minutes later Elliott found herself ensconced in a pile of cushions and blankets on Mackenzie’s sage green sofa in her low-lit living room. She wrapped her clammy hands around the mug of peppermint tea Mackenzie had handed her, and it scalded her tongue as she sipped it under Mackenzie’s watchful gaze from where she sat, legs crossed, upright and rigid at the other end of the sofa. Mackenzie’s fingers tapped out a pattern on the back cushion, worry shimmering in her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” Mackenzie asked, voice trembling almost imperceptibly. Her fingers tapped that same, repetitive rhythm, and Elliott clutched the mug tighter, keeping her hands occupied so she wouldn’t reach out to touch the pattering fingers.

Elliott swallowed and lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Tired.” She paused, eyes lifting to the ceiling. “I usually sleep for a long time after something like this. Doesn’t happen all that often anymore, but yeah…” She trailed off, eyes darting down to the blanket she was wrapped in. She tugged at a loose thread in the stitching while she waited for Mackenzie to run for the hills. This was one of the not-easy-to-deal-with things about Elliott, and she figured that was part of her problem when it came to relationships. She’d only hoped she’d be able to work through it before someone like Mackenzie—someone real—noticed. “I understand this is too much. I’m sorry. I’ll finish my tea, and then I’ll head out.”

Instead, Mackenzie’s fingers stilled on the back of the sofa, and she shuffled forward until her knee pressed featherlight on Elliott’s through the blanket. “Elliott, look at me.”

And, placing the mug down on the coffee table in front of her, Elliott’s eyes drifted to Mackenzie’s, almost of their own accord.

Her blue eyes were wide—compelling. Imploring, almost. “What happened that made you believe that this is too much—your feelings and how they show up in your body? Who made you think that?”

Elliott’s shoulders crumpled as her hands came up to cover her face. And she sobbed. Vaguely, Elliott registered Mackenzie’s sharp breath before her strong arms wrapped around Elliott’s middle, holding her tightly but with a tenderness that made the ache in her heart ease. “Oh, honey, you’re safe. It’s okay.” The words were a mantra against the shell of Elliott’s ear.

And Elliott was gone. Her body melted into Mackenzie’s, and wet tears streamed down cheeks that were raw and chapped, until the racking sobs eased. When she could breathe again, she pulled back and eyed Mackenzie. “I don’t know what happened. I misunderstand situations a lot. And there has been a lot of”—she sucked in a long breath—“a lot of rejection when my feelings got too big.” She stared down at the fingers picking at her thumb, where her hands sat in her lap. “The scatteredness and the other stuff.” She waved a hand absently around her head. “None of it helps.” Despite herself, she managed a chuckle full of self-deprecation. “Can I ask you something?”

Mackenzie nodded, and Elliott pondered exactly how pathetic she wanted to be in this moment. How much she wanted to flay herself open for the reassurance she so desperately craved. She decided that all her cards were plainly out there on the table now, so there was nothing left to lose. She stared at a spot an inch over Mackenzie’s left shoulder as she spoke. “If we weren’t working on this same file, would you only want to be friends?”

A light flush spread pleasantly over Mackenzie’s cheeks, and Elliott held her breath. After a beat where Mackenzie did nothing but stare, she let out a short laugh. “Would you like me to replay my confession on the street the other night? Or that kiss on the chairlift?”

Relief rushed through to every nerve ending in Elliott’s body, and she huffed out a laugh. Mackenzie grinned, head shaking slowly.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes my-my brain,” Elliott stammered, tripping over the words as they fell out of her mouth. “Sometimes it gets all, um, jumbled up in there, and, well, I—” She paused, scratching at a spot on her sweatpants. “I got stuck on the ‘friends’ thing, and I started to worry that⁠—”

“—that I was using it as an out?”

Elliott nodded sadly. “I don’t want to misread. And I worry that the more you learn, the less you’ll want me.”

Mackenzie smiled gently and ran her fingers over Elliott’s wrist. “You’re not misreading. I understand you need to hear it—maybe a few times, and that’s fine with me. I think you’re perfect, just as you are. I’m not looking for an out. I want you.”

Elliott’s face heated furiously, and the corners of her mouth tugged up despite herself.

“And, god, I love to see that color on your face.” Mackenzie brought her hand to Elliott’s cheek and ran a thumb over the soft skin under her eye, scanning her face.

Rather than squirming under the scrutiny, Elliott’s stomach leapt, and she struggled to remember a time she’d been taken care of in this way. It was like her head was filled with helium, giddiness consuming the churning anxiety, and she took Mackenzie’s hand and sat back against the cushion on the sofa.

Keeping hold of Elliott’s hand, Mackenzie smiled, reclaimed her own cup of tea from the teak coffee table, and settled into the couch next to Elliott, their thighs pressed firmly against each other.

Elliott’s face was stretched tight—like it was swollen—and her eyes stung with exhaustion. But her head was steady and clear, and in the last hour the path forward—the only path forward—had become glaringly obvious.

And frightening. Because it was like throwing away a crutch when the leg hadn’t healed yet, or removing a dressing from a wound that hadn’t yet closed over. And it was like doing it all without a backup plan. She was contemplating throwing away the best opportunity she had to finally prove to herself and to everyone else that the years she’d spent in this fucking profession hadn’t been wasted. That she wasn’t deficient.

Was she fucking crazy?

But—and damn him—her dad’s words had stubbornly engraved themselves into the front of her brain. Deep and loud and inescapable, they’d spent the last twenty-four hours chipping away at what Elliott thought was the most important thing and revealing what the most important thing actually was. And it—she—was sitting right in front of her.

And those words had ingratiated themselves to her subconscious because, like a physical slap, her traitorous brain hit her with the knowledge that her dad was right. She was certain Mackenzie would make her happy. She was less certain finishing out this matter—getting a great result—would fix the thing inside her that was so easily broken. That left her drowning in self-doubt and existing in chaos. The knowledge that she was using this file as a Hail Mary to address the lack of confidence she had in her professional abilities had slammed into her like a Mack truck somewhere between Elliott struggling for breath and Mackenzie telling her she wanted her. It permeated every atom, hijacking each one until it could be ignored no more. Perhaps it was time to address those confidence issues in a more direct way that didn’t mean sacrificing her personal happiness.