The End

Chapter 9: Without Me

The crashing waves lulled her troubled thoughts.  She looked to her phone to check the time, knowing she should soon be leaving.  The text message seemed to scream at her. "Maybe we should meet." The words dancing in her stomach like a synchronized butterfly routine. Ellen felt like Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail. Sure, she'd met Patrick already, she'd spent thousands of hours with him and made love more times than she could count but it didn't matter. This was different. She was a different woman and he a different man. The world was a different place.

For obvious reasons the stakes felt higher, risking getting sick, publicly breaking a guideline intended to keep their community safe.  Truthfully, she was risking her heart in that same way. Yet she wanted to say, I'm here now at your beach. Come see me.

Ellen didn't say that, she didn't say anything. She just sat with the sounds of the ocean. Taking that step would change a lot. It was one she wanted to be sure that she was ready for. She hadn't been ready before, for all of it, or any of it for that matter. What being together sacrificed in her life was more than she was willing to handle at that point but she tried to take the leap anyway.

She wouldn't make that mistake this time. If she was going to meet him, cross the familiar but forbidden line, Ellen wanted to know for sure. It was just coffee or whatever but it opened a door that would be hard to close, for both of them. She wouldn't hurt him again. He couldn't handle it.

Ellen sat in a chair at the edge of a hospital bed on a set filled with far too many people. It felt like a lifetime ago that they had flirted in Meredith's living room. She didn't remember the moment that she had fallen for her co-star but now, all of these years later, she was positive she had.

Today meant a lot of things, the final piece of a love story she'd spent a decade bringing to life, the end to a tumultuous but intoxicating work relationship, but most terrifyingly, it was the beginning to what would happen next.

She would have been lying if she'd said she never thought about ending up with him. Turning her whole world upside down to be with him. But today, today it stared her in the face like a tidal wave. Her choice was to sink or swim. Every part of her wanted to swim but she had never been more scared in her life.

Ellen let out a light giggle as she looked up to realize that he was taking her picture. "In case I leave today and you decide never to speak to me again," he joked.

"Ha," she laughed, "you're not that lucky."

"Good," he smiled. "How do I look? Like I'm about to die?"

"Close," she giggled again, "I realize it's not funny."

"No," he shook his head, "there are about 10 million viewers that are going to think it's very not funny."

She groaned, "I don't even want to think about that."

"Please," he waved her off, "you'll be fine without me."

But she wasn't fine without him. His words echoed in her head as her eyes lost focus of the waves in front of her. He hadn't meant in her personal life. She knew that. Their plans were still to be together. Looking back though, it felt strangely ironic. A foreshadowing that was hard to ignore.

She wished she could go back and talk to that Ellen. Warn her that she was letting fear derail her life. It hit her suddenly that the very same fear that derailed her before was holding her back now.

Ellen paced back to her car. The sand heavy beneath her feet. She wanted to text him back. She just couldn't yet. Her past mistakes haunted her in a way that she couldn't shake.