I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Van

I swirled the empty glass in my hands, as the darkness inside the plane swept over me. We'd flown further into the night, extending the pre-dawn hours over the Atlantic as we crossed time zones. I tried to let that blanket me, tried to focus on the sky, and the way the clouds swirled through it, but I couldn't think of anything other than Ellie.

What was she feeling right then? Was she scared? Was she upset? Had Barns put his hands on her in any way, romantically or frantically? I closed my eyes at the thought, the shaking of my leg rattling my glass. I brought it to my lips and tossed it back. Larry blinked awake beside me.

"You alright?"

I nodded once and turned my gaze back to the sky. The rest of my drink heated my throat as the alcohol did it's best to soothe my nerves. It would be my last drink until I could see her. I didn't need to show up drunk, especially if it meant I'd be seeing Barns. I needed to be levelheaded. I needed to be sane.

"Well I don't believe ya." Larry stretched as he re-positioned himself in his seat. He hadn't been out long, and it wasn't his normal style to be awake on a plane. He preferred to sleep through flights, always claimed that sleeping through them calmed his nerves.

"What if she's hurt, Lare?" My words felt empty but heavy in the same breath.

Larry ran his hand over the back of his head, his short hair not changing the way it laid. "It's a potential risk, Van."

I nodded once and looked at the ice in my cup.

"What if she really wants to be back together with him?"

"Don't think that." Larry frowned. "It's not the case and you know it."

I closed my eyes for a moment and pressed my head against the seat. "It's not the far off of a possibility." I sighed as the words escaped me.

"What are you getting at? I thought the two of you were over all that history."

"How many times has she slipped through my fingers, Larry? Remember early on, when she'd go days without talking to me? She'd run right back to him even after everything he did. What if she does it again? What if he wasn't lying?"

"Stop it." Larry said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's the alcohol making you think these thoughts, that and the distance. You know how much she loves you. We all know it. Don't go thinking anything but that. Not now."

"They have a past, Lare."

"So do you...we all do."

"Not like theirs."

Larry narrowed his eyes at me, silent questions rolling around in his head.

"They were together a long time, they...she was pregnant once. Barns was driving her home, high, imagine that, and wrecked. She lost the baby. And he held that over her forever. She held onto him because it was the only thing she had left. Why wouldn't she go back to that if given the chance?"

Larry blinked the shock from his eyes and pressed his head into the seat. "That's why you say that in Coda. That's why you say 'she's gonna see her someday when we're older, when we slow down.' You're talking about a life with her. A life she didn't get to have. A life she almost had with him."

I didn't have words against his remark, instead I bit my lower lip and rattled the ice in my empty glass again out of habit.

"Shit, Van. Just because of that, doesn't mean that she will automatically go back to him. She's seen the kind of life she can have without him. The kind of life she could have with you. She's not going to run back to him just because they have a past. Sometimes that's the reason people run the other way." He let out a long breath and leaned toward me, his voice a whisper but rushed and laced in nodes of frustration. "I've watched you pick apart every relationship in your life. I've watched you wait for the end the whole time. I know what you're doing, what you're thinking, and this time you're wrong. She loves you, deeply. She isn't going to go back to Barns because of some sick hold he has on her. That's gone. All that left the day he nearly killed her. And she's different with you than she ever was with him. Her eyes...they stay on you. She's madly in love with you and I'm not going to have this conversation with you every time the two of you are apart."