Chapter 163

No. I’m not abandoning my sister. She and the baby are fine; she just needs to relax. She told me I could get back on the trail with Miles. She already has Mom and Dad hovering around her. Would another person truly help?

“If something else happens, I will come back,” I tell them. “I’m not disappearing, or going on a cruise or something. I will always be within distance of an airport. If there’s any indication that Thea needs me, I will rush back here as fast as possible.”

“By then, it could be too late,” Mom scoffs.

“Too late for what?” I ask.

Mom doesn’t answer. She just huffs an annoyed breath.

“At least stay until the morning,” Dad says. “See how she is. Then make your decision.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere tonight,” I tell them honestly, but they both look at me with differing levels of skepticism.

It’s the truth though. It’s already 10 pm. Miles can wait until tomorrow.

To further prove to them that I am a good sister who doesn’t abandon her family – even though that should have already been obvious for everything I’ve ever done for Thea – I camp out in the hospital room with Mom and Dad. Somehow they convinced the staff to let us stay past visiting hours.

Thea sleeps through the night, though none of the rest of us do.

In the morning, Thea looks at all of us, then frowns at me.

“What are you still doing here, Esther? I thought I told you to leave last night,” she says.

“She shouldn’t leave until we know you are well,” Dad says.

Thea rolls her eyes.

I do end up staying until the doctor comes in and checks Thea over. She seems to be doing well, though he cautions her against further stress. Though he wants to keep her in the hospital for now.

Dad grunts in my general direction, which I take as permission to get back to work. After hugging each of them, I head to the airport.

I take an airplane to the city Miles is currently visiting. A town car waits for me there, the chauffer meets me in the lobby with a placard of my name.

I follow him to the car. He opens the back door and I slip inside, surprised to find Miles there, waiting for me. As the chauffer closes the door behind me, I slide across the seat and into Miles’s waiting arms.

In this town car, the windows are darkly tinted and the partition is up, blocking the driver’s view from what’s going on in the back.

Without saying a word, Miles kisses me and I immediately melt into his warmth. It’s only been a few days, but now that I’ve returned to his arms, it feels as if I’ve been gone for an eternity.

“I’m glad you are back,” he whispers when we part for breath.

“Me, too,” I tell him, yet lingering guilt from the conversation with my parents forces me to drop my gaze. “Though… I suppose I still feel bad for leaving.”

I’ve already explained some of this to Miles, when I called to tell him when to expect my return.

“It’s not your fault,” Miles tells her. “She told you that you could leave.”

“She did, but I…” I sigh. “Maybe I should have stayed. She can’t confide in Mom and Dad like she can in me. I know she’s in the wrong for cheating on Garnar and getting pregnant from a man that she doesn’t want to be with, but I still feel bad for her.”

I shake my head. There’s been so much weighing on my mind as of late, with everything going on with Thea. In the moment, I dealt with the punches as they came, but now that I’m in a safe space again, comforted by Miles, the guilt and the worry and the self-hate are starting to bubble up inside of me.

“The things I’ve done and felt… Do they make me a bad person?” I ask.

“No,” Miles says right away. “Esther, you are the best person I know.”

It’s easy to fall back into normalcy after that. Keeping up with the campaign takes most of my mental power. In the evenings, I call Mom and Dad to check on Thea. Sometimes they answer, a lot of the time they don’t. But I do worry about her.

I’ve convinced myself that if something were truly wrong, they would tell me about it. That’s the only way I can find comfort about it.

Miles has been helpful, distracting me in the night.

If he’s nervous at all about the upcoming primary elections, he doesn’t let on. Instead, he cracks jokes, making me smile, or kisses me, or otherwise diverts all of my attention with his clever hands and tongue.

One night, he places a menu in front of me while we are sitting in the hotel room.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“A menu for the nicest steakhouse in town,” Miles says. “Order whatever you want, and I’ll have one of the aides go and collect it.”

The prices on the menu make my eyes nearly pop out of my head. “We don’t need anything this fancy…”

“I insist,” Miles says. He sits beside me on the sofa. “I want to wine and dine you with real dates, Esther, but because of the need for secrecy, I haven’t been able to.”

“You don’t need to woo me,” I tell him.

“I do,” he insists. “You deserve expensive meals with candlelight and fine wines. I can’t take you out, but I can do the best with what we have.”

He’s set on this then, I can tell. It’s not necessary, but… it does feel nice to have someone want to go out of their way for me.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind being wined and dined. Most of my relationship with Miles has skipped a few steps and gotten right to the falling into bed together part. Maybe it’s time we backtrack a little.

So I select my order, and Miles makes the call. An hour later, a table is set up with a white tablecloth and a candle centerpiece. The aids meticulously set up our meals, with Miles supervision. He insists on helping, while also insisting that I do not.

By the time we sit down to eat, just the two of us, the hotel room does feel more like a private little corner of a restaurant, with Miles and I stealing glances at each other while I eat the most delicious steak I’ve ever had in my life.

“Thank you, Miles,” I tell him, after we finish eating.

“I’ll woo you yet, Esther,” he says, like he hasn’t already done so.

All of this, everything he’s done for me, it’s entirely unnecessary.

The truth is, though I’m hesitant to admit it, even to myself, is that my feelings for Miles are so deeply rooted, they seem a lot like love.

The last time I had thought myself in love had been with Garnar, so I’m not sure I can trust my own feelings. Yet I can’t really deny their strength or their hold over me.

When Miles smiles, my heart races. When he touches my hand, my skin burns. When he kisses me, I am entirely swallowed with desire.

If this isn’t love, I’m not sure what it is.