3 comments/ 12339 views/ 1 favorites 7. The Patriots Ch. 22-24 By: inspirixis1 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO "How did it go?" Oliver called down the hallway. Micah hung his keys on the hook in the entryway and shrugged out of his rain jacket as he walked towards the kitchen. "Urgh... I think I can confidently cross underwear model off my list of possible future occupations." Oliver laughed. "Not your thing?" "Actually my thing was the problem, apparently it has to look a certain way in the underpants and it was having problems looking that certain way. It was pretty embarrassing." His brother laughed again. Micah sat at the ancient kitchen table and stroked his hand over his starting-to-get-too-long hair. "What am I doing Ol?" "You're making as much money as you can now so later you can be a weird introverted professor like dad and still live in a nice house in a good neighborhood even though your university pays its lab monkeys more than you." "Oh, right, I forgot..." "Hey, it's not so bad is it? You wear some special underpants for a few hours and have your photo taken and they give you a boatload of cash." "I feel like such a whore. How come nobody else hates it as much as I do?" "Because the rest of us take it at face value... and nobody's ever complained about how my dong looks." "Yeah, right... I'm going for a ride. Catch you later." Not a day had passed since he got back to the States that he didn't thank god for Oliver. When he was released from the Liquigas contract he had stayed with his parents for precisely 6 days before his dad became too much for him and he moved out to California to live in his grandparents' old house with Oliver, who went to UC Berkeley. Micah was supposed to be keeping an eye on Oliver, but actually it seemed to be working the other way around. Since his freshman year Oliver had suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety. Luckily he was on the swim team and his coach had picked up that there was something wrong early on and he had access to the right medicines. Micah had lived with him before he moved to Italy in their grandparents' house but the dynamic had been very different. These days he couldn't figure out which of them was the big brother anymore. It was the whole breakup with Ellia that had thrown him. He couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong. What's more, he couldn't figure out how he could have been so thoroughly tricked. He had been absolutely convinced that she was in love with him. He had believe it with all of his heart, but then she'd turned around and left and all he'd ever heard back from her was that stupid form-letter email that said she wished him the 'best fortune,' whatever the hell that meant. He was pretty sure she had taken her dream job in Canberra with the Australian cycling team. She was probably chatting up her next conquest as he pedaled. She was probably smiling her pretty smile and laughing and tossing her thick blond hair around while she talked to some other cyclist. She was probably already sleeping with some other guy and charming him with her snoring and her sparkly blue eyes and the way she whispered his name in her cute accent right before she climaxed. Micah felt angry and sad and confused and hopeless all at the same time. It had been months since Ellia had left him. He had literally begged her not to leave and she had turned away, instructed him not to follow. As had become his habit, he wasn't even aware of where he was or what time it was until the shadows started to get long. He looked at his watch. It was only a quarter to five but it was pretty close to winter and the sun set early. In another half hour it would be too dangerous to for him to be on the road. He was pretty far north. He felt bad when he told Oliver where he was. He pulled off the road and waited in a gas station Subway. It was almost an hour before his brother was there to rescue him, once again. "Thanks Ol, I owe you one," he said as he mounted his bike on the rack on top of Oliver's car. "Nope, I think you're up to owing me about twelve or thirteen now." "Yeah, sorry," he said dejectedly. "Hey I was joking. Nobody's keeping track." When they were driving the dark curving roads home to Berkeley Oliver brought up the topic of girls again. He hadn't done it in a while and Micah was feeling so hopeless and dejected that he thought, what the heck, why not let Oliver set him up and feel like he's helping. "I know heaps of girls who'd like to meet you and go out. Just say the word." "Which word?" "Just say okay and I'll get you a date. Nothing serious, just socializing." "Okay." "Really? Okay?" "Yeah okay, I'll meet some of your friends. What's the worst that could happen?" There was an awkward silence and they both contemplated the worst that could happen. "Well," Oliver soldiered on. "If I'm going to set you up I need to know what sort of girls you like." "I dunno, whatever is fine." He didn't want to meet girls he might fall in love with. He wanted to meet faceless, nameless girls who would make his brother feel like he was helping. "Well, let's start with the obvious, do you have a racial preference?" "What? No. Why? Do you?" "I dunno... Maybe. Maybe I like Asian girls." Micah shook his head. "No, I don't care about race." Then he thought twice. "Actually, maybe it's best to stay away from white girls." He didn't want Ollie to find a blue eyed blonde for him who might remind him of Ellia. "Okay, see now we're getting somewhere. What about brains?" "Low on the brain scale." Again, any sort of intelligent conversation might remind him of Ellia. Also, a dumb girl was less likely to pick up on the fact that he was only going on a date with her to make his brother feel good. "See you do have preferences!" Oliver seemed delighted. "I have two or maybe three in mind, depending on how flexible you're willing to be on the brains thing." "Why do I feel like a whore again?" Micah wondered out loud. "Come on, don't be stupid. You don't have to sleep with them or anything, just go out and talk to some new people and have some fun." "Okay. Start me off with the dumbest one first and we'll see how it goes from there." "Great." Oliver had a big smile on his face. "I never pictured you as someone who liked bimbos, but there you go. You learn something new everyday." And every day he thanked god for Oliver. He was not thanking god for Oliver while they waited on the steps of the library for Melissa to show up. He was filled with dread. He didn't want to stuff this up and have all of Oliver's friends thinking that he was related to a weirdo, even though that was exactly the case. "There she is," Oliver said, nodding his head in the direction of a tall slim black girl with braided hair striding towards them with a pink polka dotted, frilly umbrella. Oliver made the introductions and then went into the library to 'study.' "This is a bit awkward, I'm sorry," she said. "No, not at all, it's not your fault." "It's just that it's so hard to find decent guys these days, and Oliver is such a doll, I figure anyone related to him is worth a try." She smiled a nervous smile and Micah couldn't help but like her. He opened his own umbrella and they walked around the campus together and then stopped for a coffee. He asked her all of the questions that he thought were reasonable for a blind date. She was a junior on the women's basketball team and she was studying early childhood education. She was from Chicago and in his estimation she missed the snow almost as much as he did. She was the only child of a state politician and a homemaker but she had no interest in politics herself. She didn't ask very many questions of him, which made her refreshingly easy to be around. She had a class to go to so Micah walked her to the building. "I had a nice time talking to you," she said. "Yeah, me too. Want to catch up again some time?" Micah couldn't quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. She smiled at him again. "Sure. Oliver has my number, you can just get it from him." She stood there smiling at him and he thought, 'What the hell? Why shouldn't I kiss her?' So he leaned under her umbrella and she didn't dodge him, in fact she helped to close the space between their lips. When he pulled away he smiled for the first time in what felt like ages. "Do you have time spare tomorrow?" Melissa was still smiling. "Sure." She nodded. "Same time, same place?" "I'll see you then." He watched her scale the stairs to her building two at a time and when she turned to give him a little wave he was still watching her. She was excellent. She didn't remind him of Ellia at all. She was friendly and interesting and pretty but she didn't make his heart pound, and when he kissed her it had been nice but not word-stopping the way it had been with Ellia. He started seeing her as much as he could reasonably fit in. His time with Melissa was simple. He didn't think about Ellia or about contracts for next season or about grad school or what he wanted to do with his life, he just thought about what a nice girl she was, and then, eventually, what a nice body she had. Naturally, Oliver was ecstatic. When he came home and caught Micah and Melissa making out on the couch he had turned immediately around and headed out the door again. Later he questioned Micah in detail. "So you really like her then?" "Yeah, she's nice." Micah said. "Just nice?" He sighed. "Yeah, just nice. I don't know Ollie. I don't have to think when I'm with her. She just talks, you know? And not even about anything that is important, it just makes it easier to..." "To what?" "...to not think about Ellia." Oliver let out an exasperated sigh. "Dude, you need to forget about Ellia. Ellia is gone. She told you not to follow her. I don't know any other chick who lays down the law that clearly." "I know, I know, it just isn't that easy to stop thinking about her. Just because she's gone doesn't mean I've stopped loving her." Oliver shook his head. "Micah, you're my brother and all so I won't kill you, but if you start something big with Melissa and then turn around and get sick of her and break her heart I will kick you in the balls. Like you said, she's a nice girl. You can't just use her and kick her to the curb." "What happened to what you said at the beginning about having fun?" "Yeah, socializing. I'm pretty sure I never said anything about using her. Like I said, my foot in your balls if you make her feel like a slut." That was a sobering thought. Especially in light of the fact that Melissa had invited him up to Lake Tahoe the next day for the weekend and he had already accepted. It wasn't the same with Melissa as it had been with Ellia. With Melissa things were pleasant without being complicated. He liked kissing her, but he wasn't addicted to it the way he had been with Ellia. Melissa had a nice body but it didn't haunt his thoughts the way Ellia's body did. He remembered with Ellia feeling like their bodies were magnets that were drawn to each other. He remembered every inch of Ellia, from the freckle that was partially hidden by her right eyebrow to the mangled pink scar on her hip. Most of all, he remembered looking into her eyes and feeling safe, as if she was the home he had unknowingly been looking for. Wasn't that a joke? Safe with Ellia. Those words didn't belong in the same sentence. Still, even though he felt bitter towards her, he had to make sure it was completely over before he made a move with Melissa. Oliver was right. Melissa was a nice girl. She wasn't the sharpest stick in the forest, but she had a good heart, and that counted for a lot. He wrote and rewrote the email to Ellia and finally sent it. It was a bit sappier than he wanted to let on that he was feeling, but what the fuck, she had seen him cry, she had broken his heart, she could put up with a bit of sappiness. "Dear Ellia," it read. "Judging from your previous responses to my emails I am guessing you will be happy to hear that I am trying to move on with my life. In fact, I've found someone I think I might be able to do that with. Unfortunately, much to my dismay, I keep on finding that I am still in love with you. I can't stop thinking about you and hoping that you are okay and wishing that you would love me back. So I want to ask you to do me one last favor: Please write back to me and tell me in no uncertain terms that we are over. I think it might help to put the past behind me to see it in your writing. Or don't reply, or send me your stupid form letter wishing me 'the best fortune.' I don't know Elle. I just want to be done with this feeling. I want to stop loving you." CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Ellia was so tired, but so determined as she de-boarded the flight from hell. She had been in transit for over a day with almost no rest. She had missed a connecting flight in Auckland and had to sit around waiting for an extra five hours, then had been routed through Chicago and had had to fly back half way across the U.S. to get to San Francisco. She must look like an absolute wreck. She caught a cab and was appalled by how far Berkeley was from the airport. Over a hundred US Dollars later she was standing at the front door of the house Micah was living in. Having lost all sense of decorum long ago she marched straight up to the door and knocked loudly. It wasn't long before Oliver answered the door. She had to look up a long way. She had forgotten how tall this family was. "Ellia!? What the hell? What are you doing here?" "Is Micah here? I need to talk to him." "Oh shit," he bit down on his lip and his forehead crinkled. "Um... he's actually gone for the weekend... he went skiing at Lake Tahoe." "Oh." She felt all of her resolve draining out of her. "Can I come in? I've been traveling forever." "Yeah, yeah of course, come in. You can stay here, we have a spare room... How did you know where we live?" "Adrian told me." Oliver paused and looked at her for a second, then he showed her to the shower and she used the boy soap and boy shampoo but this time it smelled like Micah and it made her cry. She hadn't cried in ages, but here she was smelling his shampoo and crying in his shower. "Do you want something to eat?" Oliver asked when she was dried and clothed. "Sure, thanks. Do you have wireless here?" "Yep, the network is called Watson and the password is Cassiopeia." "'kay thanks. I need to email my sister to let her know I got here okay and I haven't been able to use my phone because my stupid phone company in Australia doesn't have sister networks outside of the country, so stupid..." Her mouth went dry as she scrolled through her inbox and saw that she had an email from Micah called 'request.' She felt shaky as she opened the email and read what he had written. He was trying to move on. He had a new girl. He wanted to know that it was over. He wanted to stop loving her. It was dated a day and a half ago. "Oliver?" She said as evenly as she could. "Yeah?" "Did Micah go skiing on his own?" It only now registered in her brain that it was odd that Oliver wasn't also in the mountains. "Um... Well, not exactly... he kind of went with a girl." "A... a girl?" she managed to get out. "Yeah, a girl who he's been kind of um... seeing." She couldn't trust her voice to speak so she just held her phone up for him to read Micah's email. "Oh fuck," he said sadly. "If you don't mind me asking, why are you here Ellia?" He said in a not-too-kind voice. "I'm here to tell Micah that I love him and I want to spend my life with him." One of Oliver's eyebrows rose. "Are you serious?" "Of course I'm serious. I just spent close to forty hours on a plane to show him how serious I am." "Okay... get your bags, we're going on a road trip." "A road trip? Where?" "Lake Tahoe, where else?" "We can't just call him?" "You can try but there's no cell phone reception where he is. The only way he'll get a message up there is if it's in person, and this seems like the sort of message that shouldn't wait." The last place in the world that Ellia felt like being was cooped up inside a car for hours on end, especially not with Oliver who, while being extremely helpful, didn't bother to hide the fact that he was personally wounded by the way she had treated him and his brother. "You didn't even say goodbye Elle," he complained. "One minute you were there and the next thing we knew you were gone. No explanation, no see you at Christmas time, just gone. You have no idea how hard it was for the girls." "I sent the girls goodbye letters." "Yeah? Well you didn't send me a letter." Ellia was both amused and saddened by Oliver's sensitivity. She hadn't realized that the rest of the family would miss her. Thankfully, after they got into the mountains and Oliver had to get out to put chains on the tires because of the snow on the road, he quieted down and just watched the road ahead of him. It was dark outside. The snow fell as one continuous white blanket and the hum of the chains on the tires made her sleepy. So sleepy that the next thing she knew Oliver was shaking her awake. "Holy cow woman," he was saying. "I've never heard snoring like that before. It's no wonder you missed your connecting flight. They heard you coming from half way across the ocean and decided to leave without you." "Haha, very funny." "We're almost there. It's late. It's almost midnight." "Oh. Okay." She rubbed her eyes and then ran her fingers through her hair. "So this girl he's... seeing, what's she like?" "Um... I dunno." Oliver said and immediately bit down on his lower lip. "Come on Ollie, you're a terrible liar. You know something about her." Oliver sighed. "Okay fine, I introduced them. She's one of my friends from school." She whacked him in the shoulder. "What sort of loyalty is that?" "Well, serves you right for not sending me a goodbye card." "Geez, I'll know not to make that mistake twice." "Besides, Micah's been miserable. How was I to know you'd come back? Maybe if you'd called me and not Adrian we wouldn't be in this mess." He said that last sentence in a funny sing-song only half-joking voice and it made her shake her head. " I hate being the youngest!" He said. "Nobody ever thinks I'm capable of anything." "That's not true. I knew you were capable of driving through the snow so I went to sleep." He looked at her sideways. "Okay. You can have that one. I am good at driving in the snow. I often thought I would make a good snow-plough driver." She couldn't tell if he was joking or not. She had learned more about Oliver in the past five hours than she had in the entire three weeks in London. She wouldn't put it past him to be serious about something like driving a snow-plough. "And I want you to know that I'm only letting you off the hook for the past three months because you look like shit," he added. "Geez, thanks Ol. Way to complement a girl who is trying to win back the love of her life." "No, really Elle, you look terrible. You're all like, skin and bones. Did you stop eating or something?" "Well, not exactly. Sort of, but not exactly. The past couple of months haven't been a cake walk for me either." He pulled up to a big log cabin. "Here we are." He pulled a tin of breath mints from the glove box and popped one in his mouth. "You want one?" She picked out a mint and put it in her mouth. "Actually, you'd better take two," he said grinning. "Get out of here asshole," she said, punching him in the arm for good measure. "I'm just trying to help you Elle... Do you have a winter jacket back here?" He asked as he turned and started rooting around in the back seat of the car. 7. The Patriots Ch. 22-24 "I'm wearing my winter jacket." He glanced back at her for a second. "You've got to be joking. That's like, a summer cardigan." "No, it's a proper winter coat, I bought it in Milan." Oliver rolled his eyes at her and dumped a big canvas jacket in her lap. At first she wasn't going to wear it, but then she opened the car door and felt the air outside and decided that a big ugly coat wasn't going to hurt her chances any more than the rest of her disheveled appearance. "Um... Elle? Why don't you let me knock on the door?" "Huh? Why?" "What if they're like... going at it? That might be hard for you to see." Her stomach turned as she remembered why Micah was here in the snow and not down in Berkeley with his brother. He'd met someone he thought he could move on with, and that someone was in this house with him right now. Perhaps making love to him right now. She swallowed hard and nodded at Oliver, who took the lead. "Wait there," he requested and he turned a corner to the front door. He knocked using the metal banger and then he called out in a low voice, "Micah, it's Oliver, are you in there?" A moment later she heard the door open. "Hey," Oliver said. "Is Melissa with you?" CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR "Melissa's in the bedroom. What's wrong? Why are you here?" Ellia heard Micah's voice for the first time in months and her stomach clenched involuntarily. From her listening post around the corner from the door to the cabin she felt her palms tingle with sweat despite the freezing cold. "I'm just the taxi driver," Oliver said. She stepped around the corner in time to see Oliver disappear into the cabin past Micah, who was standing at the door in nothing more than a pair of pajama pants. He looked right at her and then he squinted his eyes and blinked a few times. She didn't know what to do. The snow was falling on her and melting onto her scalp and making her shiver. "Ellia? Is that you?" He asked. "Yeah." "Come here." She walked towards him uncertainly. He held his bear arm out towards her in the cold air and caught her by Oliver's jacket, guiding her into the warm house where Oliver was already flipping on lights in the kitchen. "What are you doing here?" He asked. In the warm light of the log cabin he looked every bit as good as she remembered. He was tall and dark and his eyes were locked on to hers with an intensity that stunned her. "I... I came to tell you that I love you." "What's going on?" Ellia broke eye contact with Micah to look over and see a gorgeous black woman dressed in a silky lavender nightie, she had long black braids that made her look oddly reminiscent of Micah's mum, but younger and sexier. Ellia's heart sank. She couldn't compete with this. She couldn't even begin to compete with this woman. "Hey Missy," Oliver held up the back of one hand as he rooted through the refrigerator. "Oliver?" She turned back to examine Ellia and then her eyes settled on Micah. "This is Ellia," Micah said. "Ellia?" Melissa crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, okay." She looked back at Ellia again and closed her eyes and nodded just perceptibly. "Bring me an apple would you Ol?" Then she turned and walked back through the door she came through. "Sure thing." Oliver grabbed a shiny red apple out of a glass bowl on his way out of the kitchen to go along with the armfuls of food that he had lifted from the fridge and then he disappeared through the door Melissa went through and closed it behind him. Ellia and Micah watched him go and then turned back to each other. Micah just stood there staring at her for a while, then he said, "I'm sorry, I still don't understand why you're here." "I... I wanted to make sure you know that I love you and that if you don't want us to be over I will do whatever I can to make it work." His forehead crinkled. "You love me? Sorry, but you haven't exactly been treating me the way you treat someone you love. I haven't felt loved by you in quite a while. Just because you show up and say those words to me doesn't make it real." Ellia felt the tears welling in her eyes. "I know. I'm sorry. I thought I knew what was best for us both, but I was wrong. I thought if we just didn't talk to each other we could forget about us, but I was wrong." "Right. So now you're here to tell me that I can move to Australia with you? After months of not hearing anything other than that stupid form letter from you I'm supposed to drop everything here and follow you home?" She sniffed as she shook her head. "No. I'll move here. I'll try to get a job here. Or where ever you want to live." "What about your prefect dream job in Canberra?" "It's nothing without you. Being successful is nothing if I can't share it with you." Micah's jaw clenched and he looked away from her. "Was... was that your girlfriend?" She asked in a small voice. Micah looked at her again with a steely expression. "I want to hurt you so bad right now Ellia. I want to make you feel as shitty as you made me feel for the past three months. I want to tell you that I'm in love with Melissa and I don't care about you anymore. I want to tell you that we fuck like bunnies and she's the best thing that's ever happened to me." Ellia tried to swallow the hard knot in her throat. "Okay," she whispered. Micah was staring at her so hard she thought his eyes might burn into her. He sighed. "But it's not true. None of it's true. We dated for a little bit, but we're just friends now. The sad truth is that after I wrote that email to you I realized that even if you told me it was over I still wouldn't be ready to have a girlfriend yet. It wasn't fair to keep stringing Missy along." For the first time since she saw Melissa standing in her sexy nightie Ellia felt she could breathe again. Micah was single. A small glimmer of hope lit in her heart. "Micah? Can I touch you?" He closed his eyes and sighed. When he didn't open them again she took a tentative step towards him. "Please forgive me Micah," she said softly. "I made a mistake." He still didn't open his eyes, but his forehead creased and the corners of his mouth turned down. She reached out and touched him on his chest and she saw his shoulders relax. "I love you Micah. Please let me try and make this right..." He took a step forward towards her but still didn't say anything or open his eyes. Ellia moved her hand from his chest up over his collarbone to his neck. "Micah open your eyes," she whispered. "Look at me." His eyes blinked open and their sadness was breathtaking. "Please take me back. Please... let me love you properly." He stared at her for a moment before he gave a small nod, the most important nod of her entire life, then his hands were snaking under the big winter coat and his arms were pulling her into the warm cocoon of his embrace. "I thought you weren't coming back." His deep voice broke with emotion. "I'm back now baby," she reassured him in hushed tones. "I promise I won't go away again. I promise to be..." But she couldn't finish her promises because Micah was kissing her. His soft, plump lips were caressing hers and warming her from the inside. Within her chest her heart ached painfully. He kissed her slowly and gently and she felt his sadness and his tenderness, and she thought she felt his hope. Later, when they had gone to the hotel, leaving Oliver behind at the house with Melissa, he said the words that she had been aching to hear. "I love you so much Ellia," he whispered as he made love to her. He looked into her eyes as he moved inside her and her tears leaked onto her cheeks. "No more tears baby," he murmured to her as he kissed her cheeks dry. She held on to him long after they had finished. She fell asleep plastered to his side, as if he might get up and leave her in the night. But he didn't. When he woke her in the morning she couldn't quite believe her eyes. She wrapped her self around him and made love to him again and told him that she never wanted to leave the hotel room. He chuckled and stroked her hair back off her face. "Can I ask you something?" She asked when they were in the shower. "Sure. Anything." "Are you an underpants model now?" He groaned. "Did you see it already?" She laughed. "It's kind of hard to miss. You're on a huge billboard right near the exit of the airport. It was like, 'Welcome to America, here's the man you love in a pair of tighty-whiteys.' It was a bit of a shock after a forty hour flight." "I didn't want to do it but it was supposed to be part of a series with Ollie and Matthew. I don't know why they haven't put up the posters of them yet." She laughed at his embarrassment and he tickled her and made her squeal, then picked her up and carried her back to the bed slung over his shoulder. When they finally made it back to Berkeley Micah broke the news that he and Oliver were supposed to go back to Denver for thanksgiving and asked her to come with them. She really didn't want to go. She was nervous about seeing his family again. If Oliver was mad about what she'd done there was a pretty good chance the rest of them would be pissed off at her too. But when they arrived in Denver there was never any mention made of her abrupt departure from London. The only reference anyone made to her long absence was when Adrian hugged her hello and said, "Found the house okay?" It took her a second to remember that he had been the one who had given her Micah's address in Berkeley. When it clicked she smiled and thanked him. "No problems. I'm glad you asked." It helped that Adrian had brought a date with him to Thanksgiving dinner that nobody had met before, so that took the focus off Ellia. Adrian's date, Monique, worked at the same police department that he did and had transferred from Florida. She had a mouth like a sailor and wasn't afraid to use it, but she was friendly and interesting. Ellia and Micah stayed at Grace and Nicholas' house and Micah thought it was hilarious to watch the shock on Nicholas' face when one of the little girls would repeat an obscenity that they'd heard from Monique. One morning, when everyone else was out, she lost Micah. She found him sitting outside on the back deck in the freezing cold, his knees tucked up to his chest and wrapped in a blanket. "What are you doing out here?" She asked. "Put Nicholas' snow jacket and hat on and come sit with me." She followed his instructions and was surprisingly warm sitting on Micah's lap all bundled up. He didn't seem to be in the mood to talk so she curled up and rested her head on his chest and enjoyed the way he held her while he appreciated the expansive view of leaf-less Aspen trees, meadows and mountains. She didn't know long they had been sitting there when he whispered her name. "Mm?" She responded. "Shh... Follow my eyes." She turned her head to see that he was looking at a giant, majestic buck with huge antlers stalk silently through the trees. It paused and looked around before moving on. She felt in awe and very small and plain in comparison. "Welcome to my America," Micah whispered to her.