I spent two whole days at Lawrence’s, and then I had to go back. I needed supplies, and I wasn’t blowing money on new stuff at the store. I wanted to avoid my mother, but not that much.
I walked into the house and closed the door softly behind me. I wasn’t here to fight with her again. I wasn’t up for screaming or throwing things. I wasn’t even angry anymore, really. I was discouraged, disappointed. I was confused.
We passed each other, and her face was still holding rage. She wasn’t giving in. All the generosity had left her, and I didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” I said to her. I had stopped walking.
“What don’t you understand, Erica?” She said icily.
I tried to verbalize the dull, dragging feeling of something not being right. “I just…I had no idea you would have such a problem with me being with him. We know him! He’s been to our house before, with Lou.”
“That was with Lou,” my mother articulated.
My mouth was open. “So Lou can be his friend, but I can’t?”
“Lou doesn’t sleep with him,” my mother sniffed.
“That’s ridiculous!” I was starting to heat up. “Do you realize how unfair that is? Lou gets to associate with whoever he wants, but I have to stay within the right crowd? And God forbid I actually have sex…”
“I am just trying to look out for you, Erica!” My mother looked at me, almost in desperation. “I don’t want people talking about you. I don’t want you to be humiliated!”
“Because that would just ruin your little get-togethers, wouldn’t it?” My eyes darkened. “Let’s be real here, Mom. I’m not the one who fears humiliation. You can’t stand the thought of being on the other side of your vicious little gossip circle, can you?”
That landed right on target. Her eyes widened, and she looked as if she might start crying. She quickly recovered, though.
“All right, Erica,” she said, holding her head stiffly erect. “It’s clear that you’re determined not to listen to me. And that’s just fine.” She said “fine” in such a loaded way that it was a clear contradiction of the word. “But maybe you should ask your boyfriend about Cicily Bordhaven, and…and…” Her face was coloring unevenly, unnaturally. “Ask him about Elaine Windzor.”
I shook my head at her, my eyebrows sinking down into my cheeks. “What is this…what are you talking about? Cicily Bordhaven? She just spent most of the year vacationing in Aruba!” I wavered, tracking a faltering path between my mother and the front door. Trying to think. “And Elaine…I remember her, she used to come here all the time. You used to be friends. You never did tell me why she fell out of favor.”
“Like I said,” my mother spat with more animosity than I had ever seen come out of her. “Ask your boyfriend.”
I managed to get away from her, and I ran up the stairs to gather the things I needed. Once there I took my time, methodically placing items in my bag, quieted and deeply unsettled.
Lawrence
Erica was in the bedroom with me, and we stood apart. There was something behind her eyes, some preoccupied something that I didn’t want to think about. I didn’t even try to walk up and touch her. It felt like there was some barrier shoved between us.
My eyes rested on the floor, too heavy to keep level with hers. Even from across the room I felt her hesitation, her reluctance.
Erica straightened her spine. “I need to ask you something,” she said clearly.
The fear flickered into my stomach, burning a jagged path right through me.
She kept going. “My mother…is very different from me. She cares deeply about things that I just think are petty and stupid. She’s into appearances, and being in with the right crowd. She’s all about image.”
Something unwanted crowded into my mind at that point. My father, obsessively primping before he’d even leave the house. Never saying the wrong thing. Never falling off script. Image.
Erica’s hand settled on the back of her neck, holding firmly. “I thought she would protest a little when I told her about you, just because I went my way and not hers. I didn’t pay much attention to her at first. I thought she would give up. I thought she would start to be happy for me.” Her eyes showed genuine sadness. My nails dug into my palm.
Erica looked right at me, and we both stood stiffly, as if nailed to the floor. “I have never seen her like this. She is just so adamant, Lawrence. She is so viciously set against this that it makes me wonder. It makes me wonder…if she might have a reason.”
Erica almost winced a little as she said the words. She either didn’t believe them or didn’t want to.
Erica took a step forward. She faced me, completely open. “If you tell me she’s out of her mind, I’ll believe you,” she said gently.
Her face was true and giving. She trusted me. Even now, with all her mother had been hinting at, she trusted me completely. I knew what she wanted me to tell her. She wasn’t seeking the truth. She thought there was no truth other than what it felt like when our bodies intertwined.
I looked away from her radiant face, clear across the room. “She’s not out of her mind,” I said hollowly.
I heard the sharp little puff of air go into her lungs. I looked and I saw the shock on her face. The disappointment. Her body seemed to shrink right in front of me. My mind was a wreck, just churning and muddy black. I had never wanted to harm myself this much.
I had to tell her now. I had to tell her exactly why her mother didn’t want her around me. The thought made me recoil, but I pushed through it. She deserved the truth.
“I’ve never had a serious relationship before you. And I’ve slept around over the years. A lot.”
I swallowed. Erica was still standing there, so I kept talking.
“I’ve been with a lot of girls, briefly, sometimes just one time. Sometimes the girl had a boyfriend or she was married or engaged or whatever. Sometimes I didn’t know about it, but other times I did and I slept with her anyway. I made some enemies that way, as you can imagine.” I tried to laugh, but I just made a little strangled noise that rattled around in my throat. “Sometimes I don’t always think before I do something.”
Erica was looking at me. Her face was changing in ways that made the panic rise up almost into my mouth. She was tightening up. “How many girls have you been with?” She asked, her voice short.
I couldn’t look at her. This was a bad question. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” She stared at me, mouth hanging. “How can you not know?”
I shrank away from her angry, uncomprehending face. “It might be a hundred. It might be more. I have no idea.”
She shook her head, moving now. She pivoted, almost leaving and then coming back. She kept her distance.
I hesitated. It wasn’t over. I tried to start talking again but I couldn’t get enough air and I couldn’t get my jaw to move and I didn’t want her to hate me.
Erica stopped moving and looked at me again. Her eyes were full of outrage, fear and uncertainty. “What about Elaine Windzor?”
My eyes snapped open. I seized up inside. All I could think was, That bitch is going to ruin my life.
I went far back into my head, pathetically shielding myself from the burning shame and horror. I started talking, my voice dull and quiet. It was just words. If I thought too much I would never get through this.
“Late last year I had the opportunity to play at the International Polo Club. I had a place on a team, and they wanted me there. It was huge. I wanted to go. I needed to go. But I didn’t have the money, or the ponies. I had to get a sponsor. Finding one…was difficult. I wasn’t the chosen one, the local boy they watched grow up. I wasn’t Paul Miller. I was young, and raw, and no one thought I could do a thing in competition of that caliber.”
“Elaine was…” I struggled, and shook myself. Just keep going.
“Elaine was always around. She was a fan of the sport, or at least that’s how she wanted it to look. I knew otherwis
e. I was fifteen when I met her, and I knew exactly what she wanted. I didn’t want any part of it. Arnold Windzor is a good man. I liked and respected him. I wasn’t going there.”
“When I failed to find a sponsor and was desperate, Elaine came to me with a proposition. She was prepared to sponsor me fully, using her husband’s money, of course. I knew what was expected of me in return. I struggled. I wanted nothing to do with that woman. But I had no other options. And I couldn’t stay where I was.” My voice broke up slightly, and I turned my eyes onto Erica. “I said yes.”
Erica went completely still. Her eyes widened in her face.
I kept talking, desperately tearing through her silence. “I know how this must sound to you. I know it’s a lot to take. But you have to believe me when I tell you this. If there was some way I could go back and change what I did, I would take it all away, because nothing matters to me now except you.” I was breaking down, barely keeping myself upright. “I’m just a stupid kid, Erica. I’ve been so stupid.” My hand went to my face. “And I love you so much. There’s nothing out there that comes close to what we have. There’s nothing else I want.”
I moved closer to her, keeping my eyes on her. She wouldn’t look at me. “I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry that I kept it from you. I’m so sorry for that. I just…I was afraid of losing you.”
I stopped talking. I was suddenly exhausted, and I had to just stand there and wait for her to respond. That was all I could do.
Erica wrenched herself away from my gaze. Her hands raised to the level of her collarbone, gesturing, quivering. “I just….I can’t think!”
She turned her head toward me, just a little, and then she jerked it away. She whirled, decisively striding out of the room and leaving me standing there.
Erica
I was lost. I drove down to the waterfront and stepped outside, looking out at the cold, grey water. Wandering along the sandy stretch, holding myself with my arms as I braced and huddled against the chill that blew in off the lake. No one else was out here, and that was fitting.
The grass was overgrown alongside the eroded path I’d stumbled down, and flowering mint grew thickly in a patch. Cold bumblebees clung to the tiny flowers, frozen to the stalks, unmoving.
I stopped walking and just looked out at the murky, choppy water, the blue-grey sky. Goddamn it, Lawrence, I thought suddenly. How could you?
He’d been lying to me this whole time. When I thought back, when I remembered how we were, I filled up with rage and hurt. The convulsions started, and I became almost physically ill. It was overwhelming, and I could barely process any one emotion because there were so many just strangling me. I needed to cry but I was too angry to cry, and my anger wasn’t giving me any strength. It was diluted, weak and watery in my veins. I felt like I’d taken repeated blows to the head. I looked out at the world through a dull bruise.
The lie hurt, of course. It was a betrayal of the most intimate kind. I’d trusted him with everything I had, and now I was hearing the whole story. Something I should have been told before. Before all this.
But is that even fair? Some critical voice in my head sounded off. Were you totally honest with him? Did you even give him your romantic history?
The doubt seeped in, and I felt like crying. No! I didn’t tell him anything. But I had a reason! I didn’t want him to think I was an undesirable loser!
Well, maybe he didn’t want you to think he was a total man whore. Look how you reacted when he told you. Would you have even given him a chance? He’s obviously not proud of what he did. Maybe he doesn’t want that life anymore.
I quickly retreated from that hopeful thought. I was deeply confused. I was being pulled off my feet in so many directions that I had no idea what was right anymore. I couldn’t align his past and what he was like with me. I couldn’t put it together and have it fit. I couldn’t understand how he had been lying all that time when everything about him felt completely honest. I didn’t know if it was right to trust him again, or even if I could. And most of all, I didn’t know if this horrible aching desolation was because I couldn’t be with him anymore, or because I couldn’t stand not being with him.
I shivered, and I turned and staggered back up the parking lot, slipping on the sandy turf underfoot. Turning on the heater, I sagged in my seat, dead tired. I let the cab warm up and even then I sat there for a while longer. Heart’s “Alone” came on as I drove, and every conflicting thought and emotion evaporated, leaving me to simply cry.
Lawrence
I didn’t remember the collapse. I couldn’t recall sitting down. I was in a chair and I didn’t seem to be getting up. I was weak, and I had no reason to try and fight it. My ambition was gone, and I couldn’t move. The only thing that worked was my head, and I wanted so badly to separate myself from it, to silence it. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. I sat there in the overwhelming quiet, feeling the dreadful sensation of my worst case scenario happening.
I felt like she was dead. No, I felt like I had caused her death somehow. Crushed the body and soul that had given me so much. That was more like how I felt.
I had done everything wrong. I’d just started to get it right. I’d learned so much this year, and I was so happy with Erica. I was so happy. It was all wrapped up in her, and now I didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t think beyond the pain. My forehead tightened up, and I just let it throb behind my eyes. I gave myself up to it and let it disintegrate me.
It was just hard to believe. It was hard to imagine I’d lost something so wonderful over my past stupidity. I deserved it, I knew I did. But I still felt helpless, like I had felt when I stood there telling her that stuff, trying to get her to understand how meaningless it was.
It was going to be hard to go back to that, after being so close to her. Maybe if I had some time to harden up I could start again, and if I didn’t give myself time to think, I might be alright. I knew I couldn’t be alone. I needed someone, even just at brief intervals. But maybe I could cope. I’d always dealt with the void. It was the same as always, I just knew why it was there now. I knew every sensation of being in love with someone, and having that love returned.
My defenses broke, and I gasped, the air entering my lungs like a jagged knife blade. The pain expanded, filling up my chest like blood. My head dropped into my hands, and I sobbed dryly, clutching my face. The air was so still, almost stifling, and my heartbeat became frantic as I tried to stop, unable to control my despair. No one was here to see it and that made it even worse somehow. My stupid words never made any difference and I couldn’t show her how I really felt because she was gone.
Erica
I turned the brass knob and leaned against the smooth surface of the door, opening it slightly. It was so heavy against my shoulder. Finally I was inside the house and I let it fall shut behind me. My boots barely shuffling, I headed slowly across the floor, toward the staircase. The only thing keeping me going was that I really needed to fall on my bed and cry some more.
My mother swished out of the dining room, full of cheer and energy. She came to a gleeful stop before appraising me with a radiant smile. “I knew you’d make the right decision,” she said.
I stared at her, and slowly everything that had been jammed up in my head gently disengaged and parted. And I could see with absolute clarity.
“Screw it,” I said. “I’m going back there.”
Lawrence
I wasn’t watching the clock, but it was still afternoon. I knew from the way the light came in and lay around the room. The sun filled the place like a floodlight, and all I saw was the bareness of the walls, the empty bed lying open. There was nothing in here anymore, and all I sensed was the absence of her, made painfully obvious in this stark daylight.
Eventually I would have to get up. The horses would need feeding, and I couldn’t just hide in here forever. I was too tied to them, too bonded. They were all I had. Horses were absolute, and I really needed that right now.
When I first heard her truck pull in, I thought I was imagining it. I wanted to hear it so much that the familiar smooth roll of her engine was spontaneously going off in my head. I was sure of it. Then I kept hearing things. I heard a door close, and quick footsteps on the porch. The creak and sigh of my door opening and shutting. And then she was right there, in the doorway.
I stayed in my chair, but my heart took a dive and I went right along with it. I didn’t care if I crashed onto the floor. I couldn’t stop loving her and it was just so much easier to hope right now.
Erica walked over to me, almost breaking stride to a jog. She leaned over my stricken form, kissing me fully before straightening up.
“I’m sorry I ran out like that,” she said, her face almost pained. “I just couldn’t process any of it. I couldn’t deal. I’m sorry.” She looked down at my face, searching me with worried eyes.
“It’s okay,” I said hurriedly. My voice was dry and quiet. “You should not apologize, Erica. You have nothing to apologize for.”
She nodded slightly, still watching me. “Do you want to sit down?” She waved an arm at the bed behind her. I realized she was still standing over me and I was still in the fucking chair.
I got up and followed her weakly to the bed. We sat down, and she gently took my hand. I briefly let my eyes shut, then focused on her.
“I was confused when you told me,” Erica said. “I was upset because I didn’t understand how you could do that stuff when it doesn’t fit with the man I know.” She moved to face me completely, and our knees were touching. “But when I had time to think about it I realized that it shouldn’t matter. It’s in the past. And what I feel like when I’m with you…” She smiled and shook her head slightly. “It’s not a lie. None of this was a lie. I know it wasn’t. And I’m not giving it up for any stupid reason. I want to be with you, Lawrence.” She leaned in closer. “I love you.”
Training Harry Page 57
