by Mariah Dietz
Rachel watches him leave before turning to me. “You still haven’t forgiven me, have you?”
“Rachel, I’m not mad at you,” I say, shaking my head.
“I didn’t say you were mad. I said you haven’t forgiven me.”
“For what?”
“For letting Hayden eat that stupid granola bar!”
“This has nothing to do with the granola bar,” I say. “It has to do with Garret.”
“You’re upset that I invited him over?”
“Yes! I’m upset you’re pushing him on me when I’ve been trying to tell you that I don’t like him like that.” I take a deep breath, trying to steel myself and reach forward to touch her hand. “I don’t like him because I like Coen.”
“What?” She pulls her hand away from me, her eyes growing wide with betrayal.
“I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve wanted to tell you.”
“You’ve liked him all along, haven’t you?”
“I was trying to ignore it because I knew you liked him, and then when I realized I had feelings for him I tried to stop.”
“You tried to stop? Really? How, Ella? By having him come over every single day and talking to him on the phone all the time? No wonder you stopped doing the online dating!”
“I stopped doing the online dating because I hated it! You of all people know that!”
“That’s because you always went into it expecting to hate it! If you had actually been doing it for any other purpose other than getting over Patrick, you would have found all kinds of great people. But instead, no one was ever good enough.”
“I went on a date with a man and his mother! I ate a kid’s meal at McDonald’s with another. I got bit by fleas! Had to hold a man who was crying about his ex-wife! I deserve more than that!”
“Of course you do! I’ve been preaching that to you for years! And what do you do? You take the first guy that I’ve been interested in since my divorce. The guy you’ve known all along that I care about.” She stares at me with wide, tear-brimmed eyes, and I don’t know which hurts more—the fact that I’ve hurt her or the clear accusation.
“I didn’t mean to fall for him,” I admit quietly. “I never want to hurt you, Rachel, never. It just happened.”
“So make it un-happen.”
“I can’t. I can’t tell my heart to stop. If I could, I would never have moved to this town in the first place. Don’t you understand? I moved here on the premise of love, and now I know how wrong I was, how what I had felt at that time was the need to be loved and infatuation and hurt. That wasn’t love. Patrick created a self-doubt in me that made me work so hard to be perfect so I could be seen as good enough for a town of strangers who have never once been willing to listen to my side, see my points, understand my reasonings.”
“Why does that mean you have to be with Coen? You can’t love him just because he saved Hayden.”
“I don’t love him because he saved Hayden. I love him because he saved me. Because he makes me acknowledge my feelings rather than feel ashamed of them. And he makes me feel calm and safe—two things I haven’t felt since I was seventeen.” Tears speed up, racing the last ones down my cheeks.
She looks at me with arched brows. “You love him?”
I sniffle and nod, feeling a well of emotions about to break. “I do.”
Rachel purses her lips, and her red eyes well with tears. I want to hug her. Hold her because I know she’s hurting, and being the reason for her sadness makes my chest physically ache. I stand up, and she shakes her head, backing up.
“I can’t forgive you,” she says. “You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me for months.” She shakes her head again. “I don’t want to ever speak to you again.” She slams the front door behind her, and I lie on the couch, too tired to cry, and too numb to think.
A few moments later, Coen appears beside me and gently rubs my back as I stare off at nothing.
“I have to call Patrick,” I tell him. “Hayden doesn’t want to go over there this weekend. He says he never wants to go back over there.”
“Is that possible?”
I sigh so deeply my stomach goes nearly concave. “I don’t know. But I do know Patrick’s not going to take this well.”
“Why don’t we wait and do it in the morning?”
“I’d rather go through the entire firing squad at once,” I tell him.
“What did Rachel say?”
“I’m surprised you couldn’t hear her.”
“I closed the door and turned up the movie so Hayden wouldn’t hear anything.”
“Thanks.” My tone is emotionless. The tears I cried while trying to speak to Rachel have already run dry, and I don’t know why or even how because my entire body feels the weakness and vulnerability that comes with crying.
Sitting up, I reach for my phone and scroll down to Patrick’s name. My heart hammers in my chest as I wait for him to answer, and I think back to when this fast rhythm was due to excitement and lust rather than dread and fear. It now seems so ironic that such opposite emotions can lead to the same effect.
“Hey,” he answers on the second ring. We never talk on the phone. Ever. Not since I found out about Lindsay. All of our communications are handled via text or email which I have preferred because it allows me to weigh out and consider my responses, but with this I feel it’s necessary to speak to him and let him know how serious this situation is. “Ella?” he asks when I don’t answer right away.
“We need to talk about Hayden.” I need to make this clear up front.
“I’m on my way home from visiting a friend. Why don’t I stop by?” His voice is calm and assuring, filled with that attentiveness I used to yearn for—like he knows I’m stressed and need to be comforted.
“Why don’t we meet somewhere instead?”
Coen straightens beside me.
“I’m like five minutes away from your house. That would be silly.”
“Patrick…”
“He’s there. Isn’t he?”
“We need to talk about Hayden,” I say again.
“I’ll be there in four minutes.”
I hang up and turn to Coen. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to ask you.”
His jaw pulses, but he doesn’t provide me with advice, and I’m not surprised. I’ve put him in an awkward position. He hates Patrick for far more reasons than putting his job in a precarious position. I can’t imagine being in his shoes, dealing with him confessing to once loving a person and fearing being incapable of loving again.
“Will you stay? Please?”
“I was hoping you’d want me to. Otherwise, I was going to have to sit in your neighbor’s yard, waiting to make sure nothing happened.”
I grin at the thought. “He won’t do anything. As you’ve learned, Patrick is all talk. But … if he says anything tonight, don’t react. I honestly think that’s what he’ll be looking for.” I stand from the couch. “I’m going to meet him in the driveway so he doesn’t try to come inside. I don’t want Hayden having to deal with him.”
“I’d rather stay downstairs just in case things get heated.”
“He won’t touch me,” I assure him. “And since he knows you’re here, he’s going to likely say something rude and offensive, and I don’t want you to have to hear that.”
Coen brushes my cheek with his thumb. “Wait until you meet my brother. You’ll learn I have really thick skin.”
“But how thick is it when it comes to Hayden or me?”
He breathes in deeply, and I can see thoughts registering. “Not very,” he admits.
“There’s nothing to hide, so if it’ll make you feel better, you can listen—but I promise everything will be fine.”
I hear the rumble of Patrick’s sports car and lean up to kiss Coen. Not to comfort him, but to give me strength.
I’m barely out the front door and Patrick is already on my front porch, his intention to come inside clear.
Patrick’s ey
es flash to the closed door and then to me. “Is this really how things are going to go between us now?”
“I don’t understand how this is any different than before?”
“We’re standing on your front porch, Ella.” Patrick swats at a moth circling around him.
“And I’m pretty sure if you think calmly and rationally about it, you’ll know why.”
“Ella, we’ve known each other for ten years!”
I pull my chin back, and my eyebrows furrow. “I thought I knew who you were. I really did. And then I realized I’ve never known who you are. I have a child with you. A child I trusted in your care, and I don’t know you at all.”
“He’s filling your head with lies. This … we never had an issue until he came along.”
I shake my head, and tears burn at the inner corners of my eyes. “No, it was watching a man stare at a girl that made me realize it. You never loved me, and I never loved you. We were each other’s dirty secrets! Our entire relationship was built upon lie after lie after lie. That’s not love. That’s not even friendship—that’s just pure and simple greed.”
“I’ve always loved you.” Patrick’s eyes are wide and bright with an intensity I recall seeing many years ago. “I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you.”
A sick and perverse side of me wants to hear these words I’ve longed for him to say so many times for so many years. Make him give me an actual explanation beyond telling me that it’s complicated. I already know it’s complicated. Life is complicated. Relationships are complicated. Everything is complicated, but that doesn’t mean I have to accept it. Not anymore.
“You loved that I was easy to manipulate and control. You loved that I was impressionable and naïve. I don’t even doubt that you loved spending time with me because I made you feel like a bigger man.” I shrug, not embarrassed to admit that it was my insecurities that allowed his illusions. “But you have no idea who I am, to love me, Patrick. Because knowing my favorite candy at the movies, or my favorite drink, or color, those things don’t define me. They aren’t what make up my soul. They’re a mirage of inconsequential details because you never took the time to see the full picture, to know what makes me laugh so hard my cheeks burn, or what causes me to wake up at night, or what I hate hearing but need to. You know none of that.”
“You pushed me away.” His temper makes his voice grow deeper.
“You were married!” I cry. “What did you expect me to do? I moved here with a baby. Your baby. And I learned you had already created your own life, complete with a wife and a white picket fence.”
“Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way.”
I laugh humorlessly. “What part?”
“We were happy.”
“We were a lie.”
“We weren’t a lie. What we had was honest and simple and true.”
“Patrick. You. Were. Married. I was your affair. Nothing about our relationship was honest or simple or true.”
“There were no expectations. No complications. What we had was what I imagine great loves are all about. What Shakespeare wrote about!”
I glare at him, hating that he’s thrown Shakespeare into this mess, though I shouldn’t be surprised. His words make it sound like Coen is merely a safe and dependable guy and that’s the only reason I’ve fallen for him, and I know that’s wrong and ridiculous because nothing about our love has been easy, yet it’s all been real to the point he’s seen my ugliest sides, ones Patrick doesn’t even know exist—and Coen still wants more. He’s still here.
“Our relationship wasn’t built for longevity, Patrick. And it never will be. I don’t know why we’re discussing this now. We need to talk about Hayden, because he doesn’t feel safe anymore at your house.”
“Oh, come on, Ella! He’s playing you.”
I don’t know if he’s referring to Hayden or Coen so I stare at him blankly.
“Hayden knows exactly how to get whatever he wants from you. He’s manipulating you, and you can’t even see it.”
“He died last weekend, Patrick. I’m pretty sure that’s a valid reason to spark concern.”
“He’ll be safe,” Patrick argues. “Come on. You know me. You know how much I love him.”
“How was it possible that your wife didn’t even know how to use the EpiPen? We’ve discussed this a thousand times, and you’ve always assured me she did. You lied to me, Patrick. Again. And once again, our son is who paid the price.”
“Don’t give me this guilt bullshit. A few weeks ago it happened under your care, and that’s why this reaction was so severe. You were letting Rachel babysit our son while you went out on a date with some guy, and you want to stand there and point fingers at me. Well guess what, Ella? I’m not the only one who fucked up!”
“Rachel isn’t his stepmom, and at least she knew to get help right away!”
“Oh, that’s right, from your boyfriend.”
I ignore this dig as well. “Hayden knew to ask if there were peanuts in the cake or if it had been made around any peanuts. He did his responsibility, and it was your wife who gave him a piece. It was your wife who didn’t know where a single EpiPen was, and it was your wife who waited five minutes to call nine-one-one. Don’t you dare try to compare what happened with Rachel to what happened with Lindsay.”
“I don’t care if you think this guy is Superman, I don’t want him around Hayden.”
“Can we finish one goddamn point before you go chasing your tail in the opposite direction?”
“I don’t want that guy around my son.”
“Well that’s too bad.” I cross my arms over my chest and lift my chin.
Patrick takes a step closer to me. “I’m not going to sit by and allow some other man to raise my son!” His eyes flash to me, burning me with accusation and contempt. “I’m his father, and he’s lived with you for nine years; I think it’s my turn now.”
Blood is draining from my limbs, leaving me chilled and weak, unable to respond to him or even function as I hear his words run through my head again and again. “You’re. Not. Touching. Him.” My voice is icy as I enunciate each syllable.
He gives a cocky shrug. “What are you going to do about it? Did you really think I was just going to come over here and let you tell me that you’re sleeping with some guy, and that I’d be okay with it?” His lips remain parted, his eyebrows heavily furrowed.
I stare at him so hard my eyes become slits. “That’s what this is all about? Me sleeping with someone else? Me getting over you?”
“He’s some big city asshole who doesn’t even belong here. I’ll be damned if he…”
“If he what?”
Patrick nails me with another glare. “Keep him away from my son. If I hear anything about him being around Hayden, I’ll take you to court and you’ll never see him again.”
Patrick turns and climbs into the driver’s seat of his sports car, the one I’ve always wondered what it would be like to sit beside him in, and now see it for what it truly is, what it has always been: another thing he has acquired because it’s fun. Just like I was, just like he uses Hayden.
And all at once, my tears arrive.
25
Coen
I’m not sure why I’m here. It’s been thirty-two hours since I last saw Ella, and when I left for the damn station, her eyes were still red and swollen from crying. I was prepared to call in and tell them I had caught the flu that had me picking up extra shifts the week before this hell storm began falling. But Ella was insistent that I go, promising nothing would happen. I spent my shift texting and calling her and ignoring nearly everyone because I didn’t want to discuss why I’d punched Patrick, or why I was dating Ella, or anything else. The only one who worked to seek me out was Drake who was working with our team again because Probie was out sick.
“He deserved a lot worse. We’ve got your back,” he had told me. When I looked up from my phone, he nodded. “I’ve met Ella a few times through school stuff. My daught
er’s the same age as her son, and she’s always been really nice. I don’t know how she’s managed to get the short stick so many times, but she’s lucky to have you.”
Work was bad enough, being here at my parents’ is harder because they want to know everything that’s been going on since my call to Sofia asking for a legal reference since she’s in the field.
“You punched someone?” Mom’s eyes grow wide with horror after my brother asks who I decked.
“Multiple times, from what Justin said,” Arianna says.
“I did not raise an animal!” Mom cries.
“Have you seen him eat?” Joey asks.
“What happened?” Mia asks.
“He punched someone!” Mom repeats, her voice louder.
“I know that, Ma, but why?” Mia looks to me, silencing the family for a second.
I spin my fork around my pasta and shake my head. I don’t know how I’m going to explain this. Any part of it. They don’t even know about Ella, and there’s no way they’re going to understand why I would be willing to risk my career for her.
“It’s because of a woman, isn’t it?” Sofia asks.
“What woman?” Mom demands. “He’s not dating anyone.”
I scrub both hands over my face, my eyes dry from exhaustion. “I am dating someone, and yes, I punched a guy, but it wasn’t for her.” I pause and shift in my seat. “Not exactly.”
“You’re dating someone?” Mom sounds even angrier.
“Focus, Ma!” Joey says. “He hit somebody over a woman. This is like Jerry Springer shit, right here.”
Mom swats the back of his head for swearing at the dinner table, but doesn’t bother to argue, because she wants to know too.
“We’re not talking about this,” I tell them. “This is my business.”
“Your business?” Mom asks, dropping her chin. “Your business?” she says it again louder. “We’re a family. We share what’s happening in our lives!”
“It’s done!” I say.
“What’s done? Did she break up with you?” Sofia asks.
“No!” I scoot back from the table. “You guys aren’t going to understand.”
