by Tyler King
“It’s my fault. I provoked him.”
“Uh-uh.” He sits up to lean forward. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for that mess. Ethan is a grown-ass man. This train’s been coming for a long time. He’s had plenty of chances to get out of the way.”
“I don’t know what to do.” My gaze falls to my mug, staring into the black and watching the steam rise and curl. “Everything I say, he either ignores me or he flies off the handle. I want to help, but he won’t let me.”
“Then there’s your answer.” Addison reaches out to put his hand on my arm, empathy in his eyes. “I get you don’t want to hear this, but we can’t save everyone. Some people have to be left to their own devices.”
It’d be easier if Vivian weren’t in the way. The moment she showed up, she began spinning her web around him, invading every part of our lives. She’s the harbinger of death. A vile, malicious wraith. And I have no idea how to get rid of her.
Later, as I’m sitting at my desk, I feel Ethan standing behind me. He looms, casting a long shadow that chills the air around me. I’ve begun to dread him. These moments when the static rushing up my arms means there’s a fight about to erupt.
“When are you going to talk to me?” he says, voice hoarse and tired.
I stare at my screen, scrolling through the latest edits from Ed on another one of Ethan’s past-due articles. He’s all but abandoned them in favor of what little effort he does put in on this Phelps story.
“Not here,” I say. That’s the rule.
“I can’t spend an entire day with you ignoring me.”
“Well, I’m not ignoring you. I’m working. Try it.”
He expels a loud, frustrated breath. “You went too far last night, Avery.”
“Me?” I spin around in my chair to look up into his bloodshot eyes. “You were about to rip some guy’s head off. Do you have any idea how much you had to drink last night?”
“Because he was trying to pick up my girlfriend,” he snaps back. He steps into my cubicle and braces his hands against both walls to cage me in. “And what the fuck were you doing with a drink in your hand?”
“I’m not even going to start on the hypocrisy of that statement.”
“Christ, Avery.” His hands roughly comb through his hair as he clenches his eyes shut, jaw locked. “I was looking out for you. Am I supposed to stand there and watch some asshole hit on you? When should I step in, when he’s calling a cab, or wait until he pulls his dick out?”
I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because I have nothing left. “You know what? You lost your right to have a say in the men I talk to when you started bringing Vivian home every night. Do you know she offered me coke in the bathroom? Seemed to imply you two had done a little pre-partying. Anything you want to tell me?”
He flinches, brow furrowed. “So this is revenge? You’re planning to go fuck half of Manhattan to get back at me?”
I get to my feet, fists balled at my sides. The urge to take a swing at him burns through my arms. “Fuck you, you impossible jackass.”
“Ethan! Avery!” Ed shouts across the room. “My office. Now.”
Fuck.
This is exactly the bullshit I’ve tried to avoid since Ethan began his plunge into self-destruction. But bravo for him, he’s managed to suck me down with him.
We go to Ed’s office to stand at opposite sides of the room as Ed slams his door shut.
“This shit stops now,” he barks out. His wrinkled face is pink and getting angrier. Gone is the mild-mannered, implacable façade. “I’ve let this go hoping you two would sort out your business, but that’s over. What happened last night was an embarrassment for this magazine and I won’t have you two dragging down our good reputation.”
“Ed,” I say, fearing where this conversation is headed, “I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right, and it won’t happen again.”
“Goddamn right it won’t.” He crosses his arms, leaning back against his desk. “You’re on notice. Another outburst or incident, I’ll send your ass out on the street.”
“Hey.” Ethan turns, shoulders high and tight around his neck. “Don’t fucking talk to her like that. She’s done nothing but bust her ass for you and take more shit than anyone else in this office just for doing her damn job. You should be glad she didn’t sue and liquidate this publication for the way Cyle harassed her.”
“You,” Ed says, stabbing his finger in the air. “Have run out of rope, my friend. I’ve been more than patient, but this is it. You’ve burned the last bridge you had.”
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” he shouts back. “Even on a bad day I’m still the best reporter you’ve got. I’m turning my stuff in on time. What do—”
“Your work’s been garbage for weeks. Avery’s been doing your rewrites just to cover your ass.”
Thanks, Ed. Thanks for that.
Ethan jerks toward me. He stares, dumbfounded. “You’ve been lying to me?”
“I’ve been helping you keep your job!” I shout back, unable to restrain myself.
He shakes his head, stepping back. I watch the hurt, the shock, emerge in his eyes.
“I would never, ever do that to you. Lie right to your face. For weeks, Avery. Christ!”
“Ethan,” Ed says, lowering his voice as he sees the betrayal sink in. “You’re off the Phelps story. I’m handing it over to Avery and suspending you for a month without pay. Take the time to decide if you still want a job here and what you’re going to do to convince me you should still have one.”
“No, you what? Don’t bother.” Stalking toward the door, he leaves a last glance on me. If he’d smacked me, it wouldn’t have stung this much. “I quit.”
My blood runs cold. For several seconds I stand there, staring at the door after Ethan slams it shut behind him. The concussion reverberates in my chest and rings in my ears. How did it come to this? Not even three months ago we met in this office and he all but begged me to take the job. Now he’s gone, and it’s like he took all the air in the room with him.
“It was bound to happen,” Ed says. He takes a seat on his stool, feet propped up on the top rung.
The sword falls, and it splits me in half.
I don’t know what else to do, so I take a seat facing his desk.
“Talk to me,” he says. “What’s really been going on with him?”
It all comes out in a rush. The weeks of pent-up frustration and worry.
“I don’t know what Vivian does to him, but from the moment she came back, he’s been a different person. He’s drinking constantly, he’s snapping at me, and half the time we don’t even talk to each other at home if it isn’t about work. He’s changed, and I don’t know how to get him back.”
Ed unfolds from his perch and pulls up another chair beside me. He’s quiet for a moment, studying the floor. Without the implacable, disinterested veneer, suddenly Ed looks like someone’s dad, or grandfather. Concern creases his brow and age creeps over his face. His thin, spotted arms prop up his chin then fall between his knees.
“You and me both, kid.”
I don’t know exactly what that means, or if he’ll elaborate, so I sit, silent, until he speaks again.
“Same time Vee took off on us,” he says, “Ethan went MIA, too.”
“Yeah, I, uh, heard as much.”
“Ethan looked a lot then like he looks now.”
“It’s his mother’s illness. She’s been battling cancer, and I guess for a while it went into remission, but now it’s back and he isn’t taking it well, and…”
My heart aches for him. I know a day is coming when he’ll have to face the harsh reality of his mother’s condition, and I can’t bear the idea of his having to do it alone.
“Avery, Ethan’s an alcoholic. He doesn’t need an excuse.”
My brain stops dead. I stare at Ed, blinking, unable to process what he’s just said.
“No. No, he’s not. I mean, lately isn’t a good example. He’s self-medicating, I g
et that, but he’s not an alcoholic. I’ve been out with him. I’ve seen him have a couple of glasses of wine and walk away.”
“He got better at it for a while, but he’s still an alcoholic. Ethan’s a bargainer. He tells himself, Okay, if I can go three days, four days, without a drink, I can have two, three, four drinks the next day. He survives by spreading them out, always living for the next one. Until now.”
I can’t wrap my head around that. It’s like Ed’s talking about a different person I’ve never met.
“I know it’s hard to hear,” he says, “but that’s how it is. We’ve had a lot of long conversations in this office. I tried to get him to a meeting at one point.”
Eyes snapping to Ed’s, I realize the piece of him I’ve never understood. The gray area where the missing matter should go.
“You’re an alcoholic.”
“Thirty-five years sober this month.” He pulls a silver chain from around his neck to show me the medallion tucked inside his shirt. “There are more of us than you’d guess in this office.”
He says “us” and for a moment I’m not sure if he knows what that means. Then it’s there, in his all-knowing, all-seeing eyes. He’s had me pegged from the start.
“What do I do?” I beg him.
At this point, I just want someone to give me the right answer and point me in a direction.
“Talk to him,” he tells me, the sympathy on his face saying he knows what a futile effort that can be. “You’ve got to get him sober. Then he needs to get to rehab.”
“I don’t know if I can convince him of all that. I want to—don’t get me wrong—I’ll do whatever it takes to help him, but he hasn’t listened to me so far. I don’t see how that’s going to change.”
“I don’t have a simple solution for you. I’ve got to worry about the magazine. If it were anyone else, he’d have been fired a long time ago. I care about that guy, I really do, but there’s only so much you can do for them before they’ve got to want to do it for themselves. Get him cleaned up. Get him to rehab. Where he’s headed right now, it gets worse pretty fast.”
* * *
I try calling Ethan, but he won’t answer his phone or return my texts. All I can do right now is wait and hope he’s home when I get there tonight because rushing off to chase him isn’t an option today. With Ethan gone, I’m solely responsible for getting the Phelps article wrapped up. I’ve got about three weeks to deadline, and two months’ worth of work left to accomplish.
Later, when I pop out to grab lunch, I see Vivian walking into the building. Like a good career user, she’s bright-eyed and wide awake. It’s the careful ones you have to watch out for. The people who keep it all neat and tidy and so well hidden.
“Morning, Avery,” she says, passing me in the lobby.
“Afternoon.”
I make it to the front doors when the ire stops me. There’s no reason to play nice anymore. We’re past the point of civility. The chains are off, and I’ve got plenty to say. So I whip around and jog down the hallway to catch her at the elevator. We step inside together, heading up to the fifth floor.
“We need to talk.”
I stab the Emergency button and the elevator jerks to a halt. Ethan taught me that trick, back when he still had a hard time keeping his hands to himself whenever we were out of sight of other people. No sirens or alarms, just privacy.
“Okay,” she says, too-cheery smile on her lips. “What’s on your mind?”
“From now on, you’re not welcome here. Ethan quit, and I don’t want your help.”
“Good for Ethan. This place was stifling him anyway.”
“And you can’t come over anymore. No more late-night drinks, no more dinners, no more sitting on our couch watching cartoons at two in the morning.”
“Is this Ethan talking, or you? Because I’m pretty sure it’s his home.”
“I’m speaking for him because lately he’s too drunk to know better. You’re killing him, Vivian. He is barely keeping it together, and you just keep shoving the liquor down his throat. I don’t want you near him. You’re poison.”
She cocks her head to the side, lips pressed to a thin line. “Ethan is a big boy. He doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to. Maybe he just got bored playing Scrabble and watching TV every night. He’s still a young man, why should he live like he’s got one foot in the grave?”
There’s a big, raging, furious violence in me that wants to bounce her little pink head off a wall. But I’m not that person. So I take a breath and push the image out of my mind.
“This is your only warning,” I tell her. “Leave him alone, don’t set foot inside our home again, or I swear on my life I will find a way to get you locked up.”
She laughs. Until she doesn’t.
“So now you’re a snitch?”
“I’ll be whatever I have to be to protect him. I’ll lie, cheat, and steal. I’ll break into your apartment and leave a kilo of coke hidden somewhere only the drug dogs will find it. Trust me, Vivian. You don’t want to test me.”
I never would have imagined those words coming out of my mouth. The inflection, the cold, hard, flat earnestness in my voice. It’s my father speaking through me. His detachment and blade-sharp cruelty. And I mean every word of it.
When she has nothing to say in response, I hit the Emergency button again to send the elevator up to the fifth floor. After I step out, I watch the elevator doors close on Vivian to carry her back down.
* * *
Fear choked me the entire way home that night, terrified I’d get home to find Ethan’s truck missing and half his clothes gone. If he left now, wouldn’t talk to me, I don’t know what I’d do. Those two days he was gone, when he ran out of my apartment after the phone call, I was so twisted up I couldn’t think about anything else. I can’t go through that again. Not now. Not when I know he’s suffering and my entire life is wrapped up in his.
But as I walk up to the building, I see his truck parked on the street. I let out a breath and practically sprint through the door.
“Ethan?” I call out.
The place looks empty until I see him on the floor beside the bed, knees pulled up and his head in his hands. I drop my bag and rush over to crouch in front of him.
“Ethan, babe, what’s wrong?”
He doesn’t speak, but his chest convulses. His back rises on heaving, jerking breaths. Arms straining, his fingers are white. His face bright red.
“Ethan, please, babe. Look at me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He lets me pry his hands from his face and I see the tears streaming down his cheeks. His ocean eyes, so bright and vivid, are stung red. The sight of him breaks my heart, cracks it open.
“What’s wrong? Please tell me. Let me help.”
“She wants to die,” he stutters out, so choked and choppy I almost don’t understand him until I rattle the words around and realize what he’s saying.
“Your mom? What do you mean?”
He scrubs his eyes then tugs at his hair.
“She wants to die. She’s going to kill herself.”
Grabbing his hands, I hold them in mine.
“I don’t understand, Ethan. What happened?”
Deep, gasping, he inhales and drops his head back on the edge of the bed.
“She’s stage four. There’s nothing left to do. Even if she wanted to, it’d be pointless. The cancer has spread to her brain and—”
He can’t do it. Can’t push out another word. I have no better idea what to do than crawl into his lap and hold him, let him cry against my shoulder. I wish I was better at this. That I had that special gift for knowing the right thing to say or how to take the sting away, but I’m hopeless at it. I was born without the gene for consoling people.
“I’m so sorry, Ethan. I’m so, so sorry.”
Running my fingers through his hair, I try simply to show him I love him. That he is loved. And that as insufficient as I am, I want to be here for him.
“She doesn�
��t want to live with it anymore,” he mutters against my neck, a little calmer now. “She’s talking about assisted suicide.”
Fuck. What the hell do I say that makes this any better?
“And my dad’s just letting her do it. He’s just going to stand there and watch her kill herself.”
“Ethan, that’s not what he’s doing. This is—”
“Yes,” he bites back, pulling away. “It is. I’d never stand by and watch you die if I could stop it. I’d fight for you. I’d make you fight. That’s what love is, isn’t it? Living for someone else. How can he do that to her?”
“Ethan, believe me, I understand how painful this is for you, but it is her choice. Your dad does love her, and that’s why he’s respecting her decision no matter how much it breaks his heart.”
“Christ, Avery.” He pushes me off his lap and gets to his feet, pacing the floor. “Why? Why do you take his side every time? I swear it’s like you do it just to drive me insane.”
“That’s not true. I’m not taking his side. I’m always on your side, Ethan. I just think you’re missing the point. She doesn’t want to spend whatever time she has left in pain and misery. You can’t blame her for that. She’d rather go on her own terms, while she’s still herself.”
He stops, turning to stare at me. In all my life, not since my father have I ever seen such raw hatred in a person’s eyes. Everything I love in Ethan drains away. What’s left is pure contempt bottled up inside him, pointed right at me.
“I don’t understand what’s happened to you,” he says, “but I think maybe we need some time apart.”
“Ethan, don’t do that. This isn’t you. Please.”
I try to go to him, but he yanks his arms away and dodges past me.
“Ethan, talk to me. Don’t leave.”
He’s out the door, slamming it behind him.
That night, he doesn’t come home.
Or the next.
Or the next.
25
The Exterminating Angel
