by Amanda Black
“Sweetie, I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Emma smiled. “It’s not like you locked yourself away in your room for six months and stared out the window. You are getting on with your life. You moved out on your own, you aren’t waiting hand and foot on everyone around you—hell, just you being here is a big deal. Getting you out of the house used to be like pulling teeth!”
“She’s right, Lily,” Maggie joined in. “You are becoming a new person. I always liked you before, but I really love who you have become. You’re sassy and you don’t take our shit, and that’s just the kind of friend we need. It’s inspirational to see you blossom like this.” She smiled wickedly before adding, “In fact, the whole situation is inspirational. If your relationship had ended better, I totally would have stolen it for my next book. When I first figured out what was going on, my fingers were just itching to start typing!”
Lily rolled her eyes and sighed loudly. “Well maybe you can write me the happy ending that I didn’t get.”
“Would you take him back if he showed up tomorrow?” Emma asked.
“Jeez, Emma, we’re trying to get her to move on from this topic, not beat her over the head with it.”
“I want to know how she feels,” Emma explained. “Besides, how can someone really learn and grow from an experience if they never really know how they felt about it?”
“Wow, that’s almost profound,” Maggie teased. “When did you get all deep and shit?” She hiccupped loudly, reminding them all just how much they had to drink. Emma flipped her the bird again, and they all started laughing.
“I don’t know,” Lily finally said after some of the giggling had died down. “My pride tells me that I should tell him to shove it up his ass and slam the door in his face, but if it ever actually came to that, I really don’t think I could do it.”
“Aw, really?” Maggie pouted, her glorified image of Lily the Superbitch dashed in a heartbeat.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help it. He ended it, not me. Just because he can apparently shut off his emotions in a split second doesn’t mean that I can.”
“You still love him, don’t you?” Emma whispered.
“Of course I do,” Lily groaned, dropping her head down on the table with a loud thud. “Ow.” She rubbed at her forehead quickly before continuing. “I think what hurts the most is that I had just really come to terms with how much I loved him when he left, so now I’m all alone and missing him, wishing I had only told him sooner. I don’t know if it would have mattered enough to make him stay, but at least I’d have the peace of mind knowing that I gave it my all. He was the first person to make me feel like I really had anything worth giving. I never found anything I wanted enough to fight for before him.” She looked up when she realized how quiet it had become and found both women both staring at her, hanging on every word. “What?”
“That’s kinda beautiful,” Emma sighed.
“Yeah,” Maggie nodded.
“Well, whatever it is, I can’t just turn it off because he’s gone. All I can do is get on with really living my life for once and hope that the pain will go away eventually. I know it will happen if I give it long enough and force myself to not obsess over it. But if he came back tomorrow?” She paused. “I think things would definitely have to be different than before, but deep down, I really just want him back. I want the chance to see if we are as good together as it felt like we’d be.”
“Even after he did that to you?” Emma said in amazement.
“I think I get it,” Maggie said sadly. “I think I’d be the same way if Eric ever left. I can’t imagine him ever doing that, but if he was just suddenly gone, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. He’s like the other half of me. Nothing would feel right until he was back.”
“He’s gone all the time, Maggie.”
“It’s not the same, Emma. That’s work. We talk all the time and I know he’s coming home to me when he’s done. And I’m here with all of his things around me, always reminding me of him.” She suddenly gasped and looked at Lily. “Oh man! I just got it!”
“What?” the other two said in unison, both startled at her sudden outburst.
“I just realized why you took that apartment.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked nervously.
“Well, I always thought it was a little creepy that you rented the same place where you used to hook up with him. No offense or anything—it’s a totally cute place now—but it just didn’t make sense to me why you would want to torture yourself like that.”
“Do you care to share with the rest of the class?” Emma prompted, making a rolling gesture with her hand to signal her to continue.
“It’s all she has left of him, Emma. I thought it was maybe some odd way that she was conquering her demons or something, but that’s not it at all.” She turned to look at Lily again. “It’s just your only way to be near your other half, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much,” Lily sighed, hugging her knees to her chest. She didn’t want to draw their attention to the oversized Aledo High School sweatpants and pullover she was wearing—the same thing she’d worn to bed every night since she’d found them in her laundry after Ethan had loaned them to her the morning after her drunken night of karaoke. She knew it probably wasn’t healthy to become so attached to his clothes just to feel him around her at night, but she wasn’t ready to give them up, and she silently hoped the girls wouldn’t suddenly remember that she’d never even gone to Aledo High School. She also couldn’t fake that she’d bought them recently if they noticed. Aledo High School didn’t even exist anymore. It had merged with another school a few years back and become Mercer County High School, a fact that still irked a lot of former students.
Just then, Maggie’s phone started playing “Mr. Big Stuff” from under a pile of scattered cheese popcorn. Her face lit up and she scrambled for it, wading through the junk food.
“Speak of the devil!” she smiled, answering it excitedly. “Hey baby!”
“How are all my girls doing tonight?” Eric laughed, hearing the slight slur in his wife’s words.
“We’re doing margaritas, that’s how we’re doing!” she giggled, holding out the phone and waving at the others to say something.
“Hey, Eric!” They both yelled into the phone before Emma began making kissy noises in the background and Lily started making whip crack sounds. They loved teasing him about being whipped whenever he would call. Eric never forgot to call and check in, no matter how late it was or how short the call was. Neither one of them could sleep right if they hadn’t spoken at least once that day.
“You bitches,” he laughed, wishing he was in town and could witness their drunken antics.
“How’s Denver, baby?” Maggie asked when she put the phone back up to her ear.
“Eh, you know, Broncos, Shmoncos. I miss Chicago.”
“Well, Chicago misses you too. You’d be so proud, I totally kicked ass on all the sports questions in Trivial Pursuit.”
“That’s my girl! What have you guys been up to besides drunken trivia?”
“Oh, you know. Talking about the selfish prick.”
“Ah… I knew Emma would bring him up. Is Lily doing okay?”
“Yeah,” she answered, smiling at Lily as she spoke. “Turns out that our little girl is all grown up. She can talk about big girl things without me looking out for her every step of the way.”
“I told you she could handle it, hon. She’s got balls bigger than mine.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Maggie purred.
“Alright, that’s my cue to hang up. I can’t have you start talking sexy now or I’m gonna have to jerk it again before I go to sleep, and I’m fucking exhausted. Rain check?”
“Of course!” she smiled, thinking of the fun they would have the next night when she was alone again. “I love you.” The girls watched as she ended the call, but before she set the phone down on the table again she made a face as if remembering something and fired
off a quick text message. “There,” she said to herself as she set it back down.
“Forget to tell him something nasty?” Emma teased.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Chapter 3
On the East Coast, a loud beeping noise could be heard in a dark hotel room.
Ethan rolled over and swatted at the alarm, but as he reached for it he realized that the noise had already stopped. Peeling his eyes open slowly, he groaned when he saw that it was barely one in the morning.
“Fucking Maggie,” he grumbled as he reached for his phone instead, realizing that it must be time for his nightly text. He wasn’t pissed at the content of the texts—he’d gotten used to it—but he was frustrated that he had actually managed to fall asleep that night. It happened so rarely anymore.
His foggy brain was still swimming with flashes of warm brown and soft pink, so he sat up all the way and turned on the small table lamp, hoping to chase them away. As he looked around the dimly lit room, he could make out the various shapes of different canvases stacked along the wall, none of them finished. Looking at them disturbed him even more, so he forced his attention back to his phone and opened up that night’s message.
Have I mentioned lately that you’re a selfish prick?
“As a matter of fact, you have,” he whispered to himself as he scrolled back through his very full inbox. When he had first left, he’d been bombarded with calls and text messages from his family, some of them wanting to know what had happened, others seeming to know way too much. Emma, Eric, Maggie, his mom and dad, and even Emma’s husband, Brandon, whom Ethan hardly knew, had all chimed in:
OMG! Where R U? What happened?
You are such a prick. I know what you’re running from, you chickenshit. Big Mistake.
Honey, are you OK? Your brother said you left town. Please call and let me know.
Dude, WTF? I thought you wanted this. I really wanna kick your ass right now.
Sweetheart, where are you? Just let me know you’re alright.
Ethan! Stop ignoring me! I’m worried!
Prick.
Hey, I know we don’t know each other well, but your sister is going batshit crazy worrying about you. Plz call her.
Son, you are breaking your poor mother’s heart. Again.
You’ve made every woman I care about cry, including Lily. It’s official. Next time I see you, I’m kicking your ass.
Asshole.
Your brother explained that you may be having some personal problems right now. I won’t bother you, but if you need a good therapist, let me know.
The texts starting dwindling after he refused to answer them (or return any calls), but he found it almost touching that Maggie and Eric were still in it for the long haul.
Hope you’re still alive, prick. You threw away the best thing you ever had, but I still don’t wish you dead. Neither does she, surprisingly.
Get your shit together, bro. I miss you. We all do. Still punching you in the face, tho.
Ethan sighed loudly and hit DELETE, finally clearing out the messages that had been stacking up. He knew that one day soon he would need to get in touch with someone, but he’d been too busy hiding his head in the sand to worry about it yet. He kept one message, unable to get rid of it, and read it over a few more times.
“Neither does she, surprisingly.”
He couldn’t stop reading that sentence, so he forced himself to exit his inbox and start in on the voicemails. As he listened to each member of his family yell at him in turn, he found his mind wandering yet again to some of the text messages.
It was apparent that some of his family members, if not all of them by now, had found out about their secret relationship. He wondered briefly if she had told them, but what would have been her aim? She clearly hadn’t sought them out to get his phone number, because she was the one person who hadn’t sent him texts and left him messages. He’d expected something from her by now—even a simple “fuck off”—and he didn’t know what to make of the complete lack of contact.
He kept telling himself that he’d been dreading it, that he hadn’t wanted to hear her screaming and crying at him. That he’d wanted her to move on quickly, to get back to her normal life so she could be happy. But no matter how many times he told himself those things, they never got any easier to believe.
He had been absolutely terrified when she told him what her intentions were. He couldn’t imagine that she really knew what she wanted that easily. When he’d heard the words “I just want to be with you” come out of her mouth, he felt the most amazing rush of happiness, as if he could finally get everything that he had ever wanted.
But just as quickly, the panic set in.
How could he possibly deserve her? She was good in every way that he was horribly wrong. She had no idea what she was saying. How could anyone really want a man who could take such a sweet, innocent soul and corrupt her against everything she had ever known? Less than a month with him and she was ready to break up her impending marriage and most likely desert the only family she had in the area. All of this for a man with nothing but a history of selfishness, always putting himself before everyone else.
The thing that his dear sister-in-law didn’t realize was that this was the most unselfish thing he’d ever done in his entire life.
Leaving Lily had been the hardest thing Ethan had ever forced himself to do. It was as if someone had placed the most glorious diamond in the palm of his hand and said it was his for the taking—as long as he didn’t care about ruining the lives of everyone it had ever come in contact with. And he had wanted it. Badly.
He had imagined scooping her up that very night, throwing her in his car and just driving until they ran out of gas, away from anyone they knew. If he asked, he knew that she would go. He saw himself dragging her to the first courthouse he could find for a quick elopement, then racing to the closest motel so that he could fuck her stupid for the next three days straight, maybe five, only stopping to eat—and when they ran out of food he would live on her sweat and her moans and her cries of pleasure.
And then it hit him: an image of his family, ashamed of him for stealing such a precious girl away from her family. That was quickly followed by a vision of Lily, lonely and scared, far away from home and bored out of her mind in a foreign country while he disappeared for days on end to paint. She had no one to talk to, and her father refused to speak to her ever again for what she had done. Ethan knew without a doubt that she would grow to hate him. She would blame him for wrecking everything, knowing that he had taken advantage of her naiveté so he could keep her as his own precious jewel.
He also knew without a doubt that seeing that look of hate in her eyes would kill him.
So he did the only thing he knew how to do.
He ran.
He ran away like the chickenshit Maggie called him, hoping that Lily would go back to the life that she had always known, the life she had been perfectly happy with before he bulldozed into it. He hoped that after a few weeks, she would forget all about him.
He just hadn’t taken into account how hard it would be to forget her. He saw her everywhere, in every passing smile, every bubbly laugh—even the sunset had shades of gold that reminded him of the highlights in her hair. He also wasn’t sleeping again, but this time, it wasn’t because of Rachel’s cruel departure. It was because of the lack of Lily’s warmth in the dark, the smell of her sweet skin, the sound of her breathing softly as she slept.
He just fucking missed her.
He couldn’t listen to his music anymore; every song made him think of her. If the lyrics were sad, all he could think of was how badly he wanted her to be there with him. If it was a happy tune, he would immediately think of the fun, playful times they had shared together. And he didn’t even want to think about the sexy songs. Those opened up a floodgate of memories that kept him paralyzed with need for hours on end.
Of course, not being able to listen to his music had made painting nearly im
possible. He couldn’t focus—his thoughts were always leading back to her, and when he would step back and look at his canvas he would see her eyes or her lips or some other feature that his subconscious was fixating on at that given moment.
So now he had a large collection of half-finished paintings stacked up, all of them some version of Lily, all of them screaming at him to finish them properly and admit that he wanted nothing more than to be with the real thing. Just thinking of them made him glance across the room at the canvases before he could stop himself, which caused him to shut his eyes tightly and repeat his newest mantra over and over in his mind.
You did the right thing. You did the right thing. You put her before yourself for the first time. You weren’t what she needed. You did the right thing.
It helped for the most part. Whenever he was hit with moments of doubt it usually calmed his nerves, but lately there had been times when he found himself doubting whether he actually had done the right thing.
He hadn’t even asked her what she wanted; he’d simply decided what was best for her. When these thoughts struck him, he would try to convince himself that she was only infatuated with him, that there was no way she could have actually loved him, and then he would berate himself for assuming that he knew about love any better than she did. He’d never even been in love before, so what gave him the right to assume that his feelings were more honest and real than hers?
“Fuck!” he yelled out, throwing one of the wadded-up pillows next to him across the room. He couldn’t stand the nagging feelings of doubt that were creeping in and taking over his brain. What if he had made a split-second decision based on fear, and rather than saving her from herself, he had sentenced her to a life with someone she truly didn’t want? What if they were both miserable right now?
