“Oh! Does Ethan have any brothers?”
I laugh. “He has two. One is married with children.”
“And the other one?”
“He’s single.”
“Oh my God. That’s awesome news.”
“He’s also thirty-five.”
She flops back on the bed with a pout. “Bummer.”
“Total bummer,” I agree.
* * *
By the time my shift ends, my stomach is in knots and I feel like I’m going to vomit. I have an essay due tomorrow and chapters to read. I need to go home and find the energy to finish it, and not in a half-assed way.
I have messages on my phone from my sister and Ethan, and a voicemail from Jeannie. I check the voicemail first. The knot in my stomach tightens a little. Martin has been doing so well recently. I don’t want that progress interrupted, worried how it will affect Ethan and me. The concern is unwarranted, though, since it’s just an invitation for dinner.
Typically I go there on nights when I don’t have class or other engagements if Ethan is away—which means I’m there a couple of times a week. When Ethan’s home and not playing a game and we don’t have plans, he invites them for dinner. It’s been strategic on Ethan’s part, getting them used to his new house—giving his dad that extra beer so getting to the car and going home is too much of a chore, meaning he and Jeannie have to spend the night, which they’ve done a couple of times. Ethan had the pool house renovated so they can have their privacy and we have ours.
I call Jeannie back on my way to the car and tell her I’ll have to take a rain check.
“Ethan’s already here, dear. We’ll have a quick meal and you two can be on your way.”
“I would love to, but I have to work on an assignment due tomorrow. Can we try later in the week?”
“Certainly. Of course. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine. Just a little preoccupied.” I slip into the driver’s seat.
“Okay, then. I can send Ethan home with something for you. Oh, he’d like to speak with you.”
“Sure.” I get that tight feeling in my throat. I brace myself. Saying no to Ethan has never been easy, and I recognize it won’t be any different this time around. In fact, it might even be harder.
“Hey, baby, you’re not coming for dinner. You not feeling well?”
“I have an assignment to finish tonight, and I’ve barely started it, so I need the time.”
“Dinner won’t take long. You can’t go without a meal.”
“I’ll grab something on the way home.”
There’s silence for a moment. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Two of the worst words in the history of speaking.
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I’m tired and stressed about getting this done.” I bang my head against the back of the seat. Why can’t I come out and say what I need to say? Maybe because I don’t know what exactly it is I need to say. Or maybe I do and I just don’t want to. I’m too much of a pushover for him. It has to stop.
“I’m sorry about last night. I should’ve gone home, but I was just so amped from the game. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I grip the steering wheel as that sick feeling in my stomach grows. “I think it’s something we need to figure out, though. I can’t be up that late when I have to work the next day and not with this course winding down for the semester.”
“I’ll be better about that. I promise. Maybe I should skip dinner and come to your place? Then we can talk it out?”
It’s like he’s listening but not actually hearing me. “Don’t skip dinner, please. I need the time.”
“So I’ll come over after dinner, then? I can bring some for you so you don’t have to worry about picking something up.” I can almost feel his panic like static on the line.
I should take the night for myself. Focus on the assignment and getting sleep.
“Lilah? After dinner is good? I’ll bring you food.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and fight with myself not to cave, but I do anyway. I need to set boundaries, and it needs to be tonight. Hopefully having a clock on my free time will help me be more efficient in finishing my assignment. “Come over around eight thirty—that should give me enough time to get this assignment finished.” I hope. I feel like I’m losing my grip on myself and my entire life.
“Sure. Okay. I can do that. Are you sure you’re all right? You sound…I don’t know.”
“I have a lot on my mind.”
“Because of the assignment, or is it something else?” The sharp edge of anxiety makes his voice thick.
“The assignment, work, the media stuff.”
“I should’ve warned you about the interview last night, but it wasn’t on my mind. Is it the PDA stuff? I hope you’re not upset about that. I wasn’t thinking. We can figure out how to deal with that, too, when I come over.”
“We’ll talk about it all later. I’ll see you at eight thirty, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. Lilah?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Ethan.” But loving him doesn’t mean I should bend for him every time he thinks he needs me.
* * *
Merk rushes to the door before there’s even a knock, his customary one-bark greeting signaling Ethan’s arrival. I check the clock. It’s barely past seven thirty. I’ve managed to finish all but one question on the assignment, but I’m still annoyed by his early arrival.
I stay where I am, seated at the kitchen table, books and papers arranged around my laptop.
Ethan comes around the corner, Merk on his heels, sniffing the bouquet of flowers in his right hand and then the bag in his left. He sets the bag beside my textbook. “That’s dinner for you.” Ethan wears a sheepish smile. “Sorry I’m early. I was antsy. I brought you flowers.”
He holds them out, so I take them. I know he’s trying to be sweet, but he’s got to understand flowers aren’t the answer to everything.
“I feel bad about keeping you up last night and about the media circus. Were you okay today?”
If I get into this now, I’ll never finish this fucking assignment. “I’m not ready to talk about that yet. I still have to complete this.” I gesture to the spread on the table.
He rubs the back of his neck, eyes shifting around the table, expression chagrined. “Do you have a lot left? Can I do anything to help?”
“You could not be a distraction—that would be helpful,” I snap and then sigh. “Could you take Merk for a walk?” Merk perks right up, tail wagging excitedly as he pushes his nose into my lap.
“Sure, I can do that,” he says slowly. “Are you still angry with me? For last night?”
I run my hands down my face. “I really need to finish this assignment, Ethan. We can talk when I’m done.”
“Right, okay.” He chews on the inside of his lip, not moving. “I really just wanted to sleep beside you, but then you were wearing those shorts and I was all jacked up from the win…” He grins a little, which irks me even more. He thinks it’s funny. Cute even.
“For fuck’s sake.” I slam my laptop closed. Obviously this conversation isn’t going to wait. “Are you really sorry, or are you just saying that because you know I’m pissed off?”
That wipes the smile off his face. Maybe he’s finally getting it.
“I’m honestly sorry. I didn’t realize you were so upset about it.” He takes a step back as I push out of my chair, moving around him. “Maybe you could stay at my place when I have home games. That would probably make it easier, right?”
“That’s not going to solve the problem.” I’m edgy now, my frustration having festered all day. “It’s not just you showing up in the middle of the night that I’m upset about, Ethan.”
“What else is it, then?” His fingers graze my wrist and I step out of reach. “Talk to me, Lilah. I don’t like this feeling.”
“I told you last night that I
needed sleep and you still showed up. I told you today that I needed time to work on an assignment and you’re here almost an hour early anyway. You can’t just show up and expect me to drop everything for you. I have priorities and obligations that are important, too.”
“I know that.”
“Then why show up early when I asked you not to?”
He jams his hands in his pockets. “Because I knew you were upset with me and I wanted to smooth things over.”
“By doing exactly what I asked you not to.”
“I won’t do it again—show up in the middle of the night like I did or come over early if you ask me not to. I’ll take a step back if that’s what you want.”
I don’t know if he can actually follow through with that, though. Ethan is so driven by compulsion. I fear he’ll tell me what I want to hear to placate me, but when it comes down to it, he won’t be able to give me what I need, and I won’t be able to make him adhere to my boundaries. Unless I force us both to.
My throat is so dry right now, my anxiety spiking just like his. “We need to talk about the interview.”
He blows out a breath. “I’m sorry about that, too. I wasn’t thinking when I kissed you like that. And I didn’t expect all the questions, but maybe I should’ve. Don’t worry about the trade talks. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”
And here he is, glossing over all the issues. Placating as he does. In the past I would let him. But I’m not a teenage girl anymore, and I can’t keep sacrificing myself for him.
I cross over to the couch, dropping down because my legs feel watery. “I think I just need…some space.”
Ethan’s eyes flare and his brow furrows. “Wait, what? Where is this coming from?”
I can’t look at him, unable to see his confusion, which I share, because as the words come out, they’re as much a shock to me as they are to him. “I can’t keep doing this.”
“Can’t keep doing what? This? Us?” He crosses over to sit beside me on the couch.
“That’s not—” I have to pause to gather my thoughts and not backtrack. What I want and need seem to be at such odds with each other. “I don’t want to lose you again, Ethan. It was so painful the first time.” I shake my head. “God, I just…lost myself for such a long time, or got lost in myself. I don’t know. And then you come back into my life and it’s so familiar and easy. I don’t want to be without that again. And that possibility scares me, so I’ve been putting you ahead of me, in front of my own goals and needs. I see how it’s affecting my life, and I don’t like it.”
His anxiety makes his knee shake. “I don’t want you to sacrifice your goals for mine. I promise I’ll back off. I can give you more time to work on your course if that’s what needs to happen.”
“That’s already going to happen when you make playoffs, which is inevitable based on how the team is doing. That’s what you want and exactly what I want for you. But I can’t be responsible for your success any more than you can be responsible for mine.”
He shakes his head as understanding registers. “That’s not what I meant in that interview.”
“I know you guys all get sucked into the superstitions and your rituals, especially around playoff time, but I can’t be a good luck charm. I don’t think you honestly believe I’m the reason you’re doing so well, but even the idea is too much pressure. I can’t be that for you. I don’t want to be that for you.”
Ethan swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing heavily as he searches for a way to rationalize this. “You were the best thing in my life for years, and then you were missing and my career went to shit. Now you’re back in my life and it’s better again. Everything is better with you in it. Don’t take that away now, not when things are finally going well for both of us.”
“That’s the thing, Ethan—they’re not going well for both of us. Things are going well for you.”
“How can you say that? You can’t tell me we aren’t good together.” He gestures between us. “You can’t tell me this isn’t good.”
I wish I didn’t have to say it, but I know I do, and the words cause a physical ache in my chest. “It’s not the us part that I’m talking about.”
“What is it, then? Because if it’s not us, then I don’t get what the problem is.”
“I failed my midterm.”
He blinks a couple of times. “That’s not possible.” His shock is reasonable. I always performed well in school, particularly on tests, which were his weak spot. He’d get anxious and then blank out or choke. “You never fail anything.”
“I did this time.”
“What happened?”
“I’ve been so focused on you, and keeping you in my life, that I’ve stopped considering what I need.” The reality of this breaks my heart. I’ve spent so much time being independent and self-sufficient over the past eight years. And the first time I feel truly needed by the one person I love unconditionally, who left me, I abandon my own dreams for his.
“I’ll give you more time to study. I’ll help you.”
I smile, but I know it’s weak at best. “I’ve never been good at saying no to you, Ethan. And I want to make sure you understand that I’m not saying it’s your fault I failed. That’s on me. I made the choice to put you ahead of me, and this is the consequence. For now I need to focus on this course and my own goals, and you need to focus on getting through the playoffs and having a shot at the Cup. Between work, this course, and us, something has to give.”
Ethan runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “So what does this mean? We’re what? Taking a break?”
Every part of me wants to wrap my arms around him and hold on. It’s not healthy, it’s dangerous, and it’s setting me up for a world of heartbreak I’m not sure I’ll escape anyway. “I have less than a month to get my mark up. If I don’t, I risk not getting into the master’s program at all. Playoffs start soon and Minnesota is going to make it, which means you need all your time and energy channeled into your game.”
Ethan’s eyes are frantic; his fingers tap in distress. “This sounds like a breakup speech, Lilah.”
I want to take away his fear, but I can’t. “I didn’t plan this, not any of it, especially not the part where I fall in love with you again. I can’t take this on for you. I can’t be the reason you succeed or fail. You have to believe in you as much as I do.”
“You don’t want to do this,” Ethan says softly.
I run a finger down the bridge of his nose, wishing the action could calm us both. “Of course I don’t. But I need some time and space to focus on my own life, independent of you. It doesn’t do me any good to lose my own dream so you can have yours. It just sets us up for failure all over again.”
Chapter Nineteen
Culpable
Ethan
Breaks are the beginning of the end.
At least that’s what every single break I’ve ever initiated led to. So it makes sense that I’m panicking, because as much as the good luck charm comment wasn’t meant exactly how Lilah took it, I can understand why she did. And now that I’m being forced to reflect on my own actions, I see why she interpreted it that way.
I’ve spent the months we’ve been dating re-creating every single good memory as a reminder of what we used to have in an attempt to rebuild this relationship. And it worked. I love her. She loves me. This is the best season I’ve had since I was drafted. So I don’t want to accept her need for space.
“I need you.” The words are out before I can consider their potential damage and how they affirm exactly why she’s asking for space.
Her hand lifts and then falls to her side, fists clenching and releasing. “You don’t. At least not to play the way you have been. It’s not me, Ethan. I’m not the reason. I can’t be. I won’t take that on for you.”
I backpedal, trying to rephrase it in a way that’s less overwhelming for her. “I need you in my life.”
“This”—she motions between us—“it’s consuming. When I’m wit
h you, nothing else matters. I can’t find balance, and that’s what I need right now. I need to find a way to have you in my life without losing myself again.”
“I want to fix this.” I’m worried about not sleeping beside her, not kissing her before a home game, not speaking to her before an away one. She’s right. I’ve built her into my pattern of pregame rituals, at home games and away ones. I’ve dominated her life and made her the center of mine. But not in a good way, if she wants this space.
She strokes my cheek, eyes shining with the promise of tears yet to fall. “I know you do. There aren’t any magic words, Ethan. I need time to focus on what’s important to me, outside of you. This can’t be like last time, where my whole world seemed like it ended when you went away, and then again when we broke up. I’m not that girl anymore, and I don’t want to be her again.”
“I loved that girl.” I run a finger down the bridge of her nose. “I love this woman even more.”
She smiles sadly and ducks her head. Two tears wet the cushion in front of her. I draw her to me, wrapping her in my arms. She doesn’t fight me, so I keep her close, dropping my face into the crook between her neck and her shoulder.
“I want to find a way to change your mind,” I murmur.
She laughs and then sniffles. “I know.”
“But I also understand doing that won’t make things better for you.”
She disengages from my embrace, swiping away her tears. “Not for either of us, Ethan.”
I curve my palm against her cheek, wiping away the ones that follow. This feels wrong. I don’t want to lose what we have. I don’t want to give her up for any length of time, but she’s resolved. I’m still selfish enough to take one more thing from her before I leave.
“Ethan.” Her trembling fingers wrap around my wrist.
“I’m just going to kiss you and then I’ll go, okay?”
The sound she makes is more whimper than word, but she doesn’t pull away as I slide my fingers into her hair, cup the back of her neck, and angle her head to the side. I stroke inside her mouth, memorizing the taste of her, afraid this is going to be the last time I ever get to do this. I need her more than she understands, but I can’t tell her that or I’ll make things worse.
The Good Luck Charm Page 20
