by T. Anthony
Kristen handed me the sterile plastic cup and helped me ease my way into the bathroom.
Filling the cup took seconds. Taking the cup out to the doctor to be tested felt like an eternity.
I perched myself back onto the side of the bed as Kristen took the cup and placed it on the armoire, where she opened a test kit and from it pulled out some colorful strips of paper.
“OK, I’m going to dip these strips into the urine, and within five or so minutes, we will have a result. Now, let’s chat a little bit,” Kristen added as she pulled over a chair and sat facing me near the bed. “Are you in love with Alexander? I mean, I see it in your eyes, but do you see yourself with him—long-term?”
The answer to the question was as easy as yes or no, but that answer would surely lead to more involved questions that I definitely wasn’t prepared to answer. So I sat, unresponsive.
The doctor nodded as she read the look of fear on my face. “I know. The unknown is a frightening place.”
Had she said anything else, anything at all, I probably would have begun sobbing. But that one line was so familiar it made me react. “Alexander said that exact statement to me when we first met.” I stared straight through her and back to the past, recollecting the night Alexander and I were officially introduced. “I was terrified,” I recalled, “and he saw right into me; he felt the fear that he saw coming through me.” I smiled, thinking about how I had felt, realizing who he was and how he had spun me out of control.
“Was it so terrible? When the unknown revealed itself?” Kristen asked, smirking.
Was it terrible? I thought…and thought about the last half year and realized that I had pained and cried and put myself through shameful moments, but somehow I had also never experienced so much passion and love in my short lifetime.
“No, it’s far from terrible. It’s wonderful actually,” I confirmed with love seeping through every word as they left my heart. “Kristen, I’m not ready to be a mother. I don’t want children—yet. I do love Alexander, but I am nowhere near ready to give up myself and my life to serve and live for another; I’m still too selfish, too incomplete. I—”
A knock at the door made me shudder.
“One second,” I responded, knowing Alexander was dying to get back in to find out what was going on. Turning back to the doctor, I begged, “Please don’t tell him. I will…but, in my own time and in my own way.”
Kristen nodded and went back to look at the pregnancy test strips. “Well, it looks like you are in the safe zone but—”
There was nothing else she needed to say to make me feel better. I lunged for her and embraced her. “Ugh, thank you so much, Kristen. That takes such a weight off of my shoulders.”
“Don’t hug me just yet. This is a very preliminary test; it is not one hundred percent. This only gives you an accurate reading if you are past a few weeks pregnant. I will send this to the lab for a definitive answer.”
Kristen was erring on the side of caution, as most doctors are known to do; it’s for malpractice reasons, to protect their medical licensure. But I was more than happy to accept the answer she had already given me.
“I understand,” I said but instantly dismissed the warning and chalked it up to sickness. “I have the flu!” I said to Alexander as he practically burst through the door.
He crossed the room and shook Kristen’s hand as she eyed me slyly. “Thank you, Kristen. Is there anything she needs to do, any medication she needs to take?”
“No,” she replied and turned to me. “You should rest, Eva, and I’ll call you within a day or two.”
Kristen packed her medical bag, and Alexander saw her out.
I lay myself back down on the bed, somehow feeling so much better. I think the shock of the possibility of being pregnant shocked the illness right out of me.
Alexander returned and joined me on the bed. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“I could use some saltines, just to help my stomach, but we don’t have any. I organized the pantry, so I know we don’t.” I lay my head on his shoulder and ran my hand down his chest.
“I’ll go get them for you in a minute. Do you want to talk about what happened with Samantha?” he asked carefully.
I nudged myself up beside him and sat up. “They told you about the wedding?” I asked, and he nodded. “I was wrong for assuming—when Samantha announced that they were getting married next week, I asked if she was rushing into it because she was pregnant.”
In an unexpected burst of anger, Alexander yelled at me, “You what? No wonder she flipped out the way she did. What would possess you to say such a thing to anyone? People do get married for other reasons other than because they’re knocked up—it’s called love!”
His anger shot through him, causing spontaneous tears to come to my eyes. I knew I was wrong, but hearing Alexander’s fury for what I had done made me feel wretched and disgusted with myself.
“I’m not trying to make you feel worse than you already do, but, goddamn it, Eva!” Alexander had called me Eva for the first time, and the word was filled with anything but love. “You need to stop this bullshit attitude you try to pull; this commitment-phobe side of you is getting old. You have the world at your fingertips, and yet you fear grabbing hold of it. People would sell their souls to the devil to have what you have before you.” He huffed and walked toward the bedroom door. “I’m going to get you saltines. You should rest.”
And he closed the door behind him, with me on the other side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I cried myself into a damp and dark corner. I shut the blinds and shutters and left my soul to be buried by the blackness that I had created around me.
The phone rang a few times, but I had no desire to move and definitely no desire to speak to anyone.
Then there was a knock at the bedroom door.
“Miss Eva, I have a call for you. He says it’s urgent,” Ms. Gina said through the wooden entry.
“I’ll get it in here. Thank you, Ms. Gina,” I let out with a raspy voice through my sobbing. Urgent? Who could it be? “Hello,” I muttered into the phone.
“Eva, it’s Marcus,” I heard from the other end.
“Is Samantha OK? What happened?” I cried into the receiver.
“She’s fine. Everything is fine. We are at the airport. I got called back to New York early,” he said.
“Oh, I see. Well, Alexander should be back any minute,” I assured him.
But he wasn’t looking to speak to Alexander. “I know, I called his office when no one answered at the house, and his assistant told me to try his cell.”
What? “Who told you to try his cell, Marcus?” I demanded to know.
“His PA, Chloe. She said he wasn’t in today and to try his cell,” he confirmed.
Marcus obviously failed to consider that Alexander may have told me about his past with Chloe. So he inadvertently disclosed that she was in fact still working for him and still his personal assistant.
“Eva, there is something that I do need to speak to you about, and I know Alexander won’t be happy with me,” Marcus continued as I tried to pay attention. “I wanted to discuss this with you last night over dinner, but he begged me not to.”
“What is it, Marcus?” I pleaded.
“Do you recall the contract you closed with Crystal Corners?” he asked.
“Of course. They were one of our biggest mergers,” I confirmed, confused as ever. What does this have to do with Alexander?
“Well, they want to renegotiate the terms, and so I need you back in New York as soon as possible. I was hoping to get you to come out next week, but they called me back for meetings tomorrow. Alexander assured me that you would only be gone for a few weeks, but I need to know if this is going to be permanent. If PHI losses you, it will be a great loss, but one that I will have to work hard to fill immediately,” he said with desperation in his voice.
Crystal Corners was the biggest account I had ever closed for PHI and P
at, my boss at the time. They were a twenty million dollar merger, and PHI’s sustainability banked on that account. I get why Marcus needs me back, but why would Alexander stop me from knowing that he required my help?
“Marcus, I’ll be there. Just try to do all you can to push it to Monday morning. There is just one condition.” I continued, “I need to know what explanation Alexander gave you for asking you not to tell me.”
The line became silent.
“Eva, he doesn’t want to lose you. He closed this new deal in LA, and he needs to be there for a while, maybe longer. He knows that if you come back to New York, one of you is going to have to sacrifice or end it all together. He doesn’t want either, and I don’t think you do,” he said in a questioning tone.
“No. I don’t want to lose him, but lying to me and keeping me from my life and my job for fear of losing me won’t keep me here either. I will be in the office on Monday morning; you can count on it. And, Marcus, thank you for calling me against Alexander’s wishes.” I was hurting and thankful and altogether a complete mess. This was the easy part; facing Alexander with all of this would be disastrous.
And with no reprieve, Alexander entered the bedroom carrying my saltines, to find me sitting on the chaise with the phone receiver still in my hand.
“What are you doing? Were you calling me?” he asked.
“How long did you think you could keep me from going back to my life?” I blurted.
Alexander froze with the unexpected questioning.
Giving him no time to respond, I continued, “Was this the plan from the beginning? To keep me here long enough to lose my job and my friends? So that I would think I had nothing to go back to? Did you think I would ever find contentment being a puppy dog to you as my master? Tell me, what were you thinking when your best friend told you he needed me to help him and you denied him and me?”
The paleness of Alexander’s face was a shade I had never seen before.
“Evangeline, it wasn’t like that,” he started to explain.
“Oh, no? Then what was it like? Was it like the fact that you gave me no choice but to come with you to LA? Or was it the fact that you have yet again given me no choice but to stay here? Either that or lose you! Is this how you intended on keeping me: by lying to me and keeping things from me?” I yelled, completely distraught. “Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get the position that I have? I had to prove myself ten times more than your average Joe, and why? Because I am young and I don’t have a dick between my legs. I worked seven days a week, eighteen-hour days for the last seven years to secure my place, and you think you have some right to now keep me from that success?”
“Will you let me explain? You were such a different person in New York. You feared everything that you couldn’t control. Anything that wasn’t planned by you or didn’t follow the exact path you had lain out was inconceivable to you. I thought the only way to keep you from pushing me away was to keep you close to me. I fell in love with the woman you were, but you self-destructed. I didn’t do any of this out of malice; it was stupid and not thought out, but I followed my heart, and for that I am not sorry. But I am sorry that I hurt you. I don’t want to keep you from your life. I just…don’t want to lose you.” Alexander’s apology was sincere, but it held no significance at this point.
“You know, Alexander, I am far from perfect, and I have made my fair share of mistakes in relationships. But you can’t hide me in a box just to secure me as your own. You decided on your own what my life was and wasn’t going to be; but you made the wrong decision. Had you let me go, I would have come running back to you the minute I could. Now, I don’t know if I can return to wondering what else you’ll keep from me or what you’ll do to keep me with you at all times. This is not a life, Alexander; it’s not the life I would choose. You promised me we would find our way together—this isn’t our way; it’s your way,” I sobbed through every word and maintained my distance.
“I can’t make you believe me, but I swear to you on all that is holy that I didn’t mean to keep you away from anything. I just hoped that if you spent enough time with me, you would see that loving me was as easy as breathing. I didn’t want to become a task to you. I just wanted to be loved by you.” His jaw tightened, and his eyes were as glassy as crystal.
I couldn’t tell if he was going to scream or cry or both, and I felt numb to both emotions.
“I did nothing but give in to you. Samantha was right in saying that I was living as a pretend Stepford wife. This is not me. I am not satisfied by having lunches and spa days every day for the rest of my existence. I am intelligent and I have purpose, and since I’ve been here, you’ve done nothing but try to make me forget that. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me—but you did—and there is no excuse for lying to me.” I turned my back and walked to the closet.
Alexander remained where he was, feet cemented to the ground by his heavy heart.
“What are you doing?” he asked angrily and without hope.
With luggage in hand, I wasn’t going to waste any time. “I’m not running away from you this time, Alexander. I’m running toward the rest of my life, and at this moment I don’t know if that includes you. If you’ll excuse me, I need to pack for New York.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No. I need to go alone. You’ve made your deals here, and you’ve made your choices. Now I need to make mine,” I rebuked.
Surprisingly, Alexander didn’t stand his ground like he had in the past, and I was thankful for it; my anger would have just grown, and I don’t know what I might have said. As I packed my things, he turned his back to me in mourning and showed himself out of the bedroom.
But before he left, I had to let him know what ailed me worse than anything. “I never asked you to give anything up for me. I accepted you as you were, while you tried to turn me inside out. The only thing I asked of you was to honor me before her, and you couldn’t. Marcus called your office looking for you, and Chloe answered. You chose her over me, and above everything else…that is tearing me to shreds.”
And I returned—unable to accept a response had he been able to give me one—to the four lonely walls of the closet to collect my things.
I didn’t descend for the rest of the day. Ms. Gina attempted to feed me a few times, but food wouldn’t satisfy or heal my heart. I spent the evening packing the things I had brought with me, leaving behind all that Alexander had bought me. They were purchased for a girl who wasn’t me—a girl who was willing to lose her identity and self to play a role and not live a life.
I paced the room, gathering the few things I had left to pack, with tears streaking my face as I folded and placed each item into my luggage. I cried until I had no tears left in me to shed. I felt deadened. My zombie-like motions carried me through the night, with no sleep and no salvation for the love that I had just started to enjoy.
I booked a flight out of LAX for first thing in the morning. There were no flights left for that evening, or I would have jogged myself to the airport.
I texted Marcus to let him know that everything was set and that I would be flying out in the morning.
But the response to the text came as a phone call.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Eva, are you all right? Alexander isn’t answering his phone. What happened?” Marcus asked, shaken with concern.
“Nothing that wasn’t bound to happen. His apologies can only go so far, but they can’t erase the hurt that’s burrowed inside of me. Even through all my mistakes, Marcus”—I breathed exasperatedly—“I never kept anything from him. All of my fears, all of my emotions were laid before him, and knowing how I felt, he made his own path without considering my feelings.”
Marcus breathed into the phone, forlorn for what Alexander and I were succumbing to, but there was little to be done to rectify it now. “I know that there isn’t anything I can say to make you feel better, but you do need to at least hold on to the fact that he lives fo
r you. His intentions were pure of heart, and nothing was done to intentionally hurt you. I have known Alexander for most of my life, and I can assure you that he could never hurt a fly. And for you, he would lay down his life to know that you were safe.”
“The problem is, Marcus, is that he didn’t lay down his life for me. I would never ask him to do that. But he did take my life, and now I have to get it back. I really do need to finish up here, Marcus. I’ll see you on Monday morning.” And I disconnected the call.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Flying first class is an experience that everyone should enjoy at least once in their lifetime. But having had the luxury of traveling in a private jet—well, first class now seems like the slums.
It’s silly really, the things you think about when your mind is numb and pained by everything else in your life. The most meaningless of thoughts entered my mind as the plane made its way past the “fly-over” states. With only two hours of flight time left, I tried to bury my thoughts in anything but Alexander. I was bothered that the leather seats weren’t as plush and soft as the ones in Alexander’s jet and that there was far less leg room than in the spacious and luxurious recliners that I had enjoyed that last time I had flown. But all of that was a cover for the one true thing that was lacking from this plane.
Alexander had stayed on the first floor all night. I was not sure if he got any sleep, and I couldn’t ask, but when I descended to the main room that morning, Alexander was nowhere to be found. His briefcase was gone and so was his car, so I assumed he went to the office before I woke. I didn’t bother to leave a note for Alexander—too Dear John-ish and cliché. But before I left the house, I called my mother and informed her of my upcoming arrival, sparing her the details. I instead made a call that I had longed to make for the last few days.
I called Samantha.
Samantha and Marcus were to be married the following weekend, and Alexander and I had been asked to be their witnesses. I started the phone call with a sobbing apology for how I had behaved the last we spoke. And then I groveled for forgiveness while giving Samantha all the details of my tortured LA existence.
