by PE Kavanagh
Holding on to the railing, she made her way up the stairs, stripped off all her clothes and dropped into the luxurious bed. She wanted to send Maddie a text about the party and reached over the edge of the bed to dig her phone out of her purse. On her screen was a message that had come in much earlier, before she had left for the evening.
AIDAN: Where are you, Lola? My letters aren’t getting to you and I feel lost without that small piece of connection. My heart breaks more every day. I love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you love you.
She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed the message would disappear when she opened them again. It didn’t. Her body ached with longing.
LOLA: 491 atlas canyon. Very far away. Missing you.
She pressed send while doing the quick math. It was almost 5am in New York. He would get her message in a few hours. She would deal with the consequences of her admission then. Lola fell asleep with the phone still in her hand and dreamed of being underwater. With Aidan.
Diego and Timothy were in the kitchen when she lumbered down the stairs.
“How’s our little party girl?” Timothy joked.
Lola covered her face with her palms. “Ugh.”
“Diego told me you were belle of the ball.”
“Hardly. But I did have fun. And I’m paying for it today.”
Diego waved her over. “Come, have some breakfast. Timothy brought home a huge box of pastries from Etoile bakery.”
“Actually, I’m going to see if I can hike off my hangover. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
She knew that the sun and fresh air would do her good.
* * *
Lola returned to the house and paused at the front step to stretch. The fog had lifted, outside and in, and she was much better prepared for the day. It was not clear how long she had been out - she had forgotten her phone - but it felt wonderful to have lost track of time.
Diego whipped the door open. “Lola!”
“Hey. Oh my God, what a beautiful morning. It was amazing out there. So peaceful. I feel soooo much better.”
“Lola, I’ve been calling you. I think you left your phone upstairs.” He spoke to her sharply
“Oh, probably. What’s wrong?”.
“Someone’s here. To see you. He arrived right after you left.”
Everything that had begun to feel clear and light closed in on her. No, it couldn’t be. He could not possibly have flown across the country and found her. What had she done?
“Diego… holy shit.”
His face broadcasted the extent of the drama. “I know, Lola. It’s your ex, right?”
“Is he… here?”
“In the living room. Talking to Timothy. Tell me what you want me to do.”
“I have no idea. I can’t…” Memories of a drunken text pounded in her newly cleared head.
Timothy appeared behind the door. “Girl, you need to come inside.”
She walked, minding each step to the front door, through the foyer, toward the large kitchen and then to the left, where Aidan was standing.
She looked back at Diego and Timothy, frozen at the front door.
“We’re going upstairs, to get ready,” said Timothy, while Diego nodded too vigorously. “Busy, busy day. Take your time.”
Her chest burned and she had to concentrate on breathing normally.
“Lola…”
Stop shaking, Lola. “What are you doing here?”
“I got your message last night. You gave me the address. I went straight to the airport and got on the first flight out.”
“That's insane, Aidan.” Her hands moved involuntarily to her hips in an attempt to steady the tremor.
“Yes, probably. There is nothing I wouldn't do."
"This is unbelievable…" She dropped her head and noticed her chest rising and falling. Too quickly.
"I'm here, Lola. For you. Will you talk to me? I’m not asking for much.”
Anger would fuel stability. She lifted her gaze and bore into him. “I think you’re asking a lot.”
He sat down, pressing his fist into his palm. “Will you sit down and talk to me?”
She took the few steps into the room and sat down on the other side of the coffee table. “I can’t believe you came here. That was crazy.”
“No, what we’re doing is crazy. I wanted to give you time and space. I wanted to let you digest all that stuff in your own time. I knew it was a lot, I didn’t want to push. But I never gave up, Lola. I believed you when you texted me that you missed me.”
“I was drunk.” She immediately regretted blaming it on anything other than missing him.
"So, are you saying that even though you gave me the address and said ‘I miss you’, you didn’t actually want to talk to me or see me?” The line of his lips flattened.
"I couldn’t have guessed that you would get on a plane and come straight here. I mean, you didn’t even respond to my text!” Tone down the hysteria.
“Of course I did! I told you I was on my way. Did you check your phone?” He matched her escalating irritation.
She tried to piece together the blur of the previous night. She had no idea where her phone was. Maybe buried in her bed. “I didn’t. I just got up this morning and went for a long hike.” She rubbed her head, feeling foolish.
He lowered his voice. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here now. Will you talk to me?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How are you feeling? About me? About us?”
How could he ask me that? “I didn’t think there was an us.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“There’s nothing…”
“I know I dumped a lot on you. Maybe it was too much. It was selfish. I didn’t want to carry it anymore. I could have been more gentle.”
“Or you could have not done the things you did.”
“Yes. At the time, I could have made different choices. And probably should have. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. I can’t undo any of it. All I can do is stand here now and tell you that I’m sorry.” He turned away and attempted to compose himself. “I’m so sorry.”
“What do you want from me?” She spoke as calmly as she could.
“I want you to tell me what I can do. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, I’ll do anything you ask. But I can’t change the past, Lola.”
“Who hired you?”
A grimace slashed across his face. “I wish I knew.”
The questions came rapid-fire, having been brewing in her mind for weeks. “Do you know why they hired you? Were they trying to hurt me? Or help me? Or was it about you? What was the point?”
He raked his hand through his hair. “I don't know. It felt personal, about you more than me. But they had enough leverage on me - or at least they thought they did - to get me to follow along. I promise you, as soon as I started getting to know you, I got out. I gave back the money. I called him a coward.” He paused. The upset expression transformed into curiosity. “Is that the worst of it? Is that the most hurtful to you? More than what I did as a trader? Or as an escort?”
The word escort rolled in her stomach. She squeezed her eyes shut against the images. “It disgusts me. All of it.”
Without reacting, he continued. “Tell me why.”
“I think of you, servicing all these women. It’s hard to get those images out of my mind.” Her palms pressed into her belly.
“What disturbs you about that?”
She looked at him as if he was crazy or stupid. Or both. “Everything.”
“What if I was just a voracious womanizer? What if I just picked up and used hordes of women, like most of my peers? Would that have been better?”
She saw where he was going. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“What I did was out of the norm. It was crazy, I admit. But I didn’t use or abuse anyone. I provided a serv
ice that supported my view of myself. I’m not sure there were any victims in my situation. And, to be brutally frank, I slept with a fraction of the women compared to the other men I knew.”
She wished what he was saying didn’t make as much sense as it did. She wanted to hold on to her judgment and disgust. She couldn’t risk feeling compassion for him.
There was something he couldn't argue. “Well, how about your dating me, for money?”
“I didn’t date you for money, Lola. I don’t need the money. I dated you because I thought…”
“It would be harmless? That no one would get hurt?”
“Yes. I didn’t think anyone would get hurt. You would get wined and dined and would feel beautiful and desired. I don’t know why this person thought that you needed that, or even if that was the motive. But I never thought I would fall, like a brick, for you. Maybe I should have anticipated that that could happen, but it never crossed my mind. It had NEVER happened before.”
The list of questions scribbled in the margins of her journal popped into her mind. “What happened that night? When you came over, and then left?”
He braced himself, took a deep breath, and began. “It started before that night. Part of the... contract was that I not sleep with you.” He looked up in time to catch her pained expression. “It made things really nonsensical, as you noticed. I thought I had to hold myself back, even though I really didn’t want to. Then I decided to break the contract, when I was in Florida, and I realized I had fallen in love with you."
It took all Lola's resources to keep herself together. She gave him no sign of being affected by his statement, so he continued.
“The deception was making me crazy. I was desperate for any way to make it go away, so that we could just be together. But I couldn’t ignore it. And that night, the way you were acting toward me was like a flashback to… something else. I freaked, imagining that you had somehow found out. And that you were punishing me. It was all twisted in my head. I had to get away.
“And then…” he pressed his fingers along his brow bone. “I decided I wouldn’t see you again. I decided it would be best if I just disappeared.” He looked up at her. “Would that have been better, Lola? Would it have been better if you never heard from me again?”
He was playing her. She had to stay strong and not start to feel bad for him. She was the victim. She was the one who got hurt. But she didn’t want to see him shattered. It was too much. He wasn’t even trying to hold himself together and all she wanted to do was help him, hold him, love him. But it didn’t make sense, especially to her broken heart. She couldn’t give in. “I’m sorry I gave you a mixed message. With my text last night. I wasn’t trying to confuse you. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
He wiped his face with his palm and straightened. “Not that you asked me, but here’s what I think, Lola. I think the text was real. Missing me is what’s in your heart, even though you feel hurt and betrayed, which I understand. I think pretending that you don’t care and that you don’t want me here is bullshit. You’re protecting yourself. And I don’t blame you.”
“What you did was unforgivable.” She said the words, but was losing ground. She could see the other side of the story, in which he was a victim. At least as much as she was.
He ran his fingers along the straight edge of his jaw. “I’ve apologized. But I’m not really asking for your forgiveness.”
The statement dropped like a bomb in her already unsteady structure. “What?”
“What I’m asking is for you to talk to me, honestly and openly. To stop pretending that nothing happened between us. To see how two people got totally and completely fucked, and ended up in a love affair that neither of them could have predicted.”
She could not move forward from his statement on forgiveness. She stared down at the carpet, desperately hoping a rational thought would appear.
“I’m not trying to absolve myself. I know this mess was my fault. But if I own it, Lola, can you? Can you give equal weight to the actual relationship we built?”
“I feel like you’re manipulating me right now. Maybe you’ve been manipulating me this whole time.” Everything was getting so slippery.
“Or maybe… I was manipulated. I lied about it. And then I told the truth. The whole truth as best as I understand it. Can you even acknowledge that THAT story exists as much as the version you’re holding onto?”
“You were manipulated, too,” she repeated, robotically.
“Yes.” Aidan, for the first time that morning, looked hopeful.
“I wish I could say I don’t care. I don’t care if you got fucked, or if you got hurt, or if you’re suffering right now.” It was impossible to keep her face hard. “But it’s not true.”
His expression softened. “What is true?”
“I’m devastated. I’m horrified that I let myself get so duped, again. I’m really really confused about all these things you’ve told me. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it feels unbelievable, sometimes it feels like a cruel joke. Like a ploy to hurt me in the most personal way.”
“I’m sorry. I never wanted any of that. Jesus, Lola.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
She leaned against the armrest and closed her eyes. Random images flashed like a badly edited movie. “After you decided you weren’t going to see me anymore, after leaving my house in the middle of the night, you called me. Why?”
He fixed his gaze, even though tears filled his eyes. “As hard as it was to imagine telling you the truth and having you hate me, it was worse to think of not trying. Of giving up. It was a big risk and I want to think it was the right thing. I want you to think it was the right thing.”
“It was the right thing.” That might have been the most difficult statement she had ever made out loud.
He inhaled with an open mouth before speaking. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes. I hate that there was something to tell. But I don’t hate that you told me. And I don’t hate you. That’s what’s true.” Lola looked down, expecting her skin to catch on fire in light of the blaze inside her. Telling the truth was much too hard.
13
A Different Road
THE SOUND OF footsteps down the staircase was a welcome distraction from the resonant flare of Lola's last statement. Diego and Timothy stepped slowly and cleared their throats dramatically. Aidan stood up.
“Heeeey, you guys.” Diego greeted them in an awkwardly cheery voice.
Timothy remained serious. “We’re headed out. For a long time. We’ll be back by four.”
They each raised a hand to wave goodbye. “Nice to meet you, Aidan,” Timothy said.
“See you later,” added Diego.
“Thank you. Nice to meet you too.”
Aidan walked over to Lola's seat and put one hand on the back of the couch.
“Lola.”
She didn’t want to look up at him. “Yes, Aidan.”
He moved his hand to her shoulder, then behind her neck. She thought she would never feel his hands on her again. But it wasn’t right yet.
“Please don’t.” He moved his hand off of her. She stood up to face him. “I still don’t know what you want from me. I’ve already told you that I understand. And I don’t hate you. What else do you want?”
“I want you to tell me the truth. Could you ever be with me? Be loved by me? Maybe even love me?”
The choice was as clear as it was difficult. “None of this would have been nearly as bad if I… if…” Truth, Lola. Tell the truth.
He waited and watched unblinking for her to finish her sentence.
“If I didn’t love you. If I wasn’t in love with you.” A surprising emptiness took the place of all her built-up tension.
“Lola…” He shook his head in disbelief. “Since when?”
“A while. Even though I’ve tried not to. I’ve really tried.”
He picked up her hands and pressed them to his lips, his tears dampening her skin. She pulled her hands away.
“It’s not right yet.”
“Tell me what to do, Lola. Tell me, please.” She wanted to stroke his face with her hands. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and let him wrap his arms around her back. Instead she folded her arms tightly across her chest.
“I don’t now, Aidan. I don’t know.” This was all too much.
Lola ran her hand over her hair and something snagged. She was still in the clothes she had worn for the hike and had brambles in her hair. The sensations in her body began to make themselves known - the fatigue in her legs from the strenuous hike, the remnants of her hangover headache, and a whisper of desire.
“I need to clean myself up. I think I have shrubs in my hair.”
Aidan took her by the arms. “Lola… I know that everything's not perfect yet, but I feel much better. I'm going to do whatever it takes to be with you, to make you happy. Everything I've ever told you about my feelings is true. We belong together, Lo. Can you feel that?"
Her heart beat into the bottom of her throat. "It's too soon for proclamations. I can't make any promises."
"I know." He slid his hands down, interlacing his fingers with hers. "As long as we keep communicating. That's what's important."
"I can do that." Her certainty was tinged with trepidation.
"First, I need to know what’s happening here. Can I stay? Do you want me to go? I’d like to be with you, but I don’t want to impose. Especially since your family is involved.”
Lola bit the side of her lip but didn’t answer. There were too many variables for her to know, definitively, what the best path would be.
Aidan brought his face and body within inches of hers. “Tell me what you want.”
She had to make a choice. “You can stay here, Aidan. I agree to talk to you. But I’m not going to promise anything more than that.”
An almost imperceptible nod, and a purse of his lips gave her a sense he was not satisfied with her answer. When he moved forward to kiss her, she turned away.
“Let me show you the rooms upstairs.” They marched up the long curved stairway, then headed to the right, where the guest suite was located. Upon opening the double doors, Lola cringed at the mess she had left that morning. Clothes on the floor, the bedding tossed everywhere, a collection of half-filled glasses on the night table.
