Her dad sat across from me and worked the glare again for a few minutes before he finally said, “She doesn’t need your drama in her life right now, Ian. I feel so damned bad for you and your family. Emma was a great girl and I loved her too. I can’t imagine what you’re all going through. But…Alexa is my daughter and I love her more than life itself. She’s going through the same pain that you are and on top of that, you’re heaping more on her. She’s hurting, and you’re making it worse.”
I felt like he’d just punched me in the gut. What was I supposed to say? I was here because I couldn’t stand the thought of being without her and her father was here, telling me I was hurting her and she didn’t need me. I need her.
“I never had any intentions of hurting her. I care about Alexa and she and I have been helping each other through this thing with Emma…”
“If you’re helping her then why is she so miserable?”
“Like you said, this is not an easy thing to deal with for any of us…” he kept interrupting me. I was talking faster, trying to get my own point out before he did.
“She’s grieving over Emma, but this is more. This is her starting to think that what she has with you is more than you leaning on her and her leaning on you. This is setting her up to fall hard. You’re not helping her, Ian. She’s not happy. The best thing you can do for her if you truly care about her like you say…is walk away now.”
“What if that’s not what she wants?”
“She’s confused and hurting. She has no idea what she wants or needs right now. Leave her alone and she’ll be okay. She’s strong…but if you hang around and keep hurting her when she’s already broken…you could leave a permanent scar. I’m sick of seeing her come home from being with you looking like her heart has been broken…again. Just leave her alone, Ian. She’s a good girl. She deserves better.”
I had no intentions of hurting Alexa. Even if things didn’t work out for us dating, I still cared about her. She was Emma’s best friend and that alone gave her a special rank. But there was more than that…so much more. I wanted so badly to continue to explore it and figure out where it was going. This was all new to me. Of course I’d had girlfriends before…but none of them had affected me the way that Alexa does. How am I supposed to just walk away from that?
“I never wanted to hurt her.”
“I doubt that was your intention…but she’s hurting nonetheless. So now you need to man up and do something about it.”
“And you think that walking away from her now is not going to hurt her?” I failed to see how just walking away when she was still going through all of this crap was manning up.
“Not as badly as it would hurt her on down the road. People get into relationships and let themselves believe that it’s going to be forever. They throw themselves into it 100% and then when it doesn’t work out…they feel like they’ve lost everything. After what she’s been through, I don’t know if she could handle that. It would be devastating.”
I wondered what made him think it wasn’t going to work out. I had been taking this thing with Alexa as it came a day at a time. I hadn’t considered much farther into the future than that. Was I ready to commit to forever? No. I wanted her; I knew that as much as I knew I’d be taking my next breath. Did I want her forever? Was she going to want me forever? I couldn’t answer that question, and maybe that was what he was talking about.
“So you think I should just not contact her anymore? I shouldn’t at least talk to her about this and see what it is that she wants?”
“I think not contacting her would be best. She’s confused, Ian. She’s hurting and she doesn’t know what she wants. If you walk away now, before she gets too attached, her feelings will be hurt, but at least her heart won’t be broken.”
I felt numb. I wished he was wrong but what if he wasn’t? I had already hurt her quite a bit in the short time we’d been together. I was, by history, a screw up. What made me think it would be any different from here on out? Was it okay for me to risk hurting her because of what I wanted? Not if I really cared about her…and I did…I do.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay? You’ll leave her alone?”
He sounded surprised. Maybe I had given in too easily. Fuck, I have no idea.
“Yeah, I’ll leave her alone. I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Thank you, Ian.” He looked relieved and I realized that he knew I really had the power here to refuse. Did it make me less of a man for not refusing him, or more? I had no fucking clue, but lately, that was a permanent state of mind for me.
I went home, feeling like a bigger piece of crap than I had before. I lost my sister and now I felt like I’d lost my best friend. I wanted to hit something. I paced around the apartment for a while like a caged animal and finally went to the gym.
I went straight for the bag. I wanted to just wail on it, I was so frustrated. But I knew that I had to find some control somewhere, so I just ran it like a regular circuit workout. I started with my right leg, doing low kicks for five reps. When I worked out on the bag, I’d gotten good at using my imagination to picture my opponent and where my kicks and punches would be landing on a live person. Today, I pictured Kristie. I would never, ever hit her…but it was cathartic to think about it.
I kicked the lower half of the bag, picturing her legs…those long, overly tanned legs. I did a pivot on my support foot and turned my hip as I delivered the kick. Maximum power. Then I switched legs and did another five before switching to high-kick. I kicked the top of the bag…aiming for her overly made-up face. I did five of those on each leg and by that time I was starting to sweat. I tried to visualize the stress leaving my body with the sweat.
I let myself really start punching then. I started with twenty straight punches, alternating hands. I guess I’m not a complete asshole because even though I tried to visualize Kristie’s head snapping back as I threw the punch, I couldn’t do it. I replaced it with a visual of the guy I’d be fighting for the championship, Gilbert “Gil” Morris. I didn’t have any problem picturing his head bobbing with the impact of my fist.
I switched to a left hook and did twenty of those too and then did it all again with a right hook. I finished up with a knee strike…I did five of those on each leg.
Before I left the gym I showered, and on the way home I got something to eat. By the time I got back to my apartment, I was feeling a little better. I walked in and dropped my bag and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening vegging out in front of the television, watching mindless sitcoms.
I was getting ready to call it a night when I heard my text message tone. I realized then that I had left the phone in my gym bag. I hadn’t even missed it. I went and fished it out and when I saw the text was from Alexa, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. This was the moment of truth. Was I going to keep the promise I made to her dad? Did I want to? The answer to the second question was no. I didn’t want to. I wanted to reach out to her. I ached for it. But I’d made a promise and with good reason. I didn’t want to hurt her. She did deserve better than that. With a “Fuck!” out loud to the empty room, I turned the phone off, tossed it back in the bag and went to bed.
Chapter Five
Alexa
After I pulled myself together, I ended up having a good time at the mall. Everything continued to remind me of Emma, but I tried to approach all those thoughts from the point of view of good memories. I allowed myself to smile when I remembered how she had once walked through the electronic toy section at the toy store and pushed a button on each toy so by the time we left the aisle it was a cacophony of noise. I got an iced coffee at the place where she used to buy an entire bag of chocolate covered coffee beans and eat until she got a “buzz,” she used to say. I tried on bathing suits and remembered being here with her last year before we left for college doing the same thing. I choked up over that one a little bit, but I fought through it. I was hopeful when I left there that one day all of my memories of her would bring a smile
to my face instead of a pain to my heart.
The time alone was good for me; Dad had been right about that. I ended up buying a few things, but I didn’t break the bank and I had an epiphany on the way home. I’d spent my day thinking about Emma mostly, but occasionally I’d let Ian slip in there. I realized when he did that I completely believed him when he told me that nothing happened between him and his ex. I believed him right away. I didn’t doubt him at all. I had to examine why that was and the decision I came up with was that it was because I trusted him. I trust him. I have fun with him. I can talk to him. I’m crazy attracted to him. So why was I torturing myself? Maybe I was becoming addicted to the drama. I needed to get past that crap that was for sure. I knew what I wanted and I needed to just go for it. I wanted to be with him, more than anything.
When I got home I found Dad in the back yard, mowing the lawn. I poured him a glass of iced tea and took it out to him.
“Thank you. So, how was it?” he asked.
“It was good. Really good. Thank you for suggesting it.” I handed him the AMEX card and said, “I only bought a couple things and I had enough so I didn’t use the card. But thanks Dad, for everything.” I hugged him. He smelled like fresh-cut lawn and Dad. I thought about telling him that I’d also decided to keep seeing Ian…but I thought maybe I should talk to Ian first and he and I could decide together where we were at and where we wanted to let this thing go. That way when Dad started asking questions, I would have answers. Besides, I got the feeling it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Before I went to bed I sent Ian a text that said, “I’d like to see you. Can we talk?”
I left it at that and went to sleep. I slept a lot better than I had the night before. The first thing I did after I once again shook off the horror that was beginning to be the morning norm for me, was reach for the phone. I was literally stunned when I saw that he’d never responded. That was strange. I didn’t let myself panic over it though, remembering my promise to stop living in the drama. I just sent him another one that said,
“Hey! Did you get my text?”
I got up after that and went about my morning routine. I refused to even carry the phone around with me. I trusted that he would text back. I took my shower and then I stayed busy for the next couple of hours doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. My dad had gone to visit his friend, so I had the house to myself. I turned up the music and while I cleaned I thought about what I would say when I saw Ian. I was going to tell him that we needed to just start fresh and be honest about everything. I really wanted it to work with him, and I thought that he did too. I think we have both been so afraid that the other was only in this for the short term while the grief passed that we were afraid to be completely honest about how we were feeling…at least I had. I was hoping he felt the same.
After I finished the housework I let myself check my phone again. There were two text messages. One from my dad that said, “Hey Princess. Just checking in. You doing okay today?”
I texted back: “I’m good, Dad. Don’t worry. Have fun.”
The other message was from a girl from school named Heather. Heather said,
“Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. Haven’t heard from you. Worried.”
Heather was a new friend, but she was a good one. I measured all my friends by Emma standards. Most of them didn’t pass. The bar was set pretty high. The odds were looking good for Heather though. She would never take Emma’s place, but she could definitely work out as a long-term close friend. I texted back.
“Thanks for checking in. I’m hanging in there. I hope you and everyone at school are doing well. I miss you guys, but home is what I need right now. Maybe we can have dinner or drinks next week?”
I was trying to stall. I didn’t want to have to face the fact that there was nothing from Ian. Suddenly my mind started going to dark places. What if something happened? What if there was something wrong? No one would think to call me if he was in an accident. No one except my dad even really knew that Ian and I were involved. I decided I’d call him and if he was in the hospital or something, someone else would answer if it rang, right? I pulled up his number and pressed send. I held my breath, but I didn’t have to hold it for long. It went straight to voicemail. What the hell? Maybe he was at the gym…but would that explain why he didn’t answer my texts?
I spent the next hour worrying, pacing and trying to call him back. I even considered calling his mom, just to see if she heard from him. Then I thought about how horrible that would be if something really was wrong and decided against it. It just didn’t make sense to me why he wouldn’t text me back…or why he had his phone off. When I left his apartment, neither of us was angry…at least I didn’t think so. I just told him I needed some space, and he gave that to me. I told him I wasn’t angry and I don’t recall doing anything that should have upset him. So why was he ignoring me now? There had to be something wrong, it was the only explanation I could come up with. I grabbed my purse and keys and headed out to his apartment to find out.
When I got there and knocked on the door, I had butterflies in my stomach. I couldn’t stop letting my mind go to those ugly places where something terrible happened to him and his parents and I would have to go through what we had with Emma, all over again. He didn’t answer on the first knock, so I knocked again, that time more urgently. A few seconds passed and he pulled the door open. First he looked surprised…and then annoyed. Was he that unhappy to see me?
“Alexa? What are you doing here?” I guess that answered my question.
“You’re not answering my texts or my calls. I was worried about you.” Why wasn’t he inviting me in? He had his body in the doorway like he was barring my entrance. Talk about hostile body language. What the hell?
“I’m fine,” he said. “I was just on my way out. I have to meet with the fight promoter.” He reached over to the table next to the door and picked up his keys. Then he twisted the lock and stepped out. I didn’t want to think he had someone else in there, but it was almost like he wanted me to.
“Ian? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I told you, I’m fine. I just have to go. I’m running late.” He turned his back on me and headed for the stairs. I was freaking out a little. I went over and stood between him and the stairwell.
“Ian, talk to me. Are you angry with me? I just needed some time, I thought you understood that. I wasn’t mad….”
“I’m not angry, Alexa, but I’m getting there. I need to go and you’re making me late. You need to just let me go, okay?”
“Why are you treating me like this? I didn’t do anything wrong?” He pushed past me, not literally, he didn’t touch me, but he brushed by and went down the stairs. Again, I followed him. Maybe I needed to learn when to give up. “Ian, please talk to me!” He just ignored me and kept walking. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to accomplish, but I kept following him. I was hurt and angry and really, really pissed that I was practically begging him to talk to me and he wouldn’t.
“Ian!” I said one more time as he got into his car. Then I stood there and watched him leave, not even glancing at me as he did. My chest was aching and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Why would he do this to me? If he didn’t want to be with me, didn’t I at least deserve to know why? Why was he acting like such a jerk?
I went back home and stayed in my room the rest of the day and night. When Dad got home, I pretended like I was asleep. I didn’t want to talk to him about Ian. I didn’t want to talk about anything. I was too busy obsessing over what I did to warrant Ian’s attitude earlier. I kept going over our recent conversations in my head and I couldn’t come up with an explanation for his behavior. Just before his ex-girlfriend got there, we had been having a great time. What the hell happened between then and now? I knew it was going to drive me crazy if I didn’t at least find out why. When the reminder went off on my phone for his fight the next night, I decided that I was going to go and afterwards, he was going to talk
to me whether he liked it or not.
Chapter Six
Ian
I went to the meeting with my promoter, sick to my stomach about how I’d treated Alexa. I know that it hurt her, I could see it all over her face and I had to wonder if this was any better than continuing to see her would have been. I’d made a promise to her father though and I felt like since he knew his daughter a lot better than I did, he had to know what he was talking about. While I was in my meeting, my phone buzzed twice. I checked it on my way out of the office and saw that one was from my mother and the other from Kristie. Fuck! That woman just couldn’t take no for an answer. I ignored the one from Kristie and checked the one from Mom. It just said,
“Ian, I’m sorry to bother you honey but if you have a minute, could you stop by today?”
My head was already pounding, but what choice did I really have? I texted her back and told her I was on my way. When I got there, I found her and my dad both sitting out on the back patio. I stopped and looked out the glass doors at them for a few minutes before they knew that I was there. They both looked so old. They weren’t even looking at each other, both just staring off into space as if the other one wasn’t even there. I couldn’t help but wonder how long their relationship was going to be able to survive this. They had been married almost thirty years and there was a time when I would have sworn nothing could have torn them apart. But nobody could have ever anticipated losing Emma. I know they love me and losing me would have been hard…but losing Emma was like someone just flipped the light switch in their world off and they had no idea how to turn it back on.
I forced myself to go out there and put on a happy face.
“Hi guys!” I said as I slid open the door.
“Hi Ian,” Mom said. I kissed her cheek.
Dirty Maverick (The Maxwell Family) Page 42
