by Lori L. Otto
“Coming,” I say back to her, splashing cold water on my face and drying myself off.
CHAPTER 13
I haven’t been to sleep... can’t allow myself to rest. Emi, either oblivious to my unacceptable behavior toward her or incredibly forgiving, fell asleep shortly after I made amends. She went to sleep happy, satisfied... the only good thing about last night.
“I’m sorry, Emi,” I whisper quietly, too quietly for her to hear, afraid I would wake her, afraid that regret would set in. I guess I hoped her subconscious would pick up on the hundreds of apologies I had whispered in her ear throughout the night. The words themselves would never be enough.
Five AM. I can’t lie here any longer. Slowly, I remove myself from the bed, situating Emi on the pillow and pulling the comforter up over her. She moans softly, but turns on her side, bringing the edge of the comforter to her chest. I go into the spare bedroom and close the door behind me. A small blank canvas sits by the window on the easel next to my supplies. I pick up the brush and feverishly begin to paint, to pour everything I’m feeling into the painting.
Two and a half hours later, I feel better... it’s always a cathartic experience for me, and I feel oddly inspired today... I would hate to see it go to waste. I text message Albert and see if he can meet at the New York location today. He responds and says he’s there now, so I tell him I’ll be there in half an hour.
I check on Emi before I shower. She hasn’t moved an inch, her red hair nearly glowing in the sunrise. God, I love her. I watch her for a few minutes before I get ready, apologizing quietly once more.
She’s sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes when I get out of the shower. I head to the dresser and pull out a pair of jeans and a red t-shirt.
“Don’t put those on,” she says, her voice hoarse.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell her, turning away from her to get dressed.
“But I thought we were going to spend the day together, in bed. Wasn’t that the plan?”
“Yeah, but I forgot about a meeting I’d set up with Albert at the bar. He’s expecting me in ten... I’m already going to be late.” I turn around and briskly walk to her side of the bed. I run my fingers through her tangled hair, gently working out some knots, and pull her head to mine for a kiss. “You can stay as long as you’d like. Just lock the door behind you.”
She looks confused, shocked even. “Well, when are you coming back? Can’t I just stay?”
“Well, I guess,” I hedge, gathering my wallet, keys and phone. “I just don’t know how long this is going to take, that’s all.”
“Oh,” she says, a pout forming on her lips as she traces the design on the comforter with her finger. “Okay.”
“Is that okay?” I ask her.
“Are you okay?” she responds.
“I’m fine. No, great, Emi, how are you?” Asshole... that should have been the first question out of my mouth.
“I’m good, thanks.” Her answer is terse, her brows furrowed.
“Emi, I’m sorry,” I tell her. “It’s work. It’s a commitment I’ve made that I can’t break. You understand, right?”
“Sure,” she says, short.
“I love you, Emi. I’ll call you later, I promise.”
“I would hope so,” she says.
“Of course I will.” I walk out the door, poised, confident, but cringing on the inside. How many times have I had that exact conversation with other women? Too many to think about. Maybe I’m not ready for this.
When I get home in the evening, the loft is quiet, clean. Emi has left the place immaculate, something I would never ask her to do, never expect her to do. I don’t deserve her. Why did she agree to this?
After my meeting with Albert– which lasted less than an hour– I spent most of the day at the Jersey Shore, thinking about how to handle the situation. I want her. I have to have her... but not like this.
And I drank today. Purposefully. I went to a bar and had a few beers... I don’t like that I did it. I don’t like to think that one day, many years ago, my dad went to a bar for the first time and had a few drinks, just to clear the thoughts from his head. I don’t like that I did it, and yet, I want another. I hate that even more. I find the wine that I had bought for Emi and pour myself a glass. This is all wrong.
As I walk into the guest bedroom, I am startled to find Emi there. So startled, in fact, that I nearly drop the glass, sloshing wine on my shirt and onto the hardwood floor.
“Shit, you scared me, Em,” I tell her, surprised. “What are you still doing here?”
“I found this painting,” she says. “What’s wrong, Nate?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. I know your paintings, remember? You did this this morning, right? Because it wasn’t in here yesterday... and some of the paint was still wet when I found it.”
“Yeah, I did.” I survey the piece of art... strokes of black and blue muddled together in my own version of organized disarray.
“Well...” she begins. “It’s nice... but it’s angry... or sad... I’m not sure which one. Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind?”
“Nothing, Emi, I...”
“You’re drinking wine? You don’t drink alone... at least I didn’t think you did. I thought that was reserved for special occasions.”
“Yeah, I’m having a drink,” I tell her directly, avoiding her obvious speculations. “Would you like one? I’d be happy to pour you a glass.”
“Why are you drinking?” she asks. “And why did you paint this?” She tucks her legs in, crosses her arms over them, a submissive posture, as if she’s sheltering herself for what’s to come... as if she knows what’s coming. I take a long sip of the wine, then hand her the glass. She takes a drink, then sets it on the nightstand.
“Emi, I can’t do this,” I nearly whisper to her. Hearing the words come out of my mouth nearly breaks my own heart... I can only imagine what they’re doing to her.
“I’m sorry?” she asks, immediately angry. “You can’t do this?”
“No,” I tell her, sitting down on the daybed next to her, staring at my empty hands.
“What can’t you do? Because we already did... and there’s no undoing that...”
“Emi, I want you, I do...” My eyes meet hers, already moist with tears that come too quickly. “And I will commit my life to making sure you are happy, but fuck, Emi. I can’t do this... I can’t do what I did last night, with you, ever again.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, the lump in her throat audible. “You don’t want to have sex with me again?”
“We didn’t just have sex, Emi. You say that like what we did was normal. And yeah, I guess it is my normal. Sure, we fucked, Emi.” She cringes at my use of the harsh word to describe what happened between us last night. “And I don’t want to... to... fuck you... ever again.”
“Please don’t say that. Don’t ever say that to me.” The tears stream now.
“Emi, there is so much more to my feelings for you than lust. But last night, my desire to be with you, to be inside of you, took over, and made me treat you like I would never treat someone I truly cared about.” Now my own eyes begin to water, a lump forms in my own throat. The words come out quickly, loudly, every bit of the loathing I feel for myself evident in every single word.
“There. There you see how I’ve treated the rest of them. That’s the real Nate. Do you feel like you’ve been missing out on something? Really? After last night?
“Because, really, my actions, Em? Pretty unimpressive. Pretty fucking disgusting, if you ask me. And it’s weird, because that is pretty much my normal... but in all the fantasies I have ever had about you, I was never disrespectful. Never once did I not listen for and comply to every request to make you happy... or comfortable... or satisfied.”
“Nate,” she says loudly to stop my tirade. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. It wasn’t that bad.”
“Wasn’t that bad,” I repeat with a groan b
efore laughing under my breath. “Look me in the eyes and tell me it was everything you’ve dreamed of... everything you wanted it to be... and I will drop this right now. Go ahead.”
Her unblinking stare holds my attention, her silence speaking louder than any words she might choose to utter. Her face crumples as she cries harder and tucks her head into her chest, a poor attempt to shield her true feelings from me.
“Thought so,” I mutter, grabbing the wine from the nightstand and swallowing the rest of it on my way out of the guest room.
She suddenly tears past me on her way to the kitchen, picking up the bottle of wine and removing the cork and throwing it at my chest. “This is mine,” she asserts. “You don’t get any more. You don’t get to feel numb about this. You’re going to listen to every word I have to say and you’re going to feel every syllable of what I have to say. Do you understand?”
“Calm–”
“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down!” she screams before taking a swig of the wine. “Don’t.” We square off across the kitchen island.
“You’re the one who convinced me that this would work. You told me you wouldn’t hurt me. You don’t get to call the shots in this relationship, Nate, not anymore. This is a partnership now. I am in this, with you. You can’t break this off now, this soon. You haven’t even given us a chance,” she pleads.
“Emi...”
“No!” she yells, cutting me off, taking another drink. “Forget what happened last night–”
“I can’t!” I yell back.
“Nate, I know you, alright? I know you better than you think I do. I know you’re a sexual person, that in the past you’ve used sex as a way to convey emotions you may or may not have been experiencing at the time. But I know you love me, Nate. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’ve accepted that you can’t change who you are just because you’re dating me... but I know your feelings are real with me. We did not... fuck... last night.” Her soft lips have difficulty forming the word in that context. It sounds even worse coming out of her mouth.
“I don’t know how you can say that,” I counter.
“I can say that because I know that you love me... I know that you love me more than you loved any of the women before me. I know that. I feel that. And you know that... and I love you so much, Nate... so much that I was willing to risk life-altering consequences in favor of your own happiness. Because I’d make sacrifices for you... I will... but we did not fuck,” she repeats, angrily spitting the word at me.
“Stop believing what you want, Emi, you’re so fucking idealistic sometimes you can’t even see the fucking truth! I was overcome with lust, like I always am, with any woman. Any woman!”
She cries even harder, drinks even more.
“And you’re not ‘any woman.’ You deserve so much more,” I tell her in a hushed voice. “No, you should expect so much more from me.”
“Would it make you feel better if I told you I did?”
“God, yes!” I answer. “Have an opinion, Emi. Be real. Get mad at me! I was completely disrespectful, completely selfish.”
“Okay, then,” she says, wiping her nose with a dishtowel before she realizes what she’s doing. “Oh, um,” she adds, blushing, holding the dishtowel out to me.
“I don’t care,” I laugh, batting the towel out of her hand and onto the kitchen floor. I walk to the living room to find some tissues and hand them to her.
“Okay, I did expect more from you...”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “I need you to have higher expectations of me. I need you to hold me to your standards... to higher standards, Emi. I want to be... better... for you.”
“You’re not breaking up?” she asks, tugging gently on my red shirt.
“No, I’m not breaking up,” I laugh. “But I don’t ever want us to repeat what happened last night... especially while this is so new. I think we need to slow down. This thing?” I motion to her, then back to me. “This is entirely new to me. I’ve loved you forever. And I’ve had sex with plenty of other women. But I’ve never been with a woman I really truly loved... I didn’t realize it until today. Sex was love. In my mind, it’s so easy to confuse the two.
“And I love you, Emi, god, how I love you... and I really want some time to... feel that... I want to feel it with such clarity that, even when I’m caught up in the most passionate of moments, that that particular emotion... that love... will stand out above all others.”
“Oh, Nate,” she says, setting down the wine and coming to my side, collapsing in my arms.
“Emi, I know you said I can’t call the shots... but on this... you have to let me do this my way, on my terms. I love you too much to treat you like I did last night. I have way too much respect for you.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means... and I can’t believe I’m even saying this... but I want to put off sex for a little while.”
“But it’s not because it was bad?”
“No.”
“And it’s not because you don’t want me, sexually?”
“God, no.” I hold her head in both my hands and force her gaze into mine. “God, no,” I repeat emphatically, closing my eyes and remembering how beautiful she looked as she stepped into the jacuzzi last night. Just thinking about it turns me on. “Proof,” I tell her as I nudge myself, growing harder, against her body. “There will probably be lots of proof,” I laugh.
“And how long is this going to go on?” she asks, impatient.
“I don’t know, Em. Until I feel like I can handle this.”
“I’ve waited so long already,” Emi pleads, her hand running down my chest, stomach, until she grabs the waistband of my jeans and pulls me into her harder.
I stare into her eyes, a slightly annoyed expression on my face. “Thirteen years, I have wanted this,” I tell her playfully through gritted teeth. “I just want to treat you right. I just want to do this right.”
“Just no sex? Or no nothing?”
“I can’t say no nothing... I just hope I can draw the line.”
“If I hope you can’t?”
“I need your support, here, baby. Please?”
“Okay...” she returns sarcastically, pushing me away and letting go of my pants. “But can you not call me ‘baby’ anymore?”
“Of course, Emi. Come back here,” I say, grabbing her arm and pulling her back to me. “Kiss and make up?”
“Kiss and make up sex?” she smiles.
“Just shut up and kiss me, damn it,” I tell her. “Please?”
“Okay, baby,” she whispers again, standing on her tiptoes to meet my lips. “I will be ready when you are.”
“Thank you,” I mumble as I continue to press my lips to hers, holding her head to mine.
She stayed over at the loft that night. We held each other tightly until very early in the morning. As soon as Emi left to go back to her place, I called my florist and had them send the most beautiful arrangement to her.
~ * ~
“Don’t say a word, Nate,” Emi warns me as soon as I open the door for her and her niece. It was our weekend to watch Clara, to give Jen and Michael a weekend to themselves. Emi would normally do this once a month for her sister, but more often than not, the two would end up at my apartment, looking for things to entertain them or escaping the escapades of Emi’s roommate.
“Oh, no, of course not, Em,” I smile, handing her a towel and wrapping Clara up in another one as I pick her up. “But have you heard of this new thing? This smart phone? It does more than make phone calls and record your messages. It also lets you check things like news, stocks... and even weather.”
“Nate, I swear...” she laughs. “Just shut it. It was sunny!”
“It was coming... I warned you.” She bends over in an effort to towel-dry her hair. Clara’s teeth start to chatter in my ear. “Where is that little toy phone of yours?”
“You’ll be happy to know that my little toy phone took a nose dive into a p
uddle,” she says, pulling her small flip phone out of her front pocket and setting it roughly on the table. “If you’re such a smart man, get me a smart phone, genius.” Emi sticks her tongue out at me as she shrugs out of her wet sweater.
“Clara-Bee, your aunt is so silly and stubborn sometimes. Look what she did to you. She made you all cold and wet. Here,” I say, setting her down and taking off her puffy down coat. “At least someone dressed you appropriately today. Maybe your smart mommy has one of these smart phones,” I tell her loud enough for Emi to hear. My comment earns a wet towel thrown at my head. “Nice, thanks,” I mumble. “Her hair’s dry, her feet are soaked,” I report.
“I’m sorry, CB,” Emi says, kneeling down to her niece’s level. “I know you wanted to play in the park today.”
“It’s okay Anni-Emi,” she responds through her clicking teeth.
“Let’s get you into some dry clothes.”
“I put her suitcase in the guest room,” I tell Emi as I get out two packets of hot chocolate and one of hot tea. I put some water on to boil before I mop up the water trails left by my impractical girlfriend and her– well, really our– cherished niece. She considers me an uncle. She always has. I had been in her life since the moment she was born. I had to drive Emi to the hospital the day that Jen went into labor. I held her, scared and unsure of this unfamiliar world, on her actual day of birth.
“Where’s my stuff?” Emi asks once Clara is dressed in her pink and purple footed pajamas.
“On the love seat by the window,” I tell her. “You still cold?” I ask Clara as she wraps her arms around herself.
“A little, Uncle Nate-Nate,” she says softly with a sniffle. I walk over to the bed and pull a soft throw off the foot of my bed. I put my arm around Emi and kiss her cold lips.
“Why don’t you go take a shower and warm up?”
“Can you handle her?”
“Of course.”
“Okay,” Emi whispers with a smile, giving me a peck on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“Come here, CB.” I pull out a chair for her at the dining room table and wrap the blanket around her. “Better?”