After She Said Yes

by Kaya Gravitter

  “Well, I have my thoughts, but I am not in the position to comment on it,” Jason said.

  “Do you want to know why?” Just ask already! I wrote it to fight the inner demons that Gannon planted in my brain. Ask me and I will tell you! Why can’t I say this out loud?

  “I don’t want to pry, Aurora.”

  “I don’t want to sound annoyed, but remember when you said before, ‘If I want to be straightforward with you about something, I will’?”

  “Well, yes…”

  “So, then why did you actually call?” Aurora said. Why am I so defensive? Maybe he actually cares.

  “Just seeing how you were doing and to congratulate you,” Jason said. Yup, he cares… At least it seems like that to me.

  “Oh,” Aurora said. “Well, thank you. I am glad you liked it. I have gotten an overwhelming amount of emails and support from people.”

  “I figured so,” Jason said. “So, let’s celebrate! I will take you to any place.” Why? To celebrate my divorce and crappy relationship?

  “Maybe we shouldn’t,” Aurora said. Again, on the defense. Am I my own lawyer?

  “Why not?” Jason said.

  But Tessa said hanging out with anyone would be a bad idea. It’s just a celebration dinner. It doesn’t mean anything, right? We are not boyfriend and girlfriend. We are just hanging out. She figured if he really wanted to take her out, she would choose the most expensive restaurant she could think of. Maybe that will get him to say no.

  She said, “Okay. I like this one French place by the capitol.”

  “You mean “L’Etoile?” Jason said.

  It was the most expensive restaurant in town, and she wanted to celebrate the article. It was a nice gesture she took advantage of, not to use him but to see how nice he really was, to see if he was better than Melih, or Gannon. She could pay for her own dinner, but she wanted to test him. Though in reality, she kept looking for a flaw that he might have.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not. I love that place. It will remind you of your days in France.” Oh my God. He is perfect and says all the right things. Why can’t he just be Melih?

  She finally, for the first time in a long time, felt happy for herself. She thought she was in a dream because she had not been happy in so long. She didn’t know why she was so happy in particular, but she tried not to think too much about it. Could he be bringing me happiness? Or am I happy with my success? Or is it Melih?

  Or maybe I am just happy with myself for once in my life.

  --

  It was a Friday, a few days after Aurora and Jason’s previous conversation. They would meet at L’Etoile at 7:00 p.m.

  When Aurora was getting ready that night, it took her longer than expected to get ready because she could not find the outfit she wanted to wear. She kept scratching her head as if a light would go off in her head. Why don’t I ever know what to wear in front of this guy? Aurora still had not fully unpacked her clothes since moving into her new place. She hated packing and moving. She always paid someone to unpack since she could afford it. She let the movers move the boxes to her bedroom and let them unpack everything but her clothes. It’s so gross. I don’t want someone touching my clothes…. Especially not my underwear!

  She kept rummaging around her boxes and clothes sprawled over her bedroom, like a raccoon going through garbage. Why didn’t I keep everything on the hangers? I should have just stuck them in a garbage bag and just packed them that way!

  Aurora had a little dress in mind that she wanted to wear. She thought black was classy, if worn with the right accessories. What would Tessa wear? She wanted to message Tessa and ask her what to wear, but Tessa would lecture her on why she shouldn’t be having dinner with Jason. Eventually, after dismantling several boxes, Aurora found the dress she was looking for.

  “There you are,” she said, smiling and proud, as she lifted up the bottom of the black cocktail dress to look down at her black suede Christian Loubtion’s booties. Good choice, Aurora. The sleeves went off of her shoulders gracefully. They almost slid off, but that was the way the dress was designed. The dress length was to her knees. It also had pockets, and Aurora loved dresses with pockets. To match her dress, she put on her pearl-studded earrings and a pearl necklace. With the dress and the pearls, she felt as beautiful as Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Then she put on her black leggings because it was still cold outside, and she was too lazy to shave her legs. She put her hair in a sleek ponytail as she looked in her vanity mirror. She took out a tub of red lipstick and put it on her lips. She grabbed her cell phone and took a selfie of herself. She wanted to send a picture to Tessa to show her the cute outfit she chose to wear. She posted that picture to her Instagram later with the caption, “Feeling Fabulous.”

  It was 7:00 p.m. when Aurora arrived at the restaurant. When she walked in, a man at the door took her jacket. The lighting was romantic; the tables were draped with white tablecloths, silverware, and long white candlesticks with little flames coming from the tops. The front wall of the restaurant was a long wall of glass windows which overlooked the state capitol building. She found Jason at the bar waiting for her.

  “You are always early, huh?” Aurora said. She then giggled as she flashed him her eyes and winged eyeliner that she was proud she was finally able to accomplish.

  He turned and looked at her with his eyes wide. “Wow. Your beauty never ceases to amaze me.”

  “You look good yourself.” She winked at him.

  “Thank you,” Jason said. “Ready to go to the table?”

  “Yes, I am starving.” This was true. She forgot to eat lunch that day and didn’t have any food in her new place yet. She could have snacked after work, but she wasn’t much of a cook either. Her grandma was a doctor and a working woman, just like Aurora. Her grandma always said, “I don’t make money to cook. I make money to buy the food instead.”

  Aurora and Jason went to their table and Jason pulled out the chair for her to sit down. “Thank you,” Aurora said. Such a gentleman!

  Jason sat in his chair and took a sip of his water. He then looked in Aurora’s eyes and smiled. “So, how did I get so lucky to have dinner with a famous person?”

  “You had dinner with someone famous?” Aurora said.

  “You are the famous person,” he hit his hand to his forehead.

  “I am not famous,” Aurora said as she looked down at her plate as she put the napkin on her lap. “I just got lucky.” I am not famous, am I? Aurora had felt normal up until that point. She felt like an ordinary person.

  “No, I am the lucky one. You have amazing talent, Aurora.”

  “I guess,” she said humbly. “I still feel like I have much more I want to achieve. I am not satisfied by my accomplishments.”

  “Why is that?” Jason said surprised.

  “I don’t know,” Aurora said. “I just don’t like to speak about my feelings. I can only write them.”

  “I understand.” Though Aurora thought he didn’t understand because he wasn’t a writer. He was a lawyer, so being confrontational was probably easy for him. “I have read your work for years, and this is the best thing you have written.”

  He has been reading all of my work and I never knew him, though Gannon was my husband and he could not even read a sentence of any of my work. “Well, this is the first good article I have written in a long time,” Aurora said.

  “Well, it is wonderful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You know,” Jason said. “I really like you, Aurora.”

  “Oh,” Aurora said. Oh God, Aurora thought. Her face went white. She looked out the window toward the capitol and saw Melih walk past the restaurant as a light post lit up the side of his face. His hands were in his leather jacket and he was looking down as he walked. Is he thinking about me? Her heart started to beat fast. He looked toward the restaurant. Aurora immediately looked away from the window and at the first waiter she could find. Please do not
see me.

  “Just oh?” Jason said. “That was not what I was expecting you to say.” She had a great time that night, but was fighting herself to like him. She looked up out the window again and realized that Melih had walked past. Wohooo, that was close.

  Jason said, “Aurora?” She stopped looking at the window and looked toward Jason.

  “What?” Aurora said. “I mean… I like you too?” She said that because she felt guilty, as if it was her fault for leading him on and thinking about Tessa telling her to not date. She liked his company and didn’t want to stop hanging out with him. She really enjoyed that night with him. He was successful, funny, and smart.

  He was perfect for her in almost every way, but her only problem was that he wasn’t Melih.

  Maybe that was a good thing. Her brain started to fight her heart. Look where listening to my heart got me. Why shouldn’t I give this a try? I mean, I have fun with him. Jason drinks though and my sobriety means a lot to me. Melih doesn’t drink. I don’t know what to do…

  “Well, that’s good.” Jason responded with, “I was worried for a while that you were friend zoning me.” She laughed awkwardly. Is he right? I never thought of it that way.

  “No, of course not,” she responded immediately to him as if she were trying to cover something up. She looked at him and gave him a crooked smile.

  “Enough about me, Jason.” She smiled at him. “Tell me about you. What have you been up to?” Aurora hated when the attention was on her. Her social anxiety couldn’t handle it. I can’t believe Melih just walked past the restaurant.

  “Nothing new here. Same old same old.”

  “Old like you?” Aurora said with a cackle. “Ha!” They both laughed. “Just kidding…” She said.

  They ordered their meals and chatted throughout the dinner. They spent the night laughing. He told her stories about clients from when he was a public defender.

  He mostly stuck to talking about the funny cases because he didn’t know if she could handle some of the things he had seen being a public defender. He didn’t like it because that is was what made him nearly emotionless.

  “You are not emotionless,” Aurora said. “You are a sweet guy.”

  “Yeah, I just have seen a lot of stuff.”

  “It is okay. You don’t have to talk about it,” she said as she lightly touched his hand but immediately pulled away as she thought of Melih touching her hand at the coffee shop.

  Throughout that dinner, Aurora never told Jason that she had gotten an offer for an interview for The New York Times, and she didn’t want to. She was sure it would be a buzzkill to talk about it. Aurora loved the intellectual conversation she had with him and didn’t want to ruin it. Seeing Melih almost ruined this evening for me.

  There is something about Jason tonight that is making me extremely attracted to him. I think it is because this is one of the first times a man has ever been nice to me. He is a man who isn’t scared to be with me. Maybe it was the food or the ambiance or maybe he was just perfect for her. She didn’t want to believe that he was perfect for her. If I cannot like myself, how can I like him? When she saw romance or love, she didn’t notice it. Or how could he like me or love me? I don’t deserve Jason. I don’t deserve anyone…. Aurora, stop thinking like that! You deserve the best.

  “You are gorgeous. You don’t need to say anything else if you don’t want,” Jason said as he took her hand into his. His hands were soft and looked like he took care of them. Maybe he gets manicures. I should get my nails done more often, myself.

  “So, are you interested in coming over to my place afterwards to watch a movie?”

  “Okay,” Aurora said. “Then this makes up for my not coming after our last date.”

  “Deal.”

  They decided to watch a movie on Netflix. Jason signaled her to move closer to him on his couch. She slid his way and he put his arm around her. She flinched and grew stiff at first, but his body was soft and felt like a teddy bear. She put her head on his chest. Mid movie, Jason stopped it.

  “I have a question for you.”

  “Okay,” Aurora said as her lip quivered.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  She never said no, but she closed her eyes and kissed him. It brought her back to college when Gannon asked her the same question. She knew that after she said yes things would change like it always did when she said yes to a man. Before she knew it, she was on top of him and realized that she hadn’t had sex in a very long time. What am I doing? She jumped off of him.

  “I’m sorry.” Aurora had to stop and say, “I-i-i can’t.”

  “It’s okay. We don’t need to rush,” Jason said but Aurora could see the lust in his eyes. She bit her lip and thought, This is not me. I have nothing against people who do this, but I know if I give myself away like this, I will lose myself again. And after all the progress I have made.

  “No, Jason, I really can’t.” Disgusted by herself, she proceeded to get off of him as if he was an ancient European plague she wanted to avoid.

  “Okay,” Jason said. “I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do.”

  For a moment, she thought she wanted to have sex with him, but she didn’t. I won’t have sex with a man I am not married to. How do I tell him that? That I am old fashioned? I will look pathetic. They spent the night talking until she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder. She told him everything that night.

  She woke up around 2:00 a.m. and kissed Jason goodbye.

  “I have to go,” she whispered. He offered for her to stay, but she insisted to go home. She didn’t want to wake up the next day and have to take the walk of shame to her car. Though they didn’t even have sex, other people wouldn’t know that. She saw enough girls do the walk of shame in college; she didn’t want to be one of them.

  Aurora thought about Melih on her way home that night. What would have happened if Melih and I had done what Jason and I did? Gannon would have killed us both if he walked in on that.

  Why can’t it just be easy to be with Melih? I am just getting so tired of it. Maybe Tessa was right… No more drama.

  Aurora barely remembered driving home that night. She took off her clothes as she trickled up the stairs to her bed and ended up sleeping in only her underwear and pearls.

  Chapter 22

  Two weeks before Aurora and Gannon were to be divorced, she was more than ready to move on from that chapter in her life. Melih had not messaged or called her, and this drove her to start dating Jason regularly after the steamy night at his house. She wasn’t sure if it was because of that night that she was staying with him or that Melih and her were not communicating. Jason and Aurora would meet every morning at Colectivo for coffee before they would head to work. He would usually go to a bar after work and have some alcoholic beverage to take the edge off from his stressful day at work.

  She wasn’t quite sure why she was with him. Remember Aurora, Jason is the safe choice; Melih wasn’t. You did right by not chasing Melih. Aurora and Jason loved spending time with each other.

  “I never met anyone like you, Aurora,” Jason would say. “You are so intelligent and beautiful.”

  Aurora just wanted to have an older male figure in her life to cope with her dad failing as a father. Jason’s friends teased him because she was much younger than he was, but he didn’t care. They even gave her the nickname, “The twenty-five-year-old.” Aurora thought, I just hope he is not a rebound. I would feel so guilty. What is wrong with me? To Jason, something about Aurora made him so happy. The way he looked at her was like everything in the world had disappeared and she was the only living being on earth besides him, though he hadn’t told her.

  Aurora was living life and trying to enjoy everything. She enjoyed living on her own. She had not told Jason or anyone about the job in New York. She also had to tell her current boss she would be leaving. She was trying to avoid telling anyone, but she knew she would have to eventually. You can’t run in denial forever.
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br />   Melih had tried messaging Aurora several times, but she ignored all of his messages. He kept telling her sorry and kept saying he wanted to meet with her.

  The messages were along the lines of:

  Melih: I am sorry, Aurora. I didn’t mean what I said that night. I do like you, Aurora. I cannot stop thinking about you. About us! I even told all of our friends now. I am not hiding the truth anymore.

  And

  Melih: I am sorry Aurora for not fighting for you that night. I was a coward. I just wanted Gannon to leave. So I said anything that would make him leave. I didn’t mean what I said.

  She was so mad at him for not fighting for her or sticking up for her that night, even though he had said he was sorry countless times. She never heard him say, “She is not mine, yet.” Even if he said that, her body was in fight or flight mode and she was on the complete defense about everything. Her stubbornness would not give into Melih easily. Melih really means he is sorry? How do I know? Gannon said sorry all of the time and never meant a word. He would say sorry and then do the same hurtful things over and over again. She did not believe words anymore, only actions. Or maybe I will not respond to Melih because I feel upset on wasting months on him, waiting for something to happen between us. But it never did.

  She thought she and Melih had very strong chemistry and was upset that he gave up so quickly that night. For once in her life, she wanted someone who would not just fight for her but stick up for her as well, who would stand by her side through the absolute worst in her life. The only one I know will always stand by my side, no matter what, is myself.

  She wanted to get some things off of her chest. She secretly wanted to hear his voice say her name one more time. She also started to feel guilty because she kept ignoring him. After she was at her home one evening watching Netflix and drinking hot chocolate, she called Melih.

  “Hello,” Aurora said.

  “Hello, Aurora. How are you?” Melih said. “I am so happy you called."