Tethered

by L. D. Davis

  “You told me that you didn’t have any desire to be anything,” she said quietly with tears in her eyes. “You just said that what you did not want to be was your mother.”

  Emmy released my hand and dropped her hands in her lap. The realization of what I had to do slammed into me hard. My hands balled into tight fists and I swallowed hard repeatedly to keep my emotions from overtaking me right there in the restaurant.

  “Can we cut his weekend short?” I asked her in a haggard whisper.

  She nodded solemnly as she looked at me with sad eyes.

  “I know I said a lot of things in the past to discourage you about Emmet,” she said quietly. “But I know you love him and I know he loves you. I don’t want to see either one of you hurt. I didn’t say the things I just said to hurt either of you.”

  I nodded once. “I know,” I managed.

  I took money out of my purse and left it on the table even though the bill had not come yet. I put down more than enough to cover it and a very generous tip. Following my lead, Emmy stood up and together we walked out onto the busy city street.

  *~*~*

  Emmet knew there was something wrong when I called him and told him I was driving up to see him. He asked me what was wrong repeatedly in the short conversation, but I gave nothing away and told him I’d be there as soon as I could.

  Since getting my license a couple of weeks after the spring break fiasco, I rarely drove anywhere. I didn’t feel the need to drive in the city and I always took the train to Emmet’s, but I didn’t want to have to rely on a long wait for a train later, so I borrowed one of Felix’s cars and started the drive to Cambridge.

  Emmet opened the door to his apartment before I could even get out of the car. I saw him standing in the doorway waiting for me and had to take several deep breaths before getting out of the car.

  “Is that Felix’s?” he asked, eyeing the flashy car as I approached him.

  “Yes,” I answered and hit the key fob to engage the alarm.

  Emmet’s eyes met mine and I knew that he knew that something bad was coming.

  “Why did you drive and not take the train?” he asked. He hadn’t moved out of the doorway yet.

  “I didn’t want to deal with the train today,” I answered quickly.

  He looked at me with unease for another moment before stepping aside to let me in.

  Usually we met with embraces and sweet kisses, but this time I walked into the apartment and stood on one side of the living room and Emmet took his stance on the other side.

  “What are you about to do, Donya?” he asked quietly.

  I held a hand to my stomach as I tried to calm myself, but I couldn’t. My breaths were short and labored as my heart hammered in my chest.

  “What are you doing?” Emmet asked, but his voice cracked on the last word.

  “I’m ending this,” I managed to say, and then to clarify, I added “I’m ending us, Emmet.”

  And then I burst into tears.

  Emmet rushed over to me and tried to hold me, and I wanted him to hold me. I wanted to melt into his arms and never leave, but as much as it hurt, I had to stick to my guns. I pushed him away from me and took a step back. My whole body shook with sobs and tears gushed out of my eyes, nearly blinding me.

  “Why?” he asked pleadingly. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because we’re going two different places,” I said through my tears. “We’re on two different paths in life. They don’t parallel and they don’t converge, they go on in opposite directions.”

  “That’s why I’m leaving school, Donya,” he nearly yelled. “So that I can be with you.”

  “I don’t want you to leave school,” I snapped. “That is not an acceptable option, Emmet.”

  “Then quit modeling,” he snapped back. “Or slow down or take some time off, but don’t quit us. We love each other, Donya, we were made for each other.”

  I was only mildly surprised that he made that suggestion. A few minutes before he was willing to follow me across the earth, but in desperation he asked me to give up my job.

  “When I was younger, I never had any hopes of becoming anything,” I started, wiping at my tears with my hands. “I thought I'd end up married, waiting for my husband to take care of me and then become my mother. She got married really young and gave up all of her own hopes and dreams and lost herself along the way. I didn’t want that for myself, but I didn’t think there could be anything else for me. Then Max found me on the boardwalk and for the first time in my life I had a dream, I had a desire and I quickly realized all of the things I could have. I had a sense of purpose, but with independence and with independence I won't become my mother. I can't give it up, not now. If I did I know that no matter how perfect you are, that I will become my mother. I'll regret and I'll resent and sink into despair and I will ruin both of us. We would be so unhappy together and I know that I will be unhappy without you but I'd rather be alone and sad and heartbroken than to find myself in a failed, loveless marriage fifteen years from now.”

  Emmet’s eyes glistened with tears. When I watched a few slip through, it almost brought me to my knees.

  “Then don’t quit,” he said desperately. “Let me be the one to make the sacrifice like I wanted to in the first place.”

  “The result will be the same, Emmet. I can't be happy with you knowing what you threw away, and it would only be a matter of time before you regret and resent me. You can't tell me that you would be happy doing nothing with your life and following me around.”

  “I will be happy with you!” he shouted.

  “Maybe at first, but after some time, you'll keep telling yourself that even though you're not, and you'll stay because you are the kind of man that would stay forever in an unhappy situation out of loyalty if nothing else.”

  My beautiful green eyed Emmet cried openly now, letting his tears flow down his cheeks.

  “There has to be some other way,” he pleaded. “Don’t do this. I can’t live without you.”

  “There is no other way,” I whispered and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to watch him crying. It was destroying me inside.

  “You can’t do this,” Emmet suddenly yelled, making my eyes snap open. He looked so angry now, but I could still detect the pain under the anger and I felt it shooting through that tether right into my heart. “You can’t make this decision for the both of us!”

  “It’s the right decision,” I said softly.

  “We can find another way,” he said pathetically. “Give me some time to figure something else out.”

  I took a couple of weary steps towards him and put a hand on his chest. He stared down at it and his tears splashed on my skin.

  “We’re eternally joined, Emmet,” I sobbed softly. “That will never change. I will always love you, but this is not our time. Our time is not now.”

  He put his hands over my hand and cried hard, making his whole body shake. I pulled my hand from his grasp and wrapped my arms around him. I sobbed into his chest as he cried into my neck. I wanted to change my mind and try to find another way, but there was no other way, and I think Emmet knew it, too.

  He grabbed a hold of my head and tilted it up to his face. His lips crushed mine in a kiss clouded with grief and desperation. Our tears slid to our connected lips and converged and seeped into our mouths, adding a salty taste to our bittersweet kiss.

  I wrenched my mouth away from his, pulled out of his arms and stepped away from him. Before I chickened out, I pulled the beautiful engagement ring off of my finger and laid it on the glass coffee table in front of the couch. I ran then, because I couldn’t take another moment of this utter destruction of our hearts. I ran out of his apartment and to the waiting car. I cranked the engine without looking back to see if Emmet had followed and sped away from the man who held my heart and the other half of my soul.

  Book Two

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “Pancakes! Bacon! And Eggs!” Felix cheered, putting a
plate loaded with the breakfast trio in front of me. He stood on the other side of the bar grinning at me. “I ordered it all by myself,” he said proudly.

  “Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” I said, pushing the plate away. “I’ll just have coffee.”

  He frowned, but poured me a mug of coffee and mixed in the right amount of cream and sugar for me and put it next to the plate.

  “You should eat something,” he said.

  Opening the latest issue of Vogue, I shook my head without looking at him.

  “Not hungry,” I repeated.

  “You’re ridiculously thin, Donya.”

  “I am a supermodel,” I said, picking up my coffee. “I am supposed to be thin.”

  “Sure, that explains your eating disorder,” Felix said dryly.

  I looked up at him as I sipped my coffee. I put the mug down and said “I don’t have an eating disorder. I am not hungry. I will eat later.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit and we both know it,” he said. “I’ve been home for an entire month and I haven’t seen you eat more than four meals the entire time, and they weren’t even meals. A handful of carrots or a few bites of a sandwich hardly qualifies as a meal.”

  “You only see me for a few minutes a day,” I said, climbing off of the stool. “You don’t know what I eat or don’t eat.”

  “You’re so fucking skinny that you look sick,” he snapped. “Just appease me and eat a fucking bacon strip.”

  I sighed with impatience. I snatched a strip of bacon off of the plate and took a bite. Chewing felt like a chore that took way too much energy and the piece of meat tasted like paper, as did everything else I ate.

  “Happy?” I asked Felix after I ate the bacon.

  “It’s bacon,” he grumbled, snatching the plate of food off of the bar. “I expect a little more enthusiasm.”

  He threw the entire plate in the trash. I looked at him blankly before taking my coffee and magazine and headed back to my apartment.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he growled.

  I went into the apartment and started packing. I was going to go do a photo shoot in Hawaii. Emmy was on her way up to New York so that she could fly out with me. We weren’t going to have a lot of leisure time after the shoot, only a day, maybe two, but Emmy was all for it. She had been traveling with me more and more since she graduated high school. She said she wanted to suck up as much time with me as she could get because she would be away at Penn State starting in September and we wouldn’t get to see much of each other.

  I absently packed for the trip. I wasn’t thinking of anything really, just rather zoned out, but when I went to push my hair out of my face, I was startled to find my wrist naked. I stared at it in disbelief for a moment before I started to turn in a frantic circle, looking for my bracelet. When I didn’t find it on my bureau or in the bathroom, I started tearing the clothes out of my suitcase. I found it about half way through, just lying there on a pair of shorts. I released a deep breath as I picked it up.

  I inspected it to see if it was broken, but found nothing to indicate that it broke away from me. I slid it over my hand and back onto my wrist. I shook my wrist a little to see if it would come off. It didn’t come off, but it slid dangerously low on my hand, so I knew it had probably fallen off with some help from a little friction from my clothes.

  I sighed. Felix was right, of course, I had lost weight, and because of that my wrist and hand were smaller, making it easy for the bracelet to slide off. I hadn’t meant to lose the weight, but my appetite had been gone for nearly three months. I felt dead inside and dead people don’t eat.

  I hadn’t spoken to or seen Emmet since the day we broke up. I had driven back to New York that night, crying until I was dehydrated. I laid in bed completely devastated and half hoping that Emmet would come after me again. If he came after me again, I’d drop everything to be with him, even though I would risk becoming my mother. But he didn’t come, and though it killed me that he didn’t come, I was glad he didn’t come. It was for the best for each of us.

  I gave myself one more day to grieve, to feel bad for myself and for Emmet. When I woke up the following morning, it was with a hardened heart and erected walls. Whatever that was soft in me dissolved. I became a machine, smiling at the right moments and speaking the appropriate things, but the smiles were empty and meaningless and my words didn’t ring sincere. I had emotionally cut myself off from most of the world, only leaving just enough heart for Emmy and Felix, but not much.

  “I’m here,” Emmy called from my living room.

  “Hey, Jersey,” I heard Felix say, probably entering from the penthouse.

  “Hi,” I heard Emmy say and could practically hear her grinning. She was always well behaved around Felix, which was hard considering how ill-behaved he could be, but I don’t think she ever quite got over being in his presence.

  I stepped out of the bedroom, holding the bracelet to my wrist.

  “Hi, Em,” I said to her.

  She turned away from Felix and looked me over with a surprised look on her face, but she quickly covered it with a smile.

  “Hey, D,” she said. “Almost ready? Our flight leaves soon.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  I went back into my room, leaving the door open a crack. I heard Emmy whisper “Why is she so skinny?”

  “You know why,” Felix answered back in a low murmur.

  “You think it’s because she’s not over what happened between her and Emmet? Are you sure she doesn’t have an eating disorder?”

  “I think she does have an eating disorder but it’s because of what’s going on inside of her.”

  “Which is?” Emmy implored, still whispering.

  “Nothing,” Felix said with a sigh. “There’s nothing there.”

  I zipped up my suitcase and dug a pack of cigarettes out of my purse. It was a habit I picked up only a week after I lost – or gave up Emmet. It helped me keep my emotions buried. Maybe it was all psychological, but I did what I had to do.

  I sat down on the edge of my bed, smoking a cigarette and listening to my friends talk about me as if I wasn’t even there. I guess that would be right, though. Inside my shell of a body, I wasn’t really there at all.

  *~*~*

  “Why can’t I have an apartment like Emmet?” Emmy whined.

  “Because you’re you,” Sam said with a hand on her hip.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Emmy demanded.

  As mother and daughter began to bicker, Fred and I shook our heads and headed back to his SUV with the attached U-Haul trailer. It was the weekend before the start of Emmy’s classes at Penn State. She and her parents had driven in from Jersey, but I flew in from New York, preferring to travel alone than to be stuck in a car with Sam for the drive to State College and the return trip.

  “How are you doing, Kiddo?” Fred asked me as we walked to the car.

  “Great,” I lied. “I should be asking you that. All of the kids are gone now. How do you think that’s going to feel when you get back?”

  “I’m going to be stuck alone with Sam,” he said, giving me a knowing look with gleaming eyes. “How do you think I’m going to feel?”

  I managed a smile, because it seemed like the right moment to smile. Super Model Donya always knew when it was time to smile.

  “I’m sure you will be fine,” I said reassuringly.

  We had a brief discussion about what to take in next, but before I could lift anything, Fred put his strong hand on my arm, making me look up at him a bit surprised.

  “Now, how are you really, Donya?” he asked.

  I stared up at this man who was more of a father than my real father had ever been. Fred may have been slow catching on to my relationship with Emmet, but overall, he was always really good at knowing when something was wrong with me.

  “Breathing,” I finally answered and looked away.

/>   “Just barely,” he sighed. “I didn’t want to ask you this, because I didn’t think it was possible, not with you anyway, but I’d be a bad parent if I didn’t ask.”

  “Ask me what?” I looked back him with curiosity.

  “Are you on drugs?” Fred asked, with a stern expression.

  I almost laughed, like a real sincere laugh, but it died in my throat.

  “No, I’m not on drugs, Fred,” I answered.

  “Because I heard that drugs run rampant in your business. A lot of girls are on something because they’re stressed out or need to stay awake or stay thin.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “A lot of girls are on drugs for those reasons. I know a lot of them, but I’m not one of them. I promise.”

  I started to pick up a box, but he stopped me again.

  “You are withdrawn and extremely thin,” Fred said. “Those are signs of drug usage. Donya, if you are on something, I don’t want to lecture you, Kiddo. I want you to get help.”

  Frustrated, I turned my body fully to look up at him.

  “Fred, I am not on drugs,” I said irritably. “I will gladly piss in a cup or give you a hair or blood sample to be analyzed, and you will find that I am telling the truth. But if that’s what you want…”

  I turned away again. Frustration and anger were the only two emotions I let out of the cage. They were necessary, especially in my business.

  “Okay,” Fred said with a sigh. “I believe you. You’re not on drugs. I’ll ask you one more question and then I’ll let it go.”

  “Fine,” I answered.

  “Does this personality change have to do with Emmet?”

  I looked up at Fred. I gave him one quick nod, grabbed a box, and walked back towards the dorms.

  After we helped Emmy get some of her things unpacked and met her roommate, we all went out to dinner. I ordered a small meal to appease the stares of my family, but since I had no desire to really eat the food and it still tasted like paper to me, I mostly nibbled at it.