by Tia Siren
When our bodies relaxed, Will fell to the side and turned over on his back, while I lay down on my stomach and rested my head on my arms. As we caught our breath, he turned to me and smiled. He cleared his throat as he ran his hand up my back.
“You know, when you graduate from Harvard, things will be different,” he said. “You’ll have to start seriously thinking long term. And that goes for a lot of things in your life.”
As I listened to Will talk, I thought about how he had mentioned his wife the one night. I thought about the pictures, the memories, and the constant feeling that I was a replacement. I knew that to go any further with anything, we needed to discuss what we had together and what that meant for now and for the future.
“Will, am I just a distraction from your wife?” I was tired of skirting the issue. “I have to admit that I’m pretty positive I have fallen in love with you, but the last thing I want to be is the shadow of a ghost you are still holding on to.”
Will stared at me for a minute, and when I picked my torso up off the bed, looking for an answer, he fumbled incoherently for words. He had hesitated way too long, and that alone let me know that I already knew the answer to my question. I sighed and shook my head, pulling myself from the bed. I hurried to find my clothes, trying to control the fact that I was on the verge of tears. I didn’t want him to see me cry. It would make me feel weak.
“This isn’t going to work anymore,” I said, turning to him. “When I get back from school, I don’t want to see you.”
“Ella, please, that isn’t what I want,” he said. “I do care about you. I—”
“Look, Will, you were right,” I said, walking over to him. “I’m in my final year at Harvard, and neither one of us can risk the distraction in our lives.”
I leaned down, kissed him on the cheek, and turned, walking toward the door. I stopped and looked back, but there was nothing left to say. I went through the apartment and out the door. When I got to my parents’ place, I held it together until I was in my bedroom, where I collapsed on my bed and broke into uncontrollable sobs.
Chapter 19
Three Months Later - December
Will
Avery and I got out of the car and went to the trunk to unload the bags, me trying to figure out which ones he was strong enough to carry. We had just returned from Christmas shopping. Usually by now I was done with shopping, but we’d had to get a couple of Avery’s friends some presents and also my mom. For her, I had tracked down a blanket she desperately wanted. As I lugged everything inside, I stopped and turned back, realizing that Avery wasn’t beside me. He was standing in the cement courtyard, staring up at the sky.
“It’s snowing, Daddy.” He giggled. “Grandma says that means it’s time for Christmas miracles.”
I smiled and nodded my head, remembering how my mom used to tell me the same thing as a kid. I motioned for Avery to follow me, wanting to get in out of the bitter cold of New York. We took the elevator up, talking about our next move, which was making hot chocolate to warm ourselves up. As we rounded the corner, I froze, spotting Ella standing in front of her apartment door. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in nearly three months. Avery gasped and dropped his bag on the floor, garnering her attention. He raced down the hall with his arms wide out in front of him and practically tackled her.
She laughed hysterically as she tried to regain her balance, holding as tightly to him as she used to do when she came over all the time. Avery was more than excited to see her. He had desperately missed her over the last few months. He had asked about her at least a few times a week, still not understanding what college was all about and why she had to go away in order to do what she needed to do. It almost broke my heart how much he wanted to be with her.
I bent down and struggled to pick up his bags and put the things back into it that had spilled out. I walked toward them, smiling as Ella kept ahold of Avery, talking to him gently and squeezing him tightly. She looked really excited to see him, and that gave me some kind of hope that we could move forward. Though I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high since I knew she would never be mean to Avery, no matter what happened between the two of us. When I got close, Ella looked up at me and finished her hug with Avery. Avery smiled at me and then looked back at Ella, unsure what to do next.
“Hey, buddy, can you take some of these bags inside? I’ll be in there in just a second. Then we can wrap up all these presents.”
“Sure,” he said, smiling and running into the apartment.
“It’s really good to see you,” I said, walking forward. “It’s a bit of a surprise, but still good to see you. Why haven’t you returned any of my calls or texts? I mean, I’m not trying to back you into a corner here, but we kind of left things on a sour note, and that was the last thing I ever wanted to see happen. I was really trying to reach out to you and mend things so we could at least be friends again. Then you never came home for Thanksgiving, which struck me as odd since Taryn was here. I thought about asking her where you were, but I didn’t want to bother her, figuring if you wanted me to know, then you would have told me.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I would have told you. Look, I’ve just been really busy. Harvard is a really hard school, and I have to stay completely focused. There are outgoing interviews, internship applications, my father’s constant law school nagging, and on top of all that, I’m expected to be on my game at all times. The last thing I have time to do is make sure someone who didn’t give a damn about me before is kept in the loop about my whereabouts. If you wanted to know where I was, if you wanted me to text you back, you shouldn’t have used me like you did.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Look, I’m not angry at you. I just need you to understand that you didn’t do anything to make me want to make you a priority.”
“Ella,” I said, shaking my head. “I know what being busy looks like.”
“Not Harvard busy,” she snapped. “You were too busy worrying about your future plans that you didn’t graduate college. Your future did not hinge on your success at Princeton, so you have no idea how I feel. I am in no way saying you had it easy, but your options were more than boundless, with or without an education. That degree I get when I walk across that stage is going to be what determines my path for the rest of my life. It will determine my salary, my opportunities, what I can afford to do with my free time, my family life, and everything else in between.”
“I get it,” I said, trying to get her to calm down, but if anything, that only made it worse.
“No, you don’t get it,” she said. “Because on top of all that, my father isn’t okay with me going my own way. You told me that even though your father didn’t emotionally support you breaking out, he financially supported your endeavor. I don’t have the luxury of a father who will support me that way. He thinks it’s his way or the highway. So when I leave Harvard, I’m on my own, period. That means I have to work that much harder than everyone else. I have to remember I don’t have my parents to fall back on. I made my own bed, I completely understand that, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m extraordinarily busy right now.”
She stopped talking and took in a deep breath. She had gone on and on, as if she’d planned that speech out before she even saw me. I knew she had a lot going on in her life—a lot I probably didn’t even see right now—but she was acting emotional, and that wasn’t something I was used to from her. The attitude she was giving me pissed me off, but I choked my irritation down, knowing that if I wanted a chance to reconnect with Ella, I was going to have to put up with more than a little bit of her anger and resentment. I took a deep breath and looked into her eyes.
“Ella,” I said, stepping forward, “I fully understand that we parted ways on bad terms. I know I messed things up. I didn’t tell you how I felt, and the conclusions you drew were extremely hurtful to you. No matter how calm you played it, I could see the hurt in your eyes, and for that I am beyond sorry. That being said, you have completely iced m
e out and now you just unloaded on me with no provocation. I don’t think I deserve what you are throwing at me.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Maybe I’m being a bit overemotional. When it comes down to it, me not answering you was partly because of how we ended things, but it was mostly because I have just been too busy with everything going on in my life. That wasn’t a lie. School went from super hard to Einstein level this year, and I wasn’t prepared for it at all. I knew the senior thesis was going to be difficult, but not ‘live off caffeine pills’ difficult.”
“That does sound stressful,” I said, trying to be supportive. Still, I stepped back since I could see she wasn’t comfortable with me being close to her at the moment.
“This is my final year at Harvard,” she said, sighing. “Concentration is the key to everything right now. I can’t afford to lose that. It’s the only thing getting me through this senior hell. Unlike some people, I don’t need, nor can I afford, any distractions right now.”
Ouch. That was a jab at how we’d ended things the last time she was here. Although I didn’t think it was necessary, I couldn’t be too angry at her for taking the time to make that remark. Still, it hurt, and I wanted to lash back at her, but I knew I had no reason or right to do so. I took in a deep breath and pushed the hurt and annoyance down, wanting to keep pushing for a relationship of some kind with Ella. There was a slight pause, followed by an awkward silence, and I knew if I didn’t say something, she was going to walk away. I was tired of watching her walk away from me instead of walking toward me.
“So,” I said taking a deep breath, “how long are you going to be in town?”
“A little longer than normal—if I can handle my father for that long,” she said, finally cracking a small smile but quickly pulling it back. “I’m going to be here for a month. That’s when my final semester of college starts. I figured it would be a good idea to spend that time away from college since I was already feeling completely burned out.”
“That was probably a smart choice,” I said. “I know it’s probably too soon to say this, but I was really hoping you and I could spend some time together while you’re here, maybe try to work through what happened and come to friendly terms on everything. I know that might be completely out of the question, but I can’t not ask. Besides, Avery hasn’t stopped talking about you since you left. He asks about you all the time, and I’m out of excuses to give him, especially since he spotted you just a minute ago.”
She stood there listening to me, a slightly unhappy look on her face. She probably thought I was trying to use my son to see her, which wasn’t entirely off the mark. I knew she could turn me down in a heartbeat, but not Avery. She shifted and pulled her bag up on her shoulder.
“You know, I have a lot going on at work,” I said. “Maybe you could babysit Avery. That way you can see him, get paid for it, and you really don’t have to deal with me that much.”
“Um, yeah, maybe,” she said. “We’ll talk about it later. I have to get inside.”
I shook my head and watched as she walked into her apartment and shut the door. I stood there, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. I was stunned by how different Ella was acting. I’d really hoped that after she’d been away from me for a while, we would be able to reconnect. I tried to understand how angry she was, and although I understood some level of her anger at me, she was livid with me, to the point where she might not see Avery, or me, while she was home. At the same time, I knew school and her father were stressing her out big time. Maybe I was taking it too personally. Maybe a lot of her silence was actually about school and not about the way we had left things. All I could do was wait and see how things unfolded.
Chapter 20
Ella
Whether I liked it or not, I was home, standing in the kitchen, trying to get myself to calm down from the conversation I’d had with Will. I had completely lost it and torn into him. It had felt damn good at the time, but now I was upset and felt guilty. Maybe he deserved it and maybe he didn’t, but there was no way I was holding back.
Everything in my life right now was nerve-wracking. School was absolutely insane in ways I didn’t even understand, my father had resorted to sending me text messages and voice mails on a daily basis to harass me about law school, and now I had to be back home. Nervous was not a good enough word to describe the feeling I had while standing in my parents’ kitchen, knowing I was going to be there for an entire month. It wasn’t enough that everything else was crazy, but I had a secret, a big one.
I had never been good at hiding things from anyone, especially not my parents or my sister, but this was too huge to let anyone in on just yet. I had to hide this from everyone, and I wished I could hide it from myself as well. I walked around with a perpetual feeling of butterflies in my chest and stomach, and it was starting to take its toll on me.
I turned my head, listening as my parents came into the apartment, chattering back and forth. I had to act normal. I had to play this off like nothing was going on, like everything was normal and business was as usual.
“Ella,” my mom shrieked, walking into the kitchen. “I thought I saw your bags at the door. How are you?”
“I’m good, Mom,” I said, smiling and giving her a hug.
“You look tired. Are you not sleeping?”
“Who has time for sleep at Harvard?” my father asked.
My mother smiled. “No, I suppose we never slept, did we, hun?”
“Law school didn’t allow sleep,” he said grumpily. “Hello, Ella.”
He was being even colder than normal, and I took a deep breath to calm the agitation rising in me. I had figured it would be like this. He walked past me, not offering his normal slight pat-hug that he forced himself to give, which was fine with me because I wasn’t feeling too hot as it was. I knew exactly what was going through his mind. He thought that instead of standing in his kitchen, home for the holidays, I should be taking the LSAT and applying to law school, doing exactly what he wanted me to do. I was tired of hearing the words “law school.” If I’d had any intention of going, I would have started the process a long time ago. I’d already have all my paperwork in, ready for early interviews. The process was incredibly tedious. I knew this because it was a huge deal on campus when it was time to fill out applications for law or medical school.
I didn’t want to apply to law school, though, and the stack of paperwork had sat on my desk, still blank, just staring at me every day. I hadn’t even opened it, much less started on it, but I was pretty sure my father knew that. He wasn’t a dumb person, and we’d had about a thousand conversations about it. Still, he had sent me e-mail after e-mail and letter after letter of information on the school, the programs, the extracurricular activities, the sororities, and anything else he could get his hands on. He had even sent me a notebook with his notes from his freshman year of law school.
He knew I had zero aspirations of attending, and he knew that no matter how many things he sent me in the mail, I wasn’t going to miraculously change my mind. All I could do was keep moving forward with my own plan and hope that my father eventually came around. I didn’t want this to be something that haunted us forever. I wanted my dad back, even though he was just as grumpy on a normal basis. It just usually wasn’t aimed at me. There were so many times I had thought about caving and just doing it to make him happy. Then, like it was the universe talking to me, I would hear some horror story about the bad guy winning in court. The lawyer representing the criminal always looked so skeevy and sly, smiling at his success, not caring that he had just gotten a known criminal released and back out into society. You were supposed to go to jail if you were guilty, not given the chance to trick people into thinking you were innocent. It was a complete mockery of the justice system in my opinion.
I wished I had an older brother so all of this stuff with the company and taking over when my father retired would fall on his shoulders. Hell, I would even
take a younger brother for that matter as long as he was the one my father could pass the torch to when he was ready. Even if Taryn had wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps, that would have been better than the torture he insisted on putting me through every day.
Dad had this obsession with the idea that I, as the eldest, was supposed to shut up about my dreams and follow aimlessly in his footsteps, never questioning the path he had laid out for me. That wasn’t me, though, and he had to have known that since I was a little girl. It shouldn’t be a surprise to him now. I still couldn’t understand why it was okay for Taryn to go to law school but not want to work for his firm when it was not okay for me to not go to law school. I was also pretty sure it wouldn’t be okay for me to go and not work for him. It was a frustrating and impossible situation.
“Hey there, big sis,” Taryn said, walking around the corner. “Nice of you to finally show up.”
She smiled and chuckled, knowing she was trying to start a war. I shook my head and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. Taryn had gotten home the day before, having left a day early from Harvard. I’d had some work to finish up before leaving, so I had trailed behind. I took my water and walked behind Taryn, going into her room and sitting down on the bed. I wrapped my sweater around me, realizing I was hungry again even though I had just stopped and gotten food an hour or so before. Taryn walked over, shoved her clothes into her dresser, and then turned to me.
“You know, Mom and I really missed you at Thanksgiving,” she said. “I mean, I see you at school, but it was weird sitting around the table without you there to sneak off with. I was pretty much forced to tell the same stories over and over again about how Harvard was and what my plans were. You completely stole my ability to run away. You know I’ll hold that against you for at least a year until you make up for it next Thanksgiving.”