by Tia Siren
Will was going to the party, and there was a strong possibility I would see him there, but with so many people in attendance, I was betting I could avoid him. I had always been able to avoid my parents at these kinds of events, not having wanted to be showcased around as some sort of trophy, so it shouldn’t be difficult to avoid him as well. I shook my head at my reflection, confident in my plan. I was also impressed by how I looked. My dress was red and sparkly, and it flowed down to the floor. I had pulled my hair back in a loose updo and hung ruby earrings from my lobes. My makeup was subtle but festive with ruby red lips to complete the look.
When I got to the party, I was feeling confident, and I walked in with my shoulders back and a smile on my face as my parents waved to different people. I laughed at my sister, who was making comments under her breath about everyone we passed. I looked up as we crossed into the large ballroom, and my eyes fell on Will, who had already seen me and was making a beeline right for us. Instantly, I was nervous. Maybe my plan hadn’t been so brilliant to begin with. I stood there silently as he walked straight up to my father and shook his hand, engaging in small talk for a moment.
“Would you mind if I stole Ella away from you for just a moment?” Will asked. “I need to speak with her in private. It’s kind of important.”
“I hope everything is okay,” my mother said.
“Oh, everything is fine,” he replied as if I weren’t even standing there. “It will just take a moment.”
“Of course,” my father said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s talk later.”
“Absolutely,” he replied in a business tone.
Shit. I had been given up by my parents and put straight into the hands of the one person in the entire place I was trying desperately to avoid. I thought about protesting, but they wouldn’t understand, and it would just cause a scene. It would probably be worse than the conversation we were going to have. Still, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to him. I was done having the same conversation with him. It was freaking exhausting, and I just wanted to move forward with my life.
He grabbed my arm, pulling me off to the side of the crowd. He smiled at those passing by and waited until we were alone in the corner. I crossed my arms in front of me and tapped my foot, irritated with him.
“You have been way too unilateral about our friendship,” he whispered strongly. “Even if we aren’t going to be together, that doesn’t mean I don’t still worry about you. I want to know if something is wrong. I don’t think that is too much to ask for.”
“You do understand that you are not my boyfriend,” I said. Agitation showed on his face at my words.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Not that it’s any of your business whatsoever, but no, I do not have a boyfriend because men play games, just like you’ve been doing with me this entire time. To be quite honest with you, I’m tired of it. I’m not your plaything or your distraction, and I don’t care if you want me to be or think you have the right to have me. Get real. That is not how this works.”
“There’s no reason in this world for you to be so cold to me,” he said angrily. “We both agreed that we enjoyed our time together. You’re overcomplicating this entire thing and coming to conclusions that just aren’t true. Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I should have realized that getting involved with someone so young would be a mistake. You are too young to fully understand how these kinds of things work. You couldn’t possibly know what it feels like to walk in my shoes or be in a confusing relationship with someone.”
“How dare you?” I hissed, getting angry. “How dare you come at me like I owe you a goddamn thing? I had a fantasy for a long time about being with you, and you knew that. In fact, you ran with that, and you’re the one who, in the end, let me know exactly what I was to you. I don’t have any obligation to tell you a damn thing. Nor do you have the right to stand here acting holier than thou, like I should bow to your every concern and whim. I figured me not showing up today would be an obvious hint that I didn’t want to talk to you. This is so fucking annoying, having to go over this again and again.”
I took a deep breath and straightened my dress, looking around me. I didn’t want to do this here, but if I didn’t make this perfectly clear now, I was just going to have to relive this nightmare with him over and over again. I took another breath and looked back at him.
“You want to know why I’m so standoffish with you now?”
“Yes, that would be nice,” he said arrogantly.
“Because I now feel the need to protect myself from you,” I said. “It’s obvious that you never felt about me the way I felt about you because you constantly feel the need to come at me like you own me, like you can just walk in and out of my life whenever you want. You have some nerve thinking you control anything in my life or can demand anything you want from me. You made your feelings clear the last time I was here, and you can’t just come back and demand we be together. That is not how it works in real life. You have to remember that I’m not impressed by your job or your clout. Those things don’t mean shit to me. I’m my own person, and I will not be forced into anything I don’t think is right.”
I turned to walk away but stopped and looked him in the eye.
“I am not Megan, and I never will be,” I said pointedly.
I turned away from him and stormed off out of the ballroom. The truth of the matter was, my heart was completely broken. My anger came from the ache in my chest, and I realized I was still very much in love with him. But that didn’t change the fact that we couldn’t be together. We were on two completely different pages. This baby was just going to have to survive without its father.
Chapter 25
Will
I watched Avery through the door to his bedroom. He ran around his room playing with his airplanes. I hadn’t been as attentive to him as I should have been, and that was mainly because I couldn’t get Ella out of my head. She was there when I woke up in the morning, when I did anything in the apartment, and then when I lay in bed at night. I needed closure regarding the whole thing because it was interrupting every part of my life. I just kept thinking about the conversation we had at the Christmas ball. In reality, it hadn’t been a conversation at all. It was her unleashing on me again, not that I didn’t deserve it. If I was even half as up and down with her in real life as I was in my head, then I knew I was driving her crazy. She was so damn frustrating, though, never wanting to hear me out at all. She kept going back to the same thing over and over again, and she never wanted to hear my side. Sure, I had no idea what I wanted, but she wasn’t making it any easier for me to figure it out.
On top of all that, I was starting to think maybe Ella was right. Maybe there was a reason for her to be so angry. I kept denying what she was saying, but I wondered if I’d been thinking of the whole thing in the wrong way. Ella was amazing, but there were times when I got so wound up that I thought of her as more of a fantasy and a replacement for my wife than someone I liked in her own right. But I knew deep down that I cared about her for her, not as a replacement. Still, that had to be incredibly frustrating for Ella on so many levels.
“Daddy,” Avery said, running from his room. “This plane’s wing fell off.”
“Oh no,” I said, drawn from my thoughts. “Let me fix it.”
Avery’s winter break from school started tomorrow, and he would be off until after Christmas. I loved having him home, but that posed a serious issue when it came to childcare. I thought my mother would be the answer, but it was impossible with her so far away. When Ella showed up, she was my first thought, but now I wasn’t so sure. My mother was going to watch him part of the time, but the rest was still up in the air. I hoped that despite everything that was going on between us, Ella would agree to come watch him. I felt safe and comfortable with her watching Avery, and so did he, which was important to me. He didn’t do well with strangers, and the time between him being off and going back to school wasn’t enough for him to get used
to someone new. He was a shy kid and didn’t open up to people quickly. Ella was the first person I’d ever seen him grow so attached to.
Ella loved Avery, and I knew if I asked her to watch him and she declined, that would speak volumes about where we were on any sort of reconciliation. If she refused Avery, there was no hope for us, and I didn’t think I was ready to face that yet. The feeling of loss trickled into my chest, and for the first time in my life, it was for someone other than my dead wife. It was for Ella, for what we’d had and what we could have had. I was tired of always feeling this way, but I knew it was my fault, not hers. Either way, she was my last hope for help with Avery, so whether I was ready to feel that loss or not, I had to take the leap.
When I was done fixing Avery’s airplane, I pulled out my phone and scrolled down to Ella’s name. I sat there for a few minutes, taking deep breaths and preparing myself for whatever might be said when I called, if she even answered her phone. I dialed the number and held my breath, waiting for the answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I said, relieved.
“Hey,” she replied, slightly cold. “What’s up?”
“I, uh, I have a little bit of an issue,” I said. “Avery starts winter break tomorrow, and my mom can’t watch him the whole time. I was wondering if you would be willing to babysit him whenever he isn’t at his grandmother’s. I can give you a definite schedule, and I’ll pay you double since it’s the holidays. I’m kind of at a dead end here with babysitters, and I can’t take any more time off work. Not right now at least.”
She was silent, which I took as a positive sign. It wasn’t a no. She had to be mulling it over. I held my breath, my heart beating wildly, but not from the fear of not having a babysitter for Avery. My fear was much deeper than that. It centered around completely losing contact with Ella.
“Fine,” she said abruptly. “I’ll watch Avery, but I want to make it very clear that I do not want you to even attempt to put the moves on me. The first time you do, I’m gone, and you can find someone else. I hate to punish Avery that way, but I can’t be worrying about that the whole time.”
“No, I completely understand,” I responded. “I promise, you won’t even realize I’m there besides getting caught up on what happened during the day.”
“And I don’t want you to stop looking for someone else,” she said. “I’ll only do it until you can make other arrangements.”
“Understood,” I responded.
I was slightly disappointed that she would only watch him until I could make other arrangements. Normally she would watch him the entire time. I was hoping that once she was here, once she saw I was going to leave her alone, she would change her mind on that. She was the best person for the job, with or without our personal issues, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to find someone else, especially on such short notice and during the Christmas holiday.
I would have to give it a try because she’d made it perfectly clear those were her terms. Ella was bending for Avery, and I had to accept that was all this was and try not to read into it too much. I knew she loved Avery, and this was a sacrifice for her. I also knew she was giving up the little bit of peace and quiet she had before the end of the school year to watch a rambunctious first grader, and that was going to be a sacrifice as well.
“Thank you, Ella,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning then.”
“All right,” she said before hanging up.
I sighed as I hung up the phone. I went and got Avery ready to have dinner with my mom. She was going to meet us right outside the city to have a nice dinner before I had to start a new week at work. I was glad I was going to see my mom. I was finally going to open up to someone about my feelings for Ella and just how hard everything was. I needed someone who would tell it to me straight, and that was my mom. She was always honest with me about these things.
“Mom,” I said, taking a bite of my food, “I think that when Megan died, I let myself fall so far away from any kind of future beyond her that I feel like it’s impossible. When Ella came into my life, I didn’t even entertain the idea of having anything long term. I think, though, that she is half right. While I do have feelings for her as a person, I ignored those and just used her presence to fill a void that was there from Megan’s death. It’s like a double-edged sword. Either way, I wanted to be with Ella, but I was taking it down the wrong route, which I’m pretty sure has ruined any chance I have of actually having something meaningful with her. She now thinks that the only reason I want to be with her is because of that void. I’m pretty sure that screwed everything up past the point of no return this time, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, Son, sometimes we make choices without thinking about the long-term repercussions,” she said. “But do you know what the difference is between choosing someone to fill a void and choosing someone because you truly care about them?”
“What?”
“It’s what you think about when you go to make decisions that involve them,” she said. “When you’re filling the void, you’re making the decisions that make you feel good. When you’re making decisions that include the person you truly care about, you’re making those decisions based on them and their feelings about things. I don’t want you to give up on Ella. There may still be a chance for you to redeem yourself.”
“But how?” I asked. “I mean, she won’t even talk to me or listen to what I have to say.”
“Well, the first thing you need to do is, when interacting with Ella, start making choices based on what Ella wants, not just how Ella makes you feel,” she said. “You’ll be surprised how much someone’s attitude changes when they see they’re important enough in your life for you to put their needs and their feelings above your own. I mean, what can it hurt? We should all be doing that when it comes to the people we love in our life. Selflessness is one of the biggest characteristics of someone with strong inner morality. I know you have that in you.”
That made a lot of sense. Ella always acted based on how I felt or how Avery felt, not on what made her feel good. This whole time it had never occurred to me that when I made a choice based on what Ella wanted or needed, it would make me feel good as well, even if I didn’t get immediate satisfaction from it. That right there was how I knew I cared for Ella beyond just sex and fun. I knew that if making choices that benefitted her made me feel full and well, then I cared for Ella on a whole other level than I was realizing.
I had to start doing just that, putting Ella’s need and wants above my own. I knew it was one of the things she desperately wanted to see from me. If she saw that and felt my genuine care for her, it would open her up to talking to me again. My father had always told me that actions spoke louder than words, but I’d never really understood that until now. I may have sat there and told Ella I cared, but I’d never shown her anything other than jealousy, possessiveness, and selfishness. No wonder she didn’t believe anything I said. I wouldn’t want to keep pursuing something with me either if I were Ella. I had made a huge mess out of all of this, but I was slightly more hopeful now that I could fix it.
Chapter 26
Ella
When the sun came up the next morning, dread filled my heart at knowing I had to go next door and face Will. I had promised him I would help with Avery because I knew how sensitive Avery was to change. I knew that if I didn’t watch him, he would end up at some random sitter’s and be full of anxiety and fear. That was the last thing I wanted to see happen to him regardless of where his father and I stood. When I got there, Avery was awake, jumping up and down in excitement because I was going to watch him. Instantly, my mood lifted, and I smiled at just how happy my presence made him.
That was what made dealing with Will worth it, the look on Avery’s face when he opened the door. Not only had I fallen in love with Will, but even before that, I had fallen in love with Avery and his sweet little face. Will left for work without saying much to me, and I could see on his face that he was trying to
respect my wishes and stay out of my hair. Avery and I had a blast playing with finger paints, board games, and silly putty, and all before noon. He was obviously in vacation mode, and it made me laugh. During lunch, we sat at the table eating our sandwiches and talking.
“Do you like college?” Avery asked.
“Do I like it?” I laughed. “No, not really. But it is important.”
“Why?”
“Because it will allow me to be a teacher like I’ve always wanted to be,” I explained. “Without going to college, I won’t be allowed to teach.”
“But we miss you when you’re gone,” Avery said. “My dad really missed you this time when you were away.”
My heart somersaulted in my chest. “He did?”
“Yeah,” Avery said, biting into his sandwich.
“And how do you know that?” I asked.
“Because he told me,” he said. “He looked really sad a lot, so one day I asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘I really miss Ella.’ I gave him a hug and told him that I missed you, too.”
“That was very sweet of you,” I said, trying to hold back the emotion bubbling to the surface.
I watched Avery eat, thinking about what he had just told me. If Will really didn’t care about me, why would he tell his son that he missed me? Why would he be sad and mopey if all I was to him was a fantasy and a replacement? Everything had been so messed up between us, and it was difficult to know whether he truly missed me or if he just missed my “sweet little pussy.” Some of the things he said resonated with me so loudly that it was hard to believe anything else.