by Crowe, Stan
Moiré leaned back and gaped incredulously at me. “Is that what you want? Is that what you think engagement is? Some sort of guarantee?”
“One would like to hope!”
She seemed stunned for a moment, but came back quickly. “Nick, you’ve been watching too many of those love movies. Engagement is not a guarantee. Heck marriage isn’t even a guarantee. The only things guaranteed in life are—”
“Yes, I know. Death and taxes.”
“And if you’re a woman you add ‘bad hair days’ and ‘PMS’ to that list.”
I barked a laugh in spite of myself.
Her lips were pressed airtight for a moment. “Engagement, marriage, happiness in general—it’s not some kind of instant reward for earning points on an emotional credit card, Nick. Happiness—especially in marriage—is a choice that two people make together.
“You don’t just plug each other into neurosensors to make sure your alpha brain waves are measuring in the ‘happy-happy-joy-joy’ range and then go on with a problem-free life. It’s not just stroking hair and kissing. It’s honest-to-goodness commitment, hard work and brutal sacrifice, sometimes.”
I chuckled sharply. “Well…, put that way, it just makes me want to run off to Vegas and grab the first girl I see. I hear they even have drive-through wedding chapels there.”
Moiré glared at me.
“Who are you to tell me how to run my relationships anyway?” I pressed. “You’re just my research assistant, not my guidance counselor. What would you even know about the way I love?”
I felt the instant look of hurt in her eyes but she picked up a spry rebound and I expected a biting rebuttal. Her calm, icy whisper cut far worse. “I know how you love, Nick Cairn. Probably better than anyone.
“I know that you know,” she continued, a little louder, “that there aren’t any guarantees other than it’s a flat out struggle and that you get to choose how you handle it. And that goes for any relationship that stands a chance of succeeding. With you and Ella, that’s all it was. It was you… and it was her. No melding. But I know that you tried. You’re still trying, bless your heart.
“But marriage isn’t ‘you and I’; it’s ‘we.’ I’ve got to love you when you’re tired, cranky, reek of body odor, losing your hair and abs at the same time and all this while I’m fit to be tied because kids have been running me ragged all day.
“You’ve got to love me even when I’m nine months pregnant, stink, have my hair flying all over, lack makeup and will chew your head off for even looking at me wrong all after you’ve pulled a twelve-hour shift with your boss breathing down your neck all day. That is the kind of thing that makes marriage work. That is the kind of sacrifice that turns ‘you and I’ into ‘we’ and keeps it that way until the ‘we’ is old, gray, saggy and blissfully happy.
“So, Nick, think you can handle that?”
My muscles refused to move. I couldn’t believe she’d just addressed me like that. What shocked me most was the sudden realization that she was… right. She was right; I was wrong. But beneath the words, her strident tone carried a message of unfathomable hope. Was she actually saying…?
“Moiré? Do you… want to marry me?”
Her face took on a cross of “Yes, please?” and “Well, duh.”
Then, out of the blue, I just had to say something incredibly stupid. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Regret spiked me in the gut, but I’d just burned the bridge forward. There was nowhere to go but back. I had sworn to keep Ella and that meant I had to ignore whatever Moiré was planning. My heart was Jason to her siren’s song.
Forcing myself to move, I nearly sprinted for the door, leaving Moiré and her overwhelmingly tempting offer in my wake. Through clenched teeth I added, “I need to go get Ella back. Tonight.”
“Nick!”
I halted and whipped around to face her, daring her with my eyes to tell me I was wrong. I could feel pain in her gaze, but she held it on me until I could no longer breathe. When she finally spoke, her dead tone said everything. “You know, for a guy who’s supposed to be so smart, you are such a moron sometimes.” Without another word, she strode smoothly past me and out of the lab.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I’m sorry, Nick, but I just can’t do this anymore.”
“But, Lauren—”
“No ‘buts,’ Nick. You were fun for the first couple of weeks, but you’re just too serious for me. I need someone who’s willing to let their hair down a little—loosen up.”
“What you really mean is you were just using me until Justin Johnson was single again.”
“See what I mean, Nick? You obviously thought we were more than we really were. Haven’t you ever heard of ‘friends with benefits’?”
“You were starting to call my mom ‘Mom,’ Lauren. We were filling out college applications together. You talked about sharing an apartment once we got there.”
“I was just joking, Nick. We still have six months before graduation. I can’t believe you took it seriously.”
“Well, I guess I should say thanks, then.”
“’Thanks?’ For what?”
“For helping me realize that it’s time to start dating women instead of girls. Have fun with Justin.”
I knew I should have followed her immediately. I knew it, but didn’t do it. By the time I started moving again, Moiré was nowhere to be seen. I ran down the stairs and out of the building, but to no avail.
“Her place. She probably went home,” I said to myself. I dashed back up to my lab and logged in to my computer. With a few clicks, I had the student directory on the screen. I hammered her name into the search engine. The results showed up quickly—she was the only “De Lanthe” in the entire university. I grabbed a pen and a sticky note to jot her address on and clicked her name… and stopped dead.
“No way. No… way. Please, please not that address.” I ran the search again, adding as many specific details to it as I could. Once again, the same result.
I dropped my head in my hands. “Why,” I groaned, “of all the people she could be roommates with, why Ella?”
A hundred thousand thoughts flooded me. If this were true—if Ella and Moiré really were roommates—then there’d have been no possible way that Moiré couldn’t have known I was engaged to Ella. Unless… Ella had never mentioned me at her new place? Shaking the thought was difficult. It seemed disturbingly plausible, since Ella had kept me so isolated from anyone she called “friend” or “family.” But weren’t girls supposed to gush about their engagement to every female they met from the time they got the ring to the time they marched down the aisle? Even if they didn’t, it was nigh impossible for a girl to hide the fact that she was getting married from the people she lived with. But if Moiré had known I was set to marry her roommate, why the surprise when she asked if I were engaged? Had she just been feigning ignorance the whole time and if so why?
The mental tornado of questions and implications was simultaneously painful, frightening and devastating to clear thinking. Maybe a bite to eat would help take my mind off the problem for a few minutes. I fumbled my way downstairs and began slogging to the on-campus eatery. After that… who knew?
I checked my voicemail as soon as I returned: nothing. Nor were there any new e-mails. Dinner had stirred me back into the world of reason and once I had relaxed I could admit that Moiré really was right. Ella didn’t love me and Ella had nullified our engagement. I was officially single again and my integrity remained intact. The feeling of freedom that had comforted me when I’d first seen Moiré that day began growing in my chest again. I had to talk to Moiré. I had to make things right. I was hesitant about going to her place, but maybe a phone call would work, if only to arrange a safe spot to meet and talk. I picked up my desk phone. As I began dialing Moiré’s number, a strange piece of paper on my desk caught my eye. My hand paused, then reached for what appeared to be some sort of budget report. I perused it for a while out of curiosity. What I sa
w made me drop the phone.
She… robbed me? No, there must be some mistake. I carefully re-read the entire sheet. Sure enough, my conclusion was the only logical one. That my funds had been stopped in order to provide a single, targeted scholarship.
Starting with a twenty-six-hundred dollar installment.
Okay, that was it. It didn’t matter that Ella would probably be at Moiré’s place; I was going to talk to Moiré. I was in my car and on the road before the doors to the psych building closed behind me and I slammed to a halt in the rocky parking lot attached to Ella and Moiré’s apartment complex. People literally leapt out of my way as I rushed the stairs. One poor girl nearly fell over the banister—I hauled her to safety without thought and muttered an apology even as I raced away. I was surprised the apartment door held up under my banging. After probably ten seconds, the little Filipino roommate (now thoroughly terrified) opened the door—chain still in the latch—and peered tentatively around the corner.
“Yes?” she squeaked.
Her fear made me realize just how juvenile and unfair my behavior was. Just because I’d been hurt, I didn’t have the right to pull a Jekyll and Hyde on anyone, especially not girls in stairways, or nameless roommates.
“Oh, um sorry. Just a bit… tense,” I said by way of apology. She looked no less terrified, but she did seem to relax slightly.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I was just wondering if—”
A loud, playful giggle erupted from somewhere in the back of the apartment. I knew that giggle.
“I was looking for Moiré… De… Lanthe,” I said as the giggling continued, punctuated with random squeals and other muffled sounds.
“Moiré’s not here at the moment,” the roommate said. “She… had to go out. Can I leave a message for her?”
I shook my head. “No, but… is that Ella Abel I hear back there?”
The girl cast an unconscious glance toward the backroom, then quickly looked back at me, her eyes indicating unintended betrayal.
“May I see her?” I asked, trying to be as polite as possible. No reason to give this little one a heart attack.
“Um, she is… busy… right now. Can I leave a message for her?”
I shook my head. “I’m sure she won’t mind the interruption.” I motioned that I was coming in and Ella’s diminutive living companion didn’t seem at all eager to stop me. She shut the door, unchained the latch and allowed me in. I thanked her and then strolled to the rear of the small apartment.
Ella hadn’t even bothered to close her door. At least they both still had all their clothing on. I waited silently as Ella and none other than “Super-Neuro Man” were doing things that might even make Courier John blush.
“So is ‘Hunter’ just a nickname,” I said as cheerfully as I could fake, “or is it a career?”
They stopped instantly and spun to gawk at me. I wish I’d had a camera to record the look on Ella’s face—it only lasted a heartbeat; it was worth a lifetime. It was quickly replaced with a shocked scowl.
“NICHOLAS!” Okay, so… real happy to see me. Or not.
“Yeah. Me. Where’s Moiré? And what the heck is this?” I said, casually gesturing at their tangled state. I was amazed at how calm I felt—it was unnatural.
Ella flashed a cold, mocking, but somehow charming smile at me and then pecked Hunter on the cheek.
“Nicholas Cairn,” Ella began smugly, “This is Hunter.”
“I believe I just said that,” I said with a raised eyebrow.
Ella ignored the comment. “I decided that since you didn’t want me, I’d move on to a real man who really loves me.”
I wasn’t going to deal with this right now. My heart had developed some rather thick—if probably only temporary—calluses in the last hour, so I could ignore the fact that the girl I was engaged to last night was now very firmly attached to some other guy.
“Where is she, Ella? That’s all I want to know, then I’ll leave you two to your… fun.”
“Moiré? She’s gone,” Ella answered flippantly before slathering Hunter’s face with her lips again.
“I don’t have time for games, Ella. I don’t care if you hate me. I just want to know where she is.” I think my growl startled her. Even Hunter flinched; that made me smile on the inside.
“Well if you must know, she left the state. Well, she’s leaving the state.”
“Leaving the state?”
“Dur, yeah,” she said mockingly. “As in, driving past the border of this state and into a different one? Anyway, she got all she wanted from you and she was tired of you. Besides she knew you’d get all jealous of her getting money from your people.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“We talk.” Her eyes took on a demonic glint and her mouth warped into the smile of the victorious predator. “I mean, we are stepsisters, after all.”
The words were a sledgehammer to the intestines. Woozy, I grabbed the doorjamb for support. This drama was becoming too twisted for me.
“I… I thought you hated your stepsister. You never even told me her name.”
“Of course I hate her. She’s been after my number-one-daughter spot ever since Daddy married her bimbo mother. And then, she tried to break up my engagement.”
“Engagement? What engagement?”
“Our engagement, you idiot. You know, the one you flushed down the toilet because you thought it was more important to watch other people in love than it was to be in love with your own fiancée.
“Moiré couldn’t stand that I had a guy but she couldn’t even get a date, so she apparently decided to go behind my back, like she always does and poison my relationship. That’s why she went to work for you, even though you weren’t paying her peanuts.”
No. It can’t be true. This is… impossible. Had I really been played for that much of a sucker? “But… but I did pay her—”
Ella cut me off with a harsh laugh. “Oh, I saw how much you paid her.” Her voice dripped with venomous sarcasm. “It was so much that she just had to resist that scholarship. Or maybe it was because she was so loyal to little old you, wasn’t she?”
She cackled again. “You’re pathetic, Nick. I’m glad she helped me see that before I chained myself to you for the rest of a miserable life. She used you to get at me and found out she could use you to get money. Once she’d done her job getting the cash, you were just as useless to her as you are to me. In fact, even your own department thought you were useless. That’s why they took the money from you and gave it to her.”
Then the paper on the desk had been legit.
“But she told me… she was saying…,” I trailed off, unable to speak.
Ella’s face screwed up in confusion for a moment, then the light came on. “You… you didn’t think she actually had feelings for you, did you?” she asked, total disbelief written on her face.
I couldn’t manage to do more than move my mouth.
Ella laughed loud and long. “You did buy it! I can’t believe you fell for such a hokey act! She never loved you. Just like you never loved me. But Hunter, here, loves me, don’t you Hunter Poo?”
For a moment, I wondered if Hunter was about to suck Ella’s lips clean off her face. I turned away in disgust.
“You were so repulsive to her,” Ella said when Hunter finally released her, “that she decided she could just do without a scholarship or, what was it? Oh yes—that ‘little line item on her resume,’ I think she said and just go to school somewhere far, far away from you. So she ran home to her mommy and I’m not about to tell you where that is.
“Oh—and don’t bother asking when I’m marrying Hunter. I don’t want you embarrassing me at my reception, as you’re crying over me. Now, goodbye.” She made a shooing motion and went back to her little adult games with Hunter. She had to shoo me out a couple more times before my mind finally responded to her spontaneous dismissal. Dazed, I trudged out of her apartment. I probably responded to the nameless roommate’s timid apo
logies.
My life was suddenly like one of those movies where you have no idea which part is reality and which part was a waking nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, I know life is about hard times. And yes, I’ve heard the old saying “When it rains, it pours,” but come on—pithy platitudes are cold comfort when your entire world comes crashing down around you in the space of twelve hours. I needed to get away from everything. I started to walk, not caring where I went, or whether I even made it there alive.
Some hours later I habitually walked into my lab, praising the silent darkness that enveloped me. I pondered on whether this familiar sanctuary would offer my escape from my mounting torment. It didn’t.
Ella’s words mingled with Moiré’s in my mind and slowly, slowly, things began to crumble. Nothing made sense anymore. Moiré’s sermon about happiness as a function of choice was wrong. The only thing that was right was my pain. That wasn’t logical, but logic didn’t mend mental lacerations. I hurt more deeply than I knew was possible. Something needed to break other than my heart.
My mind shut down, then, animal instinct triggered. My rolling chair was halfway to the wall in a heartbeat and even before it hit, I had flung the first box of paperbacks into the trash, knocking the trashcan halfway across the room. The other boxes fell to a whirlwind of anger. My notes, my entire dissertation, all of it gone, just like that. I barely managed to resist the urge to smash the computer, but the still rational part of my mind told me I didn’t want to have to pay for a broken chair and a broken computer when this was over.
Instead, I shredded pages, kicked some doors closed and used a ballpoint pen to turn the seat of The Chair into a sieve. When my destructive tantrum finally ended, my strength flooded from me, leaving me feeling very, very heavy. I somehow got back to my apartment and fell into bed, simply existing. My mental and emotional vomiting spree had left my mind blank and exhausted. Twenty-eight years had solidified my perceptions of life and love; it took less than a day to shatter my fortress of belief. Everything I had valued was gone. The “unchangeable” was now mutated beyond recognition. Alone and despairing I drifted in an angry sea of bitter sadness, consumed by a single thought: