by Claire Adams
Next order of business was dealing with my mother, and if all went as planned, that was bound to be a piece of cake. I still couldn’t get over the fact that this idea hadn’t occurred to me sooner. It was so simple and brilliant. I should have thought of it the day Gina had made me that offer; she only needed money, after all.
Unsurprisingly, my mom came into my room at about eight that night looking completely horrorstruck.
“I just,” she said almost hyperventilating. “I just got a call from Gina. Oh Zayden, I am so sorry.”
She was obviously on the verge of tears and for a split second I almost felt guilty for pulling this off.
“What’s wrong?” I asked innocently looking up from my laptop. “Is she okay?”
“She is fine… I think,” my mom said in a shaking voice. “But – but – Zayden I am sorry for all of this.”
“What do you mean? What are you apologizing for? Is everything okay, mom?” I was trying hard to sound genuinely curious and concerned, but my insides were jumping in joy; the plan had obviously worked fantastically.
“No, no, no, no!” she exclaimed dramatically. “Nothing is okay, and it’s all my fault. I did this to you. I am so, so sorry son.”
“For what?” I eyed her quizzically.
She waited a few minutes before speaking, as though her next words held a lot of weight and she wanted to make sure she delivered them in the best possible way.
“Gina, she is,” she halted for a few more seconds. “She is gone, Zay. I am so so sorry. I should have never pushed you towards her like that. This is all my fault!”
“What is your fault? What do you mean she’s gone?” I stood up from my chair, just to make the whole act seem more genuine. “Did she go back home for a bit?”
“No,” she said sounding upset. “She’s gone. Forever. I am so sorry, Zay. She said that she is in love with someone else and she was only staying with you for my sake and it wasn’t fair to anybody. I thought she was joking at first.” She was breathing heavily. “But then… but then…”
“Mom, sit down,” I said, holding her by the shoulders. “Take a deep breath and tell me everything. What did Gina say to you?”
“That she is,” she covered her face in her hands and started crying hysterically. “She is in love with someone else and she thought she could do this for me but she really couldn’t and to tell you she’s sorry.”
“She didn’t even have the decency to tell me so herself?” I asked, pretending to look disappointed. “And that’s the girl you thought was perfect for me?”
The crying grew louder, and a sinister part of me felt good about the fact that I had managed to manipulate the master manipulator. I was, after all, her son. All that stress she gave me from trying to kill herself; this was but a small payback. And she could never threaten to pull that shit again; as far as she knew, she had caused me great grief by bringing Gina back into my life.
“I am so, so sorry, Zayden. I really thought – I thought she loved you and she would be good for you. I never would have suggested she come back into your life if I knew she would bail on you like this.”
“Just when I was beginning to accept her back into my life too,” I said dolefully. “What have I done to deserve this shit?”
“Nothing,” she said looking up finally. “Nothing at all. This is all my fault, Zay. From now on I will never try to interfere in your life again. I want to be there for you and I have realized that the best way to do so is to leave you be. I am leaving to go back West over the weekend. Unless,” she looked at me hopefully. “Unless I can be there for you in some way by staying? Help you get through the heartbreak.”
“I think you have done enough,” I said. “You meant well and I really appreciate it. But I am hurt right now and need some time alone to recuperate. Is that okay with you?” I added the last bit trying to seem as earnest as possible.
“Of course, but if you need anything at all, I am just a phone call away,” she exclaimed and hugged me tight.
“I know that, mom.” I grinned behind her back.
For the first time in my entire life, I had managed to outsmart my mother. And in some ways I had Aria to thank for it. I was now the ultimate manipulator.
---
Now that most of the issue was taken care of, I began to fully appreciate the situation I was in; it was, in fact, perfect! There were only two days until the next payment needed to be made on Aria’s mother’s hospital bill, and she still did not know whether I was going to make it or not. In other words, I had complete and utter control over how our dynamic proceeded once again. And man, had I missed being in this position.
When I went into work the next day, I didn’t even so much glance at Aria because I wanted to let her continue believing that I was done with her. If she wanted things to be different, she would have to come to me this time. Maybe I would even make her beg… after all, I did suffer a great deal for her sake, and she needed to not only know that, but appreciate it fully so that she would never try and make things difficult for me again.
The few times I did look up towards her booth, I caught her staring at my office, to my great satisfaction. She obviously wanted to run in here and ask me what was going on, especially since I never even replied to her email. Well, she was free to walk in any minute; she just wouldn’t get any prodding from my end.
To my great surprise, she never came in the whole day, and when I saw her begin to leave from work that evening, I almost reached out to her myself. But I had to have better restraint, if things were going to go my way from now on. I couldn’t let my need to talk to her overcome me, since I was trying hard to never show another sign of weakness. Thankfully, I didn’t have to test myself for much longer because soon after she left the bank, my phone rang. It was her, so I thumbed the talk button.
“You have decided to speak to me then,” I answered the phone.
She didn’t speak for what felt like almost a whole minute, after which she said, “I sent you an email!”
“How thoughtful,” I said sardonically. “I sit ten feet away from you.”
“You never wrote back,” she said softly.
“I had nothing to say. What did you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. Our contract. What is going on, Zayden? Just tell me, are we still doing this?”
“Last I remember, you wanted desperately to get out of this contract,” I scoffed. Perhaps I should have stopped; I had already given her enough of a scare, but there was something about the feeling of being powerful that I just could not pass up on.
“That’s not true,” she snapped. “Obviously, if I emailed you asking where you stand on the contract, it means I’m still in.”
“I think,” I said with a triumphant smile. “I think you need to revisit the dictionary in reference to what constitutes the word ‘obvious.’ In no way have you said to me that you want to continue the contract. You need to, I mean.”
“Look, I know what you’re trying to do and I’m not biting. Just skip the games, Zayden. Do you want this or not?”
“What am I trying to do?” I asked pretending to sound surprised. “It’s pretty funny that you think you know something I am supposedly doing that I don’t know myself, don’t you think?”
“You want me to beg,” she said simply. “You want me to tell you just how much I need this and how I will do anything to continue the contract.”
“Well, then?”
“Are you definitely getting rid of your ex?”
“Already done it, thanks to you.”
“Sarcasm?”
“No, not at all!” I exclaimed. “Because you put me in a situation where I had no choice but to end it with her–”
“You had a choice,” she sounded delighted now. “You always have a choice.”
“Aria, don’t be such a smart ass. As I was saying, since I had no choice in the matter, I had to come up with a way to end it with Gina in a way that best suited everyone involved. Without that kind of a pressure to
get on this right away, I probably would have been trapped forever.”
“What pressure? I didn’t put any pressure on you!”
“Right,” I scoffed. “None at all. I am not complaining, Aria. You did me quite the favor.”
“So your mother?”
“She will not be giving me, herself, or anyone else any more trouble.”
“You sound like you murdered her,” she said giggling.
“I wish,” I joked. “I just played her own games against her so she now feels responsible for ruining my life. Petty details, really. But let’s stick to what is important. The contract. You were saying? Something about really, really needing–”
“I didn’t say that,” she said, the defiant tone back. “Your ex is gone, then, that is good news. And how about who I am allowed to speak with?”
“Whoever the hell you want, Aria,” I said earnestly. “As long as I am the only one touching your perfect little body.”
My own words ignited a surge of desire in my body, and by the sudden silence that had befallen on the other end, I suspected it had the same effect on Aria.
“I don’t want anyone else to touch me,” she said eventually. “Isn’t that obvious by now, Zayden? That’s why there never was any reason to be jealous. The fact that you couldn’t see that pissed me off almost as much as your trying to control my life.”
“What, you thought I couldn’t trust you?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“Why else would you put restrictions on who I was talking to?” She asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Because I don’t like the thought of stupid assholes mentally undressing you every time they talk to you. And as a stupid asshole who does that every time myself, take it from me, they all do. I have come to think of undressing you – mentally or otherwise – as a privilege that is exclusive to me.”
“Well, you can’t control what other guys think, but nobody else is actually undressing me any time soon. So you need to calm down, and take out all the controlling clauses from the contract.”
“If there still is a contract,” I said, pushing it only a little bit further. It would all be over soon but I had to have a bit more fun. “Come over the day after tomorrow and we will take it from there. I will make sure that Ned will–”
“No,” she cut me off. “No Ned, just send me the address and I will be there, okay? I can drive, you know?”
“Look, Aria,” I said, frustrated. “If I send a car to pick you up, I am not making some sexist statement about how I don’t think you are capable of doing something yourself. It just means that sometimes I feel like taking care of you, even though you are perfectly capable of doing so. It’s how I show I care.”
That seemed to have the desired effect, as she now seemed okay with Ned picking her up.
“Fine. See you then.”
After we hung up, I felt more excited than I had in a long time. The thought of Aria in my house, in my bed, in every other part of my room, naked, was enough to keep me going gleefully the next two days.
Chapter 7
Aria
“So let me get this straight: you are going over to see the guy tomorrow, in his house, without being certain your mother’s bill will get paid on time?”
I shrugged. What was she expecting me to say? Like I hadn’t considered this in my head over and over again. Too afraid to ask him directly about the money and how it was due in two days, I had instead devised a careful plan, which would hopefully help him make the right decision in my favor. Stacey, unfortunately, did not sound very convinced by my plan.
“I can list at least a hundred ways in which you showing up at his house in a super sexy outfit and seducing him into submission can go wrong.”
“Well, do you see me having any sort of a choice here?”
She looked like she was deep in thought for a moment. “I mean, no, not really, but I am worried, Aria. This guy has already hurt you once.”
“Yes, but he also ended a long off-and-on relationship with his ex-wife and risked the wrath of his mother for me. It’s kind of sweet?” I said hopefully, trying to phrase it into a question.
“Oh he’s sweet, alright. That has never quite been in question. He has been a sweetheart to you since day one.” She saw my raised eyebrow and paused. “What? All those flowers and that dress and he sent your work for publication!”
“And he showed up at school,” I said, just remembering. “I forgot to tell you?”
“What do you mean he showed up at school?”
“He came as a guest lecturer in Mr. Weber’s class after I didn’t speak to him for two weeks.”
Stacey burst out laughing. “This guy! I don’t even know what to think. I mean, well it’s kind of obvious that he is in love with you, isn’t it?”
“Woah, woah, woah! Calm down there, don’t go around throwing big words out like that,” I said, pretending to be horrified, when in reality the thought of what she said made me feel delighted.
“Come on, Aria!” Stacey’s whole face was lightening up in realization, as though this conclusion should have occurred to her a while ago. “It makes perfect sense! That’s why he didn’t want you talking to Dick; because he is in love with you so he got jealous! Not because it was in some stupid contract.”
“Yeah, he kind of admitted to being jealous,” I said thinking back to our phone conversation. “But that does not mean he is in love with me! It has nothing to do with it.”
“Yes it does,” she said a different voice, and I realized Nick had been standing by the door and listening to our conversation the whole time. “Guys don’t just get jealous unless they have genuine feelings for a girl.”
“Well, he did have feelings… feelings of control! Feelings that he owned me because he gave me money, and…you get the gist.” I smiled at Nick. “How long have you been standing there anyway?”
“Heard the important bits,” he said and shrugged. “And Stacey is right, the dude is obviously in love with you, but you need to be cautious given… prior circumstances.”
“What do you guys want me to do, exactly?” I asked, annoyed because it seemed like they were ganging up on me somehow. “Let the hospital bills not be paid? Let my mom lose everything?”
“That’s not at all what I am saying, Aria, and you know it,” Stacey said, looking as annoyed as I was. “It’s just… I am just saying be careful. You know this guy very well by now, and you are going back despite disliking some of his ways. If you are expecting him to change a little, sure that could happen, but a complete one eighty is unlikely, and you’re just wasting everybody’s time if you go back with particular expectations in that regard, because it will end just like it did last time.”
That made way more sense than I liked. Stacey was right, I couldn’t go in there thinking everything was suddenly going to be different. Most likely, he would still have controlling tendencies, and I would have to learn to talk him out of it without wanting to storm out every time.
“I will be careful, I promise,” I said finally. “You guys are absolutely on point about this. But you understand that I am in a sticky situation, right? There are only two days until payment and I have so far been completely unsuccessful in coming up with a plan to do it without Zayden’s help. As much as I hate to admit it – and would never ever admit to him, god no – I do need him right now, so I will have to make more compromises than not.”
“As long as you are aware that’s what you’re doing.” Stacey smiled. “There is nothing wrong with a little compromise, Aria.”
Nick made a coughing sound.
“What?” Stacey snapped looking at him. “Are you trying to say something to me, Nicholas?”
He looked like he had a bullet fast approaching his face and finding a direction to duck in to dodge it. “No. Uh, I mean, like. Yeah, sure. We compromise. Both of us, all the time.”
He was trying hard not to meet her eye.
“You think I don’t compromise enough!” Her face changed compl
etely in realization.
I started feeling uncomfortable about being there. It was one of those rare moments, when I became very aware of the fact that Nick and Stacey were a couple in a real relationship with real relationship problems – and not just bickering about blogs and video games - and I was intruding on their private moments.
Trying not to draw attention to myself, I slowly got up, but their fight was getting heated and I was sitting right smack in the middle of the two so there was no way to escape without drawing attention to myself. I thought it was best to just announce my departure at that point, so I said softly, “I am really tired, guys, I have a long weekend ahead of me, so I am gonna be off now.”
Without waiting for an answer, I began to march off, but Stacey stopped me. “Wait! What do you think, Aria? Do I not compromise enough?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled, feeling uncomfortable to be summoned into the conversation. “How would I know?”
“You live with us! You see us together all the time. You must have an opinion!”
“I don’t,” I said not entirely truthfully. In all honesty, I did think that Nick made the majority of the compromises and Stacey made the majority of the decisions in their relationship; however, this seemed to work for them, and wasn’t that kind of the point? There certainly wasn’t a universal rule of conduct that worked evenly for everybody, was there? Something that I would need to keep in mind as well; every two people are different, and need to find their own unique ways to make it work, no matter how crazy or ridiculous it may seem to other people.
“You guys really need to talk this out among yourself, but I will say this, I have harped on this over and over again the entire time the two of you have been together, and to date, I would be harder pressed to find two people that are completely perfect for each other. And that remains true even if one of you may be more…” I looked at Nick with a half-smile, “….compromising.”
Then I walked away, not letting Stacey stop me this time, and feeling kind of pleased with myself for the way I handled the situation.
Dealing with other people’s problems, however, was much easier than addressing your own. I could write an essay on Nick and Stacey’s relationship, and relationships in general, and people in relationships. I could write an essay on love even, in a heartbeat. Yet, when it came to understanding the best approach to handling my situation with Zayden, I was always at a complete loss. I had a plan but I wasn’t sure how it was going to work. Knowing him and his weaknesses, I didn’t doubt he would physically cave in a second, but would he make the payment?