When I was ten years old and was part of a chorus performing an inappropriately sad Christmas song for the elementary school holiday program, my mother objected to the white dress that we were being asked to buy and wear. She complained about the color, that it wasn’t well made, that I wouldn’t be able to reuse it for whatever reason, and this was probably just a money-making scam by someone in the faculty. After much embarrassment (on my part, never hers), the school agreed that I wear something else. She insisted on a gold dress. So I was that random girl in the chorus who wasn’t just not wearing the same white dress as everyone else, but was in loud, obvious gold.
That was the most mortified I had ever been in my life, but that was just unseated.
"No," I said, three times, one for each unexpected guest, and my face and neck turned probably the same shade as my dress.
"What?" my mom went, pushing past Ethan, the door, and me to let herself in. "We said we were coming over tonight for the housewarming."
Agh. Just seeing my mother, at fifty-five sporting nearly the same hairstyle as mine except three inches shorter, looking healthy and vibrant as ever, and I was torn between pride and fear. Pride in her beauty and strength which usually involved wanting to be her, and fear immediately after that I was destined to be exactly like her.
My dad, who had always seemed tall to me but apparently only came up to Ethan’s ears, planted a kiss on my cheek like this was nothing. Roxie shrugged at me and went in too.
My mom went straight for my couch, and sat there, and so did Roxie. My dad took a seat at the dining table set for two. I flipped all of the lights back on, and Ethan sprinted into the room, and I realized that he was hiding certain things. Evidence of things we were doing.
Maybe I should have kept all the lights off. God what a disaster.
"I didn’t say yes to a housewarming," I said, still standing near the door. It was a small enough place for them to all see me and my disapproval.
Mom crossed her legs and defiantly leaned back into the couch. "You didn’t say no. We sent you messages. And I thought it was the perfect time for a housewarming, since you talked Megan into telling my sister not to buy this anymore."
Roxie settled into her side of the couch as well, arms crossed, still angry at me, but fully entertained.
"Dad," I implored possibly the only sane family member in the room. "You agreed to give me space. This is not space. This is like my eighteenth birthday all over again." (A story for another time, but was spectacularly like this one.)
"Stop running to your dad," Mom said, with a smile almost, also entertained at this. "We’ve given you time and space. This is what happens when you keep avoiding us."
Ethan emerged from the bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him.
I sighed. "I assume you’ve met Ethan. Tonight was about him, and I hope you all have the courtesy to let me have this despedida for him in peace."
"We can eat here," Roxie piped in. "I can have food delivered."
I shot her a look. "That’s not what I meant."
My dad was already picking at our dinner, so that was starting not to matter. "I don’t like this," he said. "Roxie, you want Chinese food?"
"Maybe we should just go to your place," I told Ethan.
He shook his head. "No, please. They should stay."
My mom smirked at me triumphantly, and it triggered a string of reactions in me, responses I’d had since childhood that I just reused at will.
"I asked them to come," Ethan said, before I got to launch into my response. "I asked Ashley to contact Roxie and ask your parents to come."
"Why would you do that?" What about my dinner, my dress, the bra that’s nearly cutting off my circulation?
"You shouldn’t be giving me a despedida," Ethan said, and the three pairs of eyes in the apartment between us bounced from him to me.
"Are you kidding me?" The air got sucked from my lungs. There were too many people in my apartment. "I just wanted to do something nice for you. I know you hate the premature goodbye but this is...You didn’t need to bring them here."
Ethan straightened up against the door. "You don’t need to give me a despedida because I’m not leaving."
Roxie’s mouth dropped open, as did mine, probably. My dad suddenly found the plate of food in front of him interesting, and my mom...I didn’t even dare look at her face right then.
"But your job," I said.
He pushed his hands into his pockets. "I told you I had options. I didn’t need the transfer."
"Did you quit?"
"I offered," Ethan said. "But they ultimately agreed to just move me back here. Lower pay and effectively a demotion, but that’s my decision."
"You’re crazy. It was the fire. You shouldn’t make rash decisions when you’re stressed."
"What fire?" my mom started to say, but Roxie put a hand on her arm.
Surely this conversation was meant to be between us. It freaked me out that the rest of them could hear everything, and that Ethan was letting them hear. "I’m trying a new way of doing things," he said. "I decide rather than let others do it for me."
"Even if the decision is insane?" I demanded.
"He just said he wasn’t letting others make it for him," my mother said, so very amused.
"Yes, Mom, I heard, please no commentary." So I tried to look past the others and just at Ethan, who was understated as usual.
"It’s a job. I didn’t have it before and I was fine without it. It’s not tragic."
"Can you please come out into the hallway with me?"
He nodded at my mother, and Roxie, and my dad as he passed them, and held on to my shoulder as I pushed him out and closed the door.
I had words, angry words, but he had immediately taken my face in his hands and pressed his mouth onto mine.
"I saw one of their messages to you, the ones you keep ignoring," he said, seconds later, into my temple. "I thought it would be good for you to see them. I know you miss them."
"You shouldn’t stay just for me," I said, because I had to say it. "When did you decide this? Is it final? Maybe you can take it back."
"You and a dozen other people have been asking me that. I haven’t changed my mind. All week has been about making this happen. But yesterday they finally said okay to it." His arm went around my waist, pulling my body to him, and nothing about it felt uncertain.
"I’m going to say it again. It’s not...we’re living out a fantasy right now. If you and I are staying then reality will hit, eventually. It might not be exactly what we both want."
"What makes you think I haven’t thought about that, constantly, since I first kissed you? It’s done. I chose this anyway."
He did. I paused to let that realization sink in.
Something in his spine relaxed, like he had let go of something, the tension that was on his shoulders all week. He swayed into me and I tightened my arms around his neck, as if that would catch him.
"Walking around all week like you, acting like I could just make things happen, it was exhausting," he said.
"And scary, I’m sure."
"I wouldn’t say that." His lips lightly brushed against mine, and then dipped in for longer. His kisses were always so self-assured. "It felt for the first time that I knew where I was going to be, and what I should be doing, for once."
I drew him into my own kiss, suddenly adoring every inch of him. Where in my plan or fantasy was this supposed to happen? I hadn’t even thought of it. Maybe I was aiming too low as well. Maybe I needed to place a tiny portion of my happiness in someone else’s hands, and not completely control it.
"Well, you just made me feel what you feel. When you let the universe decide things for you. It’s scary as hell."
"Not when it gives you what you want. Is this what you want?"
It was a loaded question. But I couldn’t deny that at the moment I had, all within reach, my apartment, my best friend, my family, a job, and this person willing to stay in my life at incredible
cost to him.
"Are you ready to go back inside?" Ethan asked.
I nodded. "Mom or Roxie might say things. Just don't freak out."
"I won't, but remember this when you meet my family. You can't freak out either."
I can handle that, was the first thing that came to mind. I guess this was what commitment felt like.
It wasn’t the plan, not exactly. It was better.
The End
-///-
Author’s Note
A draft version of the first nine chapters of this novella was posted on Wattpad and Figment months before publication. This was the first time I let people see my drafts, and it was both scary and enlightening. Thank you, people in the Wattpad and Figment communities who took a chance on it and read along!
Even though I was already posting the draft, work on this edition still needed to be done. Thank you, Mike, Layla, Ines, Tania, Dominique, Ron, Chachic, Christian, Diane, Bianca, and Chris, for sharing talent, intelligence, specifics, inspiration, and sometimes just that much-needed push.
Mina
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Welcome to Envy Park Page 13