“I know that this is so stupid,” Ellie says after a long pause. “But I just feel like such an idiot about what happened. I mean, I know that it’s not my fault, but it feels like it is.”
“It’s not! Not at all. He attacked you. You were completely helpless.”
“Yeah, I know that. Intellectually. But not down here,” Ellie says, pointing to her heart. “And not down here,” she adds, pointing to her gut.
“Ellie—“ I try to find words that will make the pain go away.
“That’s probably how Caroline felt,” she says. “Terrified, petrified, and mortified. And what Blake did to me, well that was nothing in comparison to what Tom did.”
I nod. I wish there was something I could do to take all the pain away. But while I try to figure out what that is, I wrap my arms around her and press her close to me.
“Do you want me to kill him?” I ask, only half-joking. She waits for a moment before answering. “No, if anyone should do it, I should do it.”
We both laugh a little bit. I don’t know about her, but after everything he has put us through, I’m not even half-joking. It’s more like five percent joking, ninety-five percent not joking.
“What do you think you want to do about Blake?” I ask.
“I’m going to talk to the DA. I want to press charges, if he thinks my testimony is enough for that. Blake is a bad guy and everyone needs to know what he did to me.”
“And about the auction?” I ask. “All of that is going to come out.”
“I won’t do it, if you don’t want me to,” she says.
“Oh, hell no. Please don’t misunderstand. I want him to pay. And, frankly, I don’t really care if all that shit about the auction comes out. It was just a little game. Everyone consented. Everyone was of age. No one got paid to have sex with anyone. Even if they did, that’s not what they were paid for, legally. My attorneys can spin it any which way and the public relations people will do the rest. I’m just concerned about you. How you’re going be going through all of this.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says.
“Promise me one thing, okay, Ellie?” I ask. “Promise me that if you ever feel hopeless, lost, or depressed that you will come to me and tell me. I will get you help. I will help you. I will be here for you no matter what.”
“I promise,” she says a little too quickly.
“I just never want you to feel the way Caroline did. I mean, how horrible she must’ve felt to do what she did. It just breaks my heart.”
“Me, too,” she says with a tear running down her cheek.
“I’m here for you, Ellie. No matter what. Please come to me with anything, no matter what. You’re not alone.”
Ellie leans over to kiss me.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she says. The serene expression on her face vanishes as she gets up to run to the bathroom.
The cold air hit me like a truck as soon as I stepped outside. Is this winter ever going to end? I imagine lying on the deck of my yacht in the Caribbean with Ellie and my heart yearns for it. She can throw up just as well down there as she can here. But at least it would be warm and nice out. And I can walk around in flip-flops without a t-shirt instead of a pair of heavy winter boots, two sweaters, a coat, a hat, and a scarf. Fuck, I hate the cold.
Winter always looks like this magical, wonderful time of the year in magazines and in the movies. But in reality, it’s a black, slushy mess. It requires way too many clothes and the darkness makes everyone depressed and unhappy. The days never last long enough at all. Sometimes, it’s so cloudy that the sun doesn’t even make an appearance for days.
I know that I shouldn’t moan about this. I’m very lucky. I have my job back. I have a baby on the way. And my girlfriend finally agreed to marry me. The beginning of the year has started out magnificently for me. And yet, I can’t help but wonder how much better I’d feel if the sun was shining all the time and it was seventy-five degrees out.
I trot over to the bagel place at the end of the street. It’s not far enough away to drive to and I can’t possibly hail a cab or get an Uber for such a short distance. Yet, walking a whole city block in this cold is a significant exercise.
“Aiden!” someone yells behind me. “Aiden!”
I know his voice. How could I not? But I don’t want to turn around. I just want him to leave. Why the fuck can’t he just leave me alone?
“You were at Ellie’s house,” Blake says. It’s more of a statement than a question. “Why won’t you turn around? Are you too chicken-shit to face me?”
“No, I’m not,” I say. Unlike last time, Blake isn’t drunk. He’s fully in control of himself and he’s still an asshole.
“Don’t tell me you and Ellie are…together.”
“Yes, we are.”
“The papers made it seem like you were just fucking.”
“We are.”
I don’t know why I’m engaging with him about this. I don’t really care. Except that he was once a very important person in my life. He was one of my closest friends. My confidant. The only person who knew what it was like to grow Owl from my dorm room to what it is now, the biggest competitor to Amazon.
“What are you doing, Blake?” I ask. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here to see Ellie.”
“You can’t.”
“Yes, I can!”
“Blake, please. Go home.”
“The DA is pressing charges,” he says. “Do you know that? Your bitch of a girlfriend is going to testify against me.”
“Listen, why don’t you just go and fuck yourself?” I say as calmly as possible. He’s looking to get a rise out of me. And it’s working. My blood is starting to boil. I take a deep breath. As much as I want to punch him in the throat, I can’t get into a fight right now. I just got my job back at Owl. It’s still a tenuous situation. I’m not sure how long I will hold onto it if the shareholders see a picture of me in some gossip magazine punching out the previous CEO. No, you have to stay calm, Aiden, I say to myself. You’re going to get some fresh bagels and tea, so keep walking. I turn around and pick up my step.
“Hey! Hey! You think you’re too good for me?”
I ignore him.
“I insult your girlfriend and you just keep walking. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Keep going, Aiden, I say to myself.
“I’m three times the man that you are. I should’ve had my way with her when I had the chance so that now she’d know what she is missing.”
That’s it. I turn around and lunge at him. I toss him onto the ground and start to pound him in the face. The first few blows send shockwaves through my hands. I haven’t punched anyone like this in…ages. Actually, I’ve never punched anyone like this. But I haven’t been in a fight since middle school.
A few of my punches miss and my balled up fists collide with the pavement. My whole body aches from the shock.
“Fuck!” I scream in his face. I pull away from him and stare at the limp body of my ex-best friend laying before me. For a moment, I’m not sure if he’s dead. My heart jumps into my chest. No, no, no. Please don’t be dead. Please, please, please.
That’s when I see his chest moving up and down with each labored breath.
Okay, good. He’s okay.
I look around. There are not that many people out, but it’s not like the street is completely deserted. If I go back to Ellie’s now, this whole thing will just blow over. And if he’s seriously hurt? Well, someone is bound to come by and help. There’s no way that I’m going to be making that call to the police.
I force myself to my feet. My whole body aches.
“Fuck you, Blake,” I say and stagger past him back in the direction of Ellie’s apartment.
And then…everything turns to black.
Chapter 32 - Ellie
When he doesn’t come back…
Aiden went to get tea and bagels half an hour ago. Then an hour ago. Then two hours ago. Then two hours and forty-five minutes. Where
the hell can he be? I crawl out of bed and force myself to go out to the living room. Brie is sitting in front of the television watching a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills marathon. I think that show is crap and yet I can’t not watch it. It was one of Caroline’s favorites and it’s one of my all-time guilty pleasures.
Where could he be? As my nausea subsides, my worry about Aiden increases. I’m not one to worry unnecessarily. At least, I try to keep my worries at bay. But this time, I have a bad feeling about everything. It came over me about twenty minutes after Aiden left and hasn’t disappeared since.
I call his phone for what feels like the tenth time since he left. This time I don’t ask him to call me back.
“Listen, if you needed to go to work or something, that’s fine. I’m totally okay with it. Just please call or text and let me know. For some reason, I got really worried. I don’t know, maybe it’s all the pregnancy hormones. Just let me know what’s going on.”
I pace around my room. When I hear Brie out in the kitchen, I meet her there.
“So…you and Aiden?” Brie gives me a wink over her buttered toast. “How’s that working out?”
I shrug and smile.
“Pretty good from what I heard last night.”
I blush. I didn’t realize that we were loud enough to hear. Brie must sense my embarrassment.
“Hey, it’s no big deal,” she says, waving her hand.
Brie and I are close, but not close the way sisters are often portrayed in sappy movies. For some reason, we were never the type to lay around at night gushing about what this or that guy said to us. Or gal, for that matter. I sort of suspect that Brie may be a lesbian, but because we’re not that close, I don’t feel comfortable bringing it up.
“We were sort of celebrating something,” I say after a moment.
“What?”
“Aiden asked me to marry him.”
“Okay…” she says slowly. “I thought that he had already asked you that?”
Oh, that’s right. She knows about the previous failed engagement. Not everything, but enough.
“Well, he asked again,” I say.
“Does he know about the baby?”
“Of course, he does. I told him about it and…he was actually much more excited about it than I thought he would be.”
“Oh, that’s great, Ellie.”
“I think so,” I say and go into the long-winded account of what happened. How I told him. What he said. What I said. How he asked me to marry him. She listens carefully and then throws her arms around me.
“I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m genuinely surprised. I mean, I really didn’t expect to be a basket-case about this whole thing. What do you think? I feel like such an idiot.”
“An idiot? Why?”
“I don’t know. Just feel sort of stupid. I mean, I should be more excited about having a baby.”
“You’re just young. And you’re thinking of the way that it’s going to affect your life in a negative way. But maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you should think about all the good that will come out of it. All the fun.”
“That’s the problem,” I say. “I don’t really have any experience with kids. I mean, I don’t know any babies. Aiden doesn’t have much family and we never had any babies around. It’s just a weird thing to imagine having a baby when you have no personal experience with one.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Brie is also not exactly the mothering type. But then again, maybe that’s not a requirement. Actually, I know for sure that it’s not a requirement to be a mother. But are those skills something you should acquire in order to actually become a good mother? Probably. And will they come naturally? Or is there some sort of class I should take?
I graduated from Yale and there wasn’t one course in the catalog about anything like this. Perhaps, that’s the tragedy since most of the kids I went to school with grew up in terrible homes. Not terrible as in abusive, but terrible in that they felt neglected and ignored. It’s amazing how many well-off people provide for their kids and offer them a semblance of care, but aren’t really there for them in the way that their kids want them to be.
Or is this just a function of growing up? Do all children, to some degree, feel disappointed by their parents? Perhaps, that’s what it means to become an adult. You become one when you realize that your parents aren’t perfect; you accept the fact that they have disappointed you in some way, however minuscule and insignificant on the surface, and you forgive them anyway.
“Ellie, I have to tell you something,” Brie says. She has a serious look on her face. So, serious in fact, that I think that something might actually be wrong.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a very long time. But I just didn’t know how to come right out and say it.”
“Okay,” I say. “You can tell me anything.”
“I’ve been thinking that I don’t think I want to be identified as a ‘she’ anymore. I mean, I’m not entirely sure if I want to be called a ‘she’.”
I nod. I don’t really know what she’s talking about. I guess she gets that from the expression on my face so she explains.
“I don’t know if I want to transition to being a man, but I’m thinking that maybe I do. So…for now…I just want to be a called ‘they.’”
“‘They?’ Instead of ‘she’?” I ask.
“Yep.”
“But not ‘he’?”
“No, not yet. I have been thinking about this for a bit. I definitely don’t want the ‘it’ pronoun, but also don’t want to be called ‘he.’ Not yet. But I don’t exactly feel like a ‘she’ either.”
I nod. I don’t really understand, but I’m here for her. She’s my sister after all.
“Have you told mom yet?” I ask. Out of the two of them, I think she’s the one who will most likely have an issue with this whole thing. She’s not one to adapt to change easily.
“No,” Brie says. “I wanted to run it by my big sister first.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. Flattered actually. But you know that telling me isn’t exactly the same thing as telling Mom, right? There’s no rehearsal for that.”
“Yes, I know.” Brie hangs her head.
“Maybe tell Mitch.”
“No, he’ll just go and tell her and then I won’t be able to control how it comes out. He’s not one for paying attention to details, you know that, right?”
“Unfortunately, I do,” I say with a smile.
“So…what about you? What do you think?”
“I don’t really know. I mean, I don’t really know anything about this, Brie. But to tell you the truth, I’ll call you whatever you want to be called. If you don’t feel like the pronoun ‘she’ applies to you anymore, then who am I to say otherwise?”
Tears start to well up in Brie’s eyes. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her cry. It was probably when our dog, Charlie, died.
“Brie, don’t cry. Please. I’m here for you.”
“Why do you think I’m crying, Ellie? Because you’re here for me.”
Tears run down my cheeks as we hold each other tightly. I haven’t felt this close to her in…I can’t remember how long. Actually, I’m kind of surprised that she came to me with this.
“You know, for a second there, I thought you were going to come out of the closet to me,” I say. “Are you…are you into women?”
“I am,” Brie says. “But I’m also into men. I’m not sure I’m ready to make a statement definitively one way or another yet.”
“I get that.”
“What about you? Have you ever been with a girl?” Brie asks.
“I kissed a girl once. In college. At a party. We were both very drunk and people were cheering us on,” I say. “Agh, I’m so embarrassed.”
Looking back, I’m actually embarrassed by the fact that I did it because of the audience, not because I kissed a girl.
“What about you? Have you ever been with a girl?”
I ask.
“Yep. Dated one actually. She just broke up with me.”
“Oh, no. How long were you together?”
“A few months. Not long. But we spent every minute together practically, so it feels much more significant.”
I nod. “Well, I’m really sorry about the break up. Those are always hell.”
Brie and I sit on the couch and gossip the way that sisters do, the way that we have never gossiped in our lives. It’s an amazing feeling. Fun and fulfilling. We talk and talk and never run out of topics. She opens and finishes a bottle of Pinot Grigio while I stick to Coke.
And then, my phone rings. It’s Aiden.
“Hey, where are you?” I ask.
“Hi, Ellie,” an unfamiliar voice on the other line says. “My name is Officer Paulson. I have to tell you something.”
Chapter 33 - Ellie
When I rush to see him…
The world starts to spin at an unusually fast pace as I rush to the hospital and to Aiden. All of the flashing lights outside give me a pounding headache. There’s a loud buzzing sound that pierces through my skull and doesn’t go away until I arrive on 10th Street. We enter through the emergency room entrance and the bright lights and the sterility of the place makes me sick to my stomach. Literally. I rush to the nearest trashcan and throw up.
Somewhere behind me, I hear the woman at the front desk ask Brie if I’m going to be okay. Even though I don’t physically laugh, I find this question remarkably funny. Am I alright? I’m in the emergency room waiting to be seen by a doctor. I’m in the emergency room throwing up in the nearest trashcan, unable or unwilling to even have the courtesy to go into the bathroom. No, lady, clearly, I am NOT alright.
Brie finds out the number and location of Aiden’s room and we head there. Only problem is that he’s not in the room. No, he’s still in surgery and we have to wait in the smaller waiting room in the east wing until he is wheeled into his room.
“He’s going to be okay, right? Right?” I keep asking Brie as I pace around the waiting room.
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