Broken Promises

by S. K. Lessly

  Lionel paid me back using his 401k. I imagined the penalties he had to pay and smiled. He deserved it and more. Luckily, I had been able to invest the money in a few decent companies, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the opportunities I had before. I had skirted a few lines when I invested my mother’s money before, and that had allowed me to take advantage of an interest rate far greater than any bank in the US.

  Consequently, I couldn’t do look for those same opportunities now. The government was looking at me with a magnifying glass now that they knew the extent of my talents. I had to be on my best behavior until...well, until the dust settled and the heat died down. After that, it was fair game.

  At any rate, I didn’t think Lionel suffered enough for me. I wanted him to pay for what he’d done, to suffer. I wanted him uncomfortable and traumatized. He had been disbarred because of his involvement with Ms. Stoyanovich, which was a small victory. Still, I was thirsty for his blood. I didn’t want him to die. I just wanted him to hurt like I hurt because god, I hurt in more ways than one.

  After getting out of the hospital, I had no place to go. I went to a hotel in Center City and ended up staying longer than I’d planned. I couldn’t bring myself to rent an apartment or buy a house. I wasn’t sure if would stay in Philly or pack up and go somewhere else. I paid the hotel for a two week stay hoping by the end of the two weeks I’d have a plan. Three weeks later and still, I’d had no plan.

  I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. With no job, no friends, and no place to live, I was a pathetic mess. Also, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ethan.

  I had been told he was the one who saved my life. He brought me to the hospital but didn’t stay, which had made sense. I was sure he had a job to do, fighting bad guys or whatever. But there was a small part of me that had hoped he’d come to visit me or send word. Billy, Bruce, Lester and even Jessica had sent me flowers and a card, wishing me well. Who hadn’t stopped to say hello or to see if I was still breathing was Ethan.

  I missed him. Despite the lies and the attempt at my life, I wanted him more than I wanted my next breath. I was so confused. I wanted to believe that what had happened between us was real, but every time I did, I’d see the cold, despondent look in his once warm eyes and the truth would hit like a bulldozer.

  What had happened between us wasn’t real. I had to keep telling myself that or I’d lose it. He had no intentions of running away with me. And the sex… God, it had meant everything to me, but to him, it was probably just another day in a life of the infamous Ethan Wolf, the agent, the war hero, the killer.

  Ughhh, I should have told him how I felt the last day we were together. I should have broken down and told him all about my past, what I had done, how I’d looked for him. If I’d told him what I’d done back in the day to find him, maybe his faith in me wouldn’t have been rocked. Maybe he would have believed me when I told him I had nothing to do with stealing some weapon. Then maybe none of this would have happened.

  Regret and I had become the best of friends. There were so many things I regretted and one of them was how things ended with us.

  Done with drowning in my self-pity, I secured the towel around my damp body and exited the pool area. I kept my head down as I made it to the elevator and rode to my floor in silence. Once in my room, I stripped and took a long hot shower, letting the feel of the spray soothe away my tired muscles.

  After about twenty minutes, I found myself staring at my reflection. I studied the scar that stretched from the middle of my breast bone to my navel. I had a consultation with a plastic surgeon tomorrow to see if they could minimize the look of the scar. It was a constant reminder of that night, which again needed to be a distant memory. I had my nightmares as a stark reminder, I didn’t need to see the horrific night plastered on my body.

  There was a knock at my door and I frowned. I then remembered, before I went swimming, I’d scheduled room service to be delivered around lunchtime.

  I grabbed my robe and headed for the door. When I opened it, my breath was punched out of me on a gasp. Ethan was standing in the doorway with the food I ordered in his hand. I looked him up and down as he stood there and tried not to pass the hell out. The man, as always, looked good enough to eat.

  He was dressed in a white tee, dark jeans, black boots and a black leather jacket. His hair was cut, short on the sides long on top, and his beard was neatly trimmed. Just the sight of him had my body, which had been dead for months, suddenly roar to life. My heart started beating against my chest, and tremors racked my body. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. I just stood there and stared at him.

  “Can I come in?” he asked, and the sound of his voice instantly made my knees buckle. No, Alexis, get a grip. You’re pissed at him remember? He’s the enemy not a friend.

  With that little pep talk, I straightened my back and narrowed my eyes. I was hoping to look indifferent or unapproachable. But Ethan just stared at me expectantly. I hesitated a fraction of a second longer before my shoulders slumped and I moved out of the way to let him in.

  As he passed, I got a whiff of his cologne and I almost dropped again. Jesus, the man was potent to my senses, and my heart. I needed to remember that.

  I closed the door, locked it then turned to face him. “How did you know I was here?” I asked, knowing I hadn’t used my real name when I made this reservation. But then I rolled my eyes and answered my own question. Billy.

  Ethan also gave me a knowing look as if to say, really? Which made me feel sheepish. So, I decided to rephrase my question.

  “Right! Let me rephrase. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.” He looked around the room and clocked all the clothes and things strewn all over the room. “How long have you been here? Are you planning to stay here forever?”

  “That’s none of your concern. Again, why are you here?” I couldn’t help but add a bit of bitterness in my voice as I spoke, which caused Ethan’s eyes to fall on me.

  “I told you, I wanted to check up on you.”

  “Oh okay, how admirable. Well now that you’ve checked. You can go.” I grabbed my food from his hands then stepped away from him and stomped further into my hotel room.

  My room was a typical hotel room, nothing like the one in Dover. The room was very spacious with a huge king size bed, dresser, night stand and desk all on one side of the room. On the other side was a couch and TV. In the middle of the space was nothing but air and opportunity and a huge picture window overlooking Philadelphia’s skyline.

  Ethan shifted to follow my movements. I set my food on the desk next to the window turned and leaned against it. I looked at him expectantly, praying he’d leave but hoping he’d stay. Argh… I’m a mess.

  No, fuck this… I would not let him weasel his way back into my heart. Not that he’d left, but still. It had been two months and not so much as a word from him. Now he wanted to check up on me? I don’t fucking think so!

  “You can leave now, Ethan,” I reprimanded bitterly.

  Ethan just sighed. “Alexis, I’m not here to make you upset. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re two months too late for that.”

  He moved closer to me. “You’re right, and I apologize for my tardiness. I wanted to see you sooner, but I was working.”

  I snorted. “Working, huh? And what kind of work would that be exactly? Security work for Sigma?” I folded my arms and looked away.

  “No. I was hunting for the people that were after you. I had to make sure you’d be safe.”

  Well, shit! I guess that made sense. I softened just a little, brought my eyes back to him and asked, “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded simply, not asking how I was safe or what he did to make me safe. I just said, “Thanks.”

  He nodded in return then walked closer. “Lexie, I—"

  “Look Ethan,” I interrupted, putting my hands up to stop
him from coming closer. I couldn’t do this right now. The fact that I missed him so much, regardless of me not seeing him or hearing from him for months, was filling me with emotions I couldn’t deal with right now. I could already feel my heart cracking. I couldn’t break in front of him. No way.

  “I’m sorry but I can’t do this right now. I need for you to go!” I stepped to the side, closer to the couch, farther away from him.

  I was being a coward, I knew. I just didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I didn’t want the apologies, or worse, the truth that everything was a lie. I didn’t need reality to slap me in the face anymore. I hadn’t healed from the previous beating I took.

  I knew we couldn’t ever go back to before that fateful night where my life changed for the worse. I also knew we couldn’t be more than past acquaintances and I didn’t have the strength to deal with that at all.

  I heard him sigh before he said in a low voice, “You’re right, this was a mistake.” He started to walk away but I didn’t hear the door open. I looked over at him just as he turned around.

  “Before I go, tell me something. You hacked into the Detroit School District database to look for me, and you hacked in the DOD to see where I was stationed and if I was alive. But when I asked you to run away with me you said no. I don’t get it?”

  I rolled my eyes, irritated, and folded my arms in front of me. “As I recall, I didn’t say no, Ethan. You just decided to arrest me instead. Remember?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not talking about months ago, before everything went to shit. I’m talking about ten years ago, when we were in high school. My last letter to you said I wanted to get away and see the world and I wanted you to come with me. I told you I would come for you right after graduation.”

  “Yeah, and I was waiting.” I unfolded my arms and walked closer to him.

  “Bullshit you were waiting. You wrote me a letter telling me to leave you alone. You told me you didn’t want anything to do with me, that you’d met someone else and you were going off to college to be with him.”

  I shook my head and frowned. “No, I didn’t. I wrote to you that I would love to go, and I would be waiting.”

  “No, you didn’t.” He walked closer to me.

  “Yes, I did!” I countered, my voice rising a few octaves, frustration filling my voice.

  Ethan roughly pushed his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It looked worn and faded, like it had been folded and unfolded multiple times for decades. He gently unfolded the crumbled looking paper and handed it to me.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  I snatched the letter from his hand and read it.

  Indeed, it said exactly that and more. Things like, “I never liked you”, “You’ll never be anything but trash”, and “I felt sorry for you and your family, that’s why I befriended you”. It was signed by me and had my return address.

  I looked at him and said, in all honesty, “I didn’t write this.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he cried incredulously. “Are we going there again? That’s your signature.”

  I squinted trying to read the worn paper and sure enough, it looked like my signature. When I used to write Ethan, I would type out the words using pretty cursive font, print them on pretty paper then sign my name. But the words…they weren’t mine.

  Ethan shook his head and continued. “Do you have any idea what those words did to me? I felt stupid and completely fucked up. You broke me, shattered my world into a million pieces, and I have never been able to put it back together. All that time I thought you had feelings for me, and here didn’t give a shit about me.”

  “Oh my God! Are you serious right now?” I shifted closer to him. “Ethan, the day I graduated, my bags were packed. I waited for you for a year. My father found my suitcase under my bed and asked me where I was going. I told him you were coming for me and we were running away together. He thought I was crazy. I didn’t care. You said you were coming and I believed you. I didn’t hear from you for months, but I believed you. I waited; do you hear me? I fucking waited for a year for you. My heart was broken as each day went by and you never showed.” I balled up the letter and threw it at him. He let the paper bounce off his chest, but he never removed his hard eyes from mine.

  “I didn’t write this to you,” I went on. “I was in love with you for Christ’s sake. That’s what I wrote to you in my last letter. That’s what I told you in every letter I sent you the second I received your last letter. I told you how much I was looking forward to seeing you.” I grew quiet for a spell then added in a low, hesitant tone. “I even told you all about how I could hack into any airline and hotel. I told you that I could get us an airline ticket anywhere we wanted to go for free. I told you about all the places we could go, what we could see and do. I exposed myself to you and you never wrote me back.”

  “That’s bullshit. You never wrote back, Alexis.”

  I stepped closer. “Yes, I did! During that whole year I waited for you, I wrote to you. I even gave you my email address and phone number to call me.”

  He stared at me for a long moment before he spoke again, his voice was calmer now, but my temper was on a rise. “I never got any letters, Alexis,” he admitted finally.

  “Oh, so you expect me to believe you didn’t get my letters, but you can’t believe I didn’t write that letter?” I questioned on a screech, pointing to the balled-up piece of paper on the floor.

  Ethan scowled. “You gotdamn right. Your word is a little shaky considering you lied to me.”

  I scoffed at him. “I lied to you?! Really?! Tell me, agent Wolf, who do you work for again?”

  “That’s different.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “How do you figure?”

  “I didn’t choose to keep shit from you, I couldn’t tell you shit because of my job.”

  “Oh, and that makes it okay?”

  “Yeah, it does. I was investigating you. How would that look if told you everything?”

  “Ohhh, I don’t know, maybe it would have saved us a lot of grief if you would’ve just said, ‘Hey Lexie, by the way, I’m working a case that may involve you. Let me ask you some questions.’”

  Ethan grunted. “And you would have been so forthcoming right? You would have told me everything you did in the past? About the hacking?”

  I paused on that because, yeah, I probably wouldn’t have told him about my past. The things I did would have come out eventually, but it would have painted me in a bad light.

  Damn it, I hate that he’s right.

  Ethan, as if reading my thoughts, nodded his head. “Exactly. I was instructed to see what you knew and find out if you had anything to do with the case.”

  “So, all that time you spent with me, it was for your case?”

  “No! It wasn’t.” I raised my eyebrow in disbelief, and he sighed. “Okay, fine. Yes, in the beginning, I asked you out to see what you knew about Stoyanovich.” I tried not to show just how much that hurt but I failed miserably. Ethan’s eyebrows rose and he amended quickly, “But, after your mom died, no. That was me just wanting to be with you.”

  I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Believe what you want, it’s the truth.”

  “Yeah, and I’m supposed to just take your word?”

  “Yes. Other than me not telling you the truth about who I worked for, I’ve been completely honest with you. You, on the other hand, kept shit from me. You lied. It’s as simple as that.”

  “I didn’t lie,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “I just didn’t have the chance to tell you everything.”

  Ethan shrugged. “A lie by omission is still a fucking lie.”

  I crossed my arms and furrowed my brows. “You’re so full of shit, do you know that? You keeping me in the dark about what and who you are is the same thing you’re claiming I did.”

  “No, it’s not!” he growled.

 
“Oh yeah! You say tomato, I say bullshit!”

  We fell silent, both our chests heaving with anger and frustration. I wanted to scream. He was being a stubborn jackass. Okay, yes! I knew he had somewhat of a point, but honestly, so did I. To make things worse, there was also a huge misunderstanding that the both of us had lived with for years. It wasn’t going to be easy to let that pain go or dismiss it. But at least, for me, I had to try.

  I let out a breath, tamping down my anger.

  I said finally, “Look, we could argue until we’re blue in the face. Bottom line, this was just a huge misunderstanding. Can we agree on that at least? I didn’t write that letter and I can prove it. You can call my father right now and ask him what happened after I graduated. Ask him if I waited for you to come and get me and how long. He can confirm what I just told you. I waited for you. I waited a whole year before I finally went off to college. You can choose to believe it or not, but that’s the truth.”

  Ethan held my determined gaze before he looked away and sighed himself. His body relaxed a bit and he admitted, “I don’t know what to say to that. If you didn’t send the letter, then who did? Who would forge your signature? These aren’t state secrets or personal information that someone would care to forge. I didn’t give anyone my address in Detroit but you. There was just no way.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know I didn’t send you that letter. I sent you countless others but, as you said, you didn’t get them. You weren’t the only one affected, Ethan. I stupidly waited for you to come for me. No matter what anyone said, my mother and father, my friends, close family, no one could convince me you weren’t coming for me. Until you didn’t.”

  I could feel the pricks of tears stinging the side of my eyes, but I fought them back. I refused to shed another tear for this man.

  Ethan started pacing in front of me, his jaw set, his sexy lips in a hard line. I had no answer for him. I never wrote those words to him. Why would I? I was in love with the idiot. I wanted him more than anything. I’d missed the hell out of him. Why would I not want him?