Mostly MyBoss

by Doyle, S.

  “Six different medications?” I asked.

  “For mood alteration. You see, growing up I had some…anger issues. The meds were to keep me focused, keep me calm, keep me from being suicidal. Which is ridiculous when you think about it. I’m someone who practically lives for the future—in what warped reality would I chose to end my life before the good stuff happens?”

  For a second I wondered if I really knew Ethan, or if I only knew what he showed me. Then I shook my head and thought no one was that good an actor. But I had a better sense of where his restlessness came from.

  “You didn’t tell them why I couldn’t go home,” I said.

  “Because I still think the money is a lie you’re telling yourself, but regardless they wouldn’t have understood. Not really. They don’t see things outside of their perfectly ordered world.”

  “Did you bring me, the poor farm girl, to Christmas to piss them off? Was your mom actually happy that we weren’t dating?”

  “Please.” He laughed. “You saw how completely unmoved they were by your story. Father dead of a heart attack, mother and brothers struggling to keep the small farm going. Booriiiinnnng.”

  “Yes, but I’m acceptable now because I got into Harvard. Your father said so.”

  Ethan laughed. “If I really wanted to piss them off I would have brought that girl I fucked last week. The one with piercings I told you about.”

  There were seven of them. “Please let’s not recount. Did you have any freedom growing up?”

  “My father’s younger brother is a drummer in a band. He used to spring me in the summers when he could. Other than that, I was so damn medicated all the time, it’s not like I knew any different. For both of my parents perfection is a thing. It’s something they each strive for in their own way. I came along and I was nothing but a messy imperfection. They had to find a way to control that because it’s not like they could give me back.”

  “Uh, yeah, you’re their kid.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not. I was adopted. My biological mother was a drug addict so they knew they were taking a chance with me, but white male babies are hard to come by so…”

  I frowned then. “Hey, don’t think you can out-sad-sack me. Poor farm girl from Iowa with the dead father, the helpless mother, and the drunk older brother.”

  “Rigid, smothering adoptive parents who medicated me into oblivion.”

  “Yes, but look at this GINORMOUS bed!”

  We laughed and I rested my head against his shoulder. “Hey, you want your Christmas present now?”

  “You got me a present?” It was sad how excited he seemed by the prospect.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got this sweet gig where I get paid for sharing the notes I would have taken anyway. It’s nothing serious or anything. I just saw it and thought of you. Wait here.”

  “Hello—how often do you think I leave this room when I’m here? Be careful if you go out there, too. My mother might try to feed you again and my father might try to prescribe you something.”

  I nearly groaned in pain. “Good point.”

  I left his room and made my way quietly down the hallway to the guest bedroom where I was staying. I cracked open the door like I was breaking into a bank. I really did not want to be caught by anyone, if for no other reason than I didn’t want them to ask if Julie needed anything else to be comfortable.

  I meant what I’ said to Ethan, they weren’t bad parents. They obviously cared about him, it was just that everything here felt… forced. Like they were all playing this role of family by studying their parts really, really well.

  I got the box I’d wrapped, tiptoed back down the hallway, and snuck back into his room, letting out a soft whoosh of air that I’d been successful in my stealth.

  Climbing back up onto the bed, I handed the gift to him.

  He looked at the red wrapping and the bow and frowned. “I got you something, but I didn’t bring it with me. I wasn’t sure…I didn’t know if we were doing this and I didn’t want you to be embarrassed if you didn’t get me anything.”

  “It’s okay. This was just a funny thing I saw.”

  He tore away the wrapping carefully, which of course drove me nuts, then opened the small white box and pulled out the coffee mug tucked inside.

  He was looking at it strangely and I realized the writing was facing toward me.

  “Turn it around.”

  He did and smiled.

  Written in bold letters on the front of the mug were the words World’s Best Boss!

  “Maybe it’s a little premature,” I said nudging him. “But I thought it couldn’t hurt.”

  “It’s my new favorite mug,” he said. “Thank you for doing this with me. Now you see why Thanksgiving meant so much to me. My parents were in Europe so I was given carte blanche. You made turkey with stuffing and green been casserole and it felt like… the most normal thing ever. No pressure. Just us.”

  Yeah. Now that made sense.

  “Well, just know someday I’m going to get you back,” I told him. “And you’re going to get fussed over by my mom even as she’ll ask you to fix all the clocks in the house so they’re on Daylight Saving Time. And help her balance her checkbook, only to learn there is no money in her account. And eat all the apple pie she can feed you. All while my brothers make fun of you for just about everything and ask you if you’re boning me. Then they’ll threaten to punch you, regardless of how you answer that question.”

  He chuckled. “Sounds like a plan. Jules…someday I’m going to do something to fuck us up really bad. It’s what I’ve always done with people in my life. Just promise me you’ll forgive me when I do it.”

  “How can I do that when I don’t know what you’re going to do?” Ah, me, always so practical.

  “Because we’re friends. You’ll forgive me because we’re friends.”

  “Okay, Ethan. I’ll forgive you. But just one time. You don’t get an unlimited get out of jail free card.”

  “Fair enough.”

  * * *

  Later that night

  “It’s disrespect!”

  It was the shouting that woke me. It reminded me of John when he came home drunk and would bounce around the house, banging into furniture, not caring who he woke up.

  It took me a second to remember I wasn’t in my room at home, but instead in a large, fancy guest bedroom in Ethan’s parents’ apartment. I slipped out of bed and opened the door to the narrow hallway that connected the bedrooms.

  The shouting had come from Ethan’s room. His door was open, and while I couldn’t see his father, he must be inside. Confronting Ethan in the middle of the night? Was that necessary?

  “Dad, please, you’ll wake Julia.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about some girl you brought home. A girl, who I might add, made the Dean’s List. Did you?”

  “You know I didn’t. You’ve seen my grades.”

  “Which is why I’m sick with disappointment. All the advantages you have and you failed, you actually failed a class. It’s because you’ve decided what medication you will and will not take, and it’s compromised your focus.”

  Wait, what? Ethan failed a class? He didn’t tell me. I didn’t know that there were still things we didn’t tell each other.

  “It was a mistake. I said I won’t make it again.”

  “You’re damn right you won’t make it again. You said you wanted to go to Harvard. You said you could handle being on your own. I’m starting to doubt that. You’ve got one more chance to prove to us you can handle this, or you’re coming home.”

  Coming home? Like college was some gift his parents had given him that could be taken away.

  I heard movement and stepped back into my room, quietly closing the door so Ethan’s father wouldn’t know I’d been listening. I heard him pass and I waited a beat before I slid out into the hallway and did the stealth thing back to Ethan’s room.

  I didn’t knock, just opened the door to find Ethan on the floor d
oing push-ups. He was facing away from me, so I don’t know if he knew I was in the room or not. I closed the door behind me and leaned on it.

  I’d counted to fifty-two before he collapsed to the floor in a sweaty mess. It was strange—the back of his shirt was drenched and I could see the angles of his shoulders. It should have been gross, but instead I found myself wanting to trace the bones with my fingers.

  He turned over, released a breath, then lifted his head to look at me.

  “You heard?”

  I nodded. “You failed a class.”

  He fell back on the floor. “You disappointed with me too?”

  “No, we’ll just have to work harder to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” I said.

  “Think you can save me, Jules?”

  “Know I can, Ethan. But…don’t keep things from me. I don’t like it.”

  He sat up with a groan. “I couldn’t tell you I failed. I couldn’t.”

  “No, I’m the person you can tell.”

  It was strange. I’d been in his dorm room late at night any number of times. We’d even slept together. But now here, in the aftermath of his father’s wrath and Ethan’s physical exertion, it felt tension between us. Like some force had crept up that hadn’t been there earlier this evening.

  Ethan stood up and I should have turned around and gone back to my room. We weren’t this. We weren’t tension and thick feelings. When he got closer I could smell him and…I liked it.

  “Jules,” he whispered. I thought he was going to reach for me, the way his hand moved away from his body. But then he pointed to the door. “You need to go back to your room.”

  I nodded and left. Because we weren’t…whatever that was.

  7

  Therapy

  Ethan

  “Okay,” Carol said as she gracefully crossed her legs. “Now, let’s take that pin out. From Julia’s earlier remark, I gather you two have been intimate.”

  I nodded. “It’s complicated. Three years ago… at our friend’s wedding—”

  “But we don’t talk about that,” Jules snapped. “We agreed to never talk about that.”

  “Jules,” I said trying to contain my frustration with her stubbornness. “Isn’t now the time to talk about all of it?”

  “We were drunk,” she told Carol. “It was a stupid, drunk hookup at a wedding that we agreed meant nothing. Why do we have to talk about that now?”

  Carol looked at us both, and for the life of me I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. Other than that she was looking at us like she didn’t believe us.

  “And you never spoke of that night again?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  Jules shook her head.

  “There was nothing to talk about…I thought,” I said. “In hindsight, I think we were both in denial about what it meant. At least, I know I was.”

  “Hmm. But then it happened again as recently as a few months ago…and that did seem to have an impact on your relationship. You weren’t able to compartmentalize it, were you?”

  “That was different,” I explained. “To give you some context, my father had passed away. Unexpectedly of a heart attack. We didn’t have…our relationship was difficult. But we’d been trying. Talking. Losing him that way meant I was never going to be able to fix what I thought I’d broken.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Carol said. “Death can be a destabilizing event. Something that can shake apart a relationship and put it back together differently. You’re saying your father’s death led to intimacy with Julia?”

  I nodded. “I reached out to her. I needed something to help me control my emotions. As always, she was there for me. However, I…struggled to do deal with it afterward. It wasn’t as uncomplicated as a wedding hookup. Like you said, I couldn’t…I couldn’t compartmentalize it.”

  No putting Jules back into the Jules box. Not after that. The box had been gone, and I’d been so damned scared of what that meant.

  “That’s when I left her…it was after that happened.”

  “And Julia, how did that make you feel?”

  She didn’t answer. Or wouldn’t answer.

  I sighed. “Jules, the only way we’re going to get through this is if we’re honest with each other. You have to see that. Yell at me. Shout at me. I know you’re angry, but we need to get all of it out on the table if we’re going to fix us.”

  “It wasn’t the only other time,” Julia said tightly.

  I looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

  Her hands were clenched together.

  “We’ve had sex…before. Before your father’s funeral, before the wedding. You said to be honest. That’s as honest as I can be.”

  I rubbed a hand over my face. “Jules, you’re not making any sense. I think I would know when I’ve had sex with you.”

  She was biting down hard on her lip, shaking her head. And then I saw actual tears in her eyes. Jules didn’t cry. Unlike me, when things got too big, she had the ability to shut down her emotions and wield incredible control over them. While mine could get messy and nearly unmanageable.

  In fact, there was only that one time when I’d seen her lose it…

  “Jules. What the fuck are you talking about?”

  * * *

  Harvard

  Julia

  “Ugh,” I growled. This equation was not making sense to me. I was taking an advanced calculus class that semester and I hated to admit I might be in a little over my head.

  “What’s the matter?” Ethan asked. He was in his usual spot, sitting at the end of my bed. It was weird but, despite his having a single dorm room, we still spent some time in my room.

  I wasn’t absolutely sure whose idea that was. Mine, because it was convenient. Ethan’s, because he liked it when Nicki came in and fawned all over him. Not that I was jealous of Nicki.

  Or any of the other girls he hooked up with. Because that’s all they were. One night and done. Ethan never dated any of them and he was never with the same girl twice. He called them one-and-dones.

  Ethan and I were the opposite of that. Friends. Best friends, really. He knew my shit and I knew his shit. And scarcely a day had passed since we met that we didn’t spend time together.

  Was that strange?

  No, that was college friendship. Fast. Intense. For life.

  Except, it started to occur to me that all his one-and-dones were about scratching an itch he wouldn’t scratch with me.

  Why? I mean, what was it about me exactly that screamed don’t touch?

  He wasn’t all that. Not really. Too tall, too thin, too weird. Bushy eyebrows that he wouldn’t let me trim. Still, he went after and got girls without any problems.

  While I still worked to keep most of the guys on campus at arms’ length. And it wasn’t like I had to work all that hard. My vibe, Ethan once told me, screamed, back the fuck up.

  Why did I do that?

  I wasn’t doing something stupid like waiting for him, was I?

  “Jules, gimme.”

  Give him what? My virginity? I had concerns about that, but I hadn’t absolutely ruled it out. There was something comforting about the idea of my first time being with Ethan. Like he would protect me and soothe me and help me learn how to give myself over to someone else.

  “Your notebook, give me,” he repeated, making a motion with this hand to turn it over.

  I handed him the notebook and he made a few notations on the page with his pencil. It scratched over the paper and the sound irritated me.

  “I hate that you use a pencil,” I told him.

  “Get over it,” he mumbled.

  “Get over it? You can’t walk into this room without straightening Nicki’s posters—”

  “I’ll never understand why she chooses to hang them crookedly.”

  “But I have to get over the sound of your pencil, which is annoying.”

  He frowned at me. “Pen is too permanent. I don’t like it. A pencil is fleeting
. There for a time but never forever. And it never runs out until it stops existing. A perfect creation.”

  Since I’d only mentioned the pencil to pick a fight with him, I shrugged and let it go. Then I listened to him making some more scratching noises on the page.

  “I should drop the class. Drop it before I can fail, and it screws with my GPA.”

  He glanced up and looked surprised. “You’d quit?”

  “Strategic retreat,” I said. “Not the same thing.”

  “I don’t like that attitude, Jules.”

  “You’re not the boss of me, Ethan.”

  “I have a mug that begs to differ.”

  I kicked him because I could, and he passed the notebook back to me. Not only had he solved the equation, he’d also written out how he’d done it, which made the concept the teacher was trying to explain that much more understandable.

  “There are times I hate you,” I said, frowning at his perfect work. The reality was, when he was focused, there wasn’t any problem Ethan couldn’t solve.

  “No, you don’t. You care for me despite your best intentions. It’s what I count on when I’m really annoying.”

  “Which is, like, every day,” I said snottily.

  But I hated that he was right. Ethan felt different to me than other friends I’d had in high school. Both the guys and the girls I’d known. Like he was this piece of myself I’d been missing.

  Did that mean I wanted him to put his dick inside me?

  I squirmed on the bed. “Can I ask a question?”

  “About calculus?”

  “No.” I swallowed. Would this make things weird between us? Strangely, I didn’t think so. We were impervious to the normal bullshit between guys and girls. We always had been. “Why don’t you want to fuck me?”

  His bushy eyebrows practically lifted off his head.

  “I’m serious. I’ve seen you hook up with girls who are hotter than me, but you’ve also been with ones…”

  “Not as hot as you?”

  I was a natural honey blonde with blue eyes and pretty decent boobs that, because of Ethan, I had started dressing to show off more. I wasn’t hideous.