by Shay Savage
“Pride before the fall,” Ethan muttered. “I was proud to tell everyone about you.”
“I’m so sorry, Ethan,” I said again. “You have been so wonderful to me, and I should be proud to be with you. I need to get over worrying about what others think and focus on what I want. Please, let me know what I can say or do to make up for it.”
“We should probably talk some more.” Ethan looked from our hands to my eyes, and I nodded vigorously. Again, his eyes darkened a little, and distrust clouded his gaze for a moment. “You really won’t try to hide me from people?”
I had to be honest with him. He had been completely honest with me, and I couldn’t sugarcoat this. He’d see right through it.
“I have to admit, it isn’t going to be easy to talk to some people about you, but I will do it.”
“Your father?”
“He’ll be the hardest, yes.”
“I could go with you.”
“No, I think that would definitely be worse. Let him get used to the idea before you meet.”
“Well, um, actually”—Ethan paused as he danced from one foot to the other—“we’ve met before.” As he spoke, it seemed as if his left foot was trying to get away from the rest of him.
“You’ve met my father?”
“Yes, he met me to go over the accounts the week after my parents died.”
“Oh,” I responded since any actual, intelligent words didn’t seem to be forthcoming.
“Honestly, Ashlyn—he didn’t like me too much.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“We’ve met a couple of times since then,” Ethan said with a shrug. “I don’t think he approves of some of my financial decisions.”
“He usually has an opinion about such things.” I tilted my head to one side, my mind traipsing back to a time when I was nine and wanted to buy a gigantic stuffed animal. I had received an endless lecture about items that appreciate in value and those that don’t. I didn’t end up with the giant Care Bear. I remembered that much.
Ethan looked at me for a while.
“What he says really matters to you,” Ethan said. It was a statement, not a question. His tongue fiddled with his lip rings.
“It always has,” I said. “I know he’s a workaholic and can certainly be overbearing, but he’s my dad. I don’t want to let him down. I’m an only child, and he counts on me for too much.”
“That’s why you’re going to work with him instead of doing something you’d rather do.”
“Yes, it is.”
He stared at me for another minute before finally showing me his beautiful half grin.
“I’m gonna get my stuff,” Ethan said. He took a step toward the doorway and then stopped, his smile faltering and his eyes lowering a little. “Where will we go?”
“Um, I didn’t bring my car,” I told him.
“How did you get here?”
“I took a cab.”
“I’ll go call for one,” Ethan said. “I can come back for my bike later.”
“Where do you want to go?” I asked.
“Not my place,” he said quickly and quietly, glancing nervously at Faith. She gave him a small smile. I had honestly forgotten she was there at all.
“My place?” I asked, hopeful. My jittery stomach waited for his reply.
“Okay.” Ethan let go of my hands, but his left arm immediately pulled me against him. I wrapped both arms around him, letting the tears go and soak into his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really, really am…”
Ethan wrapped his other arm around me and held me against his chest for a minute. He touched the top of my head with his lips before he released me, saying he’d call the cab and then we could go. He walked through the door and out of my sight, leaving Faith and me alone in the hallway.
“He cares about you,” Faith said with a smile. “Sometimes, he just doesn’t know what he’s feeling.”
“He’s not the only one,” I mumbled. “We just met, but I…”
“I’m not letting him go anywhere with her!” A loud voice screeched from inside the apartment. Suddenly, Andrea was back in the hallway, shaking a finger at me. “There is no way I’m letting him leave here—not with you! You fucking hurt him, you skanky little—”
“Andrea!” Faith stood between us and glanced over her shoulder back into the apartment. “He’s going to hear you!”
“Good! Obviously he’s got his wires crossed if he’s listening to her, so he needs to listen to someone else!”
“I think Ethan needs to talk to her,” Faith said quietly, though she was still eyeing me warily.
“That was his first panic attack since Hailey left him!” Andrea snarled. “Faith, he was a freaking mess! You didn’t see him when he first got here! This bitch did that to him, and I’m not going to let her—”
“Andi”—Faith put her hand on Andrea’s arm—“remember what he was like yesterday?”
“Of course I fucking remember! That just makes this so much worse!”
“He wants to work it out.” Faith leaned a little closer to the blonde. “He was holding on to her with a death grip, and he didn’t even know it.”
Andrea glared at me, narrowed her eyes even more, and then stuck out her bottom lip. She exhaled sharply, causing her breath to make her bangs fly off her forehead for a moment.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Andrea said, but her voice held a lot less venom than it had just a second ago.
“I don’t want to hurt him—”
“Shut up,” Andrea said. “You are the last person I want to hear from right now.”
“He needs to talk to her, Andi. He was so upset, but it was because—”
“Whatever.” She held her hand in front of Faith’s face. Faith scowled at her and pushed it away.
“Stop it.” The little brunette was starting to look like David in front of Goliath. “Ethan needs this. Give him a fucking chance to see if it can work. He deserves a chance. Are you going to deny him that?”
Andrea stopped her grumbling long enough to stare intently at Faith and then took a long, slow breath. She put her hands on her hips. Andrea rose up to her full height and glared down at me.
“If you hurt him again, I swear I’ll be looking for you,” she told me. “I don’t know what the fuck he sees in you, but I don’t like it. I don’t like you snobby, rich bitches with your country clubs and your Gucci purses!”
“It’s Prada,” I said before I could stop myself. Her glare intensified.
“If he comes back here again like he did this afternoon, I will hunt you down and feed you the fucking Prada purse. Got it?”
“Got it,” I whispered. Holy shit, she was scary.
“Andrea!” Faith grabbed her arm and shoved her back through the doorway. Andrea went reluctantly, giving me the stink eye the entire time. Faith shook her head a little before turning back to me. Her stare wasn’t nearly as frightening but certainly still intense.
“Ethan’s special to a lot of people,” she said quietly enough that those inside could not have heard her. “He means a lot to me and to his other friends. He was so happy when he was here last weekend that I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope we can chalk this up to a misunderstanding, but don’t hurt him like that again. Don’t ever make him feel like he’s less than he is. I won’t stand for it.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said. I felt another tear run down my cheek. “I really didn’t. He means a lot to me as well, and I already know how wonderful he is.”
“Good to hear,” Faith said with a nod.
The apartment door opened wide, and Ethan walked back into the hallway. Behind him there were two others—the huge one from before with his arms crossed over his chest, and a tall, lanky woman with very short black hair. The woman started at me intensely, and it made me feel like she could see right into my skull. The big guy looked me up and down but didn’t say a word to me. He only spoke to Ethan.
“Yo
u sure, E?”
“I’m sure, CeeCee—thanks.”
CeeCee. I remembered the name. He was the track runner who had helped Ethan when he was hurt.
“You know it.”
Ethan exhibited an apprehensive smile as he glanced first at me and then at Faith.
“You both okay?” he asked. “Andi isn’t talking to me now.”
“I think we’re going to be,” Faith told him. She turned on her heel and walked back into the apartment. She waved her hand in the air. “Andi will be fine. You know how protective she is.”
The door shut, and Ethan glanced at me nervously.
“Was Andi mean to you?”
“Nothing I didn’t deserve.”
“And Faith?”
“They all care about you a lot.”
“They’re my friends,” he said with a shrug. “We all take care of each other.”
I snorted, thinking about how often my friends had taken care of me. I recalled one weekend about a year ago. Presley laughed her ass off at me when I drank so much I couldn’t walk. She did call me a cab, at least. I wondered if I had ever had a friend who would make someone eat a designer purse for hurting me. I didn’t think so. My friends would never defile name brand consumer products.
“Are you okay?” Ethan’s hand reached out and stroked my cheek, wiping away the escaped tear.
“I think so,” I said. “Are you?”
“Well, half of me is, at least.” Ethan’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “The other half is still a little worried.”
“What can I do to convince both halves I mean it?” I asked. “How can I show you I want to be with you, and whatever people say…well, that’s what they’ll say.”
“I don’t really know,” Ethan said. “I can’t even get the two halves of me to talk to each other. I have no idea how I’ll get them both to talk to you.”
He laughed, but I couldn’t join him. It wasn’t horribly genuine, anyway. We stepped outside and walked to the curb, awaiting the taxi.
“I’ll try if you will.” Ethan placed his hand—the left, I noticed—under my chin and tilted my head up to look at him.
“I think that would be great,” I said. “And thank you.”
“For what?”
“Giving me the chance I don’t deserve.”
I watched Ethan lean down slowly and then closed my eyes as his lips pressed softly but earnestly against mine.
Chapter 20—Acceptance
“There was this guy who was fighting with his wife, and he actually attacked her with his left hand while his right hand was trying to defend her from himself.”
Ethan took my hand and helped me out of the back of the cab. Once we were on the sidewalk, and I had paid the driver, Ethan laced his fingers through mine as we made our way to my apartment.
“So that kind of shit certainly happens,” Ethan said. He swung our arms between us, biting down on his lower lip and smiling down at me as we walked. He’d been telling me some of the most bizarre stories about people who had undergone the same surgery as he had. “There was a guy they put headphones on and asked him in his right ear what he wanted to do for a living, and his left hand wrote down that he wanted to be a race car driver. When they asked the same question into his left ear, he wrote with his right hand that he wanted to be a draftsman. Oh—and if you show just one of my eyes a picture of something and ask me to draw it, I’ll always draw it better with my left hand even though I’m right-handed. How fucked up is that? It’s because your right brain is better at drawing, I guess.”
“It’s actually really fascinating,” I said truthfully. We entered the elevator, and I pushed the button for my floor. “But it’s also kind of scary in a way, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Ethan said with a nod. “I can live will all that stuff pretty easily. Not being able to read is a much bigger deal. A lot of the split brain stuff is kinda funny, like I mentioned before when I kept passing the donuts sign. Sometimes it’s just freaky, like earlier.”
“Do you think…um, both of you want to talk to me now?”
Ethan laughed.
“There’s still only one of me, goofball,” he said. “It’s just that when I can’t make up my mind, I don’t always realize I can’t make up my mind. You should see me when Andi is bitching at me to eat healthier, and I start making a salad with Hershey’s syrup for dressing!”
“You’re kidding!” I gasped. The elevator beeped at us as we reached my floor. We stepped out together, and I pulled my hand out of his to dig through my purse for the keys.
“Of course I am.” He smirked. “But I have had one hand grab orange juice and the other one grab a can of Coke at the same time. I’ll sit down at the table and look down, realizing I have both.”
“That has to be a little odd.”
“Yes and no,” Ethan said. He held open the door for me after I unlocked it, and we both went inside. “Really, everyone does it, but most people do it in their heads first and then act. I act first, and how I act tells me I’m indecisive. Usually, no one except me notices it happens at all, but times like today make it kind of obvious.”
Ethan looked around my apartment, taking in the neutral décor and checking out my stereo system. I hung my purse on its hook and took his backpack from him, laying it down on the floor next to the door.
“Do you want something to drink?” I asked.
“Orange juice and Coke, please,” Ethan said with a wink. “Nah. Really, I’m fine.”
“Well, I’m going to have some wine if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course.”
I stepped into the kitchen and pulled out a wine glass and the half bottle of Merlot I had started the day before. After pouring a glass, I went back into the living room, where Ethan was pulling out DVDs from their display cases one at a time, looking at the covers of each one.
“You like romantic comedies, huh?” he said.
“I guess so,” I replied. “They’re a nice distraction from schoolwork anyway.”
“Do you have a lot of schoolwork to get done tonight?” Ethan asked. He looked out towards the doorway and ran one of his hands through his hair, tossing it all over the place. “I don’t want to…to be in the way.”
I looked up at him, and Ethan looked down at his feet for a moment with his brow furrowed.
“You aren’t in the way,” I said quietly. He glanced back up and blushed.
“I don’t know what to say now.” He stepped from one foot to the other. “I’m not very good at…well, making up, I guess? That’s what this is, right?”
“I want it to be.”
“So do I.”
I placed my wine glass on the coffee table and took a few steps closer to him. Reaching out, I took both his hands in mine. He looked at them for a moment before looking back into my eyes. His beautiful half smile appeared, and his blush deepened as he pulled me close and kissed me softly. I returned the favor and then raised my hands up and around his neck, twisting them into his hair and holding him closer. I felt his tongue against my mouth and opened to him.
Ethan groaned and wrapped his arms around my waist, gripping me tightly.
“I didn’t think we’d ever do this again,” he said, moving away from my lips and kissing up my jaw to my ear. “I never thought I’d touch you like this again. It hurt so much just thinking about it…”
“Ethan, I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
Pulling back, he opened his eyes and looked at me, ran his tongue over his lip rings, and sighed.
“I know you didn’t mean to,” he said softly. “I guess there have always been people I’ve known who really care about that kind of stuff, but I just never have. I didn’t know what I should do. I like you so much…”
“I like you, too.” I placed my palm against his cheek. “I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy for me to just forget all that stuff. Who you are inside is what’s important. I know that, but I’ve always been taugh
t that you show who you are by your appearance. The people in my life, they aren’t going to just accept you. In my world, that reflects on me and my father.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes, contemplating.
“I guess I never thought of it that way,” he said. “My parents never made a big deal out of clothes or whatever. I always had nice stuff, but I didn’t want to stand out when it came to the people I cared about, so when they were gone, I always went shopping with Faith at the places she could afford. I don’t want the others to know I have money because…well, because they don’t, and they’d never accept anything from me if I made it obvious.”
“It sounds like the same kind of thing,” I said. “It’s just the opposite end of the spectrum. You’re hiding the fact that you have money for the sake of fitting in with your friends.”
“I guess you have a point there.” Ethan chewed on his lip for a moment, contemplating. “But when I told them about you, and where you were going to work and shit, they all figured out you were pretty well off, and none of them cared. Well, as long as you, um, didn’t do anything that would…shit. I shouldn’t bring that up now.”
“As long as I didn’t hurt you.”
“Yeah.”
“What can I do to take it back?”
“You can’t,” Ethan said stoically. “What’s done is done. You can’t ever take back something you said or did in the past. You just have to go forward. Just don’t do that again. Please.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
“I know.” Ethan smiled. “And I think I understand that it’s not going to be easy for you—or me either, for that matter. But as long as we stick together, we should be okay, right?”
“Yes, I think we will.”
“Are we all made up now?” he asked. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I think so. What do you think?”
“I think there’s one more thing to do to make it official.” He raised his eyebrows and slid his hand a little lower, past the small of my back, and gripped my backside. He pulled me in close to him, and I could feel his desire pressed up against me.