His patience shortened just a bit. “I kind of… want to just get right into it, if you don’t mind. I have a couple of things I need to address, and I don’t know how you’re going to take any of it. I know that you know me, an
d you know how I am, but I guess I want to lead with… I’m not angry, I’m certainly not judging, but…”
Her eyebrows drew together in an angry sort of confusion. “Judging?”
Meeting her gaze, he stated, “I know you’re talking to Tucker.”
She drew back, anger quickly replaced by a kind of avoidant befuddlement. “What?”
“More importantly, Angela knows,” he added, surprised at how calm—almost sympathetic—he was managing to be.
Her eyes widened and she sat back, then her hands flew to her face, hiding—whether from him or the truth he delivered, he wasn’t sure.
“How…?”
Lifting his eyebrows, he just sort of shrugged. “She asked me to look into it. Professionally.”
“Oh, my god,” she said on a groan.
“Now that’s out of the way…” He trailed off, unsure exactly how he wanted to proceed.
Rearing back, her eyes widened. “Out of the way? Jesus, Ethan. It’s not… it’s not as bad as you think. We’re friends, you know that—”
Holding up a hand to stop her, he said, “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. I get it.”
That only seemed to make her angry. “No, you don’t. This isn’t the same thing…”
“I know,” he acknowledged softly, wanting to keep the volume down. He knew she needed him to see the difference between them, even if she was also wrong. She needed him to know he was more wrong. He would give her that. “I know,” he repeated.
Leaning forward and burying her face in her hands again, she said, “My god, poor Angela. She probably thinks…” She shook her head, face still buried. “I’m horrible. Everything is a mess, and I….”
Ethan nodded, totally understanding. “I know.”
“I honestly don’t understand how we got here. We were normal. How did life get this fucked up?” she asked.
“I wish I knew.”
“I guess I'm a horrible person now, too,” she said quietly, her eyes drifting off at nothing.
“I think we’re all a little horrible in our own way,” he told her. “Look on the bright side, at least she hired me to catch you.”
She laughed lightly then covered her mouth. “That's not funny, I shouldn't be laughing.”
“Like I said,” he joked, “horrible.”
“I would’ve never… That’s not who I am. Not who I was. You fucked everything up,” she stated.
“I did,” he agreed matter-of-factly.
“It’s just been an avalanche of shit, one thing after the next, it never stops.”
Taking a little breath and sighing it out, he said, “Well, that’s the other thing I’m here about. I want to stop it.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked caught somewhere between caution and alarm. “How do you mean?”
“We need to have an honest discussion about something we’ve been putting off for long enough at this point. I was trying to give you time and space, let you work things out however you needed to… I’ve accepted full responsibility for my fuck-ups, as you pointed out, and it hasn’t… really gotten us anywhere. At this point I feel like I’ve done all I can do, I’ve been open to ideas and suggestions from you, but… you haven’t been interested. You don’t want counseling, you don’t want… anything to do with me, it feels like, and I understand why you feel that way, but at a certain point we need to come to some kind of definitive path we want to take or not take, and I think that point is now.”
Her head bobbed, lips pressed firmly together. “This is because of dinner, isn’t it? This is about that girl.”