“Fine,” she said with a monotone voice.
“Just fine?”
“Look, I have things to do,” she said with irritation. “Do you need something specific?”
“No,” I said bitterly. “I was just calling to see what was going on, I hadn’t talked to you in a couple of days.”
“Everything is fine, Tanner,” she replied. “If there’s nothing else, I’m going to go.”
Okay, I had had enough of this shit. I was constantly turning the corner and having the wind knocked out of me for something else that Ava found irritating. It was like she didn’t realize the world didn’t revolve around her. Everyone was different, had different lives, and different interests, but she was acting as if everyone thought the same way she did. It was extremely frustrating when she would get angry, and I had no idea what was going on.
“What is up with you?” I no longer could play the good guy.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said sarcastically. “Maybe the fact that promises to be truthful to each other mean absolutely nothing.”
“Okay, what are you talking about?” I asked.
“You had lunch with my father before I even could get him on the phone,” she said. “You talked to him about us, and then you didn’t even extend the courtesy to let me know what he’d said. I looked like an idiot when I brought us up. We had just had a whole conversation about no more lies or holding things from each other, and you did it anyway.”
I was pissed—no, beyond pissed—because she was doing it again. She was thinking of every possible reason to get out of having a normal conversation about a relationship. She had built her walls up so high that she was nothing more than a bitter woman who was running full steam away from her past. The problem was, she was trying to make me her past, and I wasn’t willing to make that happen without a fight. Her tone of voice told me she was looking for a fight, and if that were the case, I could easily give it to her. In reality, though, I needed her to understand what she was doing, because in her mind it seemed to be a protective instinct. On the outside, she was just angry and pushing and pulling me back and forth, depending on where her fear and emotions were landing that day.
“I’ve had enough,” I snipped.
“What?”
“You know what I think?” I took a deep breath and knew this was dangerous territory. “I think you’re a coward, a woman who is too afraid to be happy so you sabotage relationships. I think you are looking for every minute excuse to break it off with me. You want to be with me, but you’re picking fights because you’re scared. Well, I refuse to be the guy that falls for your anger. I am going to sit through this with you, and in the end, you’re going to see that I care, but you’re making it really hard for me to have empathy for you.”
“Excuse me?” She was pissed.
“Ava, I love you, but you’re pushing me away every chance you get,” I said angrily. “You should be glad I went to your father first. Otherwise, he would have been still pissed at me when you revealed your feelings. I didn’t want to take away from an understanding with your father, so I waited to tell you. I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t relay information to you at a speed in which you were comfortable.”
“I don’t need this,” she said angrily.
“You don’t need what? Me? A normal life? A successful career?” I stepped up the tone of my voice. “What do you want, Ava? You want me to be honest, so there you have it. You are terrified of a real relationship, and until you can stop yourself from sabotaging everything good in your life, you are going to be miserable.”
With that I hung up, not wanting to fight with her any longer. She was not going to admit to me that I was right. She wasn’t even going to admit to herself that I was right. How was I supposed to have a relationship with a woman who did everything she could to come up with excuses why she couldn’t be in a relationship? Every time she did it, my heart sunk a little lower. Everything was supposed to turn out right, everything had turned out right, but now Ava was sabotaging it because she was terrified of having everything that she wanted. With her and I as a couple, she would have the family life she wanted, the career she wanted, the family closeness she wanted, and she would be able to handle it all with laughter and humor. Instead, she was pushing everything extra to the side and just making it way harder than it needed to be. I was starting to get angry over it all, but who knew what had been said during her meeting with her father.
I doubted very strongly that Dean would go behind my back, but I also knew Dean would have told her I met him for lunch. Sure, I could have told her about it right away, but I was trying to respect her space and give her the opportunity to talk to her father before any decisions were made. I picked my phone back up and scrolled through the numbers, landing on Dean’s name. I wanted to know what he told her, ask him if he had changed his mind, and figure out just how to fix all of it.
“Hello,” Dean said happily.
“Hey, brother,” I replied with a sigh.
“Uh oh, what happened?”
“I need to ask you a question,” I said.
“Shoot,” he said. “I’ll try to answer you the best way possible.”
“Ava is pissed at me for talking to you at lunch,” I said. “I was hoping you could tell me what, if anything, you talked about with her over lunch. Anything you can think of that may have sent her over the deep end.”
“Nothing,” Dean said. “We talked about life, and I told her that she had my blessing for starting a relationship with you. Other than that, we didn’t really talk about anything. Why?”
“I just got a call from her pissed at me because I talked to you before her,” I replied. “I wanted her to be able to make up her own mind without influence from our conversation. It seems that was the wrong thing to do, and now she’s pushing me away for yet another project.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Dean said. “I wish I could help you, but I have no idea why she is acting that way.”
“It’s alright,” I said. “Thanks for giving it a try.”