My eyes burned as I watched his pained image on the screen. When he spoke again, his voice cracked a little.
“I just wanted you around. Just a little longer. Well, no—a lot longer, but I’d settle for whatever you’re willing to give me. But I want a lot. I know I want to spend a lot of time with you.”
He looked down. I watched his chest rise and fall a few times as he found his words and looked back up, speaking quickly.
“Is it because I talked too much? I told you all kinds of shit about me, but I didn’t ask you much about yourself. I know who your dad is, but I didn’t ask about your mom or your friends or what kinds of questions they asked you in your interview. That was kinda assholish of me. I should have asked about you more. When I get nervous—and you’re so pretty and sophisticated and smart, I was nervous—I babble. I know I do; I’ve been told that before. Is that why you left? Did I just talk too much? If it is, and you come back, I promise I won’t say anything. I’ll put duct tape over my mouth and just listen to whatever you want to tell me. Shit.”
He stopped talking, looked away again, and ran both hands through his hair, tugging at the roots as he leaned forward a little.
“That sounded so weird and creepy. I’m even fucking up the apology.” He took another deep breath. “I don’t want to seem any more creepy than I probably already do. Please, please call me back. I was looking forward to hearing you read more of that book. If you don’t want to read anymore, that’s okay, too. I just need to know…just tell me how I fucked up so I won’t do it again. If you decide you don’t want to…well, I won’t like it, but I’ll respect it. If I don’t hear from you, I guess I know the answer. I won’t bug you again or anything.”
He licked his lips and then looked straight into the camera.
“I hope you’ll call back. I really like you, Ashlyn, and I miss you already.”
I sniffed and cleared my dry throat.
For a moment, it wasn’t Ethan who invaded my thoughts but Cole and the last conversation I ever had with him.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Ash?”
“You heard what I said,” I replied in a quiet voice. I hadn’t been able to meet his eyes. “I’m moving back in with Presley. This just isn’t working out between us.”
“You know, I never would have fucked her if you had actually spent some time here instead of in your fucking study groups. I don’t know why you even bother. Daddy’s already got your job lined up for you. Once we’re married, you can have tea parties and bust out children for fuck’s sake. You don’t need a damn graduate degree.”
I wanted to scream at him. He was the one who was caught cheating on me, not the other way around. I wanted to tell him how wrong he was and what a jerk he was, but the words refused to form in my mouth. Anything I said would have been pointless anyway. It would change nothing.
“I’m leaving, Cole.”
“You’ll be back.”
Ethan was about as different from Cole as any human being could possibly be. He was sweet and
kind. He set out towels for me and made me breakfast. He discussed books and movies with me, but it was all right when we disagreed. He never once called my opinions stupid or just plain wrong, which was more Cole’s style. Walking out on him was my fault—he had done nothing wrong—but he didn’t yell at me. Instead, he actually videotaped an apology even though the whole thing was my fault.
“Who does that kind of thing, anyway?”
The conversation I had with Presley about Isaac and Cole came back to me. I considered my reasons for ending those relationships.
Isaac had been a difficult decision, not because I wasn’t sure it should end, but because I knew it was going to hurt his feelings. He came from a decent, upper middle class family, which was just barely okay in my father’s eyes, but he had a lot of ambition. I’d known him most of my life, and he was comfortable. The problem was, that was all there was to our relationship. He was safe and…boring. I never loved him, and when I realized how much in love with me he was, I had to break it off before it went any further. We had remained friends, but I often felt just a twinge of tension between us.
Cole had been the complete opposite of Isaac. My father was thrilled when we began to date. Cole’s family was a prominent name in local society, and they promised to expand their businesses and ultimately make my father’s company more money. Cole was exciting and just a little dangerous. He rode a motorcycle and liked to go deep-sea fishing and skydiving. He was attractive, protective, and insanely jealous of anyone else around me. Just being around him had been thrilling, in the beginning at least. When his temper tantrums began to be directed at me, the shine wore off. The first time he went off on me in public, my friends began to encourage me to get away from him, but I didn’t listen, not for a long time. Eventually, it was all too much. The night I left, there was a moment when I believed he was going to punch me.
Presley referred to Cole as my “bad boy phase” and claimed we all had to go through it. When Dad heard about my breakup, he tried to convince me to reconsider. I never told him about Cole’s anger issues, and Dad continued to push the issue until Cole left town.
Ethan was completely different from both Isaac and Cole.
I took a deep breath and watched the video message again. My heart ached at Ethan’s pained expression and heartfelt words. I’d hurt him. Not only that, but I’d also hurt myself.
Why?
Tattoos, bicycle, and age. Suddenly, all of my reasons for leaving sounded stupid and vain. It all came down to how my family and friends would react to him.
My phone rang just as the video was ending, and for a moment, my heart stopped, sure it was Ethan calling again. It wasn’t. It was only Presley.
“You need a drink,” she said without a hello.
“I do.”