Chapter 26 – Amber
Chapter Twenty-Six
AMBER
I check my phone again. It’s ten minutes after five, and there’s still no sign of him. I’m sitting at our usual table in our place in Greenwich. Also as usual, it is completely empty apart from me.
Aaron, the manager, brought me a bottle of pinot, but I’m only a few sips in. I haven’t eaten, and I still feel jumpy from my encounter with Freddie.
Encounter… That’s not the right word for it.
I need to call it what it is. Sexual assault. It may not have gone as far as it could have, but it was still an assault. I shiver when I remember it, the way he forced my hand onto his groin. The look of ecstasy on his face. It was disgusting, and there is no way I could have eaten after that. I have been sick several times, and it was with a huge sense of relief that I arrived here. Knowing that I would be with Elijah soon gave me the strength to get through the last couple hours at home.
I still can’t believe I let it get so far. Why did I let him back me into that corner? Why didn’t I trust my instincts? Why didn’t I scream? I have never considered myself to be a passive person, but this is not the first time I have been abused without striking back.
Many years ago, when I was only eighteen, my so-called boyfriend tried to persuade me to have anal sex with him. I said no, and he seemed to accept it—but later that night, after plying me with alcohol and weed and making me feel oh-so-sophisticated, he did it anyway. I woke up from a drunken stupor, only half-conscious, face down on his bed. I can still recall the taste of the pillow against my lips, his hand on my neck. The stinging pain, and the animalistic grunting noises he made. Afterward, he told me it was all my idea. That I woke him up and told him I wanted him to do it.
I knew he was lying, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it. He was a “nice” boy from a good family, and I was certain nobody would believe me. I didn’t know if I would have believed a girl in my situation either. A huge scandal would have erupted had I reported it, and my parents wouldn’t have tolerated that.
I tried talking to my mom about it, pretending a friend had ended up in a difficult situation, and she just snorted over her gin glass. “Tell your friend to forget about it, would be my advice,” she said. “That kind of thing happens to women all the time. She needs to be more careful who she associates with.”
I’ve never known if she saw through my asking-for-a-friend ruse, and after her response, I wasn’t tempted to find out. She reinforced my belief that it was somehow my fault, and I lived with it. Pushed it to the back of my mind and tried to behave as though it didn’t happen. And now here I am, yet again, feeling sick with shame and self-loathing. Did I send out some kind of signal that made Freddie Kemp think I was interested? Did I ever flirt with him at a party or give him a reason to believe I found him attractive? I’m sure I didn’t—and anyway, the way he spoke to me was abusive. The names he called me were not seductive; they were aggressive. It was not my fault.
No matter how many times I repeat it, though, I still don’t quite believe it. I need Elijah here with me. The thought of being in his arms again is the only thing keeping me sane. Seeing Nathan straight after Freddie didn’t help, but I did take some comfort from what he said—that Elijah’s new woman was making him so happy. Unintentionally, Nathan offered me consolation, and that gave me something to cling onto until now.
I take another sip of wine and look at my phone again. Only a few minutes have passed since the last time I checked. Has something awful happened? If he were stuck in traffic or caught in a meeting, he’d have called me. Perhaps he simply got the time wrong. There’s got to be a simple explanation for it. He’s the one who initiated this date, and he seemed as excited as I was to meet again. So, where is he? It’s not like him to be late—he’s not me. We joked last night about the way I used to torture him with my tardiness—perhaps he’s returning the favor, thinking it will be amusing? He has no clue what happened to me today, that the joke will fall flat.
No. That doesn’t feel right either. I check both my burner phone and my normal phone. No messages, no missed calls. I was wondering if Martha would be in touch, but she hasn’t. That’s probably for the best, at least for today.
Ten minutes later, I give in and message him, a just-checking-in kind of thing. I stare at the screen, my heart sinking further with each passing second it remains blank. After that, I try actually calling him on both his numbers. The burner phone rings out, and his regular phone goes to voicemail. Hanging up, I die a little more inside.
He’s now almost an hour late, and he is incommunicado. Something could be seriously wrong—a car crash, his dad, anything—but if that were the case, Drake would have told me. The others, no, but Drake would have called.
This day is not turning out like I hoped it would at all. I hoped Elijah and I would have a proper conversation about the future. Then, after what happened with Freddie, I needed him to comfort me and counsel me and keep me safe. Now, I’m sitting alone in an empty room with a bottle of wine, wondering where my husband is and hoping that he’s safe, while having a sinking feeling that he simply stood me up.
I decide to give it one last shot and type out a message on the burner phone.
Are you on your way? Something terrible happened to me today and I need you, Elijah. I love you. Please don’t let me down.
More minutes pass. More silence, more pain twisting in my gut. I wave to Aaron, and he is immediately at my side. He looks pained when I ask if Mr. Smith has called or left a message. “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Smith, other than by email, and it certainly didn’t mention any changes to tonight’s reservation. Maybe he was delayed?”
“It would certainly appear so. Do you mind me asking—did my husband, um, buy this place?”
He smiles and shakes his head. “No. But he did book it for your exclusive use until… Well, he paid for three months in advance, but that email I mentioned? He said we were free to open to the public again as of tomorrow because he no longer needed us. I assumed the two of you had found a new meeting place.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he looks really uncomfortable and is obviously wondering if he’s made a terrible faux pas.
His words knock the wind out of me, but I am too experienced to show it. I let out a small laugh and give him a coy look. “Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”
He laughs along with me, then asks if I need anything else. I tell him no and keep up the pretense until he leaves.
As soon as he retreats back to the bar, I let myself crumble, but only on the inside. I have to face reality. Elijah isn’t coming. He canceled his booking here and is ignoring my calls. He’s made it as clear as he can that this thing between us, whatever it was, is now over. I hate feeling like this again, so sour and disappointed. My trust for him was starting to rebuild, and I was beginning to believe we could find a way to make things work. Now, all I want is to run away, to hide from all this pain and angst.
I don’t usually misjudge situations so badly, and this is yet another hammer blow to my confidence and self-respect. I genuinely thought he wanted to talk about us trying again—as Mr. and Mrs. James, not Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Clearly, I was mistaken. Clearly, I am the world’s biggest idiot. I rub my wrist, which is still sore from where Freddie grabbed me. A physical reminder of what happened.
Elijah isn’t coming. He doesn’t love me. He couldn’t even be bothered to turn up and end things himself, face-to-face. I reached out, told him how I feel, and he ignored me. I don’t know why I expected anything more—I have never been first on Elijah’s list of priorities, and that was never going to change.
I wrap my own arms around myself and squeeze. It would be so easy to fall into this bottle of pinot and numb myself to all the pain. But I will not become my mother. I will not use booze as an anesthetic. I stand up and make my way toward the exit on shaky legs.
I will not fall, I tell myself. I will put one foot in front of another. It’s time to go back to Brooklyn and learn how to make myself feel safe.