Eric #2
Deborah’s presentation is thorough, and it would’ve interested me greatly a week ago. Today, I can’t work up the enthusiasm.
She suggests we taste each of the various flavors, but I can’t. I just can’t.
“I’m not feeling well,” I tell her.
“Oh, sorry to hear that.”
“Would it be possible to reschedule the tasting?” Eric asks.
“I’m booked for the next six weeks.”
That’s how long we waited for this appointment.
“We might need to find someone else, then,” he says. “Our wedding is the third of July. We need this sewed up long before six weeks from now.”
“Let me check with my assistant and see what we can do.” She gets up and leaves the room.
“What’s wrong, Ava?” Eric asks when we’re alone.
“I don’t know, but the smell in here is making me sick.”
“Do you want to wait outside while I set up another appointment?”
“Yes, please.” I grab my coat and purse and head for the door, stepping out into cool fresh air that’s a welcome relief from the overly sweet air inside the bakery.
I lean back against the building and take deep, cleansing breaths.
Eric comes out of the bakery, pulling on his coat as he walks. “What was that in there? I thought you were excited to pick out the cake.”
“I was. I am. It was hot in there, and the smell… It was overwhelming.”
“No, it wasn’t. It smelled the way a bakery should.”
I realize he’s angry with me, which is a first.
“Are we going to talk about what’s really going on here, or are we going to pretend that the smell of cake made you sick?”
“I… I told you…”
“You haven’t actually told me anything. Instead, you’ve left me twisting in the wind for two days wondering what happened in San Diego while you try to pretend everything’s fine when we both know it isn’t.”
I can’t think of a single thing to say that.
Huffing with disgust—or what I take to be disgust—he waves down a cab and holds the door for me.
I slide across the cracked vinyl seat to make room for him.
Eric gets in and gives his address to the driver.
We take off like a shot into traffic.
Eric sits a foot from me, but he stares out the passenger side window the whole way home. When we arrive in Tribeca, Eric pays for the cab, holds the door for me and follows me up the stairs.
Inside the loft, we hang up our coats.
“I need to know one thing,” he says, breaking the long and unusual silence.
“What?”
“Do you want to be with him? Is that why you’ve shut down on me since you saw him?”
“No! That’s not what I want, and I haven’t shut down on you.”
“Yes, Ava, you have. You’re here, physically, but you’re not here in any other way. You’re a million miles away from me.”
“I’m trying to process it all. I’m sorry that I’ve been unable to talk to you about it or that you thought what you did.”
In a softer, more conciliatory tone, he says, “You have to tell me about San Diego. I’m going crazy trying to figure out what’s happening to us.”
“I’m sorry to have done that to you. It was really… hard to see him again and to see him diminished by his injury.”
Eric takes my hand and walks me to the sofa, where we sit together.
“He said some things…”
“What kinds of things?”
I look down at the floor. “He’s sorry for what he put me through. He said he never should’ve gotten involved with me and actually tried to leave a couple of times but couldn’t bring himself to do it.”
Blinking back tears, I force myself to continue because Eric deserves to know these things.
“While he was gone, he thought about me every day, he still loves me and wants a chance to make things right with me. I told him about you and our relationship and that we’re engaged.
I told him how you put the pieces back together for me and that my life is here with you now.
And then when I had to go, he said… He asked me… ”
“What, honey? What did he say?”
“He begged me not to leave him.” I feel dead inside as I say those words and hear his voice in my head, pleading with me as I walked away.
“God, Ava.” Eric puts his arm around me and encourages me to rest my head on his chest. “No wonder you’ve been so upset since we came home.”
“I don’t want to be upset. I don’t want to think about him anymore.
I want to think about you and the wedding and our life, but all I can hear is him begging me not to go.
I… I didn’t know that he was raised in the foster system.
I don’t think he has anyone else.” I squeeze my eyes shut against the threat of tears. “He broke my heart all over again.”
Eric holds me close to him and rubs my back. “We’re going to find a way through this together. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
“How? How is it going to be okay?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to figure something out. Maybe we should get with Jessica. She might be able to help.”
“Okay.”
“You want me to call her?”
“Would you mind?”
“Not at all.”
He takes my phone and punches in the code I gave him a long time ago. Eric and I don’t have secrets from each other, so it’s a relief to have told him what happened with John even if it hurt us both.
I sit back against the sofa and close my eyes. I can hear him on the phone, but I don’t pay attention to what he’s saying. I already know the story. I don’t need to hear it again. I’m so tired, I could sleep for a week and it wouldn’t be enough.
Eric returns to the sofa. “She’s coming here in thirty minutes.”
“She is? Really?”
He nods. “She said you’re one of her VIPs. If you call, she drops everything for you—and she said her husband is at a movie with the kids tonight, so she’s free anyway.”
“And she probably has better things to do than listen to my sob story.”
“It’s not a sob story, Ava. You’ve survived one of the most difficult things anyone I know has confronted with grace and class and determination. Everyone who knows you admires the way you’ve handled an unimaginable situation.”
“That’s very nice of you to say, but I don’t feel worthy of that kind of admiration.”
“Well, too bad,” he says with a teasing smile. “You’re stuck with it.”
“I don’t want to feel this way anymore, Eric.”
“I know, sweetheart.”