Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ethan
Imagine the shock on my face when I saw Aubrey sitting at the table. She was the last person I expected to run into, let alone sit next to her for dinner. She had an attitude with me, and I didn’t blame her. I hadn’t seen that side of her yet, and, to be honest, it turned me on. The car ride back to her apartment was silent because I knew that was the way she wanted it. I was struggling inside, struggling with the fact that I had hurt her so deeply. Harry pulled up to the curb of her building, and I quickly got out and opened the door for her, holding out my hand.
“Please take my hand and let me help you out.”
“I don’t need help, Ethan. I can get out of a car on my own.”
“I know you can, but?—”
“Then let me.”
When I lowered my hand, she climbed out of the car and placed her cane down in front of her.
“Good night, Ethan.”
“Good night, Aubrey.”
I watched as she walked inside her building. Clenching my fist as hard as I could, I took in a deep breath, for I knew what I had to do.
“You can have the rest of the night off, Harry. I’ll catch a cab home. There’s something I need to say to her.”
“Good luck, Ethan.”
I ran inside the building and placed my hand between the elevator doors as they began closing.
“Aubrey, I need to talk to you.”
“Ethan, what the hell are you doing? I thought you left.”
“I can’t leave without making things right with you. Please just hear what I have to say.”
She stood there in silence, looking down. I knew she was struggling with the decision of whether to hear me out or not.
“Please, Aubrey,” I spoke in a soft voice.
“Fine. I’ll hear you out, but after I do, you are to leave.”
“I will. I promise.”
We stepped off the elevator, and as soon as we approached her apartment, the door from across the hall opened, and a man and woman stepped out.
“Oh, hello, Aubrey,” the older woman spoke and then glared at me.
“Hi, Aunt Charlotte. Hello, Mr. Morris.”
“Hello, little lady,” he spoke.
“Aunt Charlotte, I would like you to meet Ethan Klein. Ethan, this is my Aunt Charlotte and Mr. Morris from apartment 1C.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Charlotte.” I extended my hand.
Her eyes narrowed at me as she hesitantly placed her hand in mine without saying a word.
“Nice to meet you, Ethan.” Mr. Morris shook my hand.
“Likewise.” I smiled.
Aubrey opened her apartment door, and we both stepped inside.
“Have fun, you two.” She smiled as she closed the door behind her.
“I don’t think your aunt likes me too much.”
“No. Actually, she doesn’t. She heard talk around the city, and the things said were not good.”
I stood there with my hands in my pockets, lightly nodding my head.
“I deserve that.”
Aubrey walked into the living room and took a seat on the couch.
“What did you want to say to me, Ethan? I don’t have all night.” Her tone was harsh.
I could feel anxiety taking over me, so I took in a long, deep breath. I was nervous as hell because this was something I didn’t do.
“May I sit down next to you?” I asked.
“Whatever, Ethan. Just say what you have to say.”
I took a seat next to her and swallowed hard while my heart pounded out of my chest.
“I meant to push you away, and with everything I said, most of it was the truth. I have rules, Aubrey—rules about women. I don’t stay after because I don’t feel anything, so there’s no point in leading anyone on. But with you, I wanted to stay, and it scared the hell out of me. For the first time in many years, I didn’t want to leave after sex. Shortly after Sophia died, I started having nightmares about that night, and then they stopped after I was in therapy for a while. Then, the first night I was with you, the nightmares came back. You need to understand that I’m a destroyed man. I’ve buried every emotion and every feeling I ever had deep down inside me. That’s why the nightmares stopped and why I never felt anything for any of the women I was with. Then I met you, and suddenly, things started to resurface, and I couldn’t control it.”
“What things?” she asked.
“It may sound crazy because we haven’t known each other very long, but I started to have feelings for you right away, and I did things that I would never do. Every day, I would lose a little more control where you were concerned, and I found it difficult to handle. I wanted to push you away because if I did, then I wouldn’t have to feel these things anymore. When you were begging me to stay, it made me angry because I couldn’t control the fact that I didn’t want to leave.”
“What happened the night Sophia died?” she asked.
“Only very few people know what happened that night. My parents don’t even know the whole truth.”
She reached over and placed her hand on my thigh.
“You can trust me, Ethan. I promise.”
“Do you have any liquor? Something stronger than wine?”
“In the upper cabinet above the refrigerator, there’s a bottle of Jack Daniels. You’re more than welcome to have some.”
“Thanks.”
I got up from the couch, went into the kitchen, and grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the cabinet.
“There are a couple of shot glasses in the cabinet next to the stove,” she spoke.
After reaching for the glass, I poured myself a shot, kicked it back, and took in the burn as it cascaded down my throat. I poured another and took it back into the living room.
“Sophia and I met when we were eighteen years old at a wedding I had attended for one of my parents’ friends. I remember standing there talking to Charles, and every time I glanced at her, she stared at me. So I walked over, introduced myself, and we spent the rest of the night talking and getting to know each other.” I kicked back the shot of whiskey and set the glass down on the coffee table. “I took her out the next night, and we spent every moment we could together for the next three years.”
“You must have really loved her,” Aubrey spoke.
“I did. I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I found out about three months after we were dating that she was using drugs. She told me she only did it occasionally and promised to stop because she knew how I felt about it. Her occasional drug habit eventually turned into a daily one. About a year and a half into our relationship, I finally talked her into getting some help. She checked herself into a rehab facility and got clean.”
“What kinds of drugs did she do?”
“Cocaine. She stayed clean for about six months, and those six months were really good for us. Then, her sister was killed in a car accident, and she couldn’t cope. So, she started using cocaine again along with amphetamines.”
“I’m sorry, Ethan, but I have to ask. Why did you stay with her?”
“Because I loved her and couldn’t turn my back on her. She was so screwed up, and all she kept telling me was that I was the only stability she had in her life. So I dealt with it the best I could and tried to get her to get clean again. The night she died, we were in California at a friend’s birthday party at his beach house. She had been acting weird all day, and I kept asking her what was wrong, and she insisted nothing. But I could tell something was bothering her. Later that night, I left with Charles and another friend of mine to run to the store to get some more liquor, and when I came back, I couldn’t find her. When I went upstairs for the third time, she was just coming out of the bathroom. I asked her why she didn’t respond to my calling her name, and she said she didn’t hear me. She was as high as a kite at that point. I walked into the bathroom and found two syringes on the floor. She had just shot herself up with heroin.” I swallowed hard. “I’ll never forget how I felt at that moment. I was enraged. Anger consumed me so badly that I couldn’t see straight. I grabbed the syringes off the floor and flew down the stairs, grabbing her arm and leading her outside away from the party. I asked her when she started shooting up heroin, and she told me she’d been doing it for a while. How I didn’t know was beyond me.”
“Because you loved her, and you didn’t want to see it. You know how they say love is blind,” she spoke.
I stared at Aubrey when she said that, and she was right. I had noticed over the past couple of months leading up to her death that she was acting different and changing before my eyes every day.
“I started yelling at her, and then I gave her an ultimatum. I told her that it was either the drugs or me and that I’d had enough. I couldn’t live like that anymore. She told me that as much as she loved me, she couldn’t give up the drugs. So I told her we were over, and as I walked away, she ran after me and grabbed my arm, begging me not to go. I turned to her, took hold of her arms, and begged her to stop the drugs. I told her that I would check her into rehab the next morning, and if she wouldn’t go, I would walk away. She looked me straight in the eye, and after a few moments of silence, she agreed to go. I held her tight and told her how much I loved her. She asked me if I could go into the house and get her some aspirin and a glass of water. When I came back out, I couldn’t find her anywhere. I screamed her name over and over again. It was so dark out except for the lights from the boats in the water out in the distance. Fear overcame me, and I started to panic as I ran down to the beach and found a trail of her clothes leading to the water. I yelled her name over and over again as I kicked off my shoes, tore off my shirt, and ran into the water. Charles and a couple of other guys heard me screaming for her, and they came running down, asking me what was going on. I couldn’t find her, and just like that, she was gone. Charles called 911, and the police were out within a few minutes. The search went on for a few days, and they eventually found her body.
Aubrey scooted closer to where I was sitting and placed her hands firmly on my shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Ethan. I can’t even imagine.”
“She died because of me. Because of the ultimatum I gave her. Had I never told her that I would leave, she wouldn’t have gone into the ocean and killed herself.”
“You don’t know that. She was messed up from the drugs. What happened to her was not your fault. You have to believe that.”
“That’s what everyone who knows what happened told me. But in the end, my words led her to the water.”