Chapter 40
S CARLETT
January
“Where do you want me to put it, Miss Scarlett?”
I lift my gaze from my desk and take in the huge, framed picture of Ewan and me, him wearing a Santa costume and me looking like a plaything, role-playing as a schoolteacher.
A sharp ache slices through the soft organ beating in my chest.
The janitor awaits my answer.
Normally, he should dispose of it, but since it’s something that someone might be asking about, I breathe a clipped sigh and point outside.
“Take it to the storage room. No one needs that anymore. Put it next to the Christmas decorations,” I suggest.
“All right, ma’am.”
“You can close the door.”
“Sure.”
The man does that, and I lean back in my seat before swiveling with my chair and looking out the window.
All I see is fog and snow with faint lights peeking through the winter’s fingers.
It’s been three long weeks.
The longest weeks of my life.
The dreariest and most confusing.
The day I returned from Florida proved to be a fork in the road.
Everything looked perfect. Aside from grappling with uncertainty, I didn’t expect anything major to happen and put things in perspective.
In hindsight, Ewan’s son showing up unexpectedly played such a pivotal role in how our story unraveled, but it wasn’t his mere existence that brought everything to a halt.
He just tipped the scale.
I hadn’t even realized that all my inquiries about Ewan’s life, the uncertainty nipping at my edges, and him picking up that place to spend Christmas with me were all clear signs that we had entered a different stage.
I don’t know how aware he was about all that––I know I wasn’t.
I didn’t realize that my exaggerated reaction––leaving his house and needing more time to figure things out for myself––had little to do with finding out he had a son and more to do with not knowing where we were headed.
Sure, we needed to go through a few more steps and figure things out, but Ezra’s showing up that night erased that possibility, throwing everything into a tailspin.
Ewan knew I was mad and did the right thing by not trying to convince me to stay and talk things out.
Ironically, it would’ve made everything worse.
It would’ve freaked me out even more.
So without shedding a tear that night, I went back to the bedroom, changed my clothes, called a cab, and asked them to wait outside the gate before I grabbed my travel bag and left the house.
I couldn’t tell whether they were still in the dining room or had moved to some other room in the house and were watching me stroll along the path leading to the gate.
I didn’t look back as I was numb.
Things were different when I got home.
What I’d imagined would happen that evening and what happened in the end were two different things.
I broke down when I remembered how clueless and happy I was when I made that fire, and envisioned us sleeping in that bed, having sex, and perhaps talking more about our lives.
Waking up in his house and taking it easy.
Coming home and thinking about the next time I’d be seeing him.
A glimmer of hope made me think that maybe we’d celebrate the new year together.
None of that happened.
For the last couple of weeks, all I did was avoid Mrs. Eisenhower. Yeah, the woman who is so good at figuring things out.
She knew something was off when she noticed the lights turning on in my house the very next day.
When I waited for her to go to the back of her house so I could sneak out, climb into my car, and go shopping without saying hello to her.
Spending New Year’s Eve alone gave her the best clue, so when I ran into her on January 1st––it was unavoidable––she straight out asked me if I’d broken up with my friend.
I told her we took a break.
By then, I knew it was more than that.
I didn’t think he would call or show up at my door.
You can’t apologize for having a son. And sadly, that’s how it looked. Like I got mad because of Ezra.
It wasn’t even a matter of miscommunication.
It was a matter of muddy feelings, like the muddy waters after a storm needing time to let the mud settle.
I don’t know if anything has been settled or not.
I’m back to work. Everything is exactly how it used to be. Little Colley still looks at me with adoring eyes, which makes me think my ‘what I did last Christmas story’ remained a secret.
Staring at that picture of us with him wearing a Santa suit and me being careful not to sit on his bulge made me nauseous.
We were so far from who we were those last few days when he gifted me that bracelet down in Florida.
I thought about sending it back, but the coward in me wanted to keep it and have a reason to talk to him at some point.
Silly thinking.
A few knocks on the door pull me out of my head.
I swivel with my chair and look at the door.
It opens slowly.
Maria’s talking to someone outside my office before finishing her conversation and walking in.
“You have visitors.”
My first instinct is to glance at the time on my phone.
“Who is it?” I ask, pushing my chair back and automatically running my hand over my navy skirt.
“Colley and his mother.”
“Oh.”
I freeze.
“Do you know why they’re here?”
She gives me a soft shrug while I grow nervous by the second.
“He said he had something for you.”
“Okay. Do you know what it is?”
“Not a clue. Maybe you need to talk to them?”
There’s a little sneer in her voice, her smile unable to hide it.
“Yeah. I’ll do that. Where are they?”
The soft tipping of her head in the direction of the hallway gives me enough clues.
“All right,” I say in a different voice, afraid they might be within earshot.
I walk around the desk and put a smile on my face as I walk past Maria who studies me with curious eyes.
I’m weird as fuck.
“Oh, Elisa,” I say cheerfully when she and Colley enter my line of sight. “What are you doing here at this hour?” I ask, my cadence slow, my eyes dipping.
He holds a card from what I can tell, his other hand locked with his mother’s.
“He insisted on giving it to you personally,” Elisa says, wearing a smile.
She rocks a fitted pink skirt suit and a gray coat.
“What is this?” I ask.
Colley is a bit shy but finds enough strength in him to hand me the card.
“It’s an invitation to his birthday party,” his mother says.
“Oh. That’s so sweet. And when would that be?” I ask, checking the card.
“This Friday,” he says.
I move my eyes from him to his mother.
“That’s tomorrow,” I murmur.
She tips her chin in agreement.
“We start early for the kids. The adults are expected at seven o’clock.”
I find Colley’s eyes pinned on me when I look down.
“He wanted to make sure you’d say yes,” Elisa comments.
“Is anyone else coming?”
Her smile broadens.
“Plenty of people.”
“I mean from school. Any coworkers of mine?”
“Not that I know of. Colley was very particular about who he wanted to invite to his party.”
I bite my lip, my eyebrows moving up.
“Is that a yes?” Elisa pushes out.
There’s no way I can say no, is there?
“Yes. It’s a yes.”
“Yay,” Colley exclaims. “It worked.”
Elisa pulls him into her, almost sliding her hand over this mouth.
What worked?
“Good,” Elisa says. “We’ll see you tomorrow night then. Have a good evening.”
“Of course. Thank you. Have a good night.”
Smoothly, they turn around and walk down the hallway while I remain standing, pondering that weird ‘it worked.’
I can’t make much of it, so I turn around and bump into Maria.
“Nice kid,” she says.
“As if that’s news,” I say, smiling before making myself scarce.
SCARLETT
I maybe slept a couple of hours last night, and now that I look in the mirror, I regret it with a passion.
I should’ve drunk a chamomile tea last night, walked some extra miles, or done something about it.
It’s not like I’m sleepy.
Quite the opposite.
I’m wired up. It’s like I had six cups of coffee.
I brush my hair one more time and look in the mirror.
My soft wool dress looks smooth on my body.
Jet black with a sparkling brooch at the neckline, it flatters my figure and makes my red lipstick pop.
I bought Colley a gift despite his mother texting me and telling me not to bring him anything.
He’d get plenty of gifts, she said, and me being there would be the most precious gift of all.
I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t focus on her words entirely.
All day today, I have thought about the possibility that Ewan might be there, and we might need to interact.
And it would be awkward because we know each other––Christmas party, anyone?––yet shouldn’t know each other in any other sense.
It would be one of those moments when the most minor blunder would reveal our true story.
So I’m nervous.
Of course I am.
I check the time and look outside.
It’s dark, and the trees are frosted, yet nothing has stopped me from sliding on a pair of black heels and picking up a fancy bag.
I’m a little out of my element here, looking too snazzy, but what the heck.
I don’t know what I’ll be running into.
“Okay…” I murmur to myself, checking that everything is in order before putting on my coat, scooping up my phone, and checking on my cab. “Five more minutes.”
I walk around the house, turn off the lights, and then turn on the lights, undecided, before exiting my place.
“Please, come on time,” I mumble under my breath to myself. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
I barely say that when her voice slices through the air.
“It’s cold tonight, isn’t it?”
Oh, fuck.
I turn my eyes to my neighbor and give her a strangled smile.
“Yes, it is.”
“Going out?”
Not that it’s her business.
“Yes. A social gathering, nothing fancy.”
“Uh-huh.”
Her eyes go down, taking inventory of my appearance, her expression disagreeing with my words.
Luckily, the lights of a cab glow over the road.
I gesture in that direction as if I’m sorry I can’t chat with her a little more before my ride rolls to a stop, and I dash to it.
Her faint words travel to me as I climb in.
It’s something about women never being satisfied these days. Flipping her the bird in my head, I greet the driver and forget about her.