1. Even I’m Not That Good
EVANGELINE
“Jesus Christ, Evangeline!” Darren raises his voice, holding one of the photos in his hand. “Did you fuck him?” he asks harshly. “Did you fuck my father?” he demands, and I blink as if his words are arrows that have hit their target.
“No!”
“Trips out of town, speaking events – now I know why he didn’t want my mother to go with him,” Darren accuses absently as if he didn’t hear me.
“I never saw him again!” I yell to stop him from talking, but that’s not the whole truth. “Not after that night.” That gets Darren’s attention.
“We were talking about Emerson, and Langley…”
“Langley?” Darren’s eyes go wide.
“Yes, he was with your father. He wanted to know about my demographic and your father. He was so gracious, and invited me to dinner with his staff. I didn’t know the pictures were taken, but nothing happened,” I’m out of breath, trying to get it all out at once.
“Bullshit!” Darren roars, scattering the photos so they fly off the desk as if a gust of wind tore through the office.
“He was a senator! They don’t invite voters to fucking dinner, Evangeline.”
“Your father was interested in what I had to say – about Emerson, about me,” I rattle off excuses, but I can feel my chest cave, wondering if my memory of that evening is as reliable as I think. Was I so desperate for someone to pay attention to what I had to say that I didn’t see?—?
“I’m sure he wanted you there to talk about your demographic.” He looks across the desk at me and shakes his head. It makes me feel small and na?ve. Maybe I was back then, but now…
“Is it so hard for you to believe that someone would be interested in what I had to say? That someone would be interested in my intellect instead of my body?” I ask, offended, but even I’m beginning to wonder now.
Darren rubs the back of his neck, saying nothing.
“You’re an asshole.”
“I’m an asshole? You manipulated your way into my life…”
I approach the desk and place my fingers on the dark wood. “You blew up my life so I’d have no choice but to marry you!” I argue, pointing a finger at him as he sits behind the desk, dark eyes staring at me. “You know what’s really fucked up, Darren?” He furrows his brows at me. “If you would have just asked me to marry you instead of getting me fired, I probably would have said yes.”
He stands, and the chair bangs into the wall, jarring me. There’s a flicker of regret before he swipes a hand over his face as if to gain composure.
“I’m an asshole, I admit that.” He almost sounds remorseful. “I fucked you over so I could get what I wanted, but I never once lied to you.” He smacks a pen from the desk and turns away from me.
I stand there like a child who’s just been scolded, my cheeks hot, and my heart beating hard against my ribs. Darren may have been underhanded about our union, but I went into it with secrets that I somehow thought would stay buried. How stupid a notion that was.
“And Langley?” His eyes are wide. “You could have told me. You could have warned me you knew him before,” Darren fumes.
“Do you want a list of all my clients?” I challenge.
“He’s different and you know it!” His voice fills the room. “Did you fuck him, too?” he demands, and my belly drops.
“He didn’t get the chance,” I admit, and think back to that night as Darren waits for me to continue. “Our date was cut short because of the news…”
“About my parents?” he asks, but he already knows the answer.
He collapses into the chair as if his legs can’t hold him up any longer. “I never liked Langley, but God…” He can’t finish the sentence after putting the pieces together. Which I’m glad because right now I don’t think I could explain this tangled web.
“I’m sure he’s the one that had the photos,” I accuse. “It makes sense.”
“Jesus!” He rubs the back of his neck and stands up again. “If you had told me, I could have done something.”
I hug myself as if to keep my insides from spilling out. Heavy shame shivers down my spine. “I… I couldn’t,” I say honestly.
“What were you doing at that bar?” he demands. “Did you follow me?”
“No!” I exclaim. “I didn’t know you were going to be there. I couldn’t go home that night, not after finding out about your father. I didn’t want to be alone,” I admit.
“You could have just left me in that alley.” He looks at me with a weary expression.
“I wanted to see…” I whisper, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging, but he grasps my meaning.
“Well, now you know,” he says, raising his arms. “I’m nothing like him.”
“That’s not true.”
He doesn’t know how very much like his father he is.
“Did you know who I was? In the bar?” he asks, eyes searching mine.
I shake my head no, but that’s not true. There was a familiarity when he quoted Emerson. It felt like fate.
I carried a flame for a man who burned bright because he was the only thing bright to hold onto. But he was just a man. He wasn’t perfect like I’d made him out to be. He was a husband, a father, a son, and a politician. How could I expect so much from one person I barely knew?
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” he mutters, running a hand over his mouth while the other is planted on the desk. His head is bowed, the thick, dark wavy hair covering his eyes.
He finally looks back up at me. “Did you fake everything?”
I know what he’s asking me, and he wants to know the answer badly, whether he chooses to believe me or not.
I should lie and say that I faked everything, even my orgasms, just to hurt him, to get back at him for putting me in this position, but that’s not who I am. In truth, I put myself in this position because I did walk into that alley to see if he was okay, not knowing it would unlock this chain of events.
“No,” I say as genuinely as I can.
“Because you’re so fucking good at your job,” he spits with a resentful tone.
“Because even I’m not that good, Darren.” I shake my head understanding how betrayed he must feel.
Only one of the pictures remains on the desk, and the way his father twirls that single strand of hair between his fingers, and the way I’m looking at him as he does it….
As if he’s reading my mind, he asks, “Were you in love with him?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” I say honestly.
“It’s a simple yes or no, Evangeline,” his voice is tortured, coming from somewhere deep within him.
It’s not as simple as that. I shake my head, but the words that come out don’t match, and how could they? “Yes,” I answer, feeling tears burn at the back of my eyes, because for a long time, I thought I was – maybe I still am.
How do you know if you love someone when you’ve never been loved?
“Do you not see how fucked up this is?”
“Darren, I never meant to hurt you.”
He laughs cynically. “You never meant to hurt me?”
He sucks in a breath and then shakes his head while staring down at the desk. “The reason for marrying a prostitute was to avoid drama,” he scoffs.
The word prostitute penetrates every vulnerable part of me, but I’m not going to let him know how much he hurt me.
I place my hands on my hips, willing myself not to break. “If you didn’t want drama, you’d have to take yourself out of the equation.”
He looks annoyed, pressing his lips tightly together.
“Look, this happened in the past,” I try to reason with him.
“But it’s not in the past, Evangeline. It’s sitting here on my fucking desk,” he growls. “I need to get the fuck out of here.”