Chapter 23 #3
"I paused on the summer camp line of your résumé for a second and you threatened to castrate me."
"I did nothing of the sort," I replied.
"Close enough." He paced between his desk and the door. "You've never once backed down from a fight with me, but that guy"—he waved toward the reception area—"that guy, he—"
"What are you looking to hear from me?" I cried. "Tell me what would make you leave this alone and I'll say it."
"I want—" He shoved his fingers through his hair as he stared at me. "—I don't know what I want. Just tell me how it happened because you should know I have the worst explanations going through my head right now. I need to know if I should've decked him when I had the chance."
"It happened the way everything happens.
It's a series of tiny steps and little things that aren't okay but there's no sense making big issues out of them.
It's expecting things to get better once you reach a certain point or when difficult times have passed.
It's inches and inches and inches that add up to miles in the wrong direction but once you realize it you're so far down that path you're not sure how to reverse course.
" I crossed my legs and glanced out the window.
"It's complicated. Maybe it's not actually complicated at all but it feels that way to me and I don't want to explain the rest of it right now. I just can't, Ash."
Ash returned to the seat and took my hands in his. "That's your call, love. I won't demand anything from you unless you give me that permission first."
I hadn't known the importance of respect until upending my world and claiming Ash's as my starting-over site.
I'd only known respect in name—real respect, the kind rooted in wanting another person's joys and successes and journeys as much as your own—but never in practice.
Respect didn't leave space to owe each other anything, it didn't tally the gives and takes, it didn't allow for unequal footing.
No one held all the cards in a relationship founded on respect.
"One of my sister's best friends is an attorney. Mostly real estate but she's very knowledgeable in other areas. She'll be at the wedding but if you want to talk to someone about a restraining order, we can call her now."
I shook my head. "He won't come back."
Ash slid off the chair to kneel in front of me, dropping his head onto my lap as he went. "You are far too important to take that risk and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to let you out of my sight again without some assurance you're safe."
"It's not like that," I argued. "He's just a spectacularly lazy person whose only accomplishments in life are getting other people to pay his way and do his work because he fundamentally believes he's deserving of such things and others owe it to him."
"And he stalked you across the country," Ash said to my skirt. "Where he openly and repeatedly attempted to intimidate you. I was damn close to dropping his ass to the floor."
I ran my fingers over the nape of his neck. "Why didn't you?"
"You had it under control," he said as if it was the most obvious fact known to humanity.
I'd wanted my new life—the one with a windowsill herb garden and a place that felt like home—to be free of the histories I'd left behind.
Denis, my family, my failed attempt at grad school.
I wanted to sever it all like diseased limbs and then continue onward as if I didn't have a collection of wounds in varied states of healing.
Even with all the best decisions, I was beginning to see that wasn't how it worked. "I haven't always had it under control."
"Neither have I," he admitted.
Sanding my fingers through his hair as I searched for the next right choice, I said, "Look at us. A pair of cool cats who can't keep it all together."
Ash lifted his head to meet my gaze. "Can I keep you? That's all I need to know."
Yes. Yes, of course. I wanted to give him that but I needed a minute. I just needed a minute to glue the pieces of my life back together one more time before I could do anything else. "I don't know," I admitted.
Ash leaned back, nodding. "Then tell me when you do."
I could feel Ash's gaze on my skin, his watchful if not wary stare following me as we closed up the office, returned to the apartment, and then piled into that spiffy little Porsche of his.
I was aware of the glances he tossed in my direction every few minutes and the pinched lines bracketing his mouth.
He was searching for answers I couldn't give him, assurances I didn't have. He wanted me to convince him I was okay, the connection we'd forged out of thin air was okay, everything was okay. I didn't have those words for him yet because I wasn't okay, not all the way.
We had so much to discuss but also nothing at all. I had a history behind me and the worst of my recent years showed up in our office this morning to demand more unpaid and uncredited work from me. What else was there to say?
So, I said nothing.
As we crawled through heavy summer traffic with Ash's glances pinging off the side of my face as I stared ahead, I wondered how I became that woman.
The one who didn't notice she was being manipulated until she'd written several peer-reviewed journal articles and a graduate thesis without being able to claim credit for any of it.
The one who agreed it was a good idea to abandon her academic plans because some guy told her she wasn't up to the challenge.
The one who accepted a loveless, emotionless relationship because that guy promised her everything would be better after finals, after the internship, after field work, after defending the dissertation she wrote for him.
The one who let him call her by her middle name and wouldn't let her attend university events with him because she was just too much.
Too, too much. The one who ran away only to have her beautiful, safe new life interrupted because that guy wanted her to finish the paper that would give him the highest degree in the field and her absolutely nothing.
I was that woman. I couldn't even bury that truth under all the other sticky, thorny truths I possessed because Ash saw the whole thing play out in the middle of his office.
He knew all my truths and now he couldn't stop himself from dousing me in pity and cautious concern, the kind that stared and frowned in a way that seemed to suggest I'd fall apart under those truths like a spent daisy.
He didn't even want to play the touching game.
It was late in the afternoon, nearly evening when we finally arrived at the hotel in the seaside town of Bristol, Rhode Island.
Late enough to keep Ash's phone buzzing with near-constant calls and texts.
He ignored them all, not that it reduced their frequency.
We had a bit of time before we were due at the rehearsal but knowing Magnolia and Diana, they weren't taking any chances with Ash.
He killed the engine yet made no move to climb out of the car. Instead, Ash trailed his fingers down my arm and gathered my hand in his. "You don't have to do this," he said with a nod toward the stately colonial.
The rehearsal was being held at the historic Blithewold mansion, not this hotel, but I understood his meaning. I could play the Toxic Ex card and lick the wounds of my severed limbs in private if I wanted.
"If you're not up for it," he continued, "there's no reason you have to spend the evening around a bunch of loud people who will want to know everything about you."
"I'm all right, Ash."
I wasn't lying, not really. Part of me was quite well—and newly angry.
Not only angry at myself but also at Denis for being such a major weasel.
Another part of me was assessing the bumps and bruises incurred in the whole affair of leaving Denis behind and finally, finally standing up for myself.
Some of those bruises were big and nasty.
They were sure to turn putrid shades of green and yellow as they healed but the greatest myth about healing was that it didn't hurt.
That was bullshit. Healing hurt like a motherfucker and nothing you could do would save you from that pain because it was inescapably essential to being whole again.
"Besides," I added, "if I'm not there, you know your mother will go berserk. She'll drive you up the wall with questions and she'll probably hold up the entire rehearsal because of it."
"I have several decades of practice with her driving me up a wall. I'd take that over putting you through an event you can't handle—"
"Don't do that," I interrupted. "I'd prefer if you didn't tell me what I can't handle. Your intentions are good but please don't do that."
I couldn't have that from him. I couldn't let him look at me with sad, searching eyes. I couldn't be his damaged little woman in need of rescue because that wasn't the way it worked around here.
He paused, exhaled, and said, "Okay. I won't. What else?" His phone buzzed—then it buzzed again, and again. He yanked the phone from his pocket and tapped the settings to silent without consulting the messages. "Sorry about that. Please tell me."
"It can wait," I said with a tight laugh. "The bride, however, cannot."
"We don't have to stay long," he said, giving my hand a final squeeze before opening the door. "Actually, I tried to get out of this thing. My mother offered to disown me."
"We'll stay as long as we should." I reached into the back for my weekend bag. "I'm sure it will be a really nice time and I'm not surprised in the least you wanted to avoid such a thing. You have a troubling aversion to enjoying yourself."
"False," he barked, plucking the bag from my hand and swinging it over his good shoulder. "Factually incorrect. Just because my idea of entertainment is reading the newest edition of Publication Sixteen from the Internal Revenue Service doesn't mean I am any less fun than you, love."