Chapter 40 Slim
E very day for the next week, Gabe and I rehearsed from dawn until dusk. We filled every minute of our days with dancing, stretching, and reworking choreography until it was past the point of perfection.
By the end of each day, both Gabe and I were so sore that we’d take turns alternating between hot showers and icing our sore muscles before collapsing into bed.
We left not a second to spare to unnecessary thoughts or feelings.
Any moment I felt one of those creeping up, I pushed my body harder until my mind couldn’t keep up, and the unwanted thoughts drained out of me through the sweat pouring down my body.
Friday night before the competition was the first night Gabe and I took off all week.
The only source of entertainment I had at my place were DVD’s and basic cable. We’d just finished watching Jaws on T.V. when Gabe began clicking through the channels in search of our next movie.
“You really should just shell out for Netflix. It’s not even that expensive.”
“I know. I’m just trying to save up every penny I can right now. Plus, I don’t need Netflix.”
“Yeah, but I do. I need my daily dose of shitty reality T.V. You know this about me.”
“And I love you in spite of it.”
Gabe nudged my shoulder, and I chuckled lightly, snuggling myself into his chest on the couch. In silence, Gabe flipped through the T.V. Guide of shows and movies playing, growing disappointed in our lack of options. That was, until one particular movie title caught my eye.
“Stop,” I blurted out, springing straight up.
“What? You wanna watch this ?”
“Just put it on.”
Gabe did as I said, and my small T.V. screen filled to every edge with black, white, and shades of grey.
“Okay, this movie is old as fuck.”
I shushed Gabe, entirely enamoured in the movie and old-fashioned characters walking and talking on the screen. My heart pumped with each step they took and each line they delivered, overwhelmed so suddenly by this forgotten connection to Ethan.
“I couldn’t see the whole title on the guide. What’s this called?”
“Um, I think he said To Have and Have Not. Something like that.”
“Who said?”
I paused, realizing my mistake. Lowering my eyes from the screen, I answered Gabe in shame.
“Ethan.”
Gabe didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t looking at him to see his expression. Neither of us had brought up Ethan all week, even though I had felt Gabe wanting to know every dirty detail of what happened plenty of times.
His stare was pushing into the side of my face, but I remained still and stubborn, knowing if I even cracked my lips to talk about Ethan, the only thing to come out would be sobs.
Enough time passed for Gabe to give in and let it go, instead pulling me down with him as he laid back on the couch.
Together, we watched this movie that was the only tie I had left to the man I loved.
Mist filled my eyes, falling over and leaking down my face in silent sorrow as I allowed myself this short, self-indulgent grief.
It wasn’t smart to watch this movie, but it also wasn’t smart to want Ethan or kiss him or fall hopelessly in love with him either.
Nothing I did involving Ethan was smart except saying goodbye to him.
The actress that I recognized from the “whistle” line came on the screen, and I sighed, relaxing back further into Gabe.
I thought about Ethan as a kid watching this with his dad.
Most kids hated old movies, but I could picture a younger Ethan with his face pressed almost right up against the screen, probably crushing hard on the blonde actress.
I was so lost in my imagining a younger Ethan that had it not been for the shock that pulsed my heart to a complete stop, I might have missed it when the male actor on screen said it .
My attention ripped back to the T.V., shock propelling my body up.
“What did he just say?”
“What? The guy in the movie?” Gabe asked, but I shushed him again.
Had I imagined it? Tension held every muscle in my body taut as I waited for him to say it again.
Maybe it had been my ears’ mistake. Maybe I’d missed hearing Ethan say it so much that my brain had imagined it coming from this actor on screen.
I waited and I waited until my heart was pounding so loudly between my ears I feared I wouldn’t be able to hear him say it over it all.
Minutes passed by and nothing.
Just as the hope and blood pressure inside of me began to dwindle back down to a normal level, the actor looked to the blonde across from him and tagged his line with an off the cuff, “Slim.”
And every breath inside of me dried up to dust.
That one quick syllable shot through me like a bullet, tearing through all of my reasoning and tall-standing principles like flesh, leaving them shredded all the same.
“Slim…” Even said below my breath, the name sounded different—new. The actors on the T.V seemed to slow in motion, and the rest of the room followed suit as the final missing puzzle piece dropped into place.
“Uh, did I miss something?”
Gabe’s voice came from next to me, the current of it drawing my head in his direction. His expression enlarged in every way when his eyes met mine, and I knew I had to look as shaken as I felt.
“That’s what Ethan calls me. Slim.”
“Does it mean anything?”
“I didn’t think so until now. He would never tell me where the nickname came from.”
“Well, we can look up the character on Google and see if it says anything about her,” Gabe suggested. How brilliant an idea I thought that was struck my body hard, resulting in frantic nodding, and scrambling closer as he pulled out his phone.
“Hm, says the actress is Lauren Becall, and the character’s name is Marie Browning. Movie was made in 1944.”
“What else?”
“I’m looking, I’m looking.”
There had to be something about this character in particular that reminded Ethan of me.
So far, all her character and I had in common was our figure and hair color.
Maybe I resembled the actress in some ways, but for him to specifically nickname me as her character, there had to be something I was missing.
“Oh, here’s an article about her character!”
“And?”
“It’s about how she was one of the top Femme Fatale’s of that time period in film. Says that a Femme Fatale is an attractive and seducing woman—” Gabe wriggled his eyebrows at me briefly. “Who will ultimately—”
I was on the edge of my very next breath when Gabe stopped speaking. His once teasing eyebrows drew down, perplexed.
“What? Who will ultimately what?”
Gabe’s stare jumped up to mine but dropped to his phone screen just as quickly. A very obvious hesitation had obscured his features, one that I wasn’t prepared to wait to remove. Yanking his phone screen towards me, I read the finishing sentence out loud.
“Who will ultimately bring disaster to the man who… falls in love with her.”
The words fell off of my tongue with disbelief trailing behind. My eyes read the words over and over again and still, the shock of what they meant refused to sink in. What it meant was that, the very first time Ethan called me Slim, this was his opinion of me.
He perceived me to be a woman who would inevitably destroy his life if he got too close. He thought me to be a woman with the potential to tear his whole world down, and that’s why he’d given me the nickname. That’s why I was his Slim.
Because I was his fated disaster and he knew it all along.
“What are you thinking?” Gabe asked.
Truthfully, I was thinking about the day at the lake with Ethan. I was thinking back over every small moment of that day and how profound they became when I attached what I now know about that day to them.
“I’m thinking…” Lifting my stare to Gabe’s, I spoke the realization in the same second that it came to me. “That I have to go.”
“Yup.” Gabe nodded right alongside me, feeling the monumental weight of the discovery we’d just made. “Do you know what you’re going to say to him?”
I was off the couch and running into my bedroom to grab a jacket within half a second. “I don’t know,” I called back.
“Are you coming home tonight?”
Gabe stood up as I sped out of my bedroom, shoving my arms into my jacket.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
Yanking my purse off of the bar stool in the kitchen, I shoved my feet into each hole of my boots before righting myself up.
“I know that I have to see him.”
A mixture of pride and happiness sprung to Gabe’s stare. He gave me a quick hug and practically pushed me out the door.
I wasn’t thinking. I was just moving. Moving my feet towards my car, moving my hands along the steering wheel as I drove. The GPS giving instructions from my phone was the only noise in the car other than my concentrated breathing.
Eighteen minutes later, I was parked and sitting in front of the address Ethan had given me last week. I had no idea if he was actually home as I hadn’t thought to message him in the whirlwind of my discovery, but there was only one way to find out.
The air was icy stiff as I stepped out of my car, but I barely felt it.
My blood was racing far too hot to feel any of the cold’s touch, even as the wind pushed against my face while I walked up the steps to the plain white front door.
I landed four curt knocks on the door before I could talk myself into running back to my car and speeding away.
Adrenaline pumped fast through my veins as I waited for someone to answer the door. It could be Julian or it could be Ethan. Or it could be someone totally random that I didn’t know and could make a complete fool out of myself, but as of right now, I didn’t care.
All I cared about was seeing Ethan. Talking to Ethan. Getting answers from Ethan.
My heartbeat spiked as the sound of someone unlocking the door on the other side took all focus. I didn’t know where to look as the seconds until someone opened the door crunched down until they were at zero and the door in front of me opened wide.
His eyes fell to mine, surprise illuminating the beauty in them.
“Alice…”