Chapter 51 Old Wounds. Fresh Pain
“ W e can split the check if you want?”
Monica waved off Gabe’s poor attempt to pay for part of our dinner and reached for the bill. “Oh please. The sizable bonus I just got at work would make your wallets cry. Let me treat everyone tonight.”
“Even me?” The flirtatious voice pulled my sister’s attention, her face relaxing with a kittenish smile.
“Tonight’s your night, babe. You can always repay me later.” Monica winked in Steven’s direction, cueing a deep chuckle from him and a groan from me.
Monica had been going out with Steven for over half a year, and so far things were going well for them. He was an art broker or dealer or something along those lines that I just nodded along with and pretended like I knew what he was talking about so he didn’t think I was stupid.
His personality was a bit quirky, he looked like a younger Tom Selleck—mustache included shockingly—and he made Monica smile. That’s all that mattered to me.
For the first time in a long time, Monica was glowing. She laughed at something Sal—Gabe’s boyfriend—said and wrapped her hand around Steven’s arm and leaned into him. I watched as Steven smiled down at her, his eyes softening at my sister’s wide, beaming face.
A few minutes later, the bill was squared away, and we were all pushing in our chairs with bellies full and ready to continue onto the main event of the evening.
Steven had an Art Gala tonight in the city, which prompted this lovely evening’s double date with me as the fifth wheel. I didn’t mind, really. After all, I was surrounded by people who loved me. And Steven.
“How far away is the Gala from here? I did not wear my walking boots,” Sal called out to the rest of us.
“Same,” Monica and I both chimed at the same time.
“Just a few blocks. I’ll buy you all a drink when we get there to make up for the walk. How’s that sound?”
The four of us cheered at Steven’s offer, continuing our walk to the Gala with an added pep in our steps. With Steven leading the way, Gabe and Sal trailed behind him locked hand in hand, leaving Monica and I to drift slowly towards the back of the group.
An awkward silence consumed the first few seconds of our alone time, sneaking back in and reminding me we still were not back to normal just yet.
It had been almost a year since everything went down, and while we were leaps and bounds better than we were at this time last year, we still had a ways to go before ‘normal’.
“So, you excited for tonight?”
Monica kicked the bottom of her shoe across the sidewalk and shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “I’m excited for Steven to make a shit ton of money tonight so we can finally book that trip to Hawaii I’ve been wanting to go on. I’ve already taken vacation time. I never take vacation time.”
“Wow,” I laughed, truly impressed. “Does he know how big a deal it is that you’re taking time off of work for him?”
She tried to hide it behind her shoulder as she shrugged, but I saw the coy smile peek through anyway.
“He knows I kind of like him.”
“Don’t wanna throw him to the curb just yet?”
“Nah, I think I’ll keep him around a bit longer.”
The cold air outside showed my breath of laughter as it created a puff of fog that I walked right through.
I was so glad that she was finally back to happy.
At dinner, she told me she was expecting a promotion at work any day now too.
Somehow, in just under a year, she’d smoothed out every kink in her life in a way that only Monica and her resilient persistence could.
“You dating anybody?” she asked abruptly.
“Oh God, no .”
Monica’s face crinkled as I responded like she’d asked me the most absurd question, and I mentally cringed for having such a vehement reaction to what should be a normal question.
“Between all of our shows and classes, I just don’t have time for dating,” I corrected.
Lies. I’d actually found myself with a lot more free time on my hands than last time I lived here.
My weekly movie night over at Gabe and Sal’s helped eat up that time and so did hanging out with the new friends I’d made at ABT, but even that left me with a good chunk of alone time.
I had a roommate, but she was barely ever around, so it felt a lot like I lived alone—a feeling I wasn’t totally in love with.
I’d been reading—a lot. Mostly self-help books or sappy romance books.
My love life from here on out was looking pretty bleak, so I allowed myself to get lost in those books where the man sweeps the woman off her feet literally every single time.
All of those books had happy endings and honestly, they were a pleasant break from my romantic reality.
“There’s no one who’s caught your eye though?”
That funny feeling I always got when I was uncomfortable swirled in my stomach. She wasn’t asking casually as my sister who was genuinely interested in my love life. She was asking because she hoped I had moved on from Ethan.
Shaking my head, I gave the answer she didn’t want.
“Not really, no.”
That wasn’t to say that I hadn’t had the chance to go on dates, because I did. A few regulars at the bars we all went to and one of the other dancers at ABT had asked me out. I just wasn’t interested in saying yes. I knew my heart wouldn’t be in it, and that’s not fair to any one of those men.
“Did, uh, Ethan ever come by or reach out to you or anything?”
The awkward twist in her voice matched the one in my chest as she mentioned his name out loud.
“No, he didn’t.” I paused to clear my throat of the shard of glass that felt like it just appeared. “I unblocked his number and tried calling and texting a few times, but he never answered.”
“What? ”
Monica sounded as shocked as I was at the time. It was stupid of me to think he’d come running the second I called, but I at least thought he’d pick up the phone. After the fourth time I called to only have his voicemail answer, I settled in for a night of realization and a whole lot of wine.
Of course he didn’t want to hear from me.
I’d shut him down and out too many times to recall and always under the guise that it was the best thing for everyone involved.
I’d convinced myself that everything I was doing was for Monica and in the end, for Ethan, but he was a smart enough man to see what I didn’t until Mon spelled it out for me.
I’d broken his heart one too many times and then ran away like the scared girl I was when he met me.
I hadn’t changed at all and in fact, I reverted into a version of myself that acted out of selfish fear, and Ethan saw that.
He saw it and he tried to love me out of it, but I fought back tooth and nail until we were both bloodied and broken from the fight. And finally, he threw his hands up.
“Yeah, I don’t blame him though. I wouldn’t want to call me back after the way I treated him.”
Peeking over at Monica, I caught her looking impressed as she nodded at me.
“That’s pretty big of you to realize.”
“Thanks.” I flashed her a quick grin, grateful for her seeing what I’d been working so hard on. “I’ve done a lot of personal work this year, and I think it’s helping. I started working on myself when I first got to Chicago, but then that sort of all went in the trash.”
Mon agreed with a playful nod and chuckle as we fell in step.
A flush of easiness washed through me as we arrived at the art gala and climbed the stairs outside of the grand building to go inside.
Tonight was going surprisingly well. Monica and I had a semi-serious conversation about Ethan alone, and I didn’t cry once—which was a big step for me.
Everyone was getting along great and to top it off, I got a free meal out of it all.
All in all, tonight was going pretty perfect.
Once inside, Steven showed us all around the gala, explaining sculptures and artworks as we passed them all and who the artists were.
The more Steven rambled on about art styles and profit margins, the more the stars in Monica’s eyes shone and I had to laugh.
What would put me to sleep contrarily made her fall harder and quicker in love.
Steven kept good on his promise and bought everyone a round of drinks, and we all had to choose between either wine or what tasted like ridiculously expensive champagne.
We’d been there for almost an hour before we made it to the section Steven labeled ‘Bank or Bust’.
It turned out to be just pictures. No fancy techniques to make them stand out like a particular brush stroke or molding used to create a sculpture.
Just an image captured in time and that had to be enough.
Some, like the pictures of fruit and flowers I was staring at now, did nothing for me. Still, I gave them my time because it was someone’s art and everyone’s art deserved to be appreciated.
Over my shoulder, Sal ended up calling my name.
“Um, Alice?”
“Yeah?”
“Just when were you going to tell us you used to model , missy?”
“What?” I asked, confusion lining my voice.
Whipping around, I followed Sal’s sightline up to where he and the rest of my group were staring.
And my face dropped down blank, my jaw following suit.
Everywhere I looked over the photo, not a single fragment of it helped make it more real. The colors were real. The shimmer winking off of the water was real. The girl in the photo was real. The love behind the lense was palpably real.
But this picture being here couldn’t be real.
I could feel the eyes of the others watching me as I stared at the picture in silence. My heart thumped all the way up to my throat, and I couldn’t speak past its suffocating presence.
“Alice, who took this photo of you?”
That voice belonged to Monica and just barely broke through over the deafening thudding that now consumed me. All of me was pulsing, blood beating through my veins, up to my temples, and pressing the idea into my brain of what this picture in front of me meant.
If the picture was here…
The words spilled out in a barely heard whisper. “He’s here.”
“Who?” That was Monica again.
“Ethan.”
His name alone was a bullet, tearing through my heart and voice.
“He took this picture of me.” Turning to meet her intensely curious eye, I clarified. “Nothing was going on then. He just wanted to use his new camera.”
Every memory I put away of that day was breaking through again and filling my lungs up with ash. The burnt death of our love caked my lungs and my head began to spin as I couldn’t take down a full breath.
“Oh shit,” Gabe cursed, pulling my attention. My eyes on his, he wasn’t looking at me, but behind me.
“What is it?”
Gabe opened his mouth in hesitation, slowly shaking his head. “I don’t know if I should tell you to turn around or not.”
A miserable sigh shook through my body, and I tore my concentration to the floor. Tension and the ghost of heartbreak held my body standing still and facing away from what had Gabe’s focus.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t be here anymore. My body twitched with the need to run right out of the doors we came into, hail a cab, and get as far away from what Gabe was looking at as possible.
That twitch was familiar. That twitch was safe.
And ultimately, it was because of that twitch and the split second of thought I had just after it that I forced my head up and my body around.
He was standing there, just as I knew he would be, and broke my heart with just the sight of him. Tears crowded and blurred my eyes as the shards of my heart fell and ripped old wounds open again, spilling out fresh pain.
He wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t looking for me. He didn’t even know I was here.
Still, his name fell out of me like a teardrop.
“Ethan.”