December 2, last year

 

Today would be the first time Etta and I had seen each other since my unfortunate singing incident, and I wanted to make sure things went according to plan.  With Etta, I’d learned to expect the unexpected though.  So, I went over the list of everyone’s advice in my head one last time on the drive to the clinic. 

Apologize.  Check.  It was over text and got no response, which I knew was not the way to go, but I planned to do it again today very sincerely.

Give her time to cool off.  Check.  More than a week passed, but I knew Etta could hold a grudge for a long time, so I had that working against me.

Find a way to get her to listen.  Check.  She won’t risk a public showdown at the clinic, so hopefully that could work in my favor.

Throw her everything you have.  Can’t check that one yet, but I have big plans.

Give her no choice but to believe you.  I would have to wait on this one.  I can’t control what she believes.  I tried once. 

Employ your mom.  Check.  Mom’s advice was actually pretty friggin ingenious. 

Find out what she loves most and use that to your advantage.  Working on that one.  We’d see how well some of the things I planned would go today.

Own up to what you did and admit you’re an idiot.  That one was going to be hard.

Stop being an idiot.  That actually was Jake’s advice.  I had to concede this point, especially to Jake. 

Don’t give up.  I wouldn’t, no matter what.  Mom reminded me how stubborn Etta is.  She said I couldn’t take her stubbornness as defeat, and I needed to be more stubborn than she is.  I wasn’t sure that was possible.  She also said I would probably fail along the way, but I had to keep going.

Remember that no matter what, she loves you, too.  Mom and Jake both admitted to me that Etta told them on numerous occasions how much she did love me.  Why they waited until now to tell me?  I was a little pissed about that.  But I had to focus on what was important, and that was getting her to admit it to me.

“Morning, Nate,” Andre greeted.  “Etta texted me this morning asking if I could get you started today.”

“Is she running late?  Is everything okay?”

He smirked.  “She didn’t say.”  He pushed buttons to start the fast walking pace on the  elliptical.  “Fifteen minutes, then we’ll move to the bigger resistance bands today.”  I started walking, and he stood there, smiling at me.

“What’s up, Andre?”

He looked around to see if anyone was listening.  He leaned in close and lowered his voice.  “I saw your video on YouTube.  I’m impressed.  I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Oh, yeah.  The number one viewed video on the website for the past week happened to be my performance – I’d gone viral, not to mention it’d been shown on just about every media gossip show and web site, including ESPN.  Yet another obstacle to overcome.  Luckily, Etta was not in the video.  If she was, it would have been worse. 

“Thanks, Andre.  I’m a little embarrassed by it, so please don’t mention it to anyone around here, will you?”

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed.  It was awesome.  But I got you.  Don’t worry.”

Yeah, I was worried. 

Etta breezed in and moved to set her stuff down on her desk.  She had to move the bananas and the jar of peanut butter, two of the ingredients for her favorite smoothies, and didn’t even touch the very expensive blender they accompanied.  She just walked out of the room, nary a glance my direction.  Shit. 

Once my timer was up, Andre ran the rest of my workout.  I moved through the exercises without seeing Etta.  It wasn’t until it was time for my electro-muscular stimulation that she came into the room.  She moved about me, placing the electrodes in the right places, but never looking at me. 

I waited until Andre left the room before speaking. 

“Etta, I…”

She put her hands on either side of my thighs and got right in my face.  “You will NOT speak to me right now,” she seethed through clenched teeth.

I smiled.  “Yes, I will,” I said quietly. 

“Fine, I’ll get Andre to finish you up, then.”

I leaned back casually, flexing my arms, of course.  “Okay, if you really want to leave me alone with Andre, go right ahead.  I’m sure he’ll speak to me,” I wagged my eyebrows at her, “and I’ll be more than happy to speak right back to him.”

She pushed herself up and turned to the machine.  “You’re really resorting to blackmail, Nate.”  Ah, I was back to Nate again.  Yeah, I deserved that. 

“If you hear me out, it won’t be an issue.” 

She turned on the machine and cranked up the dial. 

I sucked in through my teeth.  “Fuck, Etta, ow.”

She turned it back down.  “Wuss.” 

“That was real mature.” 

“Oh, that’s right.  I forgot you’re a paragon of maturity.”  She turned the dial slowly. 

I waited until she got the levels just right then I grabbed her wrist and turned her around to face me. 

“Will you let me speak to you now?”  I slid my hand inside hers.  “Please?”

She shook her head.  “Not here.”  She pulled her hand from mine.  “My office, after you’re iced down.”  She watched my leg for a few seconds to see if the muscles were flexing properly.  “And after that, you will leave me alone.”

Fat chance.

 

***

 

I followed Etta into her office and closed the door.  The big dog bone, the one with the note that said “For Giles,” I left in here earlier was moved off the desk, so I know she saw it.  Working on going at her through the things she loves most didn’t seem to have an effect… yet.  Later today, she’d get three more surprises.  One, the first delivery of a year’s supply of dog food; feeding Giles cost a fortune.  Two, a call from Jackson accepting her position.  He and I met over Thanksgiving holiday, and I talked him into accepting, asking him to call after my appointment.  And three, a generous supply of products from the bath place she loves in her favorite tangerine-vanilla scent, which, I had to admit, would benefit me as well. 

I had to sign the papers on the last surprise I had for her.  It would have to wait.

She sat on the edge of her large desk and motioned for me to sit in the chair.  Classic intimidation strategy.  She thought she would get the upper hand by being in a position of power.  That was perfect.  I needed her to feel that she had all the power.

“Make this quick, Nate,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. 

I ran my hand over my head.  “Etta, I wanted to apologize.  I am aware of what a huge ass I was and I wanted to explain…”

“Fine,” she looked back and grabbed a paper off her desk.   “You apologized.  Now you can leave.”

I stood up and moved closer to her.  “I’m sorry, Etta, but I’m not finished.”  I took the paper out of her hands and laid it back on her desk.  “You can at least hear all of what I have to say.  Then I will leave.”

She narrowed her eyes at me.  “Well…?”

“I have been broody and out of sorts since I injured my knee.  I’m afraid that my career is over, and as you know, my career is pretty much all I’ve allowed myself to have for the last eight years.”  I sat back down.  “Then I see you again.  I start to reminisce in my head and think of all the colossal mistakes I made with you and dredged up old feelings…” I looked up at her and saw her face softening.  “I was a mess that night, Etta.  I saw you with my brother, comforting him.  Then I saw you with Jackson.  That, combined with the shit from my injury and my conflicted feelings for you…I made yet another stupid choice in a string of stupid mistakes with you.”

“Why would seeing me with Jackson upset you?”  She put her hands over her mouth.  “Oh my God, you don’t know he’s gay, do you?”

“Yeah, well, I do now.”  I quickly smiled.  “I got a little crazy, Etta, which the drinking didn’t help.  I fully understand that being drunk is no excuse. 

“Then you left with my brother.  Jackson calmed me down and drove me home, but when I got there, I walked in my house and saw Jake having sex with Ashley, and I snapped.”

“Why would that make you snap?”

I swallowed and looked down.  “Because I thought Ashley was you.”   

She was quiet, so I looked up at her.  Her eyes had gone smoky dark.  The amount of hatred on her face?  She looked like she was going to murder me right then and there.

“Get. Out.”  Deadly.

“What am I missing?”

“If it had been me with your brother, it would serve you right!” she yelled, picking up her stapler and throwing it at me, but I dodged it and it hit the wall.   “You fucking son of a bitch!” 

I stood up.  “What the hell, Etta?”

She picked up the bone and swung it at me, narrowly missing my nose.  “After all these years, you think you can just charm your way back into my good graces with some lunches and a stupid fucking apology?”  She swung it again, but I ducked.   “It almost worked.”  She threw the bone on the ground and turned away from me, her hands going to her hair.  “God, I’m so stupid.”  She turned back and paced toward me, putting her finger in my face.  “You know what? That song was the closest thing to the truth you’ve ever said.  You never loved me.  It was all one big lie!”  She pushed me in the chest, hard, on the word lie.  She threw her arms out.  “Why try now?”  She poked me in the chest.  “You’ve lived in L.A. with that fucking backstabber for years now, Nate.  Or did you find out Emily is getting married so you’d settle for the consolation prize?”

I was confused.  “Emily?  What’s Emily got to do with us?”

“Don’t play dumb.”  She laughed humorlessly.  “Oh, that’s right.  You’re not playing.  You were always dumb when it came to me.  I’m just glad I saw the real you before I followed through on the biggest mistake of my life.  Get the fuck out!”  She walked around me and opened the door.  Five minions were crowded at the door, obviously listening to our conversation.  They scattered like roaches. 

I was pissed.  I walked up to her and stood right in her face.  “I love you, Etta,” I said quietly, but still angry.  She closed her eyes.  I cupped her chin.  “No look at me.”  She opened them.  “I love you and I always have, since the first moment I saw you, until this very moment and probably until the day I die.”  Her eyes filled with tears.  “I’ve never stopped.  And I will own up to every mistake I’ve ever made regarding you, but not one of them involved your sister.” 

She nodded her head.  “I saw you,” she seethed through her teeth venomously, “with her.”

I dropped my hand from her chin and stepped back.  “No, you didn’t.  If you think so little of me to believe I would ever do something like that to you after all we have been through,” I walked away, “then we are definitely done here.”

 

***

 

When I drove in my driveway, I realized that I didn’t remember the drive home.  It kind of concerned me that I allowed myself to drive so angry and distracted.  Plus, the shake in my hand that I don’t remember stopping to get really scared me. 

As angry as I was, it didn’t escape my attention that today was the first time I ever said the actual words to her out loud.  It wasn’t my plan, but all my plans never have gone like I wanted them to go.  So now what?

I never in a million years would have guessed that Etta thought so little of me.  Even if she didn’t return my feelings, she should have known I would never betray her, especially with her sister.  I don’t know what she thought she saw, but at this point, I didn’t care.  I.  Was.  Done.

I plopped down on the couch and grabbed the remote.  Shake in one hand, remote in the other.  Something I hadn’t done for almost three months.  I flipped the channels, settling on a marathon of some show about puppies on Animal Planet.  I dozed off somewhere around episode three.

“Wow, this is a sight I haven’t seen in a while,” Jake said, startling me out of sleep.  “I take it things did not go well?”

Jake sat down on the smaller couch and put his feet up on the coffee table.  I sat up and rubbed my eyes.  “No.”  Ashley came in from the kitchen and sat next to Jake. 

“What happened, Nate?” Jake asked. 

“I waited to talk to her alone, I apologized and explained everything I told you I would say last night, but when I got to the part about catching you and Ashley, she freaked out on me.  Told me it would serve me right if it was her with you.  I told her I loved her and always have, and she said something about seeing me and Emily together and I left.”

“You and Emily?  C’mon, that’s crazy.  She should know you would never…” he stopped.  His expression turned guilty.  “Oh, shit.”  He leaned over and rested his face in his hands.  “Fuck, Nate.  I’m so sorry.”

I looked back and forth between Ashley and Jake before it hit me.

“It was you she saw with Emily, wasn’t it?”

Jake nodded his head.  “While you were out looking for her.  She must have come home.”

“Oh my God, that makes so much sense,” Ashley said.  “You both sound alike.  And from the back, if it was dark, I can see where she thought it was you.”

“And that’s all she saw.  We were on the couch.”  He put his head in his hands.  “I knew I heard the door close.  Emily said she didn’t.”

“How the fuck can this happen?” I asked. 

“Well, I was sitting on the couch, and Emily had her shirt off and she was straddled…”

“It was a rhetorical question!”  I stood up.  “So all this time, Etta saw you with her sister and thought it was me?”  I looked at Jake.  “She never told you this?”

“No, but a lot of the comments she made to me about you make more sense now.”

I sat back down on the couch and grabbed the remote.

“Wait,” Ashley said.  She sat down next to me, grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.  “What are you doing?  Call her.  Go over there.  Do something.”

I looked Ashley in the eye.  “No.” 

“No?” Jake asked.  “What the hell, Nate?  This is a simple fix.”

“She had eight years to find out the truth!” I yelled and stood up.  “I wasted ten fucking years of my life loving that woman, eight of which were spent alone, pining for her, comparing all other women to her, all the while she believes I’m the type of person who would confess my feelings to her and not two hours later, fuck her sister on the couch, a couch where she and I spent so much time.”  I turned to Jake.  “A simple conversation with you, me or Emily would have cleared this all up.  But no, she’s so fucking stubborn.  She never told you about it.  She hasn’t spoken to Emily in eight years.  It was easier for her to believe the worst.” 

Jake looked at me with pity.  “Nate…”

“No, Jake.  I believed for eight years that I royally screwed up.  That I was to blame for how things ended between us.  Hell, they didn’t even technically end.  But now I learn it was actually her fault.”

Ashley tried.  “This isn’t her…”

“Yes it is, Ashley.  It IS her fault.  It was easier for her to believe that I was the one with her sister rather than consider the possibility that it was someone else.  She thinks I’m a total dick.”  I threw my hands up.  “I’m done.  It’s finally over.  I can finally let her go.”

And I walked out of the room.