Chapter 34
Edward pulled his jeans off and left them in a heap on the floor next to his bed. Another similar pair lay next to them from the day before. Sliding his pajama pants on, he half expected a call or even a visit from Gracie, but pleasingly the night was quiet. He plopped down on the couch with his laptop and his phone and pulled Eva’s number up.
After a few rings, it went to her voice mail where her sweet voice told him to leave her a message.
“Eva, hey baby. It’s Eddie. I just wanted to tell you good night and see how your day went. I have some news about today but I want to talk in person. It’s still fairly early and even though we didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he said coyly, “I thought that if you got a cat nap in today maybe we could have a late-night cup of coffee and talk. Okay, miss you. Sweet dreams if I don’t hear from you.”
He messed around on his laptop, going through a few emails, looking at some reports Joseph sent him and trying to catch up on some news. Before too long he realized he was fighting to keep his eye lids from closing so he lay back and closed his eyes for a few minutes feeling the swirling effects of sleep take over his body.
Just for a few minutes….
Edward woke up, his body aching from the position he fell asleep in and he cursed himself, blaming it on the fact that he had fallen off his exercise routine. He sat up on the couch and picked up his laptop that was on the verge of falling to the floor and closed it. It took him a few minutes to find his phone that had worked its way into the cushions of the couch but when he got his hand on it he quickly checked it for any missed calls. There was nothing. He sighed and pulled up Eva’s number. Again, it rang a few times before her voice replicated its same message from last night.
“Eva, hi. It’s Eddie again. I missed your call last night, or lack… thereof. I hope everything is okay. Listen, I really need to talk to you. I won’t be transferring to another school. I mean, I don’t need to. I really don’t want to tell you over a voice mail. Just call me when you get in, please. I need to talk to you. I’m pretty much free all day. Maybe we can do lunch.” He hesitated before hanging up, not wanting to disconnect from her. He had a bad feeling something was wrong and it ate at him the entire morning. He left his flat and decided to surprise her with Chinese food. She usually went back to her place between classes so he was confident he would find her there.
He pulled up to her house and waited at her front door after knocking. Peering through the front door glass he knocked again.
“Eva? It’s Eddie.” He knocked again. A figure walked within sight and he knocked a little louder. “Come on, I can see you in there. Let me in. I have egg rolls and aubergines and everybody knows they suck when they are cold.”
The figure disappeared and he knocked louder yet.
“Damn it! Let me in! Whatever you are pissed about I think I have a right to know. I have a right to defend myself, don’t I?”
He took a step back and exhaled everything he had, looking in one last time before turning away from the door. Just before he stepped down off the steps he heard a click from behind the door. He turned around in time to see the door open with Eva standing in the doorway. Her face had no expression and her arms dangled to her side.
“Eva? What’s wrong? Why haven’t you been answering my calls?” He walked back up to her and looked into her red puffy eyes. “You’ve been crying.” He set the food down and took her arms in his hands. “What happened?”
She remained expressionless and motionless.
“Please, talk to me. Did Gracie say or do something? Did she hurt you?” His voice hardened.
Eva took a few steps back into the house and turned to walk away from him. He grabbed the food and stepped inside. As soon as he did, he noticed a slew of pictures and papers strewn across the small oval carpet in the middle of her living room floor. She plopped down on the couch and picked up one of the pictures next to her by the corner. She held it between her two fingers letting it bend down around her hand, dropping it on the floor and looking up at him.
He felt a jolt run through him when he realized something was very wrong. “What the hell is going on? What is this?” He walked in and picked up the first picture he came to. The image stopped him in his tracks and his heart started beating harder. “How did you get these?” He quickly looked up at her and knew it was too late to explain anything. She knew everything. He looked back down at the picture of him in one of his expensive three piece suits, his arm around a woman with a dress that looked like it was painted on to a perfect body. He walked into the room a little further and knelt down into the mess around him. He reached down and picked up another black and white eight by ten photograph. It was a picture of him and Joseph holding a plaque congratulating them on the success of their multi-million-dollar business. And another of him in a different suit, his arm around a different woman, his lips locked with hers.
“Eva,” he said numbly. He didn’t even know what to say to her. I can explain. Every man who has fucked up in the history of men has started their plea bargain with that very sentence. It seemed too cliché for him to try it too. “This is exactly what I have been trying to tell you.”
“Trying to tell me? I don’t recall one time when you tried to tell me anything.”
“I wanted to, Eva. So many times.”
“Then, why didn’t you?” she asked dryly.
“Honestly?”
“Why start that now?”
“Give me a chance to explain, please.”
“You had every chance since you met me.”
“I didn’t know how to. I was afraid you would act… well, this way.”
“It would have been a hell of a lot better coming from you. Did you expect anything less? Eddie, or is that even your real name?”
He put his head down. “It is. They actually call me Edward.”
“Edward, yes. Of course. Are you really worth that much money?” she asked dryly.
“Yeah.” He didn’t have to ask how much she thought he was worth. It didn’t matter at this point. His money was the root of the evil that surrounded him.
“You lied to me.” Her monotone voice cut through him. “I thought you were different.”
“I am different.”
“You’re a fucking player!” she screamed, holding a picture up at him. “And you sure as hell played me.” Her voice got quiet again.
He felt frustrated looking into her face. It looked so bad for him.
“You played this game and let it go this long, stringing me along in your little charade. Was it fun?”
“Eva, it wasn’t like that.” He sat on the couch next to her.
“Then, how was it?” she asked bitterly, getting up and walking to the other end of the room. “Huh?”
“The man I am with you is the man I have always wanted to be. This,” he grabbed a handful of the pictures and squeezed them in his hand before throwing them back down. “This is not me. This is some kind of stereotype that was created because of my money and the lifestyle I lived. You wouldn’t have given me the time of day if I were rich and successful in that coffee shop in Paris that day.”
“I fell in love with you. Not your Armani suit and your fucking bank account.”
“Bullshit. I don’t believe that for a second. You wouldn’t have opened your mind and your heart if you saw a suit in front of you. You wouldn’t even have given it a chance. You know it as well as I do.”
“Are you turning this around to make it my fault?”
“No, but you are just as stereotypical and closed minded.” He stopped himself and took a breath before he said something to make the situation worse. “No,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “I just want to have the chance to explain why I did this. It was never a game to me. It was about my happiness. I wasn’t happy in that suit, as Edward. I was living in a reputation that I couldn’t break. It’s the reason I went to Paris in the first place.”
“Stop it. Just stop it!” She waved her hands in the air and turned away from him. “You know what? It doesn’t matter now. The fact is that you lied to me. You’ve been lying to me since the day we met.”
“You make it sound like that is all I did.” He stood up from the couch and walked into the middle of the photographs. “I met you as Eddie, yes. But the man you fell in love with is me. It always has been me. My suits and bank account is just my job. It’s what I do for a living. You can’t hold that against me.”
“I trusted you,” she said calmly. “I let myself become vulnerable to you. You told me I could,” she sobbed.
Edward stepped closer to her until she put her hand out to stop him.
“Don’t,” she said, holding her breath. “I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.”
“Eva, please. Let’s sit and talk. Let me explain.”
“There is no need,” she said, looking around on the floor. “I know why you did it and I understand. I do.” She shook her head. “But… I don’t care why you did it. You have lied to me time and time again. You had more than enough opportunity to tell me.”
“I tried, but there was never a right time.”
“And there never will be.” The look she gave him shot down any hope he had of rectifying the situation. “I don’t know you like I thought I did.” She turned away from him. “I need time to think.”
“What does my financial status have to do with who I am? You know me, Eva.”
She left the room as if she hadn’t heard his last plea of forgiveness.
He looked around the room one more time before walking out the door. His thoughts were scattered and his body felt numb as he descended her stairs to the sidewalk.
“Eddie?”
He heard her sweet voice from behind him. He took a deep breath and spun around. Eva stood in the doorway, leaning against the door.
“Not that it matters now, but I thought you should know that I have made a decision.”
“What decision?” He took a step forward wanting to run to her.
“I’m going to Morocco… with Gerald.”
Edward’s heart dropped out of his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said, then quietly stepped back inside and closed the door.