Emily

Every day for the next two weeks, I heard from Ethan at least once, usually more. We texted constantly, which Dana loved to tease me about, and we talked every night before bed.

That Death Wish coffee really came in handy on the mornings after one of TotC’s concerts, since Ethan was later calling on those nights, sometimes really late depending on the time zone differences.

If I knew I wasn’t going to hear from him until two or three, I’d go to bed early and set an alarm, so I wouldn’t miss his call.

Nope, I wasn’t infatuated at all.

Or if I was, he was too.

He didn’t like waking me up to talk, but I insisted, and he didn’t put up much of a fight, admitting that he’d become kind of addicted to hearing my voice.

He mentioned the second exhibition during one of our late-night-slash-early-morning calls and assured me that it would be set up after the holidays, when things weren’t so hectic. I was so glad he brought it up because I’d been determined not to mention it myself, no matter how much Nikolai prodded me to.

I thanked Ethan for the update and changed the subject, content to take him at his word.

We talked about everything and nothing, inching our way into each other’s histories. I told him a little about my mom and how much she enjoyed belittling me for not going into something more “serious” and respectable.

He said he had been lucky on that front, since Ryan sort of paved the way with his parents with his art. They’d even let the band use their garage for practices when they were starting out. There was a lot of sadness in those discussions, though, and it made me wonder.

He admitted that he was estranged from his parents and had been for some time, but he didn’t talk about it long, steering the conversation back to me.

“What about your dad?” he’d asked one night about ten days before Thanksgiving, as I lay in my bed enjoying the sound of his voice in the near-black room.

A picture of my father instantly popped into my head and I smiled. It was my favorite picture, the one where he was smiling the most. It was also the last picture my mother had taken of him before he deployed. “He died in combat when my mother was pregnant with me. The day you came to visit—that was his birthday. I never got to meet him.”

“Shit, Em. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. My mother told me a few things when I was younger, or rather she talked about him to her friends while she held me in her lap. She only cuddled me when other people were around, and she only talked about my dad when she thought it would get her sympathy. I paid attention when she talked about him, filed it all away in the back of my mind like pieces of a puzzle. I know he was really into art. Sculpting, specifically.” I glanced over to my dresser at the small, clay figure that was all I had of him, aside from his dog tags in my jewelry box.

An intricately carved rose, so realistic I used to try my hardest to smell it when I was a kid, like the fragrance was just below the surface.

“He’d been working his way through the ranks even before he met my mom, and she adored the idea of having an officer for a husband, so she reeled him in. They were married several years before my mom got pregnant with me, an accident according to her.”

Ethan made a sound of disbelief, like he was disgusted that she’d told me such a thing.

“They’d just moved into a new place a month or so before he deployed, and he put all his sculptures in storage, at her request. She’d been trying to get him to stop that ‘silliness’ for years, and she finally got her way. I guess she stopped paying the storage fees after he died and eventually everything was auctioned off. But there was a little one she must have forgotten about in a box of old junk she stuffed in the attic when we moved to Madison around my second birthday. I found it there when I was eight or nine and hid it away in my room, so she wouldn’t throw it away like she had everything else.” I still hated her for letting his legacy go like that, like it didn’t matter to her, like she thought it shouldn’t matter to me.

“My mom thought his art was a stupid hobby, a waste of time and energy better spent making a name for himself in the military. She wanted to be a colonel’s wife as soon as possible, and any time he devoted to his art was against her wishes.”

“Damn, that’s so wrong,” Ethan had muttered, sounding sad and a little angry.

“I think that’s one of the main reasons she dislikes me so much. I’ve made it a point to be everything she’s not. All she ever did was belittle me because my dad’s love of art inspired my appreciation of it. It also didn’t help that I look exactly like him, which she loved to point out with a distasteful look on her face. I don’t think she ever loved him at all. She just wanted someone she could mold into her twisted idea of a success.” I blew out a breath, tugging the covers over me as I snuggled in my bed and wished Ethan was there with me, just to hold me for a while. “She hates me because she couldn’t mold me either.”

“Let’s say you’re right; would you really want the approval of someone like that? What kind of person would you have to be for her to be the mother you wanted? For her to love you in whatever twisted way she’s capable of?”

“Someone like her. I’d have to be someone like her. And I’d rather die.”

“If you were someone like her, I can promise you I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. I bet your girl Dana wouldn’t be best friends with someone like that, either. And poor Dammit? Can you imagine where he’d be?”

I chuckled at how dramatically he’d said all that, like it was the most horrific thing he could imagine. Maybe it was. It sure as hell was for me.

“Point taken.”

“I’ll tell you a little secret, sweetheart. The best way to know that you’re a good person isn’t to look at your friends—it’s taking a look at those who dislike you. If truly horrible people hate you, it’s a sure sign that you’re living right. You are everything she’s not, and that means you’re fucking amazing. Remember that.”

“I will.” I giggled.

“Now, get some sleep. The band is flying out tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll see you sometime this weekend.”

I groaned. “I wish I didn’t have to work Saturday. I’d much rather spend it with you.”

“I can’t wait to see you either. Soon, sweet Emily. Don’t you worry. Besides, I have to squeeze in some work myself. We’ll probably get in late tomorrow night and Saturday morning, we have an interview, then I need to get my studio organized.”

Thankfully, he couldn’t see me pouting. “Fine, go do rock star or artist stuff or whatever you have to do.”

“You’re pouting, aren’t you?” he asked, amusement in his voice.

“Maybe.”

He chuckled then. “I bet that’s almost as sexy as your pissed-off face.”

“Shut it, drummer boy.”

“Good night, pouty girl. You’ll be seeing me very soon.”

Yeah, as soon as I close my eyes. “Sooner than you think. Sweet dreams.”