Ava
James dropped his head into his hands and sighed. I could smell the alcohol on his breath from where I was sitting. How much had he had to drink before he’d come here?
“So, you sleep with a lot of women?” I asked.
James looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheek bone was starting to show signs of bruising. Dried blood was caked on his lip and chin and his shirt was stained red. He was a sight.
“Don’t even start with me,” he said. “You’re not a saint.”
I shut my mouth. It was true. I had betrayed both Caleb and James by what I’d done. I just hadn’t thought it through. The first time Caleb had kissed me it had been out of the blue. We’d carried on pretending like nothing had happened and never spoken about it. James had been someone I’d never been able to resist, but when I’d started wondering about his hand in the unethical practices in his business… when Caleb had come onto me again I hadn’t seen a reason to say no to him. He was a great guy and I deserved that.
I should have known better, though. I should have been open with them both.
As for my past? I had slept with several men, too. It wasn’t like I had been waiting around for James to come to his senses. Asking about the women in his past had just been unfair.
Caleb returned. His eyes were stormy when he looked at me, his face twisted in a scowl.
“Well, that was dramatic,” he said, sitting down. “He chose the last available seat, not sitting down next to me or James. I guess I couldn’t blame him. “What do we do now? She knows everything.”
“Is this normal – everyone hiding in the bushes in your garden?” James asked.
“What, the same way you did?”
He kept quiet.
“What do we do, now?” I asked.
They both looked at me.
“What we do now doesn’t really have anything to do with you. You’ve done your part and you’re leaving tomorrow.”
Caleb’s voice was cold and I shivered. I didn’t like that he hated me. I didn’t like that I had become someone he wanted to be that cold with.
I nodded. “Right,” I said. “I guess I should go, then.”
I didn’t stand up. I wanted either of them to ask me to stay. I wanted the impossible to happen. It wouldn’t, of course. But I wanted it to.
They both looked at me when I didn’t make a motion to leave. I stood up and sighed.
“For what it’s worth, I really am sorry for what happened. I apologize… to both of you.”
Caleb shrugged like it didn’t matter. James glared at me without saying anything at all. I walked toward the door.
“You know, you could have just told me you weren’t interested,” James said when I’d turned my back. I turned back to him.
“Like you were?” I asked. “You’re always leaving me.”
James shook his head. “You have to get off that train, sweetheart. I fucked up once, years ago. This time, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You didn’t ask me to stay,” I accused him.
“Would you have?” he asked.
I hesitated to answer. I didn’t know the answer to that Caleb sat quietly, watching us.
“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” James finally said when he realized I wouldn’t answer. “If you did you would just have slept with Caleb, anyway.”
“Don’t imply that I’m like that.”
“Actions speak louder than words.”
I glared at him. Caleb jumped up.
“Let me see you out,” he said. He took me by the elbow – just gently enough that it didn’t hurt but forceful enough to make a point – and escorted me away.
We walked to the door in silence. The atmosphere was loaded between us. When we reached the front door, Caleb turned to me before opening it.
“Well, that was eventful,” he said.
I nodded. “Too much for one night.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “About James? I would have understood.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t think it mattered. I thought he didn’t care and I didn’t know if I still cared, either.”
Caleb frowned. “You should have cared,” he said. “He’s a mess, now, and he wasn’t in a good place to begin with when you arrived.”
“Don’t lecture me,” I said. “It’s not like I was the one that jumped your bones.”
“Yeah, I did that,” Caleb said. “But I thought there was something between us. I thought that the thing between us was the only thing in your life. If I’d known that you had been with James I wouldn’t have done anything, no matter what you had decided. He’s my best friend, Ava.”
I nodded. The bro-code, and all that.
“Sometimes I just want to be with a nice guy. I think I deserve that much,” I said. “You were that nice guy. You are the kind of person I see myself being with.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” Caleb said. “You think you deserve to be with a nice guy and you should. That’s self-respect. But you forget that I deserve to be with a nice girl, too. And what you did tonight, what you did to James and to me… that’s not nice.”
His words hit me like physical punches. He didn’t want me. He didn’t want to be with me. I wasn’t nice. Was this my future? Was I doomed to always have people leave me because I wasn’t good enough? It had happened before and it was happening again and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Maybe one day,” I said. “I would be good enough for someone.”
Caleb shook his head. “Don’t be dramatic, Ava.”
I was suddenly angry. I opened the door myself and walked out of the house without saying goodbye. I willed Caleb to call me back, to apologize, to stop me from walking out of his life forever.
He didn’t do that. I wasn’t even close the road before I heard the door click shut behind me.
The whole night crashed down on me. What the hell had happened? Everything had been going great. Yes, there had been a few struggles but generally, everything had been going well. Caleb had been more than a gentleman.
And then James had arrived and showed all sorts of possessive tendencies that I’d never expected from someone that I thought didn’t care. And the fight… and then Amanda.
God, if I could ask for one thing right now, it would be to have the ability to be that emotionless, that uncaring. It was like she could switch it all off. She had sat there, hearing how she had been betrayed by her partner, and she had barely blinked an eye. She’d been on top of the whole situation, acting when I had still tried to catch my breath.
When I’d sat there, reeling, she had made choices that were sound and clear.
I wasn’t like that. My emotions were sudden and violent and they ruled until I could figure out what I was feeling and why. I could never make decisions just like that. Not decisions that mattered – only decisions I would eventually regret.
I was shivering despite the warm night. I walked away from Caleb’s house, down the road that the taxi had taken when the guy had dropped me off. I phoned for a car but I kept walking while I was on the phone, trying to find a street name to give the man.
When I finally did, I was four blocks away from Caleb’s place. My feet were sore, I didn’t know the neighborhood and I felt more lost than ever before.
When we were kids James had told me off and I had blamed my misery and mistrust on him for years. He had been the one that had ruined the concept of love for me, I’d said again and again. I hadn’t wanted to admit that thought about him that much, but it was a fact whether I accepted it or not.
This time, it was all my fault. I’d been a fool to fall for him again when I’d known nothing could come of it when I’d known what he was like. I had let him smooth talk me into sleeping with him. When he’d said he had pushed me away for my own good I had believed him because I’d wanted to believe that it was true. I’d let him sleep with me a second time because I’d wanted to hold onto the fairy tale as long as I could.
Now, I had messed up. No one was to blame but me. Even saying I hadn’t been thinking, I’d just acted, was ridiculous. It was true, but I shouldn’t have done it like that. I should have been better. I should have been in control. I should have kept everyone at arm’s distance.
The way Amanda did it.
Maybe, if I had the capacity to do that in the first place, whatever had happened between me and James years ago wouldn’t have affected me at all. Maybe I would be where Amanda is now, with exactly what I wanted.
I shook off the thought. I was only going to bury myself in regret if I carried on like this.
Bright lights appeared, shining directly on me. I squinted into the light, trying to make out what kind of car it was. When the car pulled up next to me, the driver wound down the passenger window.
“Ava Fischer?” he asked.
I nodded and opened the door, getting in.
“Le Meridien, please,” I said and he turned the car around, heading back to town.
I paid the man when he dropped me off and I turned to the hotel. This was my last night here. I had hoped it would be better than this.
I walked to my room and locked myself in. I stripped off my clothes, turned on the shower and climbed into the spray. I sat down on the floor, letting the water shower over me like a waterfall, and cried.
On Thursday morning, I packed my bags and checked out before ten. I had breakfast at First Watch, wasted time walking around, at lunch at First Watch again and finally made my way to Tampa International Airport. My flight was at four. It was an hour’s flight to Tallahassee and then an hour’s drive in a rental to Apalachicola where I finally pulled up in front of my family’s home.
My childhood home was a few blocks in from the ocean front. It was a modest three-bedroom place built in a time when people made do. It held all the memories of my childhood years.
It was good to be home.
A car pulled up behind me and I turned around. My mom got out of her car and frowned.
“Ava?” she asked. She worked at a nail salon and this was the time she came off work.
“Hi, mom,” I said.
She blinked at me. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”
I nodded. “I know. I should have called ahead.”
I hadn’t told them I was coming home at all. When Caleb had called me, I hadn’t known if I would just go back to Chicago. Now, though, I was here. I needed my mom. No matter how old I got, no matter how independent I was, when something went wrong I needed my mom.
“I’ll let your dad know you’re staying for supper.”
I chuckled.
When I walked into the house it was like I was a child again. They hadn’t moved the furniture since I was a child. My mom disappeared to the back of the house to call my dad.
I took out of my phone and checked it for messages or calls. There weren’t any. Neither of them wanted to speak to me. I didn’t blame them. I hated it but didn’t blame them. I had made my bed. I had to sleep in it.
Alone.