Authors: Erin McCarthy
Got it.
What, like Aubrey had any right to jump my shit? She had stayed with a complete douchebag for over a year, and while no one else was willing to say anything, I could do math. There was no way in hell her baby was her new husband’s kid unless Emma had been born a month premature. Since she was born at eight pounds and change, I was guessing she’d been right on time and the abusive prick Jared was actually Emma’s biological father. I wasn’t going to say anything though. If they wanted to keep a secret and keep Jared from having any say in Emma’s life, I was down with that. It seemed smarter and safer long term.
But I didn’t need Aubrey judging me. Not when our whole lives she’d been the loose screw and I was the poster child for responsibility. I was going through a rough patch. Deal with it.
Of course I realized immediately when she responded that she hadn’t been judging me at all. That was me putting my shit- my guilt- onto her.
Yay! So excited to see you.
I was a defensive dick. Truth.
I sent her a smiley face.
Me too
.
I was. I’d be even more so if she wasn’t living in the same airspace as Caitlyn and Heath.
It pissed me off that eighteen months later I still wasn’t over Caitlyn. Like what the hell? I should have moved on a long ass time ago. I wasn’t even sure why it still bothered me so much. Did I still love her?
I didn’t know. Not exactly. She was a stranger to me now.
But there were times, like when I buried myself in a girl like Lila, whose come on wasn’t even remotely subtle, and who could have substituted me for a dozen different guys, when I remembered what it had felt like to be with Caitlyn. How I had spent hours stroking her hair, her face, her lips, her skin. How I’d looked at her and everything in my chest had swelled. How I had loved coaxing her desire to life, watching her eyes widen in understanding of pleasure as I touched her, and I missed that intimacy so bad it hurt in every goddamn inch of me.
It wasn’t about Caitlyn’s lack of sexual experience or the fact that girls like Lila were comfortable in their own skin and hadn’t lacked for partners. I didn’t care what anyone did in her sex life and I didn’t judge casual sex. I just knew it was destroying me at the same time I didn’t seem to be able to resist it. Because what I missed was that tenderness, that connection that fused the physical and the emotional because you really dug someone. I had loved Caitlyn and she had cared about me. I knew that. Maybe it hadn’t been forever love for her, but she would have married me if Heath hadn’t shown up out of nowhere.
So I guessed I owed him one for showing up sooner than later. How much worse would it have been later, after marriage, kids? A lot worse. An avalanche instead of a few rocks falling.
Now there was a comfort. Jesus.
When I got back to my apartment I stripped off my clothes in the bathroom and let them fall to the floor. After turning on the shower I leaned against the counter and texted Lila.
I’m sorry, that was rude.
Whatever she needed or wanted to tell herself I had no right to be an asshole to her. If I was going to play the game, I had to stick to the rules. And the rules were you pretended you weren’t just two random strangers getting each other off.
Whatever.
That was her response. But I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. She wouldn’t be able to let it rest at that. By the time I’d gotten into the shower, washed my hair and body and stood under the spray letting it massage the knots out of my shoulders, and then climbed back out, dripping wet, she’d already texted again.
When do you get back?
Tuesday.
Let me know if you want to hang out.
K. I definitely do.
Did I? I really didn’t know. I couldn’t remember a single word of conversation we’d had the night before. But it was the right thing to do, or so it seemed. It was polite or something, which was just stupid. Why did it matter?
But it still did.
As I walked into my kitchen with a towel around my waist, my hair sticking up damp in all directions from where I’d scrubbed it with the towel, my phone buzzed again.
I do too. I had a lot of fun talking to you, you make me laugh.
Then as if she’d immediately realized that was too emotional, too revealing, her next text was sexual. It was like a default setting we all chose when we were getting uncomfortable.
And you make me come too. Haha.
Good. I can make you come again.
I know you can.
I grabbed a soft drink out of the refrigerator and opened it. I drank half of it in one gulp.
When I apparently didn’t answer Lila fast enough, she texted again.
You like anal? I bet you could talk me into it.
Suddenly I felt my stomach turn and it wasn’t from the cold carbonation hitting my gut after all the alcohol. It was because this girl, who was beautiful and most likely intelligent, thought she needed to dangle sexual carrots in front of me to hold my interest. And she was right. And that meant neither one of us had any business spending one fucking minute in each other’s company.
We’ll see. I’m jumping in the car now to drive to my sister’s ttyl. Have a good weekend
.
That was as much as I could deal with Lila and the supposedly uncomplicated aspect of a hook up that was in fact totally complicated, soul sucking, and basically never worth it. For a few minutes of pleasure I got baggage, guilt, expectation. It was more than I could handle on a Saturday when I had to drive to Rockland and meet my baby niece. And see Caitlyn.
Getting dressed I was almost glad I was finally going to see her again. It had been so long and I had thought about it so much, it was like this meeting had become the monster I was hiding from for so long I’d forgotten why it was scary. It couldn’t possibly be as horrible as I had built it up to be.
Yet for whatever reason, after I got dressed, I opened my top dresser drawer and pulled out the ring box that was sitting in there behind my underwear. Flicking open the lid, I saw the diamond engagement ring that I had spitefully asked Caitlyn to return to me when we broke up.
Snapping the box shut again, I shoved it into the pocket of my shorts, grabbed my keys, and left the apartment.
By the time I got to Rockland and boarded the ferry, my headache had receded but I was tired and hungry. The breeze was great though, and I sank down onto a bench out in the open air, grateful to close my eyes against the sun and relax a bit before being inundated with Aubrey’s enthusiasm. She had texted me a half dozen times in the last two hours. There were a couple of kids running around the ferry and I watched them, feeling pissed off at myself and annoyed at the world in general.
It was just the post-alcohol crash. That high of the night before followed by the inevitable physical weariness and the thoughts of what the hell was I doing with my life? I wanted to stretch out full length on the bench and take a nap for the hour long ferry trip but a girl had sat down at the end of my row. Glancing over at her, I wondered how rude it would be to stand up and move to another bench so I could lie down. But this was the only one in full sun and when I looked at her, I accidentally caught her eye.
She gave me a tentative smile, her dark hair falling forward to cover her cheek when she tucked her head in a shy gesture that disarmed me. When was the last time a woman had looked at me like that? A long time. Years. Without thought, I smiled back.
“Hi,” I said, because well, it was polite.
She smiled again, but didn’t say anything.
“Do you care if I lie down?” I asked. “I’d like to take a nap.” There was enough room for me to stretch out and still not touch her, but my feet would be fairly close to her. Hopefully she wouldn’t care, because I needed twenty minutes with my eyes closed or I was going to be passing out in my dinner at Aubrey’s.
Her light blue eyes widened but she didn’t say anything. She just shook her head to indicate she didn’t object.
“Thanks.” Sticking my sweatshirt behind me on the plastic armrest at the end of the bench, I pulled my legs up and settled back. It actually gave me a direct view of her. She was in her late teens, fair skin, a narrow, exotic face, with plump lips. Dressed in denim shorts and a billowy white shirt. I could see she was long and lean. She played with her hair repeatedly, making sure she was never looking at me. Definitely beautiful, but definitely not my type.
As in, she wasn’t drunk and flirting outrageously with me on first glance.
The ferryboat operator came over to her and waved. “Hi, Chloe. How is your dad?”
She smiled up at him but she didn’t answer. She just nodded.
“Do you think you’d be free to babysit sometime soon? The wife and I could use a night out without the kid.”
She nodded again.
“Friday?”
That got a thumb’s up from her.
What the fuck? Didn’t this chick talk?
The ferryboat operator didn’t look like he thought it was weird at all. He just smiled down at her. “Great. The wife will text you.” He squeezed her shoulder as he moved away. “Tell your dad I’ll ring him up about getting some lobster.”
Another nod.
Squinting, I didn’t even pretend to look away when she turned and realized I had been watching the entire exchange. Her cheeks tinted pink, but she didn’t look away.
“So you live on Vinalhaven?” I asked.
Nod.
“Maybe you know my sister then. Aubrey Walsh. Well, Aubrey Riker now.”
Another nod.
Quite the conversationalist. Not. I tried again. “Your name is Chloe?”
Nod.
“I’m Ethan.”
She gave me a little wave. For acknowledgement I guessed.
So she wasn’t going to talk. That was obvious. Weird. Was she a nun in training? A cult member? Deaf? It didn’t seem like she was reading lips, nor did she seem to have any trouble understanding what me or the other guy had said. She just was… silent.
Okay then. Islanders were a unique bunch. Clearly this girl fit right in. “I’m going to visit Aubrey,” I said, which was stupid and obvious. “Do you know how I get to her house?”
Her lips pursed and her brow knitted together. She put her palms flat on her knees then she raised them and dropped them again. Then pointed to the right.
“Uh…” Then suddenly I realized what she was doing. “I go right off the ferry?”
She nodded, a small shy smile replacing the concentrated look.
“Thanks.” So she really was speech impaired in some way or she would have just said something. I felt like an ass for pestering her with questions. I gave another smile then tucked my hands behind my head and closed my eyes so she wouldn’t feel self-conscious with me looking right at her. Plus I really did want a nap. The sun was hot, but I felt like I was baking the alcohol out of me and it was a satisfying sensation.
I fell asleep and only woke up when the boat bumped against the dock in Vinalhaven. My waking was more leisurely than it had been at Lila’s. I wasn’t worried about where I was or what I might have lost. Instead I pried my eyes open slowly and stretched. The girl, Chloe, was no longer on the bench with me. After a minute, I forced myself to sit up and cracked my neck. I was feeling a lot better and I was finally hungry. I hoped Aubrey’s new found domestic talents included cooking. I wanted food. Playing with my phone, I discovered that my GPS couldn’t seem to figure out where the hell I was. I had assumed I could just enter Aubrey’s address into my phone and get directions. You know, like everywhere else in America. But no, my phone seemed thoroughly confused as to what was happening.
I texted my sister.
How do I get to your house?
Walk up the road out of town. Turn right.
Helpful. In a very vague and nebulous way.
But I’d figure it out.
Putting my phone back in my pocket, I exited the ferry with the dozen or so other passengers. When I wound up in the parking lot, I saw Chloe was standing there waving. I wasn’t sure she was waving at me so I glanced behind me but there was no one there. I waved back, figuring if she wasn’t then whatever. It wasn’t like I was ever going to see her again. But she approached me and shoved her cell phone at me. Startled I took it, glancing at the screen. She had the notes app up and on it was written,
I live next door to Aubrey. Follow me.
“Oh,” I said out loud. “Cool. Thanks.” I handed her the phone back, still curious as to what the absence of speech was all about.
Also, how did you make casual conversation with a chick who didn’t talk? I could just hear my frat brothers making cracks about how that would be the best possible woman to hang out with- one who didn’t talk. But the reality was it was awkward as she started across the parking lot and I fell into step beside her. I could see now that she was standing right next to me that she wasn’t quite as young as I’d first thought. She was just lithe and delicate but definitely out of high school.
She was typing on her phone. After a minute she showed it to me.
You look like Aubrey.
I smiled. “No, Aubrey looks like me. I’m older. I got first pick of the gene pool.”
She didn’t say anything.
And then I realized that was a completely inane thought to have. Of course she didn’t say anything. She was obviously never going to say anything. “Do you have any siblings?”
Her brow wrinkled again in displeasure and I wondered why that seemed to be the wrong thing to ask. She raised her index finger to indicate one and then looked away, back at the water.
Two year earlier, I would have kept trying to communicate with her, put her at ease. But she had looked away, and I was hungry, and the last year and a half had eroded some of my charm and manners. I figured let her get my attention if she wanted to have a pseudo conversation. Caitlyn’s ring kept shifting in my pocket and I regretted bringing it. Pausing for a minute, I dropped my backpack to the ground and took the box out of my pocket. I shoved it in the side pocket and tossed it over my shoulder again. Chloe was watching me. Her blue eyes were curious and intelligent. Expressive.
I felt like she knew what had been in the box, that she knew it was Caitlyn’s ring. That she knew I was a fucking mess and she judged me for it. I felt flustered suddenly, realizing how damn ridiculous that was. She couldn’t know anything about me. She was just waiting for me, and yes, she was probably curious. Who wouldn’t be?