Page 42 of The Producer: Aaron

“What does Isabella think of this path you’ve chosen?” His question is sincere. He seems curious more than angry.

“She thinks I’m crazy about giving up both Yale and Brownscholarships. She thought it was just a whim, that I would never breakthrough, that I would eventually get my head on straight and come back home. When I got the part, she was scared because she realized I would never return.”

“You gave up two prestigious universities to get to know me?” he asks incredulously. It almost seems that he considers it impossible that someone is really interested in him as a person and not in his money, and the idea alone makes my heart bleed for him. I don’t know how he can live surrounded by people who always want something from him.

“No. I gave up two prestigious universities because I like this job. Until the last year of high school, everyone considered my desire to act just a hobby, something I enjoyed. When they asked me what major I would choose, I felt uncomfortable because I never really thought about what I might like as a career.” I reach out my hand and stroke his cheek.

His gaze rests on mine as he tilts his head and leans on my fingers, craving contact. There are millions of emotions that pass through his face, but what stands out is uncertainty.

“Is it so hard to trust me?” I whisper as I continue to slide my fingers down his cheek.

“It’s hard to trust anyone,” he admits.

“So why am I still in this house, Aaron? Why didn’t you tell me to leave when you saw that I was no longer drunk? Why didn’t you kick me out today when you discovered the truth?”

He lays his hand on mine and holds it tightly against his cheek as if he is afraid I may run away.

“Because the very thought of coming home and finding it empty again is an idea I can’t even contemplate. Since you came to live here, this house is alive and no longer looks like a huge block of concrete.” He gets up from the couch and gently kisses my head before turning around and disappearing upstairs.

I watch him climb the stairs slowly, looking tired, and, despitehis words detonating in my chest with an injection of hope, I understand that this is not the time to press him further. Aaron needs to face the demon that has been waving in his chest for sixteen years, and I can do nothing to help him except give him time.

I came to Los Angeles to meet the man who sleeps a few steps from me. I looked for answers to questions I have been asking myself since I was a little girl. I wasn’t ready, though, to discover the infinity of facets that Aaron wears on himself. I wasn’t prepared to recognize the masks he wears to protect a heart that has been bleeding. And I wasn’t ready to have feelings for each of those masks.

If they had told me that I would spend a sleepless night pining for a twenty-three-year-old girl who didn’t even sleep in my bed, I would have locked them up in an asylum. For this reason, when I walk down the stairs to have breakfast and see her leaning against the kitchen cabinet, I almost turn around to leave. The conversation we had last night is still fresh in my mind, and I can’t make peace with my feelings.

I can’t crave the daughter of the man that died in my arms and the woman I betrayed. Yet, after she clarified her position and explained why she is here, I can’t find the strength to stay away from her, because it is the first time I’ve found myself in front of a person who is sincerely interested in me as a human being, without ulterior motives, without asking me for something. She just wants to know me, and that’s precisely what I’ve always looked for in a woman but never found.

“Do you want coffee?” she asks with a hoarse voice.

I don’t think she slept much either from the dark circles surrounding her eyes. I approach, grab the cup she hands me, and try not to dwell too much on those lips I kissed once and would like to savor again.

“Thank you.”

The silence created between us is embarrassing, and thinking of living with this tension makes me want to leave this house and never come back. Dakota is right, I no longer have any reason to keep her here in this house, yet the mere thought of coming back and not finding her here makes me feel uncomfortable. They are two mixed feelings I struggle to contain in my chest. I’ve gottenused to her presence, her books almost everywhere, her silences while reading, and her pout of concentration while cooking. It’s strange how I established the routine of a couple with a woman I don’t even sleep with.

“So from now on, is this what it will be like between us? No words apart from a few sentences when we need something?” she whispers, looking at me.

If there’s one thing she has never had a problem with, it’s telling me to my face how things are from the first moment we met. She is correct. There has never been this tension between us.

“No, but I have yet to recover from our conversation. I find it difficult to talk about frivolous topics when I still can’t wrap my brain around the information I’ve received.”

She turns and studies me. “Is my family so important? I am a person, Aaron, regardless of who my parents are. I’m the woman you kissed in that pool. I haven’t changed.”

Her frankness makes me uncomfortable because she comes straight to those feelings that I’m not ready to face. She is right to say that she is her own person, an adult with a life independent from her parents, but it is I who cannot separate her from them. What happened that day profoundly affected my life. She is the reason for the guilt I tried to bury years ago, which has resurfaced, making me waver. They are the reason why I don’t let people in, even those who have known me for years. There is always that feeling that I’m going to mess up their lives so badly they will literally die in my arms.

When Dakota came to live in this house, she made room in my life without me even noticing, earning that piece of heart that I deny to many. I felt betrayed and vulnerable when I found out whose daughter she was. I thought she was here to make things even. The rational part of me knows that it was not an intentional way to get back at me. I believe her explanations andrealize that she is just looking for answers. But that part of me that was hurt many years ago raised that wall again, the one she had managed to break down.

She rests her hands on my hips and leans her forehead on my chest. It’s a sweet gesture that makes me want to squeeze my arms around her slender body and I feel that wall creaking a little, the discomfort making its way into my chest.

“Is it really so impossible to think of me as a woman and not as someone’s daughter?” she whispers, almost like a prayer.

I stick my fingers in her hair, enjoying the desire that clouds my mind. It would be easier to turn off the rational part that tells me to leave. I could get lost worshipping every inch of her body, making her come like never before, and teaching her what pleasure really is. It would all be so simple, turning off my brain and letting instinct take over. But I’m not that kind of man. I don’t let my rational part lose control of my life.

I lower my head and inhale the sweet scent of her hair before touching her forehead with my lips.

“Don’t ask me to think of you that way. Don’t ask me, please,” I whisper before turning around and leaving her confused at the kitchen counter.

I leave my home, once again, questioning my life choices.

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