Page 39 of Mostly My Girlfriend
He looked at me and I could feel it. The things we didn’t say. The emotions we didn’t acknowledge because we never had. But it was all there. We were a team. An unlikely pair who’d met in college, and nothing that had happened in the years since had ever come close to separating us.
“Jules,” he whispered and started to lean forward. Like he was going to kiss me. Like we could go back to that night at the wedding when we were drunk and free from the roles we’d assigned ourselves.
I could let it happen again.
Tomorrow we would say that it was the atmosphere of Paris. The surrealism of the moment. Yes, Ethan had all the money in the world. Yes, he could spend his days jet-setting around the globe. But he didn’t. I didn’t. That wasn’t us. He was a man driven to change the world and I was the tool he’d picked up to help him do it.
So we could say this was another moment out of time. Just like Daniel’s wedding.
What had Ethan called it the last time?
A vacation from being us.
And oh, how good it had been. Good and terrible and wonderful.
Until the next morning, when we’d had to shove ourselves back into our slated roles. Only when I tried that, it felt like my skin didn’t fit anymore.
That next Monday morning I’d gone to work feeling like I’d swallowed shattered glass. Like I was being sliced from the inside every time I breathed, knowing I couldn’t show it. My pain was my pain and not to be shared.
Least of all with Ethan.
I wouldn’t survive that again.
Standing abruptly, I banged into the coffee table with my shin. “Ahhh, fuck.”
“Jules,” he said in that way he did when he thought I was being stupid.
“I have to go bed.” I started to move but he was up and behind me in seconds, grabbing my arm.
I wouldn’t turn around.
“Jules.”
I didn’t know what my name meant this time. A question? A command?
“I’m dating CJ.”
I felt his hand squeeze my elbow.
“Let go, Ethan.”
“Please don’t make me.” It was a whisper in my ear. And strange because Ethan didn’t ever say words likeplease.
“And I’m asking you not to make me be someone who might do something as wrong as this.”
“You’re not his,” he said, anger in his voice. “Whatever that is, it’s temporary and you know it.”
Because it was hard to break a habit. Hard to get sober from the high of Ethan Moss. Hard to move on with a life that wasn’t in service to him. If I’d learned anything from my brother John’s attempts to get free from alcohol and his relapses, it was that.
But I had to try.
I pulled on my arm and this time, he let me go.
“What time do we need to be ready to leave for the airport?”
“The driver will be downstairs at nine a.m.”
I nodded and walked to my room with deliberate care so it wouldn’t look like I was running.
When I closed the door behind me, I locked it. Not because I was worried Ethan would try to get in, but because I was afraid I would be the one to open it.
