Page 49 of Mostly My Boss
What did it matter who he was with, who I was with, when in the end what we were going to have together was going to be bigger? Because that’s what he’d promised me.
For our friendship I would do this. For our future.
Biting down on my lip hard so I wouldn’t cry I made my way to the door and stopped.
“We’re going to be okay, right Ethan?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “We have to be.”
I nodded. That was right. That’s why I had to do it. So we would be okay.
“I’ll see you later,” I muttered. Then I left before I could tell him the truth.
9
Therapy
Ethan
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She was sorry. She’d just rewritten our history in a matter of minutes.
“I can’t…I can’t believe you would lie to me about something like that. This is a big fucking deal.”
I looked at her and it seemed as if she was having a hard time swallowing. That was Jules’s version of crying. Sucking all the pain and the emotion down her throat so no one would know how hurt she was inside.
Because, in her mind, she always needed to be the strong one. The one in control.
“I thought I was doing it for us. I thought if I told you… Back then, you wouldn’t even talk to me about sex. Do you remember?”
I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands into fists until they hurt. “Let’s start with this premise, Jules. Other than taking your fucking virginity, there isn’t anything aboutusI don’t remember. But do not pretend for a fucking second that’s why you told me to date Nicki!”
She flinched and I knew I was right.
“You told me to date her because you knew it would kill you inside. It was just one more way for you to build a protective wall around yourself. One you apparently thought you needed after I busted your cherry.”
I remembered how defensive she’d been the day after Daniel’s wedding. Like she’d been waiting for some punch I planned to throw at her. At the time it had pissed me off. Her immediate distance, her typical barriers up and at full strength. Now it made sense in a sick sort of way. She’d been waiting for my reaction for years.
I considered what had happened after that with Nicki and suddenly realized it had to have been Nicki’s idea to get into bed with me. “That bitch. She told me…”
Jules winced and I knew she was remembering it too.
“Jules’s roommate told me she’d been with me that night,” I explained to Carol. “Since I woke up in her bed and I’d obviously had sex…it made sense. We dated for a time after that.”
I shook my head. It hadn’t been dating. At first, I’d felt like I owed Nicki something. Because I’d been out of it, because I didn’t actually remember what had happened between us.
But that started to change the longer we saw each other and Jules showed no reaction to us dating.
I’d used Nicki like a weapon against Jules. Staying with her longer than I wanted to just because Jules acted so supremely uncaring that I was screwing her roommate.
I’d hated that she was okay with it. I’d hated that any time I came to her room after that, she just assumed I was coming to see Nicki and not her. The more she tried to avoid us, the more I’d found ways to throw Nicki in her face.
Which was exactly what Jules wanted.
It wasn’t my proudest moment. And now I knew that the whole time Nicki had lied about what happened between us and Jules let that lie stand to…protect us?
“You weren’t protecting us,” I told her. “You were protectingyou.”
