Page 50 of Mostly My Boss
“That’s not true,” she said over a broken sob. “I did think if you knew what I’d done it would break us, end us. God, Ethan, look at what’s happening. Neither one of us can deal with being that intimate. It’s why we’re ending now!”
“We are NOT ENDING!” I shouted, standing up and knocking the chair over. I clenched my fists harder and focused on my breathing.
“I’m sorry.” I apologized to Carol. Jules didn’t deserve it. “Sometimes my anger gets the better of me.”
Carol tilted her head. “I think you have a right to be angry. You just found out that your long-time friend lied to you and kept a secret from you all this time.” She turned her attention to Julia. “It makes me wonder why you confessed today.”
“Ethan said we were supposed to be honest,” Jules said dully. “And it makes sense, doesn’t it? We can’t be together…like that. I knew it back in college. He knew it three months ago. That’s what this is proving. Isn’t it? The point of therapy?”
“Only if you want it to work,” Carol said. “But you don’t really want that, do you, Julia? You said so from the beginning. You want out. Did you think telling Ethan about that night back in college would make that happen?”
Jules puffed out a humorless laugh. “Can I plead the fifth? Is that a thing in therapy?”
“No,” Carol said. “So what is it, Julia? What is it about Ethan that scares you so much you’re willing to end a twelve-year relationship rather than deal with that fear?”
I held my breath, but Jules folded her arms over her chest and said nothing. As close to pleading the fifth as I imagined she could be.
“Ethan, do you remember how things were after you started dating Nicki?”
It sucked. “I was…angry.”
“With Julia?” Carol asked.
I nodded.
“With me?” she asked outraged. “You were dating my roommate!”
“Because you told me to! And you didn’t care. Not enough.” But that wasn’t true. Of course she’d cared. I’d taken her virginity and the next day she had to sit back and watch me and Nicki happen. What I did to her. What she let me do to her.
I dropped my head into my hands. “Fuck, Jules. You were a fucking masochist, weren’t you?”
“Tell me, Ethan,” Carol prompted. “Tell me what it was like between you two back then.”
* * *
Harvard
Ethan
I knocked and waited. Jules opened the door and smiled. Then it happened, like it had been happening for weeks since I started dating Nicki. The smile fell and she looked away from me.
“Hey,” I said, pushing past her into the room.
“Nicki’s not here. She’s got class, but she should be back soon.”
I gritted my teeth and plopped down on her bed. “I’m not here to see Nicki. Remember, Jules? There was a time when we hung out together. Just the two of us. Fuck, there was a time when you used to sleep in my bed.”
“Well, that would be kind of crowded now, wouldn’t it?”
I snapped my head in her direction. Was that bitterness? Jealousy? Or just her normal, self-protective sarcasm? I couldn’t tell and I hated it. I wanted to pry open her brain and see everything she was thinking.
There was no doubt things had changed between us. There was a distance I didn’t like. I also knew I had the power to end it, but part of me…the horrible, awful part of me wanted to poke and prod at her weak spots to see if I could get her to break.
“You have my notes?”
She blinked a few times as if recalling that there was a reason for my being here.
“Oh right.”
