Chapter 31
Chapter 31
ETHAN.
I follow her.
She’s mad. I can tell by the pace with which she walks and the intensity she swings her arm as she passes door after door.
I half expect her to get into her room and shut the door, but she walks past it to my room instead. Fear grips me, but I stomp on it. I’ll tell her everything now. I’ll apologize to her. I don’t know how, but I’ll fix it in whatever way I can.
I step into the room and shut the door behind me, my gaze fixed on May. The tension in the air is numbing and when her gaze meets mine, I feel like I am standing before a judge, charged with a heinous crime, and whatever she might say will make or ruin me.
May sits on the edge of my bed and lays back on it, placing her hands behind her head as she
stares at the ceiling. She looks calm and collected, but I know she isn’t. I prefer her outbursts
to this. This is unpredictable and I feel fear. In my heart and soul.
“When Anna and I were little, after our parents died, we were left homeless a couple of months after. We couldn’t afford the rent, regardless of how much we worked. Not that any company would take children as workers anyway. We took to sleeping in buildings that were still under construction. Day in, day out, different buildings. We never stayed in one long enough for them to find us.” She pauses, chuckling at a distant memory, and… it’s a little hard
to breathe.
I thought I had an idea of how difficult it had been for her when her parents died, but as she speaks, I find that I really do not know May as much as I think I do. Not her struggles, not her
pain.
Damn it all. What was I thinking, trying to test this woman? How do I even begin to tell her that my constant lies had been a test of her character? That’ll ruin everything.
I should’ve known when I saw her that there would be no need for it. It’s no wonder she had gotten offended and had declined my card when I gave it to her. It’d be hard for someone who suffered so much not to understand the value of money.
“One morning,” she continues. “Anna went to get us breakfast. She told me she would be back in five minutes. I had this tiny watch my father gave me on my birthday. I watched it while I waited in the same spot for hours. But Anna didn’t come to get me. And I thought to myself that day, ‘Is my sister alright?“”
She shakes her head. “It was that thought that had me leave, and look for her, I didn’t find her until nightfall. No, she found me by the highway, crying my heart out. I thought she’d left me like our parents did.”
Chapter 31
May laughs again. “She held me tightly, and for the first time in days, I smelled cake on her. She got a job, and she wanted to surprise me. And when she returned, she couldn’t find me.”
She turns her gaze to me. “I hate surprises, and even more than surprises, I hate lies.” May straightens into a sitting position and stares at her fingers, at the rings attached to them.” Why do they call you Chase? Is that not your last name? Am I not Mrs. Chase?”
Her question is soft, bearing no venom or anger in them, only the barest hint of curiosity, and
that too scares me.
I find myself answering even before I can think. “My name is Ethan Chase. Chase is my last name, though it isn’t the one I grew up with. I changed my last name when my parents passed away. I didn’t think it was–”
“Important enough?” she asks, looking up at me. “Will that be the excuse for the lies me?”
you
tell
Still no anger or strain in her voice. I’m not sure how to handle this side to May. Or respond to it. The calm is unnerving.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I know there is no explanation I could possibly give that would take
it all back.
May rises from the bed, walking toward me. Her heels click on the floor and the closer she draws, the more menacing the sound becomes. “For what, Ethan? Are there other things you have lied to me about? Other than the house?”
I stare into her eyes and grasp at anything I can find to make it less despicable, my lies. “The ranch, it’s small. I spent my life savings on it. It’s a new business idea I’m working on and I believe it’ll be big. The house… I’m sorry, I wanted you to feel comfortable, and–”
“You thought you could think and make decisions for me. Why?” she cuts in, her words cutting into me like fine blades of steel. “You think I am incapable of understanding? You think I am shallow and care only about the things you can give me?”
My lips part and close. When my grandmother had called me to meet with her, I assumed she was like the others who took advantage of my grandmother’s kind heart to try to sink their clutches into my bank accounts. The entire drive to the Café, I had thought hard and made decisions. For her, for us.
I didn’t think it wrong at the time, but now, staring into May’s eyes that have turned glacial, I feel like shit. The worst kind.
When I don’t respond, she leans in, straightening my collar. “Perhaps, I have given myself more importance than I should have.”
I take her hand, my fingers encircling her wrist. “May, I know what it seems like, but it is far from it. I’m sorry–”
Chapter 31
“One question though,” she says, tilting her head back a little to hold my gaze. Her eyes pierce mine as she asks, “The pricing on the internet for this building, is it correct?”
Hell. I can’t answer that. If I tell her this, then she’ll know even the dinner date was a lie and I could afford all of it. She’ll know that more than half of the things I have told her about myself are all lies.
I want to hit something. How did it get so bad? One harmless thought is now becoming a thorn in my flesh.
“Yes, but the owner happened to be a family friend who owed my father a favor. I didn’t have to pay so much for it.”
When you start one lie, you need to lie again to protect it.
I’m no longer looking to protect the lie I have told about myself. All I want to preserve is this thing with May. This marriage. Our relationship. Our easy friendship that took a whole lot of time to develop.
I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want her to leave.
May stares at me for a moment and her hand drops from my collar. She looks down and then up. “You don’t have to explain to me anymore. I will do well to stay in line. No strings attached, no explanations needed.“.
That’s all she says before walking out of my room.
