Page 73 of Room for Us
I nod, finally looking at him, battling the urge to step into his arms. “I did. She just left, though.”
“Okay, good. I, uh...”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Ethan. Really.”
He pauses. “I feel like I do. Or should. I had no idea she was coming.”
I smile wryly. “I figured that.”
“We broke up weeks ago. Or so I thought. We weren’t even that serious.”
My eyes narrow. “Three years sounds pretty serious to me.”
He winces. “I know, but—it wasn’t like that. We were never…” He trails off, gazing at the ceiling. The famous writer at a loss for words. Maybe it’s just now occurring to him that staying with someone while feeling ambivalent toward the relationship isn’t exactly something to brag about.
I’m the last person to throw stones, though, having stayed with Chris so long.
When I was a kid, after everything went down with my dad, I used to stare into my bathroom mirror until I didn’t recognize myself. Like a version of that game you play where you say the same word over and over until it’s gibberish. I did that with myself. Made myself gibberish. I would hold onto that sensation as long as possible, fantasizing that I’d pulled my soul from my body and didn’t have to come back if I didn’t want to.
I feel that way now, looking at Ethan. At us, standing two feet apart, our postures awkward, our voices uncertain. I feel separate from this moment. Miles away.
Ethan once remarked that it seemed the two of us were used to being alone. But until recently, we weren’t. We had partners. A husband, a girlfriend. And yet, somehow, it didn’t matter. He was right. We were alone with ourselves, our secrets and pain a barrier between us and our significant others.
Are we still? Alone?
He breaks the silence. “I’ve been afraid for a long time.”
I blink. “Of what?”
“Take your pick. Whether or not I’m a good father. Being relied on. Failing the people close to me. Not measuring up to expectations. Showing someone all of myself and being deemed unworthy.” His gaze finds me, captures me. “You rejecting me after this. After knowing about my past.”
My heart. Oh, my heart.
So I tell him, “When my dad left, it was one of those surreal situations—no one understood why or what had happened. He was a model citizen, model father, husband, everything. Considered a pillar of the community, popular with everyone. People wanted him to run for mayor. At home it was the same. He never yelled or got angry. He doted on my mom, on Zander and me. I never once felt like my dad didn’t love me.
“When he bailed, I was devastated at first, obviously. But then I found the note he left for my mom. It said: ‘I thought I could do it, but I can’t.’ I knew then that my father was a coward, and I got angry. So angry. Meanwhile, people blamed my mom. She hadn’t grown up here like my dad. People turned against her. I could see it whenever we left the house. The whispers, the way men spoke down to her, the way women pretended she didn’t exist. She spiraled into a depression. I was being bullied at school. It was horrible.
“And no one would do anything. My Aunt Barb was the town’s resident gossip queen, and even she couldn’t stop the rumors. So I took matters into my own hands. I knew he wouldn’t cut off all contact with my aunt, not when they shared ownership of Rose House. So I went through her mail as often as I could and finally found a letter with a return address.”
Ethan’s gaze hasn’t moved from my face. I’m not sure he’s blinked since I started talking.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
His eyes widen, but he nods at me to continue.
“He hadn’t gone far, just to Salt Lake City. I took a bus there and found his apartment. When he opened the door, he took one look at me and said, ‘Go home, Zoey. I’m not coming back.’ And that was that.” I clear my throat of old emotion. “I came home and typed up a bullshit list of his crimes—crazy stuff like he beat us, cheated on my mom, stole from town charities, anything I could think of that could be remotely plausible. I printed a hundred copies and hung them up all over town. The mayor ordered every last one pulled down. Everyone knew it was me acting out. I had a reputation of my own by then.”
“Troublemaker.” He says it with affection, the barest of smiles on his face.
“Pretty much—and that was only the beginning of my inflammatory flyer career—but I’ll tell you about the rest some other time.”
“Yes, you will.”
I smile half-heartedly. “Anyway, a few weeks after the flyer thing, something happened. My Aunt Barb stood up in a town council meeting and said that it didn’t matter if everything on those flyers was true or not. She denounced my father and called everyone out for abandoning my mom in her time of need. And all these women stood up with her. Ordinary people, people who’d never had much to do with our family, they all stood up for us. And things changed. Slowly but surely.
“Why am I telling you all this?” I sigh, shrugging. “When you said you were afraid all the time, it reminded me of those years. I know what it’s like to be judged by the past, even by events outside of my control. So I don’t judge you. We’re human, and we’re doing the best we can.”
