"She said that?" Scott asked putting the menu down to look me in the eye.
"Yeah. I mean, if she's not even gonna fight for me..."
"I don't think that's what she meant."
"She meant she was going to respect my privacy and boundaries and she wouldn't be annoying or harassing. I just... I really wasn't expecting that. I thought she'd come up with a bunch of excuses or something, you know, the way you try to say whatever you need to to get your ex back."
"I don't think that's her point. I think her point is she wants you to do whatever will make you happy, and if you'll be happier without her, she'll accept it, but if you ever want to get back together..."
"She said, she'll make thing good for me. What does that mean?"
"Don't know."
The waiter came to the table and Scott ordered his freaking Mac and Cheese. Me, I decided to order Pasta Con Pesto E Parmiggiano. Scott looked at me sideways, asking a question he wasn't pronouncing.
"It's fine. I promise. I think I'm getting to a point where I can talk about it now."
"Then, you mind me asking, why is this pasta dish such a huge trigger for you?"
"It was- Riley cooked it a lot for us. It was Lake's favorite dish. It was the last thing she ate before we had to rush her to the hospital and... she never came home."
"Jesus, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine what it must be like-"
"Scott, don't do that. I don't want pity. It's been almost a year since Lake died. I'm finally able to even say her name. My baby girl died. I will never be okay with it, but I do need to accept it. Pity doesn't help."
"You're right," he said in a soft voice.
"I've been trying really hard, you know? I don't go to certain places in New York just to avoid seen families and children and little girls. I pretend Toys R Us is not there, and I don't like going to the park. I think it helped, it gave me time to get my feelings back in track, I'm postponing the grief. I need to face things now."
I wasn't telling all these things to him, I was talking out loud and he just happened to be there to listen. I wanted to face the things I'd been running from for such a long time, because those things weren't going anywhere. Wherever I go, they go with me.
"That's a good way to look at it."
"Yeah, so please, don't get all gloomy just 'cause we talked about my baby for a moment."
"Do you want to talk about something else?"
"Yes, please."
"How did it go? You know, your opening."
"Your lady hasn't told you?"
For a moment, I saw a flash of what might've been pain rush through Scott's face, but it didn't last long. "Nah, she doesn't tell me that stuff."
"I sold everything. Every single one."
"You're kidding me! That's incredible! That never happens. Wait, does that mean you're paying for lunch?"
I laughed. "Absolutely. You can ask for that expensive Whisky if you want, too."
"Oh, yeah baby. How do you feel?"
"I don't know. I mean when I comes to 'making it as an artist', I feel great. When it comes to the money, it feels weird, you know? Like it's not real. I look at my bank account and I feel like all that money belongs to someone else and I'm just keeping it safe for them."
He chuckled at this. "Yeah, well, you'll get used to it. The bank will start calling you wanting for you to take up loans, and investments and stuff like that. You'll see soon enough that money is totally yours."
"Even with that, I don't know what to do with it. I mean, I feel great, about everything. I fulfilled a life long dream. But I keep wondering, what's next?"
Scott sighed and leaned back, his perpetual smile completely disappearing from his face as he stared at the table and pursed his lips.
"Well, I've actually wanted to talk to you about something."
"Oh?"
"I'm going home at the end of the month."
It took me a moment to process what he just said, and to understand what the 'home' in his sentence meant.
"Wait, what? Why?"
He turned to look out the restaurant's window, to the people walking down the street. It would get cold soon, really cold. And people were already beginning to dust off their coats and jackets. Jeans were back on their outfits and soon so would scarfs, gloves and beanies. It was the beginning of Fall and the sky wasn't as clear and sunny all day everyday anymore.
Finally Scott turned to me and said, "I think I'm done here. I've lived in New York for seven years. I've been an intern, a publicist, an assistant manager, and finally photographer, like I wanted. I dated artists, writers, entrepreneurs and I even had a one night stand with a very famous Broadway actress that I am not even allowed to talk about, how cool is that? I've been to a lot of opening nights, and event and parties and a lot more but... honestly, I don't feel that my life is any more fulfilling than I did when I first got here."
"Scott..."
"No, don't get me wrong. I don't have a bad life. I have something great going on. I just want.. something different, you know what I mean? I had two reasons to stay here, one of them was your opening and the other one... "
It took me a moment to put two and two together. "Caroline broke up with you."
He grinned. "She can't, remember? I'm just a boy-toy. I was just a boy-toy. And you know what? Good! Cause that was the only thing holding me back and now... now I'm free to do whatever I want and I just want to go home. I wanna see Riley, I wanna see my mom. I've got two nephews and one niece I never see."
"What about your dad's house? You always said you never wanted to life in the same house that he built.
"I sold it, two months ago. I bought myself a small apartment downtown."
"Oh, shit. You've been planning this for a while."
"Yeah. I always knew things with Caroline probably weren't going anywhere, but that 'probably' kept nagging at me. Now I know, and now I can leave without any regrets."
Going home without any regrets, that sounded like a sign from the universe. I had been wondering for a while if it was time for met o go home. I needed an answer.
I dropped by Ellen's place a few hours after my lunch with Scott. I knocked on the door and luckily she was in.
"Faye, what are you doing here?"
"You're not picking up my calls. Can I come in?"
She sighed and moved aside to let me in. "Can I offer you something?"
I sat on the couch and asked, "Could you please sit down? We need to talk." She looked at me with concern, but she did as I asked. "Why haven't you been answering my calls?"
"I thought you'd be busy with your ex."
"That's it? You're jealous so you cut me out?"
"You weren't exactly answering my calls either just before the opening!" she said, a bit to intensely.
"Please, don't raise your voice at me." She licked her lips, crossed her arms and stayed quiet. "I'm sorry. I didn't know she would be there. It was a huge shock."
"Yeah, imagine how I felt. You won't call me in almost a week and then I see you talking to her. And she is like a ten!"
"I said I'm sorry."
"Look, what's the deal, Faye? I know we're not exactly exclusive, but I have some stakes in this relationship, emotionally wise. Do you want to get back together with her or something?"
"What? No!" And then I stopped. It took for me to say it out loud to realize I wasn't sure that was the truth. I'd been focusing on being angry at her for so long that I didn't even stop to check if my feelings for her were gone. I was just angry, and you can perfectly be angry, and in love. I looked down, then up at Ellen and said, "I don't know."
If things would've ended up here, I would've said, yup, I messed that one up. But Ellen had given me red flags through out the whole relationship, they just weren't big enough for me to notice.
"You don't know? Are you kidding me?" she said raising her voice again.
"I wish I had a better answer."
"Okay, so where does that leave us?"
"I do want to be with you. I want to see where things are headed. We were together for twelve years, it's difficult. That's all."
"Are you sure you want to be with me?"
"Yes." Okay that 'yes' might have been an overstatement. I wanted to see if I could imagine being with her long term, if I was really over Riley, which now that I'm writing this you can clearly tell I was not.
"Okay, you can't talk to her."
"Sorry?"
"You heard me. Divorce stuff only."
"That's not possible. Our families are close friends, our lives are entwined."
"Then untwine them. I don't want her coming near you. You must know why I'm asking you this."
I'm not super proud of what I said next. "Fine. I guess being here will make that easy."
So that was it. I said yes to never again speak to someone I had known for twenty-three years in favor of a woman I had known for four months.
I should've noticed, right? I should've noticed how controlling she was becoming. The thing that Riley didn't like at the opening, was that Ellen came to me and peed all over me, like she owned me, and we weren't even exclusive at the moment. Something Riley had never done. Riley had never tried to control me or make my decisions for me, or forced me to do something I didn't want for her sake. Even with Scott, she never forced me to leave him or threatened me.
With Ellen, this behavior was subtle at first, but in the next couple of weeks, became a lot more marked. Ellen began using the fact that Riley showed up to the gallery to control me. Check my phone, ask whom I was talking to, what I was doing, why wasn't I answering her texts immediately. Sound familiar? Yeah, that is every abusive partner ever. With Ellen it was difficult to realize that because apart from the whole controlling thing, she was very caring, always showering me with attention and presents.
But it didn't dawn on me until I got the email with Connor's engagement. Finally. Jesus. I mean I love that boy but he cannot do better than Sheila.
I was reading the email on my laptop, lying on bed while Ellen was taking a shower. As she walked out of the bathroom I said,  "Hey, my brother in law in getting married. Wanna come to the wedding with me?"
Ellen laughed loudly for a moment, then remained creepily quiet. "Wait, you were serious? This is your ex's brother. What, so that you can see your ex?"
"He's a close friend, I can't miss it. I'm asking you to come with me."
"Faye, we said very clearly you could not see this woman again, right?" she said softly when she noticed I wasn't backing down and yelling wasn't going to make me change my mind this time. Pretending to be reasonable with me wouldn't work this time either. "I'm just not comfortable."
"So you're never gonna trust me?"
"It's not that."
"It's exactly that. I've been open with you. I've told you everything and you keep... God, I just. I don't know."
"You don't go. It's that simple."
"No, it's not!" I've been here before. I know this, I've lived through this. I know what awaits for me if I don't put an end to this. "These people are my family. I can't give up on my family."
"Even you ex?"
"Yes, even her. We're family."
She scoffed, "I can't believe after everything that's happen you're still willing to stick with that bitch over me. After everything I've done to make you happy."
Wow. You said what? "What did you just call her?"
"You're gonna defend her now? After everything she's done?"
"You bet your ass I am! You don't get to call her that. I get to call her that! I'm the one who's put up with her! You don't know her. She's always there. She's difficult, and challenging, and oh, my god, so irritating, but she's always there. When we had the miscarriage it broke her heart, she pushed everyone away except for me, and when she felt better she poured all her love and attention on me because she knew I was suffering, too. We faced that heart break a single unit. And then, our second child, died of leukemia at four years old. You do not get to judge her without knowing what losing a child feels like!"
"So she's a saint now?"
"No! She's a person!" I stopped and stayed quiet. She's a person. A person who held the cold dead body of her baby girl to her chest. We grieved in different ways but we grieved, that was it. She re-enlisted and ran off to Syria, I ran off to New York and got myself into another abusive relationship, cause that's what I do when I process grief.
We grieved in the wrong ways... that's what she meant. She never stopped loving me, she was just grieving in all the wrong ways, and she knew that now. I'm grieving in all the wrong ways, too.
"Please, I need you to leave. We're done here," I added.
"What?"
"I know this. I've been through this. You'll only get worse. I'm not letting anyone control me ever again." I looked up at her with a cold expression and added, "Leave before I make you."