Unforgettable (23 page)

 
“Did we watch this on our first date or something?” Maybe he was still trying to get me to remember it, but this didn’t seem familiar.

 
“No, but I didn’t feel like watching cable on the couch.”

 
“Oh.” I settled back on the pillows and Ethan flipped on the lamp beside him while the menu came up. He wasn’t being as carefree as he had been before my bath and was making me feel slightly uneasy. I wondered what might have happened in the half hour I was in the bathroom but I was back to feeling anxious and I didn’t feel comfortable asking him.

 
The movie started and I handed him his drink which he took without saying anything. Okay, what the heck was going on? This was like a complete one-eighty from before. I sat there stewing as the movie started. I started unwrapping kisses and shoving them into my mouth without really thinking. Great, now I’m going to have a huge ass on top of everything else. Finally, about twenty silent minutes into the movie I couldn’t take it anymore.

Chapter Twenty

 
“What the hell is your problem, Ethan?” I sounded bitchy but by this time I really didn’t care.

 
“
I
don’t have a problem.”

 
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not the one who’s been sitting here silent and broody for the last half hour. I’m not the one who is practically ignoring the person sitting right beside me.”

 
He didn’t bother to answer me and I don’t know why, but it made me jumpy.
 
“Hey, I’m talking to you.” He didn’t say anything before getting up off of the bed and walking toward the door.

 
“Where are you going?” I couldn’t believe he was going to walk out and basically give me the cold-shoulder.

 
“I need a drink.” He didn’t turn around and I looked over to his bedside table where I noticed his glass of tea still full. He was obviously leaving the room because of me, but I didn’t have the faintest idea of what I could possibly have done to upset him. I had just been thinking about how good I felt around him and how I wanted to spend more time with him. Was I destined to be perennially backwards in every relationship? Was this some kind of curse? Just a couple of days ago I was freaked out that he and I were together and would have been happy to be by myself while he wanted to be with me, and right now I want to spend time with him and he was avoiding me. It didn’t seem fair. Things were different now and my life was supposed to
work
.

 
I thought about getting up and following Ethan into wherever he had gone but I still had my pride. I wasn’t going to chase him down when he wanted to be away from me. Still, I might have read things wrong. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I had made an assumption that turned out to be completely false. His attitude might not have anything to do with me at all. I was wavering but I didn’t want to look desperate.

 
I suddenly remembered Sparkles in the laundry room. It had been a while since I shut her in there. I should probably go check to see that she wasn’t wreaking any havoc on my clothes. Yeah, I knew it was a lame excuse, but it was all I could come up with on short notice and I was feeling emotionally vulnerable.

 
I jumped up before I could change my mind and walked into the hallway. I could see that the office light was off so I continued to the bathroom. The door was shut but the light was on. Maybe he was in there. I didn’t hear anything and after a few seconds I realized how sick I was standing outside the bathroom door and listening for goodness knows what. I quickly moved on and into the dim kitchen. The only light was coming from the small fixture over the sink. I guess he
was
in the bathroom.

 
I felt guilty for stalking him so I went over to the laundry room to check on the cat. She wasn’t making the racket she had been, so I felt relatively safe opening the door and poking my head in. I didn’t see Sparkles but I saw an overturned basket of clothes. I didn’t know if they had been clean before, but I knew they were dirty now. I detected the horrible odor of cat pee and the wet spots on whatever blue piece of clothing that was lying on top of the pile seemed to corroborate my thoughts on what Sparkles had been up to.

 
I stepped farther into the room to locate the animal I could now verify was vicious as well as just plain gross, and she cemented her title as a demon by leaping out from behind the door and slicing my bare foot with her claw.

 
“Aaaaaiiiiiiigh!” The scream that escaped me was only partially from the pain. Most of it was fear and surprise.

 
Within seconds the back door flew open and for the second time in two days, Ethan charged into the room looking for whatever had put me in peril. I crashed into him as I jerked back to escape the room.

 
“What happened?” he asked as he grabbed the door handle and pulled it closed, keeping Sparkles contained.

 
“That fucking cat attacked me!” I normally didn’t like to use the f-word, but my heart was pounding from fright and my foot was experiencing a searing sensation. I kicked my foot out in front of me to get a better look at the damage but I misjudged the distance to the wall and my big toe connected with a loud thud.

 
“Ugh. Oh my god.” I reached down to grab my foot and started hopping on my left leg. “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” I was trying to pant through my pain using the Lamaze trick I had mastered over the years of being accident prone but it wasn’t helping. I felt Ethan’s hands on my upper arms where he grabbed on to steady me.

 
“Hang on. Let’s go into the kitchen where we can get some better light.” He held on to me as he walked us both to the kitchen and flipped on the overhead lights. I plopped down on my usual stool and swung my foot up onto the other one. He stood over me and surveyed the damage. It didn’t escape my notice that even though he was bothered by something that I may or may not have done, he was taking the time to care for my injury. He really was too good for regular people.

 
“How bad is it?” I hated the sight of blood and my own made me sickest of all. From the amount of burning I was imagining the row of stitches I would be subjected to shortly. Luckily, I knew my toe was just stubbed, I had broken a toe before and the pain was entirely different.

 
“She didn’t break the skin.”

 
“
What?
” There was no way I could be feeling like this with no open wound. It didn’t seem possible. I turned my foot so that I could see for myself and realized that Ethan was right. There wasn’t even one drop of blood. I was relieved but incredulous. That much pain and her claws hadn’t even broken the surface? Poor Ethan must be in agony with the damage to his head.

 
I looked up to see him giving me the “I told you she was deadly” look. I managed to refrain from physically rolling my eyes at him, but that didn’t stop me from doing it mentally.

 
“How’s your head?” I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me yet so I figured I would play it safe and ask after his health.

 
“Okay. How’s yours?” For a moment I had forgotten that I had a head injury. How ironic.

 
I gave him a half smile. “I’m feeling pretty good to tell you the truth.” Well, I had been up until he became miffed at me for some reason. “Are you talking to me now?” He looked at me with a mixture of sadness and anger, or maybe it was hurt. I wasn’t sure because I didn’t know the cause. I frantically tried to remember what I could have done to hurt his feelings. I had nothing. Was this about the cat? Was he angry that I gave in to my mother? But no, he was still okay before I went to take my bath, and he was weird when I came out. Maybe this wasn’t about me after all. I felt a faint hint of relief.

 
“I was never
not
talking to you.”

 
“Yes, I could tell because of all the scintillating conversation since I’ve gotten out of the tub.” I didn’t resort to sarcasm very often, either. What was happening to me? I was becoming totally unrecognizable to myself. My head started to hurt. Great, all I need now is a headache.

 
He just shook his head and stood there. I took a moment to really look at him. He looked tired. And beaten down. He hadn’t looked like that earlier and I was sure of that.

 
“Damn it, Ethan. What is wrong? Just tell me, okay. What did I do?”

 
He looked at me for about ten seconds without saying anything. I wasn’t entirely sure if he planned to answer me at all, but then he spoke, breaking the awkward silence.

 
“What’s so wrong with me?” Huh?

 
“What do you mean?” I knew I must look completely baffled because I didn’t know what he could possibly be talking about.

 
“What is wrong with me?” He spoke the words slower and stronger this time. I felt I was still missing something. I shook my head mutely. I didn’t know what he was looking for so I wasn’t saying anything.

 
He was too good looking maybe, but I was pretty sure he was expecting me to say something else. He was probably too nice, but maybe that was just with me while I was recuperating. Geez, I couldn’t think of anything
really
wrong with him at all. Well, the Star Wars room was a little weird, but we’re obviously a little freaky. Was this some kind of trick question?

 
“Do you still have a problem with my age?”

 
Where was he pulling this out of? I shook my head again. I hadn’t given his age much of a thought today besides the few minutes when Carrie had been here. Wait a minute, he was asking me if
I
had a problem? So this
was
about me or something I had said. But what? I hadn’t said a thing about having a problem with him. As far as I was concerned the day had only gotten better.

 
“What. Did. I. Do? If you are upset about something spill it, I’m not going to play a guessing game with you.” Now I was feeling defensive. I got mean when I was on the defense, kind of like a coyote in a trap.

 
I could see that he was deciding whether to tell me whatever it was that had him aggrieved. He opted to keep me in the dark.

 
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Forget it. Let’s go finish the movie.”

 
“Are you for real? Do you think I’m just going to go watch TV with you without you telling me why you’re acting so strangely? This is Carrie’s rehearsal dinner all over. When are you going to understand that you don’t have to keep things from me? I’m a big girl. I can handle a little anger, especially if I deserve it.”

 
“You remember Carrie’s rehearsal dinner?”

 
“Well duh, you spent the whole time ignoring me because you were mad that I was joking about being your sugar mama. You didn’t even bother to tell me why you were angry until we were at home. It almost ruined Carrie’s party. You might be a mind reader but I’m not, Ethan. You have to tell me what’s bothering you or how can I fix it?” I suddenly realized that I did indeed remember the party as well as the whole night that followed. It hadn’t been our first fight, but it had been our biggest. He had been extremely hurt believing I didn’t take him seriously.

 
“Oh. Yeah, I remember.” After everything that had transpired today, another memory popping into my head was feeling old-hat. I gave him a small smile but he didn’t return it. “What? Does this have something to do with Carrie’s party?”

 
“No. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything. I’m sorry; this is just an off night for me.” Now he smiled and reached out a hand to me. It was like he suddenly got over whatever was bothering him and he was his old self. I was still a few paces behind him.

 
“Dang it. You just got me all riled up and now you’re fine? How are you able to go from hot to cold in an instant? How can we spend the rest of our lives together when you can’t even tell me what’s bothering you at any given time? This is my life too. Don’t bottle things up. Don’t be such a
man
.” Whoa. Did I just say all that? I could suddenly remember having this same conversation with him rehearsal dinner night, but that night I hadn’t mentioned spending the rest of our lives together. I was remembering some other things too, and suddenly, like a cork popping out of a dam, memories started flooding back. The most important thing that popped into my mind though, was a very enlightening conversation I had had. I also remembered who Elisa was.