Welcome to Envy Park (18 page)

It felt like something so normal, this handholding,
and hundreds of college kids probably did this exact same thing,
walking down this exact same hallway, thinking that their love was
going to be forever. And I was walking toward a departure date that
I insisted on letting happen.

Who was more pathetic, the college kids or me?

"Can we have a nice dinner at my
place tomorrow night?" I said, as we stepped off the hallway and
into the busy college quad.

"We have dinner every night," he
said.

"No." I licked my lips and swung
his hand a little. "Your
despedida
. Can we have it tomorrow
evening? I’ll prepare something special. And you...just make sure
that your family doesn’t plan the same thing for
tomorrow."

He bristled at this. "Moira, you
know how I feel about
despedidas
..."

"Then don’t think of it as one.
But it’s dinner, and it’s special, and don’t make any other plans
tomorrow."

I felt his sigh against my
forehead. "All right," he said.

And then he kissed me there in the
middle of the busy quad, which probably wasn’t allowed, but it did
make me feel less pathetic.

-/\/\/\-

I was glad I brought up the fantasy conversation
because it was extremely helpful in my planning the next day. I
didn’t have much time but good thing he had chores to do anyway so
I didn’t get to see him before dinner. And I lived across the
street from a mall that had the essentials.

A wide selection of takeout-friendly cuisines. Wine.
I skipped the candles because of recent events, but was able to get
tiny table lamps that would work just as well.

A new red dress, a steal because it was on sale,
neckline dangerously low. And lingerie.

Yeah, this was happening.

I got the salad, main course, and
dessert from three different places and spent an insane amount of
time arranging food I didn’t cook onto square plates. I wasn’t sure
if Ethan would like the food but I took a chance that he would
enjoy the fact that I chose them, avoiding that curry he didn’t
like, and he’d see it as me playing the girlfriend role. Since he
was so into that.

And yes I was aware that I was going about his
fantasy backwards (still semi-stranger playing girlfriend) but he
would have to be okay with it because this was all we had time
for.

At a few minutes after eight, as expected, the
doorbell to 10J rang and I strategically shut half the lights in
the room. Lamps on the dining table, check. Food warmed, check.
Lacy red bra tucked into dress, check.

I opened the door.

"I’m sorry," my stranger/boyfriend
said.

My mother, my father, and Roxie were right behind
him.

Chapter 24

When I was ten years old and was
part of a chorus performing an inappropriately sad Christmas song
for the elementary school holiday program, my mother objected to
the white dress that we were being asked to buy and wear. She
complained about the color, that it wasn’t well made, that I
wouldn’t be able to reuse it for whatever reason, and this was
probably just a money-making scam by someone in the faculty. After
much embarrassment (on my part, never hers), the school agreed that
I wear something else. She insisted on a gold dress. So I was that
random girl in the chorus who wasn’t just
not
wearing the same white dress as
everyone else, but was in loud, obvious gold.

That was the most mortified I had ever been in my
life, but that was just unseated.

"No," I said, three times, one for
each unexpected guest, and my face and neck turned probably the
same shade as my dress.

"What?" my mom went, pushing past
Ethan, the door, and me to let herself in. "We said we were coming
over tonight for the housewarming."

Agh. Just seeing my mother, at fifty-five sporting
nearly the same hairstyle as mine except three inches shorter,
looking healthy and vibrant as ever, and I was torn between pride
and fear. Pride in her beauty and strength which usually involved
wanting to be her, and fear immediately after that I was destined
to be exactly like her.

My dad, who had always seemed tall to me but
apparently only came up to Ethan’s ears, planted a kiss on my cheek
like this was nothing. Roxie shrugged at me and went in too.

My mom went straight for my couch, and sat there,
and so did Roxie. My dad took a seat at the dining table set for
two. I flipped all of the lights back on, and Ethan sprinted into
the room, and I realized that he was hiding certain things.
Evidence of things we were doing.

Maybe I should have kept all the lights off. God
what a disaster.

"I didn’t say yes to a
housewarming," I said, still standing near the door. It was a small
enough place for them to all see me and my disapproval.

Mom crossed her legs and defiantly
leaned back into the couch. "You didn’t say no. We sent you
messages. And I thought it was the perfect time for a housewarming,
since you talked Megan into telling my sister not to buy this
anymore."

Roxie settled into her side of the couch as well,
arms crossed, still angry at me, but fully entertained.

"Dad," I implored possibly the
only sane family member in the room. "You agreed to give me space.
This is not space. This is like my eighteenth birthday all over
again." (A story for another time, but was spectacularly like this
one.)

"Stop running to your dad," Mom
said, with a smile almost, also entertained at this. "We’ve given
you time and space. This is what happens when you keep avoiding
us."

Ethan emerged from the bedroom and quietly closed
the door behind him.

I sighed. "I assume you’ve met
Ethan. Tonight was about
him
, and I hope you all have the
courtesy to let me have this
despedida
for him in
peace."

"We can eat here," Roxie piped in.
"I can have food delivered."

I shot her a look. "That’s not
what I meant."

My dad was already picking at our
dinner, so that was starting not to matter. "I don’t like this," he
said. "Roxie, you want Chinese food?"

"Maybe we should just go to your
place," I told Ethan.

He shook his head. "No, please.
They should stay."

My mom smirked at me triumphantly, and it triggered
a string of reactions in me, responses I’d had since childhood that
I just reused at will.

"I asked them to come," Ethan
said, before I got to launch into my response. "I asked Ashley to
contact Roxie and ask your parents to come."

"Why would you do that?"
What about my dinner, my dress, the bra that’s
nearly cutting off my circulation?

"You shouldn’t be giving me
a
despedida
,"
Ethan said, and the three pairs
of eyes in the apartment between us bounced from him to
me.

"Are you kidding me?" The air got
sucked from my lungs. There were too many people in my apartment.
"I just wanted to do something nice for you. I know you hate the
premature goodbye but this is...You didn’t need to bring them
here."

Ethan straightened up against the
door. "You don’t need to give me a
despedida
because I’m not
leaving."

Roxie’s mouth dropped open, as did mine, probably.
My dad suddenly found the plate of food in front of him
interesting, and my mom...I didn’t even dare look at her face right
then.

"But your job," I said.

He pushed his hands into his
pockets. "I told you I had options. I didn’t need the
transfer."

"Did you quit?"

"I offered," Ethan said. "But they
ultimately agreed to just move me back here. Lower pay and
effectively a demotion, but that’s my decision."

"You’re crazy. It was the fire.
You shouldn’t make rash decisions when you’re stressed."

"What fire?" my mom started to
say, but Roxie put a hand on her arm.

Surely this conversation was meant
to be between us. It freaked me out that the rest of them could
hear everything, and that Ethan was letting them hear. "I’m trying
a new way of doing things," he said. "I decide rather than let
others do it for me."

"Even if the decision is
insane?
" I
demanded.

"He just said he wasn’t letting
others make it for him," my mother said, so very amused.

"Yes, Mom, I heard, please
no commentary.
" So I
tried to look past the others and just at Ethan, who was
understated as usual.

"It’s a job. I didn’t have it
before and I was fine without it. It’s not tragic."

"Can you please come out into the
hallway with me?"

He nodded at my mother, and Roxie, and my dad as he
passed them, and held on to my shoulder as I pushed him out and
closed the door.

I had words, angry words, but he had immediately
taken my face in his hands and pressed his mouth onto mine.

"I saw one of their messages to
you, the ones you keep ignoring," he said, seconds later, into my
temple. "I thought it would be good for you to see them. I know you
miss them."

"You shouldn’t stay just for me,"
I said, because I had to say it. "When did you decide this? Is it
final? Maybe you can take it back."

"You and a dozen other people have
been asking me that. I haven’t changed my mind. All week has been
about making this happen. But yesterday they finally said okay to
it." His arm went around my waist, pulling my body to him, and
nothing about it felt uncertain.

"I’m going to say it again. It’s
not...we’re living out a fantasy right now. If you and I are
staying then reality will hit, eventually. It might not be exactly
what we both want."

"What makes you think I haven’t
thought about that, constantly, since I first kissed you? It’s
done. I chose this anyway."

He did. I paused to let that realization sink
in.

Something in his spine relaxed,
like he had let go of something, the tension that was on his
shoulders all week. He swayed into me and I tightened my arms
around his neck, as if that would catch him.

"Walking around all week like you,
acting like I could just make things happen, it was exhausting," he
said.

"And scary, I’m sure."

"I wouldn’t say that." His lips
lightly brushed against mine, and then dipped in for longer. His
kisses were always so self-assured. "It felt for the first time
that I knew where I was going to be, and what I should be doing,
for once."

I drew him into my own kiss, suddenly adoring every
inch of him. Where in my plan or fantasy was this supposed to
happen? I hadn’t even thought of it. Maybe I was aiming too low as
well. Maybe I needed to place a tiny portion of my happiness in
someone else’s hands, and not completely control it.

"Well, you just made me feel what
you feel. When you let the universe decide things for you. It’s
scary as hell."

"Not when it gives you what you
want. Is this what you want?"

It was a loaded question. But I couldn’t deny that
at the moment I had, all within reach, my apartment, my best
friend, my family, a job, and this person willing to stay in my
life at incredible cost to him.

"Are you ready to go back inside?" Ethan asked.

I nodded. "Mom or Roxie might say things. Just don't
freak out."

"I won't, but remember this when
you meet
my
family. You can't freak out either."

I can handle
that
, was the first thing that came to
mind. I guess this was what commitment felt like.

It wasn’t the plan, not exactly.
It was better.

The End

-/\/\/\-

Author’s Note

A draft version of the first nine
chapters of this novella was posted on Wattpad and Figment months
before publication. This was the first time I let people see my
drafts, and it was both scary and enlightening. Thank you, people
in the Wattpad and Figment communities who took a chance on it and
read along!

Even though I was already posting
the draft, work on this edition still needed to be done. Thank you,
Mike, Layla, Ines, Tania, Dominique, Ron, Chachic, Christian,
Diane, Bianca, and Chris, for sharing talent, intelligence,
specifics, inspiration, and sometimes just that much-needed
push.

Mina

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