At Any Turn (Gaming The System) (8 page)

I froze. She hadn’t said anything. Was I supposed to slip the ring on her finger anyway? Or was I supposed to wait until she gave me some indication? In the movies, the man always asked the question as he was slipping the ring on the woman’s finger. So, since I was holding the ring anyway, I decided to slip it on. She’d be more inclined to say yes once she saw it twinkling on her hand.

I never got it past the first knuckle before she jerked her hand back with a violent tug. The ring dropped on the table, wobbling like a penny between us. We both stared at it, as if we were two lovers watching our future evaporate in front of us. Because we
were
.

Every breath I took in brought a stabbing pain to my rib cage. The waiter collected our dessert plates, carefully ignoring the ring sitting on the table between us.

We both looked down vaguely toward our own place settings. For lack of anything else to do, I reached into my wallet, pulled out my credit card and gave it to the waiter. Hopefully it would keep the bastard away for a little while, anyway.

I finally geared up the courage to look at her. She still stared wide-eyed at the abandoned ring, which sparked from the flames of the nearby candle. Slowly she shook her head and finally spoke. “What—what
was
that?”

Silence hung in the air around us, thickened like an opaque curtain of mistrust.

“You tell me,” I answered tightly. Would I get no explanation from her? My mind flipped through jumbled thoughts, and I wondered if I should press her to find out what she was thinking. Or if this was even an appropriate place to do so.

And how could I even think straight when I felt like I’d just been slammed in the nuts with a two-by-four?

“Adam,” she said and her voice trembled. With reluctance, I looked at her again. “There’s no way—”

“Not now or not ever?” God, I sounded like such a loser when I asked it, too. Like that whiny weakling lying in a pool of his own blood in the locker room one night, staring up at the four guys who’d just handed him his ass.

She shook her head. “I don’t even know—” Shit. It was worse than I thought.

“Excuse me. I’ll call for the car.” I stood.

I went to the bathroom instead, took a minute to decompress. Actually tried splashing cold water on my face. It didn’t do a shit-worth of good. That pain in my side was back again. What did this mean? Not now—not ever?

When I got back to the table, the check was there for me to sign. I pocketed the credit card and added the tip. I looked down, noticing the ring was no longer sitting on the table, but had been closed back inside the little black box. As if, with the reminder gone, we could go back to acting like—well, not like normal, because that wasn’t what we’d been acting like all night. Or for days, for that matter.

I left the box on the table with no desire to touch the fucking thing again. But out of the corner of my eye, as I turned to leave, I saw her scoop it up and drop it in her purse. Not the way I’d envisioned her coming home with it.

Ah, shit. I remembered the gathering of people that I’d asked Kim to invite over to surprise her. It was under the pretense of celebrating her med school acceptance, of course, but I’d also planned for it to be a celebration of our new engagement. My mind raced. I could take Emilia to a movie and text Kim to let her know, but everyone thought they were there to congratulate her on her success—and they were. I was obligated to go through with it.

We’d have to plaster on fake smiles and pretend this hadn’t just happened. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Her head was bowed as she waited next to me for the car to be brought up. She looked puzzled and a little angry.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t ready to give up. A small battle lost, though I didn’t know why, did not mean that
all
was lost. And I was a person who didn’t give up easily. I never was.
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight
.
He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared
.

I’d seethe in silence, but I would plan and I’d be ready for when her defenses were weak.

We drove in silence. She had her arms folded tightly across her chest, but we never once spoke to each other.

Hell yeah, I was pissed. What the fuck was this all about, anyway? Did she think I went around proposing to women all the time? Like this was just another night for me? I’d never even wanted to think about marriage. Had no desire whatsoever. Not until her.

And sure, maybe it was motivated a little bit by fear, but what better motivator was there? Many a great feat had been motivated by fear. So I’d secured this as a way to keep her. I’d had it all planned out. We’d have the wedding before she started medical school. She’d walk into her first class a married woman and she’d be
here
with me.

Though I was dreading the thought of the party, I was actually relieved at the prospect of people surrounding us, so that we wouldn’t have to be alone. So that we wouldn’t be drowning in this silence that was a thick as the fog that clung to the Newport coast almost every morning.

I parked the car in the garage and we walked across the bridge and the greater part of Bay Island, where we lived, still in silence. My house loomed up ahead, with only a few lights on and just the garden lamps outside to illuminate our way. The Back Bay water lapped on the beach around us.

Emilia cleared her throat and hesitated on the front porch, but I ignored her. My mind was already racing ahead. What would come next? My mental flowchart hadn’t accounted for this. This rejection. This silence.

“Adam,” she said, as I pressed my thumb to the biometric lock on the front door.

“We can talk later. Now isn’t the time.”

“But—”

“Go inside and turn on the light,” I said between clenched teeth.

And she did. I hung back on the porch for a moment, taking a deep breath. The light came on to loud shouts of “SURPRISE!”

Emilia backed into me, obviously terrified before putting her hands to her face. I couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying. To be honest, at that moment, I didn’t care.

In the huge entry hall to my home, people swarmed around—dozens of them. What the hell? This was supposed to be a small gathering for drinks and congratulations. A banner was spread across the back wall, complete with pictures of champagne glasses and confetti.

Loud music came up on the sound system and a crowd of people surrounded Emilia, asking her if she was surprised. She sent some furtive glances my way and faked a smile, but I could tell that she was nervous, possibly annoyed.

And I had no desire whatsoever to stand next to her.

Someone shoved glasses of champagne into our hands. There was confetti everywhere—on the floor, in our hair. Some of it had even been flipped down Emilia’s dress, sticking to the dampness on her cleavage. That was when I noticed that she was sweating. Her entire face glowed with it. She was flushed and nervous and perspiring like it was a hundred degrees out.

Almost in unison, we downed our glasses of champagne in a single gulp. I felt a clap on my shoulder and turned toward Heath. “Everything okay?” he muttered.

I shook my head and turned from him. I was
not
in the mood for an “I told you so.”

I threw another glance around the room, cataloging the attendees. Emilia’s mom, Kim, stood beside my Uncle Peter. My cousin Liam lurked toward the back of the crowd, his hands cupped over his ears in irritation. He absolutely hated things like this, especially when it involved loud music. Liam’s sister, Britt, and her husband Rik had gotten a babysitter to watch the boys. And of course, there were Alex and Jenna along with various other friends.

There were the repeated questions of “Were you surprised?” and Emilia claiming she had “
No
idea!” She giggled in a high-pitched panicky sort of way—the way that meant she clearly was not amused, but was trying to put on a brave face.

I tried to keep the scowl off mine, but it wasn’t working. From across the room, Peter frowned at me, mouthing, “What’s wrong?” Instead of acknowledging him, I looked away.

Then, it happened. After all the excitement of the initial surprise calmed down, Alex made a beeline for Emilia in her usual frenetic way. Her hands waved through the air, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Let me see your hand, Mia!”

Emilia froze. I shifted but I wasn’t fast enough. Alex already had Emilia’s left hand in hers, frowning in confusion that the ring was clearly not there. Goddamn it. Who had told her?

Only two people knew: Heath and Kim. I looked at Emilia’s mother but her attention was focused solely on her daughter, her forehead puckered in confusion. The entire group around us went silent and they were all staring.

Emilia shot me a look of pure terror, her eyes wide, and I stepped up to her side, gently pulling her hand out of Alex’s. I towed Emilia away from her gap-jawed friend and into the crowd around us, moving like I had a ton of bricks tied to each foot.

“I believe a toast to our future doctor is in order. Let’s get her some more champagne!”
And spike mine with vodka, please
.
Goddamn it. Goddamn it all to
hell
. This night needed to be over. As soon as fucking possible.

Christ, just get me through this night. I hated this shit under ordinary circumstances. I never had more than a few people over at once. It was all I could tolerate. But Kim and Heath had planned this and I’d let them do whatever they wanted. I was too busy worrying about the marriage proposal to pay any attention to the guest list. At least there was no one from work—aside from Liam and Jordan—to witness my moment of humiliation.

The party fizzled out quickly. Which mostly had to do with Emilia excusing herself and disappearing for almost an hour. She spent a lot of that time talking to Heath and I was stuck trying to see to guests. Fortunately Kim was perceptive, knew that something was wrong and helped diffuse the dud of a party before it could build on itself.

For me, well, I was still smoldering inside. From the abrupt rejection with no explanation, the public humiliation and, now, the fact that she was somewhere in the house, tucked away, confiding in Heath instead of me.

A sudden burst of hot anger rose inside me. I wanted to punch someone. Before the last cluster of guests dissipated, I was up the stairs and in the bedroom looking for a clean T-shirt and running shorts. It was too late to go for a run along the Back Bay, but there was the treadmill in the exercise room downstairs. I needed to burn off my excess energy somehow.

When I emerged from the closet, she was in the bedroom sitting on the end of the bed, her head in her hands. She looked like shit.

She’d obviously seen some emotional turmoil. But she’d cried on Heath’s shoulder instead of mine. I suddenly decided that
he
was who I wanted to punch. He might be gay and never want her in a romantic way, but he would always be the first man she’d turn to in a crisis, not me. And for that, I hated him. Even if he was a nice guy and even if he did have her back.

I paused for a long moment before moving past her to the door without a word.

“Adam,” she said.

“What?” I stopped, but didn’t turn toward her.

“We should talk.”

“What’s there to talk about?” I turned stiffly. “No more surprise parties? You got it.”

She slowly stood and walked toward me. I didn’t move. “Please, Adam…” She stretched her hand out as if to touch me, but I drew back.

She frowned. “Why are you pulling away from me?”

I shook my head. “Who pulled away from who first?”

“Can we talk about tonight?”

I took a deep breath and then exhaled. “I’m too pissed off right now. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

“But—”

I was already turning and walking away. The last thing I wanted was for emotions to take over. To say something I would regret. Right now I was burning with anger, frustration and, most prominently, fear.

What the fuck was happening to us? And how had it happened so quickly? That cold fear was back again but this time I wouldn’t be a slave to it. I’d shore up my defenses, dig in deep. And I’d draw comfort from the ancient wisdom, hoping to make it my beacon.

A few hours later, when I’d worked myself through to exhaustion, I came up to the room, and she was in bed with the lights off. I took a shower and slipped into bed beside her, but we didn’t touch. There might as well have been a mile of bed between us. I knew she wasn’t sleeping because she wasn’t breathing like she was asleep. I turned my back to her and lay for hours on my side, just like her, awake, running through the events of the night in slow motion, over and over again.

I had to come up with a new plan, but I couldn’t think, my mind cluttered with hopelessness. I had no idea what time it was when I finally fell asleep.

Chapter Five

I only slept a few hours, starting awake after a disturbing dream about my sister, Bree. I hadn’t dreamt about her in years. She was crying—trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t see her face. It was in shadow. I heard again some of the last words she ever said to me when I was twelve, when she put me on the bus headed out of Seattle and back home to Mt. Vernon.
“I promise, Adam, I’ll come back and see you soon. Just be a good boy and go home now
.”

I sat up in a cold sweat, burying my face in my hands, trying to dam a fresh deluge of pain—as raw as if the entire scene had taken place yesterday. Sabrina, my sweet sister. She never came back to me despite the promise. I never saw her again. I didn’t even know where she was buried. My poor Bree. I fought a rush of nausea and stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom to wash my face.

It was early and when I came out, I saw that Emilia was still sleeping, her burnished brown hair splayed across the snowy pillow. I fought the urge to crawl back into bed and pull her to me, press her soft skin against mine. Right now I wanted her so badly I ached with it, but after yesterday—
everything
that had happened yesterday—I couldn’t. Her rejection was still a raw wound. Instead I pulled on some clothes and padded out of the room and down the hall into my office. I’d only slept a few hours and the sun was just barely illuminating the sky with a watery gray light.