The Apartment: The Complete Affair (43 page)

And then it hit him: an image of his family, ashamed of him for stealing such a precious girl away from her family. That was quickly followed by a vision of Lily, lonely and scared, far away from home and bored out of her mind in a foreign country while he disappeared for days on end to paint. She had no one to talk to, and her father refused to speak to her ever again for what she had done. Ethan knew without a doubt that she would grow to hate him. She would blame him for wrecking everything, knowing that he had taken advantage of her naiveté so he could keep her as his own precious jewel.

He also knew without a doubt that seeing that look of hate in her eyes would kill him.

So he did the only thing he knew how to do.

He ran.

He ran away like the chickenshit Maggie called him, hoping that Lily would go back to the life that she had always known, the life she had been perfectly happy with before he bulldozed into it. He hoped that after a few weeks, she would forget all about him.

He just hadn’t taken into account how hard it would be to forget
her
. He saw her everywhere, in every passing smile, every bubbly laugh—even the sunset had shades of gold that reminded him of the highlights in her hair. He also wasn’t sleeping again, but this time, it wasn’t because of Rachel’s cruel departure. It was because of the lack of Lily’s warmth in the dark, the smell of her sweet skin, the sound of her breathing softly as she slept.

He just fucking
missed
her.

He couldn’t listen to his music anymore; every song made him think of her. If the lyrics were sad, all he could think of was how badly he wanted her to be there with him. If it was a happy tune, he would immediately think of the fun, playful times they had shared together. And he didn’t even want to think about the sexy songs. Those opened up a floodgate of memories that kept him paralyzed with need for hours on end.

Of course, not being able to listen to his music had made painting nearly impossible. He couldn’t focus—his thoughts were always leading back to her, and when he would step back and look at his canvas he would see her eyes or her lips or some other feature that his subconscious was fixating on at that given moment.

So now he had a large collection of half-finished paintings stacked up, all of them some version of Lily, all of them screaming at him to finish them properly and admit that he wanted nothing more than to be with the real thing. Just thinking of them made him glance across the room at the canvases before he could stop himself, which caused him to shut his eyes tightly and repeat his newest mantra over and over in his mind.

You did the right thing. You did the right thing. You put her before yourself for the first time. You weren’t what she needed. You did the right thing
.

It helped for the most part. Whenever he was hit with moments of doubt it usually calmed his nerves, but lately there had been times when he found himself doubting whether he actually
had
done the right thing.

He hadn’t even asked her what she wanted; he’d simply decided what was best for her. When these thoughts struck him, he would try to convince himself that she was only infatuated with him, that there was no way she could have actually loved him, and then he would berate himself for assuming that he knew about love any better than she did. He’d never even been in love before, so what gave him the right to assume that his feelings were more honest and real than hers?

“Fuck!” he yelled out, throwing one of the wadded-up pillows next to him across the room. He couldn’t stand the nagging feelings of doubt that were creeping in and taking over his brain. What if he had made a split-second decision based on fear, and rather than saving her from herself, he had sentenced her to a life with someone she truly didn’t want? What if they were
both
miserable right now?

No
, he thought to himself.
She will move on. She will marry that big oaf and have his babies and never think of you again
.

“God dammit!” he roared, chucking another pillow, this time knocking over a figurine on the mantle across the room and sending it to the floor where it shattered into a million tiny pieces. Just the thought of that fucking guy’s hands anywhere near her body made him feel sick to his stomach.

He reminded himself that this was what he wanted for her, regardless of how horrible it was to think of her being with that Neanderthal. But what if she
didn’t
end up with her fiancé? She was going to eventually let someone else touch her. A girl that passionate wouldn’t be alone for long. She was going to be someone’s wildest fucking dream come true when they realized what a firecracker she was. And she had only him to thank for tapping into the passion that was hidden deep down inside of her. He had left her there, all alone, ripe and ready for the plucking.

“Mine!” he growled loudly, chucking another pillow across the room.

The nights were the worst for Ethan.

All he wanted was to drift back to sleep and shut out all of his traitorous thoughts, even if it meant dreaming of her. But once he was tossing and turning and these thoughts set in, he knew that he would be up for the rest of the night. He glanced at his luggage across the room, eyeing the side pocket that contained his treasure, and mentally scolded himself, knowing it would never get any better for him if he kept depending on such a pathetic crutch.

Focusing instead on his voicemails again, he continued plowing through them, using all of his energy to keep his mind from wandering. His phone played them in reverse order, from most recent to oldest, and he listened to his family’s anger morph backwards to their initial worry. When he finally reached the last one, which must have come in right after he left, he expected more of the same and nearly dropped the phone when he heard the last thing he’d ever expected to hear again.

Lily’s voice.

She wasn’t calling him—her voice was muffled, like the phone was being held away from her—but he would know her voice anywhere.

“No! Please no! Please, not right now, Maggie. Please! Not like this.”

Click.

Somehow he had missed the message when it had first come in. Some of the others he’d heard already, before he’d started just flat-out ignoring them. All this time without her, and he’d had her voice right there in his phone the entire time.

He had no idea what the call was about. The only thing he could assume was that Maggie tried to call him to bitch him out when she’d first found out what had happened, and Lily must have been there.

She sounded so broken, so sad.

Stop! You did the right thing. You did the right thing
.

He listened to the message again and again, barely letting it finish before starting it over. When he closed his eyes he could see her as clearly as if she were lying next to him, her long tresses spread out over the sheets as she smiled up at him. Before long the sound of her voice on the recording began to bleed into his imagination, and then his beautiful goddess was looking up at him with tears in her eyes, begging him for an explanation, begging him not to leave.

She was haunting him.

As much as it killed him to think of her like that, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He kept telling himself that he needed to forget her, but he missed her so fucking much that he knew he would take whatever small piece of her he could get to keep her alive in his memories—even if those memories were painful.

It felt as if part of him had been ripped away, as if he had somehow become an amputee. Glancing at his luggage once again, he sighed loudly, finally admitting defeat. Whenever that feeling showed up, he knew it was useless to fight it anymore.

Slowly getting out of bed and walking toward the bag in question, he quietly unzipped the side pocket, as if at any moment someone would hear and call him out for being the pathetic, perverted loser that he truly was. Pulling the item out quickly, he returned to bed, clutching his prize to his chest as he reached for his phone.

Pressing play yet again, Ethan lay back on the only remaining pillow, listening to her scared, sad voice on repeat until he finally fell asleep, a dark blue scrap of lace knotted in his fist.

As the natural light began to fade from the windows, Ethan looked up from his canvas and saw that it was already after 7 p.m. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even glanced at the clock, and the loud growl in his stomach indicated he certainly hadn’t eaten.

Without moving his eyes away from his latest project, he backed away slowly until his legs bumped into the small desk behind him that held the phone. Dialing the extension from memory, he quickly ordered up a pot of coffee and a turkey sandwich, not wanting anything that would take his attention away from his painting for longer than a few bites. He knew he should probably have gotten something more substantial, but considering he had gone almost three days on an empty stomach, he figured that anything was better than nothing.

Within a heartbeat he was back in front of his easel, swirling and streaking different colors across the stretched fabric. Zoning out in front of his paintings had become his typical day for… how many days? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that he had finally given himself over to his body’s driving need to paint, and he had gone back and finished every single piece he’d started, as well as many new ones.

The last time he could remember being so focused and immersed in his work, he’d been on a four-day bender and Rachel had only interrupted him to refill his nose candy. But this time felt completely different. He wasn’t rushing to meet a deadline or trying to impress anyone. This time, he had somehow found his own world… his own version of paradise filled with nothing but memories of Lily… and he never wanted to leave.

In what felt like less than five minutes but was likely closer to twenty, there was a loud knock on the door. Swearing to himself under his breath for not thinking to unbolt the damn thing in advance so that room service could just come in without his needing to stop, Ethan set his palette and brush down and made his way across the room. Feeling through his empty pockets as he walked, he grumbled even louder as he reached his destination.

“I hope I can sign your tip on the room, man,” he called to the door as he reached for it. “I’m all out of cash.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can work something out,” a deep, menacing voice answered as Ethan pulled back the door to reveal a very large, very angry looking man.

Ethan stared for a moment, blinking, not believing who he was seeing.

“Eric?” he whispered.

The large man allowed an evil grin to spread across his features before replying. “Hey, bro.”

And then he proceeded to pull back one of the biggest fists that Ethan had ever seen and pound it straight into the side of his face.

Before he could even register the sickening thud, Ethan saw sparks flash in his vision as he was catapulted across the room, landing flat on his back as the world went dark around him.

* * *

The sound of clinking china was the first thing Ethan registered.

As he opened his eyes slowly to get his bearings, he noticed two other things right away. One: only his right eye was cooperating with him and no matter how hard he tried to open his left, it just wouldn’t budge. And two: he was flat on his back on the carpet while Eric was sitting at the small table above him, apparently drinking his room service coffee.

He tried to shift so that he could sit up, but the action only sent a wave of pure agony straight to his face. His loud groan sounded more like a wounded animal than a man, but it simply made Eric smile wider as he poured himself another cup.

“Awww,” he teased. “Does the widdle baby got a booboo?” Ethan peered up at him through the one eye that wasn’t already swelling shut, causing a ridiculous winking expression that set Eric off into a fresh fit of laughter. “Dude, you look like Popeye!”

“Fuck you,” Ethan grunted out through clenched teeth as he finally struggled into a sitting position, propping himself up with his hands on the floor behind his back.

“Oh, fuck
me
?” Eric raised an eyebrow sharply as he looked at the disheveled man in front of him. “Let’s not start with that, my friend. My ‘fuck you’ list is longer. I’ll win.” He stared him down for a moment before chuckling again. “Besides, I took it easy on you. That was only about half power.”

“Bullshit,” Ethan whined. “I feel like my face is on fire. Everything’s swelling up.” He slowly pulled himself up by the edge of a chair and sat down on the other side of the table, gingerly prodding at his sore cheek with the tips of his fingers.

“Not my fault you’re a lightweight, bro.” Eric slurped loudly from the tiny china cup and merely winked when Ethan flipped him off.

“How did you find me?” Ethan asked after settling back into his chair with a groan.

Eric sighed deeply before finally setting the cup down. “You think the NFL has never had to track down some asshole player on a bender? We have our ways.” He meticulously unfolded a linen napkin as he spoke, scooping up a large handful of ice from a bucket before wrapping it up and handing it to him. “Here. Put this on your eye. It’s still gonna be an ugly son of a bitch, but it should help with some of the pain and swelling.”

“Thanks,” Ethan grunted, gingerly applying the makeshift icepack to his cheekbone.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I knew that New York was the last city you were living in before Rachel took off. When one of the Giants needed help after a torn ACL this week, I thought there might actually be a chance of finding your dumb ass.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ Did you think that none of us would find you or did you just think that nobody would ever bother looking?”

“Nobody ever did before,” he said quietly.

“Well that’s because you acted like a pompous shithead who had no time for his family,” Eric gritted out between clenched teeth, years of resentment spilling out. “We didn’t want to bother you when you made it more than clear that your lives were much too fabulous for us,” he mocked.