TRIGGER WARNING: SELF-HARM AND TALKS OF SUICIDE
EASTON'S POV
Present Day
I watched her walk out of her office, her button-down blouse tucked into her black pencil skirt as she dug around in her purse. There was something uncomfortably familiar about the way her hair looked: pulled up into a high ponytail with loose pieces framing her face, just like she used to style it in high school whenever she was running late in the mornings. Except now it was cut to her shoulders, with light-brown highlights accentuating the dark-brown curls I'd always loved. I was used to it down her back, almost to her hips, messy and in her face as she shuffled between classes, avoiding everyone's eyes except for mine. I could still remember the way it smelled—just like coconuts—when it'd hung around my face like a halo the few times I'd kissed her. The way it looked now—smartly cut, accentuating her sharp cheekbones—reminded me of how much had changed since I'd seen her last. Unlike when we were teenagers, she moved with the ease of someone who finally felt at home, like she'd established roots somewhere for the first time in her life.
I knew it was wrong to be stalking my ex-girlfriend, but now that I knew she was back in town, it's like I couldn't stay away from her. It scared me how quickly I fell back into old habits. I was still in love with her—I'd never stopped, though I'd certainly tried. Due to my own actions, though, she was no longer mine. Because of that, my old habits only went so far. She went on dates now and I didn't interfere. The old me wouldn't have been able to stand it, knowing she was with someone else. If we were still in high school, I would have stalked the guy down and used whatever means necessary to ensure he stayed far away from her. But I couldn't do that now. Rina no longer belonged to me, and I had no right to ruin her love life just because I was no longer in it.
I knew today was her first day working as a paralegal at a law firm in D.C. She must have been nervous this morning, but now watching her come out of that building, she looked as elated as I'd ever seen her. The day must have gone well.
I tried not to be excited when I discovered that she'd be working in an office just a couple blocks over from mine. She'd made the announcement on Facebook a few weeks prior, and for a moment I felt as though fate were bringing us back together. I stifled that feeling, however, before I allowed it to take hold. She moved here for a job, not for me. I knew this because if she kept up with me on social media at all (which I can't imagine she did), nowhere did it list what I did for work, let alone where I was living. I'd kept much of my personal life off the Internet after dropping out of college to focus on my mental health. I'd gone back two years later, considerably behind the rest of my peers but in an otherwise much more stable place. When I finally did graduate, I hadn't posted about it or about the position as a financial analyst that I'd taken a few months later. Even though I was doing well, I knew my classmates still saw the person I'd been our senior year—that volatile, broken-hearted disaster of a human being that destroyed everything in his path. Though that wasn't who I was anymore, I didn't want to give people, like my former best friend, the satisfaction of knowing that they were right: there was something wrong with me and it had consumed my late adolescent years.
Instead of talking to Rina like I wanted, I went home and told my sister what I'd done. I still lived with Hera and her husband, Christopher, a freshly-licensed attorney working as an associate for a patent law firm in the city. Hera worked as an English teacher at a private middle school in Arlington, her trust fund paying most of the mortgage on the million dollar home my father had assisted her in buying following her college graduation. I'd lived with them for nearly eight years, keeping to myself on the rare occasions that Christopher was home but spending time with Hera whenever he wasn't. She always said she liked to keep a close eye on me, but I think she just appreciated my company. In turn, I appreciated her patience. Especially now that she was looking at me like I'd grown a second head.
"You did what?" She demanded, her pale hands fisted against her hips as she glared at me. "Have you lost your damn mind, Easton? We've worked so hard to get you stable and here you are, throwing all that progress away as soon as she moves back to D.C.!"
"I didn't talk to her," I defended. "I just wanted to confirm that she was really here. It's not going to happen again."
"Don't lie to me," Hera snapped. "I can tell by the look on your face that you aren't going to stay away from her. What happens if she sees you watching her, huh? She's going to think you're stalking her and you are."
"I swear, Hera. I'm going to stay away from her this time. That's why I told you what I did. If I planned on seeing her again, I would have kept it a secret."
She gave me the evil eye--a skill she'd picked up from Beatrice, the nanny who'd become the mother we never had when we were children--and went back to stirring the pot of pasta on the stove. "East, you know I love you to death. I can't see you break down again like you did before. You scared the shit out of me, alright? I don't want to lose you like we lost Mom."
We both got quiet, thinking of our mother's death. It wasn't a memory either of us liked to revisit, but it was one that worried Hera especially. She'd seen the similarities between our mother and I before I did, and I knew she worried I'd follow a similar path. I might have already had Hera not intervened. She'd become the parent I'd desperately needed following what happened my senior year.
"You aren't going to lose me. This wasn't that serious. It was like seeing your ex's posts on Instagram. You don't really want to look but you do anyways, right? I mean, you still check Matthew's page and you broke up more than a decade ago."
Hera winced when I said her high school sweetheart's name and I regretted making the comparison. "That's different," she said quietly. "When Matt and I broke up, I didn't try to kill myself. I told you, East. I nearly lost you and I can't go through that again. You're the only real family I've got left."
"First of all, I was never actually trying to kill myself. Secondly, you also have Chris," I pointed out, trying to make light of a serious conversation.
"Chris is always working late. If you're not here, who's going to watch Love Island with me on Friday nights?"
"So that's why you aren't charging me rent. I'm paying in lost brain cells."
"You like it just as much as I do," she smiled, turning the stove down as she reached for the colander.
"I tolerate it."
"Whatever you say," she said in a sing-song voice before turning somber again. "Promise you aren't going to see Rina again?"
"I mean, she works a block over from me. I can't promise you I won't run into her."
"You know what I mean, Easton. I don't want you following her. Sooner or later, you're going to see something you don't want to see and it'll send you spiraling again."
She was referring to my freshman year of college, when I saw a picture of Rina with another guy at a party. The guy turned out to be her boyfriend, the loser she'd worked with during her freshman year at Northwestern. I was alone in my dorm room when it showed up on my Instagram feed, and my roommate walked in on me a short while later slitting my forearm with a razor blade. I wasn't actively trying to kill myself—I just felt like I was drowning, and I was desperate to feel anything else—but nobody believed me. Not my roommate, not our dorm advisor, not Hera, and not the psych ward I was involuntarily admitted to. Thankfully, I'd listed Hera as my emergency contact rather than my father so when she showed up to pick me up from the hospital three days later, she listened to me vent instead of overlooking the situation completely. Like my father would have done.
"Hera, I'm better now. I really am. She was just my first love, you know? I wanted to see her in person one last time. It isn't going to ruin my progress, I swear."
"Are you still using tinder?" She asked, eyebrows raised. I could tell she thought I was lying.
"Yeah, I am," I said honestly. I'd downloaded the app at Hera's insistence a few months prior, but hadn't gone on any dates yet. Standing at six-foot-three with a relatively muscular build, I didn't have much of a problem enticing women to swipe right on my profile. My issue was carrying a conversation with them. I knew they couldn't all be as vapid and boring as they came across—part of the problem was obviously how vapid and boring the app was itself—but I still couldn't manage to hold a conversation with any of them for more than a few days.
"And have you met anyone interesting yet?"
I thought about lying, but she could always read my face like an open book. The truth was that even though I found most of them boring, women on dating apps often stopped responding before I did. I knew I sounded robotic in my responses, but that's how I'd trained myself to be with women. It was a defense mechanism, I'd concluded, because I was scared of falling in love in a similar manner to how I fell for Rina—hard, fast, and without explanation. It was dangerous, how my brain reacted to emotion. Still, though, I went through the motions to appease my sister. She knew I hardly dated and when I did, it was usually just physical. I felt bad, using women like that, but I was too scared of myself to let anyone else in.
"They're all the same, Hera, and not one of them is interesting," I said, holding up four fingers. "Young college-graduates moving to the city for their first job," I said, ticking down the first finger. "Living with three roommates in a two-bedroom apartment because they can barely afford the rent." I dropped the second. "Obsessed with bottomless mimosas at brunch and keeping up appearances on social media," I said, putting down the third finger. Only the pinky remained, and I dropped it as I ticked off the last box, "and all wanting to meet me at a nightclub for the first date. It's like the same personality copied and pasted in different bodies."
"Maybe that's just how they seem because you've never bothered to actually get to know them," she suggested, digging in the cabinets for a bottle of olive oil.
"Or maybe everyone in this city is really just as vapid as they seem."
"Everyone except Rina?" She asked, glaring at me. "That's the problem, isn't it? They're all not her."
"That's not fair," I snapped.
"It's the truth, right? You're still holding her up on a pedestal as if she's the gold standard for women everywhere. She isn't."
"You never even met her," I defended.
"Did I have to? You've told me everything about her and honestly, Easton, she was just a pretty face with a sad story. You fell for her because she was hard to get, and you like a challenge. You still do, clearly, because you're almost twenty-eight and still pining after the girl you dated when you were eighteen."
"I'm not pining after her, Hera. There's just a small part of me that hopes someday we'll get a second chance. Is that so incredibly odd? I mean, come on, would you not take Matthew back in a heartbeat if the situation presented itself?"
She got quiet, her face growing even paler than usual. "That's different."
"How? He was your first love too, right? You broke up with him because you couldn't handle the distance when he got deployed. By the time you'd realized what a mistake you'd made, he'd moved on so you had to too. Except now you're married to Christopher, who's barely around and treats you like an afterthought. That's why you're always looking at Matthew's page, isn't it? To find evidence that he's just as miserable as you?"
"And what's your excuse for looking at Rina's?" She snarled.
"I'm fucked up in the head, that's why. You're not. You're just unhappy in your marriage but you won't admit it even though you know he's an ass. He used you to finance his lifestyle while he was finishing law school and you used him for validation while you were secretly still in love with Matthew."
"You have no idea what you're talking about!"
"How could I not? I've been here through the entire relationship, Hera. I see the way you treat each other like roommates rather than partners. I know you have separate bank accounts and that fat, juicy prenup dad insisted he sign. For God's sake, his name isn't even on the deed to your house! You bought the house yourself, put it in your own trust, and appointed me as a trustee instead of Chris. Why would you do all of that if you were married? You just wanted to make it easier on yourself when you eventually divorced him."
"How did this conversation turn into an evaluation of my relationship? You are the one ruining your entire life obsessing over your ex-girlfriend!"
"Because it means we aren't that different. You never got over Matthew and I never got over Rina. We both dug a hole we can't get out of. So, if you would please stop questioning why I followed Rina today, I would appreciate it. You know exactly why. I want someone I can't have and so do you."
"Just because I understand doesn't mean I condone it, Easton. You've got to move on. You're such a good looking guy and you're wasting the best years of your life hung up on that girl."
"I'm not wasting it. I'm content with how things are going."
"I told you to stop lying to me, Easton. You're so terrible at it. I can always tell."
"Fine, I'm not content but I'm not suicidal. Isn't that good enough for you?" She glared at me, and I smirked like I'd been joking. "Listen, stop worrying. I'll find someone eventually. I just haven't found anyone I like yet."
"That's because you won't give anyone else a chance. Let me see your tinder."
"Isn't that a little personal? What if you see something you don't want to see?" I asked back, grinning.
"East, I helped Beatrice change your diapers. There isn't a single part of you I haven't already seen."
"Yeah, when you were six."
"Yeah, and? I still remember it," she said, holding out her palm for my smartphone. "Fork it over."
I sighed, fishing my phone out from my back pocket, unlocking it, and handing it over. Standing over her shoulder, I watched as she pulled up the tinder app and started scrolling through conversations. "You never message any of these women first?" Hera asked without looking at me.
"No. Normally I don't have to. They message me."
"Yeah, four of your dozens of matches have sent you a message."
"I've had more. They just unmatched me."
"Gee, I wonder why. You sound mechanical. This woman asked you what your hobbies were and all you said was 'Gym and hiking.' You couldn't have tacked on a 'What about you?' at the end?"
"I assumed she would tell me. And she did."
"Yeah, shortly before she stopped responding to you completely. And I can't really blame her. You sound like a sociopathic robot."
"I don't want to give them unrealistic expectations."
"Your problem is not that you don't know how to feel, Easton. It's that you feel too much. And that isn't always a bad thing."
"In my case, it is."
"It wouldn't be bad if you met the right person."
"That's the problem, Hera. Last time, the right person sent me spiraling. It's not just that I'm hung up on Rina. It's that I never, ever want to experience that again."
"And you don't feel that heartache again now, seeing her back in D.C.?"
"Not really. We both grew up in different ways. She found her place in this world and I take mood stabilizers to keep a spot in mine. It's fine. I'm fine."
"I'd have an easier time believing you were fine if you were socializing like a normal person. It's Friday night, East, and you're at home—still in your suit—helping me make dinner."
"Yeah, I'm here paying my monthly dues. Friday night, so that means we're watching Love Island, right?"
"I'd rather you go out than watch anything with me. You used to go out in high school, remember? You were the king of the Wellspring party scene."
"More like the king of teenage angst. I'm twenty-seven years old, Hera. I'd rather swallow broken glass than go sit at a bar by myself on a Friday night."
"So don't go by yourself," she said, staring at my phone instead of me. "You have a new match and a new message. Her name is Hillary, and she wants to know if you're free tonight."
"Give that back!" I snapped, lunging at her but she side-stepped out of my way. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Telling Hillary that you're free tonight. Which restaurant did you want to take her to? Clyde's or Founding Farmers?"
"Hera, don't. You know why I don't want to date again."
"Yeah, yeah, you're scared. Look, East, I'm tired of seeing you alone. You're going out with Hillary tonight whether you like it or not."
Hillary in person wasn't disappointing. She was quite a bit shorter than me, even with the spiky black heels she was sporting. Her reddish-blonde hair hung down to her shoulders in loose curls, her lips painted a bright berry, and she was dressed in an off the shoulder blue dress that came down to her mid-thigh. She wasn't my usual type—which is only to say that she did not look a thing like Rina—but she was still very pretty. I knew if I were anyone else, I'd be delighted to be on a date with someone like her. But because I was Easton Clarke, I felt nothing but apathy when I saw her.
When she saw me standing outside the restaurant, her face lit up with a wide smile. Her voice came out as a chipper, "Easton?"
I cracked a wide smile that I hoped didn't look as forced as it felt. "Hey, Hillary?"
"That would be me. You managed to snag an eight-thirty reservation?"
"Yeah, I was able to pull a few strings and get us a table." By that I meant that I'd dropped my father's first and last name. "It's just standard American fare. I hope that's alright with you?"
"Of course," she said as we entered the building. The hostess greeted us with a forced smile as we approached her station.
"Do you have a reservation?" She asked, her voice sickeningly sweet.
I smiled back and said, "Yes, it should be under Barton Clarke."
"Oh, yes, I spoke to you on the phone earlier, Mr. Clarke. It's a pleasure to meet you in person," she cooed at me, sugary sweet and blatantly insincere. She grabbed two menus from the booth in front of her and motioned us to follow her. I smiled at Hillary and gestured to her to go first. We walked in what felt like awkward silence into the crowded dining room, past tables full of business meetings and casual dates. I glanced briefly at each face I passed, most of them paying me absolutely no mind as they were too engrossed in conversation with those around them. It wasn't until we got towards the back of the restaurant where the lights were a little dimmer, and the booths were smaller and more intimate that I noticed a pair of dark brown eyes blazing back at mine.
Rina. I would have recognized those eyes anywhere. She was dressed in a conservative black dress, her hair tied up in a high ponytail. Just her presence there—so close and staring directly at me—caused my chest to constrict. I glanced towards the other side of the table, where she sat opposite a man I didn't recognize, dressed in black dress pants and a button-down shirt. My eyes came back to Rina like a magnet and for just a split second, our eyes locked. Her was face fixed in a hard scowl, and a familiar feeling of emptiness took hold in the pit of my stomach. The look on her face confirmed what I always feared: Rina still hated me all these years later. I tore my eyes away from her as the hostess seated us just a few tables away. Hillary took the seat facing away from where Rina was seated and I—equal parts reluctant and relieved—took the seat across from her]. "So," Hillary said, her voice almost too low for me to hear over the music. "Barton Clarke? I thought your name was Easton."
Hillary looked so unbelievably at ease compared to how I felt: her face still looked eager, her shoulders relaxed. I, on the other hand, felt like I was going to throw up. "Uh, that's my dad's name. He's friends with the owner and I had to pull some strings to get us a reservation."
"Oh, that's interesting. So you've been to this restaurant a lot?"
My hands were shaking, and I quickly folded them in my lap to hide how nervous I was before answering. "A few times. The food is pretty good. Did you want to start with drinks?" Somehow, by the grace of God, my voice didn't tremble.
"Sure, I could go for a glass of wine. It's been a long week. What do you do for work?"
"Uh, I'm an analyst for a wealth management firm in Dupont Circle. What about yourself?" It seemed so obvious to my own ears that I sounded like I was choking over my words. Hillary either didn't notice or didn't comment on it.
"Real estate agent. The listing side. I have these clients trying to sell their rundown rental for well over what it's worth. In this economy," she let out a irritated laugh. "It's been an ordeal trying to manage their expectations," she chattered on, but I was hardly listening. The room suddenly felt like it was a hundred degrees too warm and my stomach continued to churn. I knew I was having an anxiety attack and though I'd been trained on how to handle them, my usual methods weren't working. I didn't want Rina here at all, but the fact that she was out with someone else made me feel like I was losing every trace of my sanity all over again. I never expected to feel like this again, and I hated how easily I'd lost my control. Hillary, however, didn't seem to notice that I was effectively burning alive. "I was so glad you agreed to go out tonight. It was this or staying trapped in my apartment I'm new to the city and I haven't really met anyone yet."
"I've lived here most of my life. Do you like it?" I choked out, reaching for my water. I could see my hands shaking but Hillary was looking at the drink list rather than me.
"I'm not sure yet. I'm from North Carolina and so I'm not really used to how busy everything is up here," she said, and I finally recognized the distinct southern twang in her voice. "But I got offered a position at a firm in Georgetown and I couldn't say no. They have me working on the bad deals so far but even they are world's better than what I got back in Durham. At least in terms of commission. The clients, of course, occasionally make me want to rip my hair out."
"Yeah, there's a crazy amount of turnover here. It's a revolving door of an area, so inventory comes and goes pretty quickly."
"That's for sure," she agreed as our waiter—a thin, raven-haired young woman with a septum piercing—showed up at the table. Her eyes flickered first to Hillary, who shot her a cheery grin, and then to me, where they remained for a little bit too long, I guess expecting me to smile as well. When I just stared at her blanky, her smile faulted, and she instead looked down at her notepad.
"Good evening. My name is Katelyn and I'll be your server for the evening. Can I start you off with something to drink?"
Hillary looked at me as if expecting me to order first but I gestured for her to start, hoping neither party noticed the sweat I could feel beading on my brow.
"Oh, okay, well I'll have a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon."
"And for you sir?" Katelyn asked, hardly looking up from her notepad.
"Uh, a rye Manhattan, please."
"Did you guys want to go ahead and order any appetizers?"
"Uh, Hillary, order whatever you would like. I need to run to the restroom." I got up swiftly, before either of them could respond, and fast-walked in the direction of the restroom. I knew I'd come across as rude, but I didn't care. If I wasn't concerned about the bill—I knew damn well Hillary's commission was barely enough to pay her rent—I would have walked out altogether. Instead, I walked down the dimly lit hallway that led to the bathrooms and all but kicked open the door. When I got inside, I locked it behind me and gripped the edges of the sink with both hands.
There's literally no reason you should be acting like this, I whispered to myself, staring down at my clenched hands. I had to remind myself of what my sister said earlier tonight: Rina was just a pretty face with a sad story. Nothing special and certainly nothing that should have caused such a visceral reaction. Even still, I knew I looked about as crazy as I felt. My suspicions were confirmed when I finally glanced up at my reflection. With my flushed cheeks and the sweat beading on my forehead, I looked like I'd just come back from a run rather than an air-conditioned restaurant.
Hillary was an attractive woman with what seemed like one hell of a work drive. If I were literally anyone else, I would have felt lucky to be out with her. However, I was a basket case and what I wanted was to get as far away from this place as possible. And I would. I'd feign a sudden illness as soon as I came out, offering to take her out again in a few weeks even though we'd both know I was lying. She probably wouldn't want to go out again anyways. It had to be incredibly obvious that I was out of my mind and besides, Hillary deserved someone who wasn't hyperventilating in a restaurant bathroom over their ex-girlfriend.
I splashed cold water on my face and hitched up the sleeves of my button-down shirt, grateful that I'd elected to wear black. Otherwise, I'm sure my pit stains would be much more obvious. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door to the bathroom, expecting to see an empty hallway, but instead came face to face with a steaming Rina.