END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
In a daze, Emily walked to her room and collapsed on her bed. She was awakened at around midnight by noises coming from the hall and was unsure of how long she had been asleep. Her stomach was rumbling. She hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. She wondered whether her parents had called Abbey home. Perhaps Abbey would appeal her case to their father if she wasn’t too appalled with her herself. She stifled a sob and walked out into the hall where she found that it wasn’t Abbey making the noise.
He was.
He was sitting at their family dining table, exactly like he had all those years ago. Ethan. There was grey hair at his temples – something Emily had not noticed till that minute. He was the last person she expected to see and as she tried to get her heart to start beating again, she reached for the door frame to steady herself. She couldn’t make eye contact with him. She needed some time. She needed food. She needed rest. Why had he come? Did he already know somehow? Could her father have told him?
Ethan excused himself from the table and walked towards her as she hurriedly back stepped into her room.
“Look, Emmy, I’m so sorry for what I said yesterday. I was in the middle of something and I didn’t really mean it.”
Emily looked at him and said nothing. He didn’t know yet. Oxygen filled her lungs once more.
He put his hands on her arms tenderly and continued, “Aren’t you going to say anything? I took the first bus I could to get here to apologize because I was a real jerk. Whatever our problems, I’m sure we can work it out.”
Emily stared at him. “No, Ethan.” she mumbled. She wanted to tell him that she had slept with Arun only because she had been furious after their conversation the evening before. When Arun had come and offered her a shoulder to cry on, she had succumbed to the temptation but, the Ethan in her mind called her a weak woman who couldn’t handle a fight without running into the arms of another man. Anger was no excuse for cheating.
“What do you mean ‘No’? Of course, we can…”
“I’ve…I’ve done something really stupid. I…” She would tell him that she had been lonely and insecure while he had been assiduously working in the research lab. But again, the Ethan in her mind told her that while she had retreated within herself for so many months, he had chosen to channel his grief into more productive avenues and not into another woman. Loneliness was no excuse for sleeping with someone else.
“Whatever it is, I don’t even want to hear about it right now. I think you should start packing and we can go back in the morning. We can work things out.”
“Ethan…it won’t work. I screwed up.” She needed to make him understand that she missed their closeness. That she just needed to feel desired again and gave in to that primal urge. But, the Ethan in her mind told her that he had waited and waited for her to return to normal. She only had to give him some time before he wanted to be physically intimate once more. Not making love regularly was no excuse for infidelity.
Ethan kept talking about how nothing mattered and how they would have to forget about the past and begin again. “Emily? Let’s work this out.”
Emily took a deep breath. She realized that none of her arguments even touched the main reason for what had happened: Grace. After she had lost her, everything had gone pear shape. That was what she would tell Ethan. That’s when the Ethan in her head said, “When you lost Grace? YOU? You selfish woman! We lost Grace. WE lost her. They gave her tiny, beautiful, still body to me to bury. I had to take her to church and watch as they lowered her into the ground. WE lost our child. You never saw it that way. It was always about you. I needed someone to grieve with as well, but you weren’t there. You withdrew into your shell and wouldn’t come out. I did the only thing I knew; I buried myself in my work so that I could forget what it felt like to hold her cold stiff body. I couldn’t make love to you. I couldn’t take the chance that we could get pregnant again. I love you and had to watch you suffer without being able to help. I couldn’t go through that again. I couldn’t. I am not strong enough to suffer another loss like that again. I can’t. I…and you…you’re nothing but a selfish bitch!”
It was then. At that moment, that Emily realized that she was responsible for what had happened. For the first time in all those months, she saw things from Ethan’s perspective. What had she done! There was no way to lay all the blame on Ethan. It had all been her fault too. She thought back to how initially Ethan had tried to hold her to comfort her those horrible nights she would wake up screaming and how she had always pushed him away. She realized that she had not let him in and selfishly, as the Ethan in her mind had described her, thought it was only her right to grieve the loss of Grace in the manner she chose. She had pushed him away. She had messed up. She deserved Ethan’s anger and was no longer deserving of him. She could see no way to save their marriage.
In a flat, hollow voice she said, “I slept with Arun yesterday.”
Ethan let go of Emily so quickly, it was like she had a current of electricity suddenly running through her. “You what?” he asked in a voice that was a little louder than a whisper. When Emily didn’t say anything, Ethan asked again, “You did what?”
“I slept with Arun,” Emily repeated, her voice drained of all emotion.
Emily looked at Ethan and saw tears in his eyes. She hadn’t expected those. She could almost feel her heart breaking for hurting him like that. “I’m sorry E…” she started to say shakily when Ethan strode over to her. Emily recoiled, half expecting him to slap her as the situation rightly warranted.
Then he put his arms around her.
“Thank you” Ethan whispered.
******
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UBC: Post 29
Filed under: Fiction, novella, UBC October, Ultimate Blog Challenge Tagged: Emily, end of life as we know it, fiction, novella, story, UBC, UBC October, ultimate blog challenge 
