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Chapter 3
Julie, AKA Constance
Iwas wondering when Bethany was going to get wise, and it seemed it was going to happen a little sooner than I was ready for. She caught me outside the office when I was about to enter my private sanctuary.
“Do you want to tell me the reason he keeps calling you Constance?”
“I wish I had a good explanation for you. Would you believe that I wanted to reinvent myself by using my middle name?” The answer I received was a vehement shaking of her head.
“You’re going to have to do better than that. I know you better than anybody, and this is highly unusual even for you. I’m sure you have a valid explanation, but I don’t want to give you time to come up with something plausible that I will believe. Tell me the truth, and I promise it won’t go any further than the two of us,” she pressed with her hand on the doorknob keeping me from escaping to the safety of my office where I could lose myself in work for hours.
A deep breath was followed by a meek nod of my head. It had only been 24 hours and I was going to have to come clean, which wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to have. She was privy to most of my secrets, including Bryan, but Cameron was a crucial detail that I had left out on purpose.
I honestly never thought I was going to see him again, but there he was looking as delicious as ever having no clue who he was about to get into bed with, metaphorically speaking.
I motioned for Bethany to join me inside where we could discuss things in private without anybody overhearing us. The walls were soundproof. It cost me a pretty penny, but it was worth every single dollar. Some things had to remain between me and my client. They were assured total anonymity, and that was exactly what they were going to get when they came looking for somebody to invest with.
The clock above my desk was ticking incessantly.
I sat down in the power position, but I didn’t feel like I was in control. “I suppose it wouldn’t do any good to tell you that it was none of your business,” I stated.
“Try again,” she coaxed.
“I haven’t been entirely forthright with you. Cameron isn’t a stranger to me. I know him from a time that I would like to forget, but that is a story for another time. The only thing I’m going to tell you is that he hurt me. It wasn’t physical, but the emotional scar still follows me around like a dark cloud over my head,” I unloaded the burden without elaborating on purpose to keep her in the dark as much as possible.
“You’re not the only one who has been hurt by a man. I might seem confident and self-assured but I can remember a time when I didn’t have it all together. We learn from our mistakes about how to navigate those minefields. Some women are under the mistaken belief that a man doesn’t have feelings. That they only think about football and sex,” she replied while sitting there taking it all in.
There was no way I was going to get out of this without her unbiased opinion.
“The words still get caught in my throat when I try to speak of what happened between us. You’ve seen some of the photographs from my high school years. They were not very flattering by any means. I gave him the benefit of my intellect to help him from being sidelined on the football field. Let’s just say that my feelings were not reciprocated and leave it at that for the time being,” I mentioned in a backhanded way with my words cold and calculating to indicate this was not a subject that I wanted to delve into.
“I’m not taking no for an answer this time. Tonight, you’re going to take all of this baggage and burn it on the beach. This is your chance to start over. I’m not sure what he did to get underneath your skin, but I can feel your pain from across the room. It might be the empathic side of my family tree coming out in me. Don’t stoop to his level,” she warned with her hands touching me.
“I really thought that I was over it until I saw him again standing there as if nothing happened. Those aforementioned photographs from my high school years were supposed to be forgotten. Look at me now. I’m successful with a good career and money to burn. I turned a corner and never looked back until he awakened something ugly inside of me,” I announced with my entire body rigid.
“You certainly don’t look like the same person. If I were your friend back in the day, I wouldn’t recognize you right now. I commend you for taking that awful experience and turning it into something positive. Not a lot of people can do that. You might think it’s nothing but you are a role model to other women in similar situations. Consider talking to the local high school. Those students might benefit from hearing from you,” she counseled, thinking that she had my best interest at heart but I really didn’t want to hear it.
“You don’t understand, and there’s no way that you can when you were popular in high school. I was wallpaper, barely acknowledged unless somebody wanted something from me. My teachers knew that I would always be at the top of my class. Tutoring was a way to make some extra money on the side towards furthering my education. Cameron was the worst,” I confessed with my body shifting until my feet were underneath me in a lotus position.
“What do you mean by that? Why was he the worst?” she questioned while moving a little further until she was on the edge of her seat.
“He thought that he was privileged and didn’t need to know the simple mechanics of chemistry. He thought he was going to be the next big thing in football until he was hurt his senior year. If you look carefully, there is just a hint of his injury when he moves a little bit too quickly. His right knee is never going to be the same, but he can still lead a productive life without football. Trying to tell him that was like beating my head against a brick wall,” I responded with my eyes on the clock.
I had less than 10 minutes before I was scheduled to have my first meeting with a new client. She needed to know my background. I’d already sent her some success stories. That should’ve been enough to convince her, but she was still hesitant to let go of the inheritance from a wealthy uncle.
It wouldn’t be long until her money was working for her as long as she took my advice to heart.
“Look at it from his point of view. He dedicated his life to an American pastime. The man was wearing blinders and couldn’t see past the pigskin in his hands. He didn’t want to hear about his options. He probably spent a fair amount of time consulting doctors to get second and third opinions. That was his right,” Bethany countered by putting herself in his shoes.
She was very good at that, and I was suddenly able to see things differently through a different set of eyes. Was it going to stop me from loving him and leaving him? I wasn’t sure how to answer that question when I had come too far to turn back.
I convinced myself it would make me feel better to give him a dose of his own medicine, but I wasn’t entirely sure it would give me any kind of closure.
“I suppose you’re right, but there was no reason to lash out at me when I was only trying to help. He got very defensive and told me to stay out of his life. Trying to reach out to him was a mistake. He used his clout to push his weight around. That’s the reason I don’t use my first name around him. I don’t want to have him looking at me and recognizing the same shy little girl that he remembered in high school,” I stated with my entire body shaking under the table where she couldn’t see it.
“I want you to do me a favor. Give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m not suggesting you have to come clean and tell him that you have been using this power trip to hurt him unnecessarily. It does make sense why you left him hanging the other night. Don’t you think you have taken this far enough?” she scolded with an unblinking conviction for me to do the right thing.
“I will take everything you said under consideration, but I’m not going to promise anything. You can’t just wave your hand and make this disappear. Therapy didn’t help me. What makes you think that you will be able to change my mind?” I crossed my arms with a scowl on my face.
