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ELLA: Come over to my house. My mom's gone out for a while. We can talk.
Then I waited. Josh arrived about fifteen minutes later, and his face was pale, his eyes haggard.
"Come in," I said and led him inside to the living room.
He came over to me and I knew he wanted to hug me, but I quickly sat on the chair
facing the sofa.
He sat across from me, clearly dejected.
"Tell me what's the matter, Ella."
I took in a deep breath, because it was now or never. I had to ask him and he had to tell me.
"The other day, you said you had something to talk to me about that you weren't proud of. I want you to tell me now."
He sighed and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped. He didn't meet my eyes. "My army buddy Grant killed himself."
"I know," I replied and while my instinct would have been to reach out to squeeze his hand to comfort him, I didn't. "You already told me that much."
"He had a younger sister," Josh said and a wave of adrenaline coursed through me. I tried to prepare myself for what he was going to say.
He cheated on me with her.
"You slept with her while you were at the funeral,” I blurted out.
His face blanched and he glanced up at me, frowning.
"No, no," he said and grabbed my hand. "I would never sleep with someone else. Why would you think that? How could you even imagine I'd consider sleeping with someone else?"
I shrugged, my eyes burning. "We were both cheated on," I said, my voice breaking. "Both of us should be more than able to consider it. I figured you're just as likely as anyone to cheat."
"I never cheated on you. I want you," he said knelt beside my chair, my hands in his. "Only you."
"Then what happened that you could be so guilty about?"
He exhaled and glanced away.
"Before I met Christie, when I was in the Army, I used to sleep with Grant's sister when we were in the States on leave."
I nodded, waiting for the rest of the story.
"I thought she was fine with it. You know, we both were young and single and not into long-term relationships. I thought she really meant it when she said no strings attached, but apparently, she thought it meant more. She thought that because we kept getting together each time I was in the States, that I couldn't live without her. She thought we'd take the next step and get engaged, and then marry. She imagined that we'd move to Manhattan and she'd be my wife. Of course, I had no interest in her besides a fun sex partner now and then. I used her, Ella. Crassly. Unthinkingly. I used her and then I forgot about her when I met Christie once I was back home and out of the service. Christie and I got engaged and I guess Penny crashed when she learned about it in the papers."
"She was wrong to expect more than you offered," I said.
"I was wrong to use her like that, not seeing that she was getting in deeper than I was. That she was expecting more. We kept our relationship secret because we were both afraid that Grant would be angry and disapprove of it. It made it easy to see it as nothing important -- at least for me. It wasn't public, so it didn't matter. I was callous, not realizing she felt differently."
"What happened at the funeral? She was there. Did you have a big scene or something?"
He nodded. "She was drunk and high as well. She started using heavier drugs after we stopped seeing each other. She went downhill and became depressed. She's an addict, Ella," he said, his voice impassioned. "Heroin. Meth. She lives in this dump of a rooming house and has tracks up her arms. She prostitutes herself for money for her drugs. It caused a real divide in the family and they pretty much disowned her. Grant's suicide sent her off the deep end, and I was there to see her hit rock bottom."
I nodded and waited for the rest. "And then what?"
"I gave her money, because she was clearly hurting. She started to hit me up for more and more. Finally, I said that unless she got help, I'd turn off the tap. I paid for a bed at a rehab facility in California and she agreed to go. That's why I was there. I picked her up in Millbrook and flew her to the facility near LA. Since I was there, I stayed with David."
"That's where you went," I said and felt a surge of hope in me. "This was the big secret you were keeping from me? You paid for her rehab and took her there?"
