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“Yeah, it’s pretty rare actually. I know we aren’t exactly the closest but it’s not because he’s a particularly angry person or anything?—I haven’t heard him slam doors since one of his firm partners betrayed him about four years ago.”
I blanched internally. I knew that it had been me to make him angry. I had crossed some invisible boundary. Maybe he wanted a purely physical relationship, and I had made him angry by rejecting that? I knew, deep down, if that was the only way I could have him, it would be the way I would have him. I was foolish for thinking he might want something more with me, a nineteen-year-old college student with her life in pieces.
“I’m going to head off to bed, Han,” I said calmly, “I’m pretty beat and we’ve got class in the morning.”
Hannah didn’t detect anything unusual in my voice and just grunted, sticking her toothbrush in her mouth as I left. I headed for my own room, but as I passed the staircase, I impulsively went down it. I told myself I was just going to get a glass of water, but the next thing I knew, I was standing on Julian’s landing, my heart in my stomach, and deep fear that he was angry at me curling through my body like a vicious venom. I knocked hesitantly on the closed bedroom door. I couldn’t hear anything from within but wanted nothing more than for Julian to open the door and tell me he wasn’t mad at me. I knocked a couple more times, but when there was no answer, I went back to my own room. I lay in the darkness, and my fear of him being mad at me turned into bitterness that he was doing this to me simply because I wouldn’t put out. This slowly turned into righteous rage as the night wore on, and when I woke up in the morning, I was positively seething with my need for vindication. Over a delicious breakfast cooked by Andrew, I decided that I would speak to him that night.
I was quiet through most of my classes, instead of going over the imagined conversation in my head. I saw myself yelling at Julian, and him yelling back. I saw myself yelling, and him crying (even though I thought this was improbable). I even saw myself yelling, and him laughing in my face for ever thinking he’d like me. By the end of my day, I was ready to fight and spent the whole trip back to the house wound tighter than a spring. As I searched for him though, I ran into the omniscient Andrew, who somehow knew who I was looking for, and gave me a look of warning.
“I just brought Mr. Brooks his dinner. He said he is not to be disturbed.”
I growled and stomped away, even though I knew that: 1) it most definitely wasn’t Andrew’s fault that Julian was avoiding me and 2) my feelings for Julian were showing loud and clear, simply by how angry I was.
I got to my own room, ripped my backpack open, and angrily began studying, flipping through the pages of my brand new books with the kind of fervor that would damage them if they were less indestructible. Hannah didn’t even bother trying to interrupt me when she came home, just whistling lowly when she heard my angry muttering. When we were called for dinner and I was still furiously whispering under my breath, she finally slapped her hands on the table.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she said.
“Nothing,” I huffed and stopped muttering, instead opting to glare at my green beans.
“Your green beans haven’t done anything wrong, and you’ve been in a foul mood all day! What happened?”
“I’m fine, Hannah.”
Apparently, that pissed my friend off, because she pushed away from the table and carried herself out of the room with the same dignified air she had when I first met her. I sulked where I sat?—angry with myself for annoying her, and even more angry with Julian for causing such volatile feelings to rise up in me. I went to bed that night even angrier than before and spent another fitful night wondering how this would all turn out.
Another day passed, and I had too many classes to focus on my anger. Hannah and I had reached a truce, but I could tell she was still annoyed at me for being snappy and not confiding in her. She was acting cold and regal, and while no one else noticed the change, I missed my happy friend. I continued in this state of limbo uncomfortably, wanting to scream in the middle of boring lectures that I knew were furthering my future, but not helping at all with my immediate issue of an infuriating man and a slighted best friend.
On Wednesday, I had the day off from school while Hannah had to go into class. I slipped into my new housekeeping uniform and joined Victoria in the garden where we were winter-proofing the plants on the roof garden with fingers that were slowly freezing, even though we were wearing gardening gloves.
“You know that everyone knows, right?” Victoria asked out of the blue.
“Knows what?” I grumbled, trying to secure the strange plastic wrap.
“About you and Mr. Brooks.”
I looked up sharply, fixing Victoria with a piercing stare. She shrugged, though, like my terrible mood meant nothing to her.
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, relax. No one cares except for the fact that you’re bringing the mood in the house down,” she said, expertly tying the twine to secure the plastic, despite the annoying gloves. “You guys have been so obvious about it from day one, the looks that range from angsty tosmoldering, the stolen touches when you think no one is looking. The only reason Miss Brookshasn’tnoticed is because she doesn’t want to.”
I stared at Victoria. All that time, we were obvious? In a way, I felt a weight lifted. Someone outside of Julian and I knew what was going on, and if all the maids knew, then there was nothing stopping me. I excused myself from the work momentarily, and Victoria shrugged, sitting back on her heels and pulling out her phone while I dashed inside. I pulled my gardening gloves off and shucked my coat in the entryway. I ran down the stairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator. I burst onto Julian’s floor and marched over to his home office. I pounded on the door, and when there was no answer, I began to yell. If everyone already knew, let them hear. Hannah wasn’t home, and I had a few choice words for Julian.
“Open the damn door! I know you’re in there, and we need totalk!”
I was about to start using expletives when the door finally opened, and Julian stood there. He looked cool as a cucumber and was wearing a suit despite having worked from home all day.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
“Don’t‘hello Evelyn’me!” I cried, storming in. “We need to talk!”
“Yes, I gathered that by your banging on the door, accompanied by the phrase ‘we need to talk’.”
I growled and rounded on him as he shut the door.
“Don’t patronize me,” I spat, furious, “You have beenignoringme fordays. Now all you can do ispatronizeme? What the hell? Do you know what I’ve beenthinking?! I have been agonizing over the idea thatsomehow, some goddamn way, I pissed you off! I pissed off Hannah because I was so worried, I pissed you off! Everything I have done since meeting you was to avoid hurting her, and I managed to do that anyway, so you know what? I’m done! I’m done with your stupid perfect kisses and your stupid perfect face and just your stupid perfecteverything! Ugh! I can’t spend my life tiptoeing around you and hoping I won’t make the wrong move, because if I do, you might kiss me! And I might like it! But then, you’ll get all cold and distant, and leave me wondering what I’ve done wrong!
“That shit messes with my emotions, and I have had enough emotional manipulation to last a lifetime! I’ve thought about it, and I could never havejusta physical relationship with you, even though I thought I could because you will always be more to me! If that’s a dealbreaker, then that’s your problem. Decide what you want, and decide it now, or I’m out. I will pack my bags and find somewhere to stay. I’ll go back to Oregon if I have to, but that cannot be a basis for your decision. You need to figure out what you want because I am irrevocably in love with you, but if you don’t feel the same, I will handle that! I cannot spend any more time wondering what you are thinking, and worrying that I will ruin your life.”
