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I don’t want to explain it. I don’t want them to know about Emily, my father, and the anger and humiliation that still burns inside me. I don’t want them to know any of this because I’m not ready to face it yet, much less answer the questions that will come with it. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want their help, I don’t even want their opinion. I only want to stay here and lick my wounds and feel sorry for myself, just for tonight.
“I think you’ll just have to deal with your doubts because I don’t have an explanation to give you.”
They look at me as if I have slapped them.
“Youoweus an explanation!” Damian shouts.
I jump out of my chair, grab a magazine from the table, and throw it against the wall, releasing the anger I’ve tried to restrain. From the moment I laid hands on my father, a chasm opened in my chest. The anger that had been smoldering inside for years and I’d continued to repress finally exploded. And now I can’t restrain it anymore. It’s such a giant rift in the center of my chest that I can’t stop it from cracking open.
“Idon’t haveto explain anything about my personal life to you!” I shout in his face.
They study me with wide eyes, like they’re looking at the shell of the person they’ve known for years, minus the character, the calmness, the rationality that distinguishes me. I have never picked a fight of this magnitude with them.
“So, it’s a personal matter. Did you lay hands on the guy who was with her? Because I doubt you beat her,” Michael says after a seemingly interminable silence.
I don’t answer. I will never say that the man is my father. They stare at me, waiting for an explanation they won’t have.
“Did you two break up? Did you take her to bed and then dump her? What the hell happened?” Damian asks, less angry and more confused.
“We’ve never been together. I’ve never touched her,” I hiss between my teeth.
“No, but it’s obvious you have feelings for her, or we wouldn’t be in this apartment tonight,” Simon points out.
I shrug and kick a throw pillow that slipped to the ground when I got up. They look at me worriedly, as though unsure of what to tell me to calm me down because they know there’s no way to do it.
“Did you tell her you’re in love with her, and she rejected you?” Michael asks without a trace of accusation or mockery in his voice.
“I’m not in love with her. And I don’t want to talk about it. Please stop this interrogation. I’m exhausted.” The last words come out in a whisper.
I feel overwhelmed by all the feelings overlapping in my chest without an escape route where they can be at peace and return to being background noise like they’ve been for years.
They look at me for a few more minutes, then get up and leave without saying a word. It’s not over. I’ve known them for more than ten years now, and they won’t drop this until they get their answers, but at least they are giving me the space I need. But being alone doesn’t make the demons disappear, nor does it ease the sense of helplessness resting on my shoulders.
“You have a meeting at two o’clock.”
Aaron doesn’t even look up from the computer as I rattle off his appointments.
“I know.”
“And one at four.”
“I know. I have an assistant, Tracy, who, despite taking care of her mother with a broken hip in Rhode Island, keeps me informed of all my appointments,” he adds to get me out of this room.
“The tailor arrives today at six-thirty to take your measurements.”
Finally, he raises his eyes and gives me a puzzled look as I gloat.
Unlike his father’s, Aaron’s office is furnished with impeccable taste—modern classic with light tones. There’s not much furniture, but everything is coordinated to make the room cozy. Photos of Aaron with famous people hang on the walls, and the bookcase is full of biographies of movie legends. The books aren’t in any particular order, as if, every now and then, someone takes one and reads it. On the coffee table in front of the sofa with comfortable cushions sits a biography of Martin Scorsese, a Starbucks receipt stuck in it as a bookmark. It’s an office that reveals Aaron’s refined taste, success, and ambitions. It’s not designed to flaunt his money but to showcase an enviable career.
“No. That’s not true.”
“Of course, it’s true. I told him to come this morning when he called the office for the hundredth time, saying that your tuxedo won’t be ready for the red carpet in two weeks if he doesn’t start working on it immediately. In fact, he told me he should have started a week ago.”
Aaron snorts and leans back in his leather armchair. “He always complains but then manages to make a suit in two days. I just pay him well.”
“Okay, this time you’ll save money on a last-minute job, and maybe not give the tailor a heart attack. What do you say?” I raise an eyebrow in defiance.
I shouldn’t talk like that to someone who has been my boss for fifteen days, but I don’t think of this as a real job. It’s true, Aaron pays me twice as much as Jail Records did, but the way I got this job was ridiculous. He doesn’t need a second assistant, even if the first one is on the other side of the country. He is more than efficient in his role. Most of the time, he’s way ahead of me on things I should be doing. But it does help to keep my mind on something else than that damn fight with Evan a couple of weeks ago. When you look for different ways to get to the office, keeping as far as possible away from his father, you don’t have time to wallow in self-pity. Luckily for me, the two men work in two different buildings, and Aaron Sr. is still too full of bruises to show his face around.
