A House of Cards: Deconstructing Ethan (25 page)

“What else? You want to know that I wish with all my heart it had been me? Lexi was beautiful, sweet and kind. She was affectionate, playful and caring. She always made sure that the people around her were cared for, that their needs were met before her own. She was selfless.” I took a deep breath as the tears started to fall. “She was everything that I’m not. I am so fucking selfish. My best friend is dead, her life cut short in an instant, and all I can think about is what it means for me. What am I going to do without her? How am I supposed to get through this? I could really use her help with Jayden right now. He’s still screaming in his sleep. It breaks my heart how completely devastated he is right now.” Gabriel tightened his arms around me and I felt comforted for the first time since the whole nightmare had started.

“God has his reasons for everything, Ethan,” he said in my ear and I turned around completely to stare at him, completely incredulous.

“You can’t possibly think that after everything that has happened to me in my life that I believe in God?” I asked him in a slightly mocking tone. “If there is a God, he is a sadistic…” I stopped, noticing the look of hurt and shock on his face. I couldn’t do that to him, mock something he obviously believed in. Pressing my face into his chest, he held me. “I’m sorry, Gabriel.Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk to me.” Stroking my hair, he let me rest against his chest. I felt him take a few deep breaths before he spoke.

“I want you to tell me whatever you’re feeling, whatever is on your mind, Ethan. That is the only way this is going to work.” He kissed the top of my head and we just sat there trying to comfort each other in something where neither of us had a hope of finding reassurance. I knew I had to find my strength from somewhere, needed to be there for Jayden. He wasn’t holding up well under the weight of his grief. Yet again, I had seen Jayden sitting at the kitchen table trying hard not to fall asleep, doing just about anything he could to avoid sleeping and dreaming about the accident. He had taken the sedatives only for the first few days, but after that, his solution was to avoid sleep at all costs. The circles under his eyes and his almost constant five o’clock shadow were proof that he was succeeding, at least in part.

Other than trying not to sleep, Jayden appeared completely normal – everything he was feeling, he internalized. Jayden wasn't an overly emotional person, but I had expected some kind of reaction from him, but it seemed he was running on autopilot. When reminded, he ate at regular intervals and responded when spoken to, but you could see that he was just empty. All the light had gone out of his eyes, he was hollow. I hadn’t even seen him really cry since the funeral, perhaps he was beyond tears. As devastated as I was over Lexi’s death, I knew that Jayden had been hit so much harder by it.

I had left Gabriel’s early, in order to be home before Jayden. Since Lexi’s death, he had become increasingly agitated and it didn’t take much to upset him. Gabriel was a sore subject already, so I usually didn’t chance even talking to him with Jayden around. I knew that it was unfair to Gabriel and he deserved better, but I was trying to keep a bad situation from getting worse. When I walked into the living room, Jayden was sitting on the couch.

“What’s up, Jayden?” I sat in a chair next to the couch as he looked at his hands. The thought struck me that the conversation was not going to go well. Unmoving, he continued to sit there. While I considered prompting him, it seemed he was having some kind of internal debate, although I was unsure if it was because he didn’t want to tell me something, or he was unsure how to begin.

“I can’t stay here,” he finally said. “I talked to Josh this morning and they’re going to let me leave. They're going to release me from the one year I signed on for. I'm fucking useless to them now anyway. I want to go back to Washington.” I gaped at him. It wasn’t good for him to make such a big decision so soon after losing Lexi.

“Jayden, maybe you should take a little time to…“

“NO,” he said rather loudly and my eyes widened. Then, he mastered himself again and continued, “Everything in this damn house reminds me of her, I have to get out of here. I can’t fucking sleep. I can’t
function
.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “I wanted to know if I can stay at your house until I find something else.”

He was leaving?

His eyes were wild, restless and full of emotions tidal waving on top of each other. It was then that I realized he was barely keeping himself together. Maybe he was right, maybe getting away from the reminders, away from everything that focused his attention on Lexi and her absence, would do him some good. Sighing, I nodded and he visibly relaxed.

“I’ll...I’ll call Nicole and tell her that you’re coming,” murmured, standing to leave. I wanted to go upstairs to my room, lie on the bed and never move again. My heart began to break at the thought of not seeing him every day, after all we had been through, and now – at one of the darkest times of our lives -he was deserting me.

“Ethan…” he started, grabbing my wrist as I started to walk past him. “I know that I have no right to ask you this. You’re getting your life back on track here, developing a better relationship with your parents. You are in a new relationship with Gabriel and you looked to be pretty happy. I don’t…I can’t…” The anguish in his face made me reach out to him. Not hesitating this time, he pressed his face into my chest as I put one hand on his back and the other in his hair to calm him. Then I heard his voice, muffled into my shirt. “Will you come with me?”

And with those five words, a choice was laid out before me, almost as if it were in black and white. I had the choice between Gabriel and Jayden -which meant the choice between security or passion, friendship or love, stability or uncertainty, and most of all, the choice between happiness and the potential for true heartache.

Even if Gabriel and I weren’t headed in a direction toward a real relationship, he was really a good friend who I was depending on. My mother would be so upset and disappointed if I left after we had just started to get to know each other as adults and connect with something more than just a superficial relationship. I had even started thinking about practicing there, knowing my father had a few friends who could help to get me in with a local hospital; it would help me start feeling useful again.

Could I uproot my life again to leave with him?

“I need to think about it, Jayden. When were you planning to leave?” I asked him, not releasing him from my arms, which I felt tremble under the weight of the decision I was faced with.

I’m sure it would be one of the hardest of my life.

“In a few days,” his reply was muffled into my chest.

Journal Entry – My Lexi

How could this happen? I have suffered so much in my life, why take away my best friend? Thoughts like that make me feel so selfish. I am such a horrible fucking person. But if there is one place that I can feel selfish, that I can focus on me, it’s in my head and in this journal. This journal is the one place I can be completely honest and candid. It’s the one place I never have to hide -not my lifestyle, not my past, not the nightmares in my head.

Unfortunately right now, I wish I could hide. I want to hide from myself, from the world, from this impossible decision I have to make and from the staggering grief of losing Lexi. She deserved to live her life, she worked hard for it. I’m the one that should have been cut down in my „prime’. My „prime’ – what a fucking joke. I’ve never had a „prime’. My life was over at eight-years old. I’ve just been existing ever since – a barren excuse for a man.

An empty shell.

The days that followed in the aftermath of Lexi’s death, were like a blur to me. I had nearly forgotten about the boy, Connor, until he showed up at the house about a week after the funeral, looking haggard and worn. I knew this couldn’t be easy on him either. Lexi was his friend, his collared relationship with his Doms had just imploded violently and now he had to find a place to live. Knowing that it would mean a lot to Lexi, I called Stephen to see what I could do for Connor.

We talked for nearly two hours.

It was good to get everything off my chest. He didn’t have any advice about the romantic aspects of my relationships, but he was able to help with other things. He had a contact in the BDSM community in Chicago, a fellow psych professor named Dana, who agreed to either take Connor on as a sub or help him transition to a new Mistress. Connor had always favored submitting to Lexi, it was evident that he would prefer a female Dominant.

Stephen also let me know that after Nicole had gone to Master Daniel about Dominique and Claude, they were ostracized by the community. Every member, all of the people that consider themselves my friend, contacted all of their associates in other groups and posted warning messages on all of their related boards, effectively cutting them off from being accepted in any other community. Any submissive who researches them before accepting a collar, would know immediately that they were not to be trusted. I felt better knowing that I wouldn’t run into them if I decided to return to Washington with Jayden.

I was back to the question at hand…Washington with Jayden or Chicago with Gabriel – it seems like everything in my life had come down to this.

Jayden wants me to move back to Washington with him. He asked me to go, not just suggested that I should. It was almost a plea. Jayden needed me, but what about Gabriel? Should I follow the man in love with a ghost or stay with the man who offers the more stable chance at happiness? After everything that has happened to me in my life, I deserve a little happiness. I
could see myself staying with Gabriel and being perfectly happy. But it would be wrong.
I can’t give myself to him like he deserves. He's a good guy. He needs someone that is going to appreciate that and give themselves to him completely -a true partner. I would always be in love with someone else. That isn’t fair to Gabriel…At all.

What about Jayden?

Let’s go about this logically – what are the pros and cons of the decision?

Going with Jayden – Pro: I’m in love with him and going to Washington will allow me to stay with him.

Con: He doesn’t feel the same way about me. I would just be hurting myself by going with him. I would be miserable watching him being miserable. Would I even be able to help him by going with him? Or would it just destroy us both?

Going with Jayden – Pro: I would be able to work at the hospital again.

Con: There are much better facilities, much larger hospitals in Chicago, where I would be of more use.

Going with Jayden – Pro: I would never have to see the revulsion, the disgust in Gabriel’s face when he found out what I am.

Con: If I gave up that lifestyle, I could stay with Gabriel and be happy. I could have something resembling a normal life here.

Staying with Gabriel – Pro: Gabriel loves me, he wants me to move in with him.

Con: Gabriel doesn’t really know me. He only sees what I let him see. He doesn’t know what lurks beneath the surface. Jayden knows everything about me – the good, the not so good and the truly horrific.

Staying with Gabriel – Pro: I’d get to stay near my parents.

Con: My mother told me that passion is better. Deep down, I think she knows that I’m in love with Jayden. She would tell me to go with him, to give it a shot, rather than settling for safe. Even though she and I are finally reforming that bond, finally becoming what we should have been, she would tell me to go – to live my life, but return for a visit at every opportunity.

Staying with Gabriel – Pro: I won’t get my heart broken.

Con: I may not get my heart broken – things could change between Gabriel and me and then I would be left alone. It wouldn’t matter, though. My heart would be in Washington. My heart would always be with Jayden.

Lexi once told me something that gave me hope. The day Jayden had left Washington, after our night together, Lexi had called to tell me her idea for trying to get Jayden to collar her. She was going to wrap herself up as a gift in his playroom.

„I know there are things I need to work out, but I think I can get Josh to help me. He seemed like a good guy.’ I remembered that she rambled on for a while as my life fell apart around me. I knew I could have talked to her about it, but she sounded so happy. It was the first time I’d ever considered hanging up on her.

„I’m sure you two will be very happy together,’ I told her, trying to hold myself together. Without conscious thought, I had crossed my arms in front of me. It was odd for me to remember something like that now, but I had just felt so empty. They were both leaving me and would be together, playing BDSM Barbie and Ken in their perfect little house and their perfect little life.

„I don’t know about that,’ Lexi had said, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear.

„What do you mean?’ I asked and sat down at the kitchen table with my head in my hands. I wasn’t in the mood for her epiphany. I just wanted to crawl back in bed and stay there.

„I think Jayden would rather have you go with him to Chicago than me.’ I remember being exasperated at that point, with little understanding as to why. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing I could say.