You Don't Get to Look at Me Like That
1107 Words
I found my way to the back of the house.
Not running. I want to be clear about that. It was a calm, deliberate, completely dignified walk through the living room, past the catering table, through the sliding glass door and out onto the small back porch where the party noise faded into something bearable.
The night air was cool. I leaned against the railing and exhaled slowly.
Okay, I told myself. You saw him. You survived it. Now you just have to get through the next two hours without falling apart and you can go home and pretend this never happened.
It was a solid plan.
It lasted about four minutes.
"Amara."
I didn't turn around. I knew his voice too well to pretend I hadn't heard it. I knew the exact way he said my name , three syllables that used to feel like safety and now felt like something I needed to protect myself from.
"Ethan." I kept my eyes on the garden. "Your wife is inside."
"I know where my wife is." He said
"Then go be with her."
I heard him step onto the porch anyway. Of course he did. Ethan Cole had never in his life done the easy thing when he could do the complicated one instead.
He came to stand beside me at the railing. Not touching. Just close enough that I was aware of him the way you're aware of a fire in a room even when you're not looking directly at it, you can feel the heat.
I said nothing.
He said nothing.
For a moment it was just the two of us and the distant sound of the party and the kind of silence that has too much inside it.
"You've been avoiding me," he said finally.
"I've been standing on a porch."
"Since the moment I walked in."
"Ethan….." says amara
"I'm not saying it as an accusation." His voice was calm, measured. That hadn't changed either , the way he always spoke like he'd already thought through every word before he let it out. It used to make me feel like what he said could be trusted.
Used to.
"What do you want?" I asked. "Honestly. What do you want from me right now?"
He was quiet for a beat too long.
"I just wanted to talk to you."
I let out a short, humorless laugh. "You had two years to talk to me, Ethan. Two years of nothing. Not a call, not a text, not even a… " I stopped. Pressed my lips together. I was not going to do this. I was not going to stand on my friend's back porch and unravel in front of him. "And now you want to talk."
"I know."
"That's all you have to say? I know?"
"What do you want me to say, Amara?"
"I want you to explain." I turned to look at him then, because I was tired of staring at the garden. "I want you to tell me how someone just disappears. How you go from everything you said to me, everything we were.. to nothing. Complete silence. And then you show up here with a wife like the last two years didn't happen."
He held my gaze. Didn't flinch, didn't look away. That was the thing about Ethan, he never ran from hard moments. He'd just stand right inside them and look at you steadily until you didn't know what to do with yourself.
"The last two years happened," he said quietly. "I know they did. I lived with them too."
"You don't get to say that to me."
"Why not?"
"Because you chose them." My voice dropped. "You chose every day of silence. You chose her. You chose …" I gestured vaguely, uselessly, toward the house. "All of this. So don't stand here and act like it was something that happened to you."
He exhaled slowly. His hands gripped the railing.
"It wasn't supposed to go the way it went," he said.
"But it did."
"Yes." A pause. "It did."
I nodded. I looked back at the garden. My chest ached in a way I hadn't felt in a long time ;a specific ache, the kind that lives in the place where someone used to be.
I thought I'd gotten rid of it.
"Then we don't have anything to talk about," I said. My voice was quieter now laced with exhaustion. "You made your choices, Ethan. I'm not angry anymore. I'm really not. I just …..(sighs) I need you to respect what you did and give me the space to be okay with it."
Silence.
Then … "You think I stopped loving you?"
The words landed softly. That was almost worse than if he had shouted them.
I went very still.
"Don't." The word came out barely above a whisper.
"I need you to know…"
"Ethan." I turned to face him fully now. "Don't you dare say that to me. Not here. Not tonight. Not with your wife twenty feet away inside that house." My voice was steady but my hands had found the railing and I was holding it tighter than I needed to. "You don't get to say that and then go back in there to her. You don't get to do that to me."
He looked at me. And his expression …. God, his expression. It wasn't manipulation. It wasn't a game. That was what made it so unbearable. He meant it. Whatever was on his face right now, he completely and entirely meant it.
And that changed nothing.
That made everything worse.
"I should go back inside," I said.
"Amara…."
"We're done talking." I pushed off the railing and smoothed my dress, the same way I had inside, collecting myself, piece by piece. "Congratulations on your marriage, Ethan. I mean that."
I walked back toward the sliding door.
"Tell me you don't feel this too." He says
I stopped.
His voice was low. Just for me. The kind of thing you say when you've run out of careful.
My hand rested on the door frame. My back was to him.
I stood there for three full seconds … long enough to feel everything I'd spent two years burying rise quietly to the surface.
Then I slid the door open and walked inside.
I didn't answer him.
But we both already knew why.
The way I couldn't stop looking back like I left a piece of me could only mean one thing.
This wasn't over.
Not even close.
And if I wasn't careful
It wouldn't just break my heart this time but ruin the both of us.
- Writer
