And all because I had to come back to Columbus.
Guilt overwhelmed me. Now that everything had blown up, my actions felt selfish. Flying here out of the blue, seeing Erica at the expo, investing in her company and staying with her just so I could profess my love. She and Brad were still dealing with the death of their parents. Things werefragileright now. And I came charging in like a bull, smashing everything in sight.
I shouldn’t have come back. Or, at the very least, I should have waited longer. When I had been separated from Carmen longer and the Porters had dealt with their grief.
I drove to the hotel I had stayed at the first night here, before visiting Erica. They gave me a room on the fourth floor, a few doors down from the room I had stayed in before. I took a shower but felt no cleaner when I got out, especially after putting on the same clothes I had been wearing—the only thing I had with me was my laptop bag. I had left everything else at Erica’s house.
A pamphlet next to the bed advertised happy hour drinks at the bar: select drafts for two dollars. Getting shit faced sounded like a good idea.
First, I called my manager. “Hey, it’s me. I’ll be back sooner than expected.”
“Really? Not that I’m not happy about it, but is everything okay?”
“No,” I replied. “Everything is not okay. But I’m coming home, and that’s all that matters.”
Home. Portland didn’t feel like it. My ex was there. All my stuff was in her apartment. I would need to find a new place to stay. All of those facts were the opposite of the calm, welcoming feeling one had when returninghome.
Coming back to Columbus after so long had been cathartic. It felt like closing a chapter of a book I had never finished. Things here werefamiliarand welcoming in a way that I had forgotten. Part of me didn’t want to leave.
I grabbed my wallet and prepared to go downstairs to the bar. All I wanted to do was take shots of cheap liquor until the pain in my chest turned numb, delayed for a little bit longer.
But first, it was time to tell Erica everything. To reveal the videos I had been holding onto all this time. It might not make a difference. Hell, I was certain it wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. But it was the only thing left undone, and it was time to finally do it.
I booted up my laptop and pulled the videos down from the cloud share. Five of them, raw and unedited. I was the only one who had seen them. It was time to change that.
I uploaded them to my YouTube channel without any description, and then hit the big red “Publish” button.
“I’m sorry, Erica,” I said as I went downstairs to drown my sorrow.
41
Erica
Brad and I sat in the living room for a long time after Hunter left. I told him everything, starting with the flirting and attraction between Hunter and I five years ago, and ending with the weeks we had spent together here. I held nothing back, and Brad listened without saying anything.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said in a small voice. “Hunterwasright about that. It was my idea to keep it from you. At least until you were in a better emotional state to hear it.”
“What’s the right emotional state to find out my best friend has been boinking my sister?” he asked.
I snorted. “Boinking?”
“That’s the only way I can describe it without throwing up in my mouth a little,” he replied.
In spite of everything, I smiled. “Are you mad at me?”
“Yeah,” he exhaled. “A little. But I’m more upset at Hunter. We werebest friendsback then, and the whole time he was secretly thinking about you. Hell, Mom and Dad welcomed him into our home. Dad treated him like a son! Can you imagine what Dad would have said if he knew Hunter was ogling you the whole time he was here?”
“He felt guilty about it,” I said. “That’s why he left so suddenly after graduation. Because he didn’t want to betray you, or Mom and Dad.”
Brad shook his head. “Fuck that. If he was a real man, he would have come to me directly. We could have talked it out. That would have been better than all this sneaking around bullshit.”
I felt tears welling up in my eyes. “I really liked him, Brad. I thought he and I had something special.”
“Hunter has always had that effect on women. You remember how he was in high school. He dated a different girl every month. They all fell for him too, and then he would get bored and move on. It happened with his fiancée,although they stuck together longer. It would have happened to you next.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. I was so confused and I didn’t know how to feel. “You don’t think we could have had something more?”
“You’reamazing,Erica,” Brad said, “and you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. Any guy would be lucky to have you. But Hunter is the kind of guy who wants what he can’t have. You’re my sister, you’reforbidden, and that’s probably the main reason he went after you.”