“How was I supposed to know that you drove all the way to St. Louis? That you picked up an entirely new profession? That you started a new life?”
Elly scoffed. “What else was I supposed to do, Aaron? Sit in Peachtree and wait for you to rebound back to me? Buy an apartment in the town next door and bide my time? Sleep on the porch until you came home?” She pushed her hair out of her face with fury. “I was a wreck after what you did to me! I needed to erase you completely just to be able to get up in the morning. You took my LIFE away.”
Aaron moved swiftly, wrapping his arms around her in one quick motion. “You took mine away too, the day you left.”
Elly felt herself fading into his arms once again, the delirious delight returning. She shoved him roughly. “Don’t TOUCH me. I can’t think when you touch me. What is the last thing you remember when you left? Huh?”
Aaron bit his lip, looking like an adorable little boy. “Your face when I walked out the door. It haunts me to this day.”
Elly spun around. “I hope it does. Because the last thing I remember about you is that you left me sobbing on the floor. In the home that I created for us.”
“Baby, I never meant it…”
“Please. You knew exactly what you were doing.” She paused. “How long, Aaron? How long was it going on before I caught you?”
Aaron mumbled something quietly to himself.
“What was that?”
“I said three months.”
“Exactly. It wasn’t some mistake, Aaron, like she fell into your bed on accident. It was a conscious decision.” Her voice raised in a shrill strain of hysterics. “I’m sure you were both laughing at me behind my back. Stupid Elly, she has no idea!”
Aaron stood up and drew close to her. “It wasn’t like that at all. There were some days that I couldn’t bear to look at your face because of the guilt.”
“Then why didn’t you STOP?”
Aaron started pacing, his shiny black shoes making circles on the carpet. “Not that I would expect you to understand. My painting was suffering. I needed something to wake me up, to shake me to my core.”
Elly rolled her eyes. “Then you should have taken up rock climbing. You needed a hobby, not a mistress.”
Aaron’s eyes were red and watery. “You don’t know how she pursued me, Elly. I had no prayer. I didn’t even know that she had feelings for me until the day I came into my studio and found her naked, laying on a bare canvas.”
Elly shut her eyes. Thank you for that, she thought, what a wonderful image to have in my mind.
“Her only purpose was to seduce me. And she pursued it, single-mindedly, until I finally submitted.”
This, Elly actually believed. She had met Lucia. “How long?”
“Excuse me?”
“How long did you wait before giving in?”
Aaron nervously ran his long fingers over his lips. “It was that night. In the studio.”
Elly felt the righteous anger rise up inside her, like a cleansing lava. “It must have been difficult to wait so long.”
Aaron looked at her pleadingly. “Don’t be so mean, Elles. What do you want me to do?”
Elly turned and started walking quickly towards her supply table, ducking under the flower canopy. “I don’t want anything from you, Aaron.”
Aaron ran his hands through his hair and chased after her, grabbing her arm roughly.
“Elly. Don’t go. We can be happy. You know we can.”
Elly sighed, staring up into his eyes, aware of the twirling flowers all around them. “Do you remember those days? Where we would stay in bed? Where I would paint you, and we would eat grilled cheese together and stay up all night, lost in each other?”
Elly looked to the side as tears sprung to her eyes. “Those were the best days of my life Aaron. But the sum of them can never equal the pain you caused me that day, when you chose your mistress over your wife. And today? Today, you are marrying her. That doesn’t exactly reek of repentance.”
There was a moment of awkward silence.
“Elly. I don’t WANT to marry her, but…” Aaron paused, weighing his thoughts carefully. “Her family has money. They can support my art, and we travel whenever we would like. If I marry Lucia, I’ll never have to worry about getting a job, or where we will live. My art would always be the first priority and Sunny has offered to fund my own gallery. I would be very a well-kept man.” He smiled wryly. “I have all that at my fingertips, and I’m miserable. It’s because I don’t have you, because I lost you, and I have to live with that everyday. I had a diamond, and I threw it away for a trinket, a shiny new toy. Lucia means nothing to me, you hear me? Nothing. I’m not sure that I ever loved her – I think I loved the secret, and the newness of her, but not Lucia herself.”