“My past turned into your future. Jesus, you told me your own wife tried desperately to warn you, but you’re still dismissive. You aren’t this selfish, Easton. You’re just too wrapped inside your pain to realize what a shit you’re becoming. Look at me, son,” she orders, and I lift my eyes to hers.
“Twenty or thirty years from now, let’s say Natalie isn’t a part of your life anymore. Do you think, for one second, your experiences and love for her, your recollection of the way you’re feeling right now, the bitterness, the ache, won’t be bittersweet? Especially if you’re forced away from each other permanently with as much as you love her right now? You’re living the love story that will help shape your soul, Easton.”
“So why choose Dad?” I seethe. “If you harbor so much lingering love for another man?”
“Stop,” she says. “That’s enough. You want an explanation?” She gestures toward the manuscript. “There it is. That book is a product of the peace I made letting Nate go, along with an affirmation of all our decisions. Which were the right ones. I have never, not once, regretted it.”
“Might want to let Dad know. He thinks you still think about Nate.”
Mom pauses. “Well, I did. It’s natural. But I hadn’t in a very, very long time—until you married his daughter.”
She stands and shoulders her purse. “You’re everything I hoped for. You’re all of it. You’re the best mix of your father and me, and I couldn’t be more proud of the man you’re becoming. But as cocksure as you’re acting, you have plenty of growing up left to do. We, as your parents, deserve better, and your wife does too. You want to be a married grown-up, fine, grow the fuck up. Your father and I aren’t at fault here, and I’m done trying to bridge this. This is a conscious decision you made, knowing the hurt it would cause. Try and simplify love all you want, Easton, but you’re still just a punk-ass twenty-two-year-old kid. Try living with the intensity of the love you feel for years, only to lose it to another you feel just as much for, and then come to me and tell me how fucking simple it is. You made a decision, son. Now you have to live with it.”
Tossing my bottle, it shatters against the wall as I stand and face off with my furious mother. “Okay, Mom. I’ll stop loving her. I’ll start fucking groupies and live an empty existence like the little rock star you raised me to be. Maybe I’ll come home addicted to something fun for Christmas.”
The slap across my jaw echoes throughout the room as her eyes spill over. She’s at the door when I catch her.
“Mom.” I circle her waist and pull her body to me as it shakes with her cries. “Please, Mom. I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”
Sniffing, she turns and hugs my waist, holding onto me just as tightly. “I see and feel how much you’re hurting,” she cries, “but I can’t control how everyone else feels. No matter how much I want to ease your pain, I can’t make this go away.”
Terrified I’ve pushed her too far, I run a soothing hand down her back.
“I’m sorry, I am,” I say. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Some of it you did, and that’s okay. Jesus, I feel so helpless right now. My baby’s hurting, my husband is hurting, I don’t know how to fix this.”
“We’ll figure it out, Mom, we will. I just…” I swallow. “I love her.” My eyes burn. “I can’t stop it, no matter who it hurts.”
She nods and pulls away, cupping my burning jaw. “Crownes don’t know how to love halfway, do they?” I shake my head. “God, baby. What if she breaks your heart?”
“She already is,” I say. “She doesn’t realize she’s choosing him.”
“And you’re sure giving her the choice is the right thing?”
“She has to be the one to make it, or else she’ll blame me.”
She nods. “Please, please, beautiful boy. Please don’t shut me out anymore. Easton, I miss us.”
“Me too,” I confess honestly. “I’ll come by the hotel tomorrow morning and talk to Dad, okay?”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” My voice cracks as my eyes continue to burn. “I promise.”
The truth is I’m lost. I need him more now than I have in some time.
“Okay,” she sniffs. “Well, I’m sorry I broke up the party.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I’m glad you came to the show.”
“You’re incredible, Easton,” she laughs. “Even when you’re bitching your mother out on stage.”
We share a smile.
“You sure you don’t want to talk some more? Are you hungry?” She asks, reading my expression as I duck away.
“No, I’m going to head back to the hotel, get a run in, and some sleep.”
“Okay,” she kisses my jaw before stepping away. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
She gives me a hint of a smile. “It was an incredible show tonight.”
“Did you feel my disconnect?” I ask as she opens the door. She pauses and turns back to me.
“Only because I know you. But they had no idea, I promise.”
“I don’t want to act out there,” I say.
“That’s something for your dad to help you with.”
“Point taken. I promise I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“I’m so proud of you, baby.”
The sentiment rings in my chest. “I feel it,” I say honestly.
Freshly showered and back at the hotel, I flip open the manuscript I tucked in my messenger bag and only get a few pages in before closing it. Even now, I don’t want to know Nate Butler’s fucking love story with my mother.
I don’t want to know the reasoning behind the man currently dividing and conquering my wife and me. I don’t want to fucking empathize with him or understand his side in any way.
Furious with thoughts of this going on much longer, I push send and lift the phone to my ear before it goes to voicemail.
“This is Natalie Butler. Leave a message.”
The line beeps.
“It’s Crowne. Your name is Natalie Crowne,” I snap as the accumulating acid starts to pour out of me, “or did you fucking forget?”
Unsteady
X Ambassadors
Natalie
“Your name is Natalie Crowne…or did you fucking forget?” I replay the message Easton left last night, hearing his anger and frustration over the distance I’ve allowed between us. The last six weeks have been hell on earth for me, personally and professionally. On the rare occasions we’ve seen each other since Sedona, I clung to the hope that my father would finally look at me instead of through me, and I am always disappointed. Whenever our paths do cross, it’s primarily thanks to my mother’s attempt to bridge the gap. Even so, he remains unreceptive. Dad still hasn’t called me back to my desk at the paper but instead has kept me scrambling to keep up with his demands. Demands I’ve met to keep him pacified while trying to reestablish some of the lost trust. A confrontation is coming and soon, because after the anniversary party wraps, I’m going to try and mend my rapidly deteriorating relationship with my husband.
Exiting the stretch limousine I commissioned for the night, I stand waiting in my parents’ driveway in a glittering, deep jade gown my mother had her stylist choose for me. The neckline runs snugly against my collarbone, while the back rests at the curve just below the small of it. It had to be taken in a little last week due to the grief-stricken pounds I’ve lost and kept off. It’s both elegant and sexy—her style—and it’s only now, as it glitters in the setting sun, that I start to appreciate it.
After the glam squad left my apartment, I couldn’t muster a single reaction other than feeling like a glossed-up lie—a living, breathing expectation of my father. That seems to be the sum of my value now, at least when it comes to Nate Butler. Though I argued the same point with Easton recently, it isn’t the case. I’ve made the choices I have in recent weeks to be at my father’s side in an effort to fight for my future and his legacy. It feels like the aspect of choice got lost somewhere in my neck-breaking efforts to appease him. I can’t keep allowing him to dangle the paper over my head while keeping me at arm’s length—in exile.