Page 31 of Gone Tonight
I’ve never taken a walk of shame the morning after a hookup, but I sure felt like I was taking one on that endless journey out of the restaurant when it was obvious to everyone around me I’d been stood up.
When I arrived home, Ethan was passed out on our living room couch with the plastic bucket we used to hold cleaning supplies on the floor next to him. It was barely 7:30 p.m.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Ethan like this. Some nights, he’d forgo alcohol completely—but when he drank, the taste of alcohol overrode the internal shutoff valve most people possess, the one that makes them stop after two or three or four.
My mother told me Ethan had shown up shortly after she’d arrived home from work, saying he’d forgotten his phone here the night before.
When my mom excused herself to go take a shower, he’d helped himself to a drink. Mom and I generally only kept beer in the house, but that night we happened to have a bottle of good Russian vodka. One of my mother’s longtime customers, who was from Moscow, had given it to her as a gift before he moved back to Russia.
Ethan liked tequila, bourbon, and beer. I’d even seen him drink a wine spritzer once, when there were no other options. But his favorite was vodka.
He was drunk before I even headed to the restaurant.
It wasn’t the first time Ethan had disappointed me. But I vowed it would be the last.
When we broke up, I blocked him. But I never deleted his number from my contacts.
Now I pull out my phone and scroll to his name. A touch of a button is all it takes to unblock someone.
I hesitate, thinking of the empty weeks following our breakup, when it felt like all the sunlight had drained out of my days. I would not have gotten through them if it hadn’t been for my mother. She sat beside me on the couch, promising me I’d forget Ethan and find someone even better.
Ethan isn’t the kind of guy I want my daughter to end up with,she’d told me, and she’d sounded so certain that it cemented my resolve.
Without my mother’s voice in my ear, I probably would have gone back to Ethan and had my heart broken all over again a few more times before I got out for good.
I was so focused on my mother’s dislike of Ethan that I never paid much attention to his dislike of her. My mother had my best interests at heart. I took that for granted.
But now I find myself thinking about something Ethan said shortly before we broke up. I hated acknowledging the tension between the two people I cared about most, so I denied it.
She never even gave me a chance,he’d said.
I could stay home tonight and try to talk to my mother again.
But I no longer trust that she’s the best source of information about herself.
I press the button to unblock Ethan. All these months later, I’m desperate to know what he meant.
I slowly type out a new text.Hey, it’s Catherine. Long time… so I have something to ask you. Let me know if you have a few minutes to talk.
I send it before I lose my nerve.
If someone blocks you, your text message to them won’t ever be delivered. It’ll linger in the ether, in that wispy, gray area of cyberspace between transmission and landing.
My message reaches Ethan. I know because when we were dating, we set our phones to notify each other whenever we’d read the messages we sent.
Ethan never changed that setting. He reads my message about thirty seconds after I send it.
It takes him only a moment to reply.
I’m working tonight if you want to come by.
Ethan has a new tattoo on the inside of his forearm—an intricately etched compass—and his hair is now long enough to draw into a short ponytail.
He looks good.
The bar won’t get crowded until 8 or 9 p.m., but a handful of people have arrived for happy hour. I slide onto a stool, watching Ethan laugh and chat with two women while he makes them lemon martinis. He’s great with customers. It’s one reason why he earns so much in tips.
I’ve spent a lot of hours perched on a stool here, waiting for Ethan to get off work. This bar has always seemed festive to me, with its strings of milk-glass globe lights running across the ceiling and classic rock playing.
