Guy and Reason

Chapter 2 (Eden/Reason): Plenty Of Help

After I'd hung up with my mom and the bomb she'd dropped almost a week ago, I'd taken a deep breath and gotten on with my life. I kept to my normal routine and figured at some point I'd see him, but it wouldn't matter. I could ignore his existence whether he was near or far. Guy Bazin simply wasn't a part of my life anymore.

Even though I thought I was prepared, I still froze momentarily when I heard that voice I'd once heard daily for eight years calling, "Reason!" as I walked toward the grocery store from the parking lot. Fortunately, I was able to remember that sequence of putting one foot in front of the other and kept walking toward the store, maybe a little faster than normal but I definitely wasn't flat out running. I'd almost made it to the automatic doors when I felt a hand on my upper arm halting my steps.

"Reason," he said, right before I viciously wrenched my arm out of his grasp, stumbling back in my zeal to get the hell away from him.

"Don't ever put your hands on me again," I said icily, my eyes on his chest. I was a tall girl at five nine, but he was a big man and at least eight inches taller than I was.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "But...can you please at least look at me?"

"It wouldn't matter if I did," I said, "because I still wouldn't see you."

"Reason," he began, and I needed to shut that shit down.

"Eden. I'm Eden. Reason stopped existing the day you told me you'd cheated."

"Not for me," he said, and his voice was rougher than I remembered. "You were always my Reason, and you never stopped being my Reason."

"Not even while you were fucking other women?" I asked. "I find that either hard to believe or completely gross."

I made the mistake of lifting my eyes just a bit and found myself staring at the promise ring I'd asked his mother to give back to him three years ago. It hung just between his collarbones, threaded through a silver box-chain necklace. The sight of it turned my stomach until I thought I was going to be sick. Why would he be wearing that? I would have thought he'd have tossed it in the garbage or given it to the next Reason in his life. 

Then I got my head together because it didn't matter. For whatever reasons he was wearing that ring around his neck, it didn't matter. Leave the past where it belongs.

I turned to go into the store. "Can we talk, please, Re-den?"

Well that was an interesting twist on my name as he tried to correct himself, but I didn't bother answering. I just grabbed a cart and started pushing it through the store to the produce aisle. When I realized he was following me, I just decided to ignore him. But it's hard to ignore someone the size of Godzilla, especially when he wouldn't shut up.

"I let it go too long," he rumbled. "Shouldn't have left it this long. But my head was fucked up with what I'd done, figured I didn't want to distract you the last weeks of your last semester since I knew the pressure you were under."

Was a cucumber strong enough to knock someone out with if you hit them in the head with it? Hmmm, a butternut squash might do it. Those things were hard as hell and might be the only thing to drop Guy.

"I watched you graduate, Eden. Watched you walk across that stage and I cheered for you. That engagement ring I bought for you was burning a hole in my pocket, and I thought of how I should have been there to propose to you when you walked off that stage, and it about brought me to my knees. Then you disappeared, and your mother was the only one who knew where you were. She wouldn't tell anyone. You didn't tell anyone. I had no clue where you were, Eden, and you were always careful not to give it away in your Instagram posts. And when I got drafted right before you graduated, I pretended you were sitting next to me, that I hadn't blown us apart. I could fucking see you smiling at me, your beautiful hazel eyes glowing with happiness because we finally knew where we were going to land, what big city would be our home for the length of my contract and we could start our adult lives together."

I needed a few bags of salad, so I tossed those in the cart. Grabbed a bag of Sumo oranges, a couple of bananas and some red table grapes. Those would make up for the chocolate I was going to pile in my cart very soon.

"We're both here for the summer, Eden, and our separation has gone on long enough. I can't stay away from you any longer. We need to finally talk so I can explain everything and then we're going to get back on track once I can earn your forgiveness. My life is total shit without you, and I'm not giving up on us. And you know I haven't if you've seen even one interview that I've done in the last three years."

Since I was by the bakery, I grabbed some stone mountain bread and some maple iced donuts. Then, proving he could follow directions not to touch me, Guy's hand grabbed my cart and stopped it from moving.

"Eden, please, talk to me."

Since my cart was stopped, I stopped.

"Please."

It could be argued that I knew Guy better than anyone on the planet. I'd known him since we were high school freshmen. We may have been young, but our hearts recognized each other and we never wavered in our devotion to one another even as all of our friends went through relationship after relationship, searching for The One. We knew we'd found it, our One in each other.

We'd found it, and then we'd lost it with one drunken confession that meant we'd actually lost it before that final conversation; that was merely the point that he'd decided to clue me in. The Guy I knew told me everything; the Guy he'd become over the four years at college apparently kept secrets. Ugly, shattering secrets. And his friendship with that nasty bitch Ingrid hadn't helped. She'd been the girl with the means to help launch his NFL career, which meant Guy had turned to her for career advice. Her father, a well-known sports agent, had also helped and had invited Guy to lunch or dinner with him and his daughter on a number of occasions. 

And now Guy was insisting we could get back what we had if I could simply overlook his cheating on me. No big deal.

"What is there to talk about, Guy? Unless you didn't really cheat on me?" Whoa, slow down that out-of-nowhere surge of hope, Eden.

"I did," he said, his voice drenched in regret. "I wish I could say I hadn't, but I did. I'm sorry, Reason."

"Eden," I snapped like a feisty Yorkie. "You just admitted to it again, so what could we possibly have to discuss about something that happened three years ago?"

"We have a lot to talk about! It doesn't seem like three years ago to me. It's something that kicks me in the balls every day, from the time I wake up without you to the time I go to bed without you. If you could just stop with this ice maiden act, we might be able to actually talk and figure things out. Don't you think eight years together deserves a final conversation at the very least?"

"I think eight years together deserves, at the very least, faithfulness. And if that can't happen, that kind of says it all right there. No further conversation is needed."

"I disagree. We need to talk. And you know how I know that? Because if you didn't really care, if it really was three years in the past, you wouldn't be so cold to me still. You wouldn't be so afraid to talk with me. I know you, Eden, you forget that. And I know that as much as you wish it wasn't true, you can't forget me any more than I can forget you."

"When did you become so full of yourself? Was it during the Ingrid years?" I laughed. "And trust me when I say I had plenty of help forgetting you."

He ignored the bait.

"I'll leave you alone for now, Eden. But maybe watch some interviews of mine. You might learn something."