Over the next few days, I set out to prove it to myself. I’m done being intimidated by my father. I’m done being embarrassed and used and abused. It’s time for me to grow the fuck up.
19
Griffin
The pain and the anger doesn’t go away for a few days.
I let her into my home. I let her play with my daughter. I opened up to her, fucked her, took her virginity. We were growing so close and things felt so goddamn good with her, and suddenly it’s all fucking gone.
Totally destroyed. I’m devastated when I get home from that dinner, but I manage to pick myself up the next day and start looking for a new nanny. The woman I find is in her fifties, nice enough, but Lacey doesn’t take to her like she did to Erin.
I have to just keep going forward. The fucking Fisher deal seems so disgusting now, and I don’t even know if I want to go forward with it. I keep finding myself reading about the deal, and then thinking about Erin, and only after a few minutes do I realize that I’ve been daydreaming about taking her back.
I don’t know what the fuck to do. I can’t get her out of my head, but I feel like she’s betrayed me so completely and utterly.
Still, she did say something odd. She said that she was protecting me and Lacey. I don’t know how that could be the case, since she was spying, but she said something about her father wanting to bug my apartment.
I can’t believe this crazy shit. I knew her father was a notorious asshole and a bastard, but I had no clue he was actually insane and willing to stoop so fucking low.
I try to research Erin, but there’s not much out there. Everything I read basically confirms her story. I didn’t recognize her from the start because every picture I’ve seen is from before she went overseas, when she was much younger. She’s blossomed a lot since then, really grown beautiful, but that’s not the point. I was fucking tricked and fooled and I let my guard down.
But something keeps nagging at me. I can’t say exactly what it is, but it’s something important. I know I should be seeing it, but as the days pass, I can’t stop thinking about Erin. Slowly the hate and the betrayal fades, replaced only with a surprising ache for her. I don’t really understand it. I should hate her, want her gone from my life forever, and yet I find myself thinking about her fondly before I remember what she did.
Lacey asks about Erin every day. That breaks my heart more than anything. I don’t know what to do. The new nanny is fine, she’s capable and came highly recommended by a nanny service, but then again, Erin came highly recommended as well.
It’s right there… I can almost see it. But whenever I get close to the thing I should remember, I just see Erin and her body, feel the way she kissed me, the way she made me smile and laugh. I hate myself for missing her, but a week passes, and the need for her doesn’t go away.
It just gets stronger. I fucking want her badly, but I don’t know what to do about it.
Sunday comes around and I find myself playing with Lacey, trying not to think about Erin. I try so hard not to think about her, which only makes me think about her even more, of course. It’s a catch-22 situation, damned if I do and even more damned if I don’t. I wish I could turn off these fucking feelings, but they’re there, lodged deep inside of me.
This is why I don’t get close to anyone. This exact fucking reason. If I don’t get close, I can never get hurt. I never felt this way about a woman before Erin, and maybe I never will again. Maybe if I never let myself fall again, I’ll never have to hit the fucking concrete like an asshole.
That’s when it clicks. That thing I should be thinking about, the thing I should realize. It hits me like a fucking ton of bricks and I have to get up and walk away from Lacey for a second.
Without thinking, I call Erin. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m practically reeling. She answers on the third ring.
“Griffin?” she asks.
“It’s me,” I grunt. “Can we meet?”
She pauses. “I thought you hated me.”
“I still might. Can we meet?”
“When and where?”
“Soon. Now. I don’t know where. Can you come to the park near my place?”
“Yeah, okay. I can get there in twenty.”
“Fine.” I hang up the phone, feeling dizzy, and turn to Lacey. “Come on, Lacey girl. Want to go to the park and see Erin?”
“Yes!” she squeals. I busy myself getting her ready, trying not to think about this horrible realization I just came to. I hope it isn’t true. I need it to be wrong. And the only person I know that can confirm it is Erin, the last person I really want to see right now.