Page 37 of Unless It's You
I click Ethan’s name and his profile loads. I haven’t thought about what I’ll write to Ben, so this is another way to put off starting that task.
Yup. That’s it.
Ethan’s profile picture is a close-up of one of his tattoos. The swirling Celtic circles are mesmerizing, and I wish he’d zoomed out just a bit so I could see the full view of his biceps. Scrolling down, he’s not posted anything in a long time, but someone else has tagged him in photos. A woman.
Helen Jones.
Snuggled next to Ethan on a couch, it’s an obvious selfie, her cheek pressed against his chest. She’s tilted her head so she’s staring at the camera with lips stuck out, cheeks raised in a subtle smile. Helen’s pretty, with long dark hair, a delicate face, and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. Ethan’s not outright smiling, but has a subtle, closed-mouth grin, and his right arm drapes around her shoulders, tattoos of roses and trees and a mountain visible.
Helen’s caption:Love spending time with this guy.
She posted it last weekend, and last Friday night he was on a train. Shit, does he have a girlfriend? Damn. I want to pluck this girl out of the picture and throw her into the cold North Sea.
Her name rings a bell.
Helen.
My brain spins. Oh, no. I remember. Isn’t she the girl he was getting back together with when we had our one night together? Are theystilltogether? That was over a year and a half ago. The bottom of my stomach drops out.
I don’t like how I feel about this. Of course, he has a girlfriend. He’s objectively gorgeous and yeah, a little dark and broody, but I’d seen more than a few glimpses of his humanity. And thosefucking shoulders? Wide hands? Beard I’d like to drag him down to me with?
I shake my head to get the physical thoughts of him out. He’s a real person in there, not just a glaring, hunky, hot-as-hell beast.
Wait, what? I groan. But I can’t stop scrolling. Helen posted a bunch of pictures of her and Ethan over the past few months, but not much before that.
On a park bench one month ago, Ethan’s arms across the back of the wooden seat, Helen snuggled up close to him with her hand on his knee, head tilted into the crook of his shoulder like the couch picture.Summer in Newcastle with one of my favorites,the caption says.
In a backyard on a metal chair two months ago. In this one, she’s on his freakinglap, her arm looped around his neck. He’s got a beer in his right hand, and I imagine his left is wrapped around her waist. Yuck. He’s looking at her, she’s looking at him, and I hate the intensity that’s obvious between them. Her caption on this one is:Drowning our sorrows together. So happy I can be here for him.
I shudder. Ethan doesn’t seem like a Facebook picture kind of guy, but I guess he doesn’t mind. I click through to the comments and likes on the post like a true stalker, but he hasn’t engaged at all.
And finally, one from a short time before that, in a pub.Can’t believe I ever let this one get away. There’s no more of her and Ethan. I scroll back up, and Helen’s status isit’s complicated.
They weren’t together, and now... they might be?
“Ugh!” What am I doing? This isn’t why I logged on to Facebook, but it’s a great example of why I try never to do so. I don’t want to be thinking about Ethan and Helen. A jealous snake twists inside my body and I squirm, hating the feeling of it slithering around.
I should be thinking about Evelyn’s bucket list and sending a message to Ben.
I click a few times until I’m back on Ben’s page. I don’t evenbother scrolling down to see if there’re pictures of him and a new woman. Knowing that wouldn’t do anything for my situation. Instead, I find the message button and type in the window that pops up.
Ben—I hope you’re doing well. I need to talk to you about something. Remember my great-aunt? Aunt Evelyn? Well, she passed away last month.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I blink them away. Ben will remember Evelyn. I talked about her all the time. He knows how much she meant to me. Ben and I might not have been right for each other—at least in my mind—but he was a good person, even though he said some not-so-nice things to me at the end. I could tell him about the bucket list. Maybe he’d care, like Ethan does. I bet it would at least open up a conversation, a connection, and make it easier for me to do what Evelyn asked.
She left me a bucket list.
I pause and don’t press send. The words don’t seem right. Why? I roll my neck and squint my eyes at the screen, then tap-tap-tap until the sentence is gone. I really don’t want to talk to him about the bucket list.
Ethan’s voice echoes in my head:I like her. I like your aunt Evelyn very much.
Hmm.
Realization dawns on me. I don’t want to be telling Ben about the bucket list. I want to be talking to Ethan about it. Even with his judgment. It’s probably because I know I haveto talk to him about it, since he’s my advisor.
I fill my lungs with air and continue typing my message to Ben.
She wanted me to do a few things. A bucket list. And one of those things is to talk to you.
