Page 50 of Vivacity
I’ve spent the past quarter of an hour regaling the seraphim with my tales of Ethan ‘Eight’ Kingsley. It’s not merely that I’m feeling frustrated and bitchy after my morning with him, but that it’s useful to process this shit before it takes up too much headspace. If I don’t talk it through with the girls, get a little validation from them, and, ideally, have a good laugh about it, I could end up stagnating or, worse, spiralling.
We’ve already covered the nuts and bolts of the Montague deal—the bits that are in the public domain, at least, Ethan’s mounting stress levels, his majorly dysfunctional family dynamics, and his little hissy fit at the gym as well as his somewhat sweet but totally deluded proposal that we go exclusive.
When I let drop the bombshell of his nasty, hurtful outburst today, it’s met with the horror and righteous indignation I knew my girls would serve up.
‘He saidwhat?’my friend Maya says.
‘Yeah.’ I screw my face up. ‘So demeaning. And he meant it to hurt, too. He lobbed that grenade for maximum effect.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Talia puts a hand over mine. She looks beautiful tonight in a powder blue silk slip that offsets her olive skin perfectly. ‘That’s exactly the kind of shit he used to pull with me. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him, because I know he doesn’t actually believe what he’s saying. He’s a decent guy at heart, but when he lashes out, it’s so… I dunno.Toxic. Like he’s rotten inside.’
Talia may not be familiar with parts work, but she’s hit the nail on the the head. Unforgivable as that kind of behaviour is, it’s not the real Ethan. No wonder she and he were a nightmare together. She’s a brittle Three Enneagram—an outward-looking overachiever who’s overly focused on seeking validation from other people. Add to that that I suspect she has a strong Six part—The Loyalist, who craves connection and security and is also a gigantic worrier, and their pairing was a fucking nightmare.
‘You’re right,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not who he really is. And, weirdly enough, he’s not trying to wound. I think he’s trying to test people, see how hard he can push them before they abandon him. Think about it: if security for him is being in control of his relationships, then intimacy threatens that control. So it makes sense that he’d push the people he gets close to, to stress-test those relationships.’
Marlowe rolls her eyes. ‘You’re far more evolved than me. I would’ve slapped him across the face. I could tell when I met him that he was a cold fish. I don’t know how you put up with it.’
‘That would have been incredibly unprofessional and insanely tempting.’ I take a sip of my champagne. ‘And don’t think I missed your euphemistic choice of the verb “met”.’
Everyone laughs, not unkindly, and Marlowe goes instantly red. I bet she wishes she’d never had that threesome with Ethan and Brendan. Unlike me, she’s pretty virtuous.
‘Still,’ Talia says, ‘that feeling that he was constantly trying to break me was what I just couldn’t handle, you know? It was so horrible. I felt like he was constantly setting me up to fail.’
‘Of course he was,’ I tell her. ‘And you absolutely did the right thing by jumping ship. He wasn’t good for you.’ What I don’t say, because there’s no point, is that, in my experience of humankind and with the benefit of my psychology degree, testing someone to see if they’re breakable is entirely different from wanting to break them. It’s the opposite, in fact, because, wholly ignorant though Ethan may be of this fact,he wants people to pass his tests.
Every escalation is basically him askingwill you stay?
Andthat’sthe heartbreaking part.
Because Talia and Elena and all the others who bailed didn’t fail the tests because they were weak.
They failed because they mistook being tested for being abused.
And who can blame them? Why should they suffer mistreatment because another person doesn’t have their shit together? They shouldn’t, of course. Most abuses, most crimes, come from a place of trauma, and that may be unspeakably sad, but it categorically does not mean that any of us should tolerate them for a single moment. The impact of Ethan’s behaviour on the people he hurts is the same either way, and they have every right to protect themselves.
Believe me, I’m hyper-vigilant to our dynamic. Right now, I’m staying because I think I can handle him. I believe I have the necessary skills and boundaries. But the moment his behaviour escalates, I’m out of here like a scalded cat. I’m choosing myself. I’m not a martyr, and I’m no one’s punching bag, regardless of the psychology that’s driving them.
‘Here’s the interesting takeaway for me,’ Athena muses, breaking my reverie. I catch her eye. She has her thinking face on. Uh oh. She’s about to make some deadly observation, I can tell—probably to get me back for ribbing Marlowe. ‘Soph here has got herself a gorgeous billionaire boss, who wants to spend every waking—or at least working—moment with her. Marls and I are both poster girls for falling for your boss.But.Soph has managed to find a guy who’s so spectacularly fucked up that there’s zero chance of her being tricked into settling down with him. If that’s not a quintessential Seven, I don’t know what is.’
I give her my most unimpressed frown. ‘Kindly fuck off.’
‘Remind me what a Seven is?’ Bree asks, tilting her head.
‘The Enthusiast,’ Athena tells her with glee. ‘AKA the vivacious social butterfly who hates standing still, and hates pain, and will chase all manner of new, shiny things to avoid anything real and uncomfortable.’
Bree’s laughing. ‘Oh, man. Busted, girl. That’s you to a T.’
‘At least I know how to have fun, unlike you Threes. Your Doer parts are running the show so aggressively that they won’t let you rest for a minute.’
‘And we wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Athena says happily. ‘Also, I’m now engaged to, and employed by, a saintly Two, so I can over-function on the Audacity Foundation to my heart’s content and call it altruism. Happy days.’
Talia’s been listening, head cocked. ‘So you’re saying Soph chose Ethan on purpose, even if she did it unconsciously, because he’s damaged enough that there’s no risk of her being tempted to commit to him.’
Athena raises her glass. ‘Precisely.’
A guy wanders over, smiling at us. ‘Hey, ladies. I wondered if?—’
Athena cuts him off with a raised hand. She doesn’t even look at him. ‘No.’ He shrugs and meanders off sheepishly.
