Mister West by R.J. Lewis (animal farm read .TXT) 📕

anything. We really are good together, I think, as he smiles at me after the waitress has taken our orders. She keeps staring at me funny, but I don’t ask her what’s stuck up her butt. Maybe she’s trying to figure out how the hell I landed this man, or maybe it’s something else.

“Alex finally reached out to me this morning,” Aidan suddenly says, looking very happy about this development. “He wanted to see how I was.”

I haven’t met Alex yet, or Ruth for that matter, but Ruth is in Toronto and she’s old and frail, so that’s understandable. Alex, on the other hand, is a tumbleweed. Aidan can never track him down in one spot.

I want to ask him why Alex reached out to him all of a sudden. Seems really out of the blue. Instead, I just smile. “That’s great, Aidan. Did you have a good chat with him?”

Aidan nods. “I told him about you.”

“What did you say exactly?”

“Just the usual. You’re smoking hot, have a huge ass and a mouth that can swallow just about anything –”

“Aidan,” I scold playfully.

He laughs. “No, no, I said you’re remarkable.” With a more serious tone, he adds, “You’ve breathed life into me again, Ivy. You’re my endgame.”

I swallow nervously. “You can’t know that just yet.”

“No, I know it,” he says seriously. “I’m certain of it. Being with you has made me want things…things I never knew I wanted.”

“Like what?”

He doesn’t skip a beat. “Everything, baby. The house, the white picket fence…” he pauses now, looking down at my left hand. “Everything.”

He’s talking about marriage.

I don’t answer him right away. I’m in the middle of a separation, haven’t even been divorced yet, and this man wants to marry me one day. I feel really bad for him, that he had to find a woman so complicated, that he has to wait around for that divorce, and even then, I have no desire to jump into marriage.

Not for a very long time.

I feel like I don’t deserve him. I want to open up to him, let him have those final pieces of my being, but I’m just…I’m just not ready. Everyday I'm struggling more than the last.

The waitress returns with our food. She places my plate down in front of me, lingering for a beat. Then she leans in and says, “Just so you know, you’re way prettier than the pictures online.”

I look up at her, confused. “What?”

“Thank you,” Aidan cuts in, pointedly, trying to dismiss her with one scary look.

When she leaves, staring back at me with a bright smile, I give Aidan a look. “Pictures of me online?”

Aidan shrugs. “Sometimes people take pictures of me. They’re curious.”

“I was in one of them?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Do I want to know what I look like in these pictures?”

“You look beautiful, don’t worry.”

Now I raise a brow. “You’ve seen them?”

He smiles. “I only just found out about them this morning after my phone call with Alex.”

Now I’m understanding. “He saw them.”

“Yeah.”

Oh, boy.

I don’t know what to say except this was sort of expected, so I’m not surprised. I just didn’t think it would actually happen. I expected Ana to be the first one to inform me because she’s right into that shit, but maybe she didn’t on purpose.

“Are you upset?” he asks.

“No,” I answer. “Not at all. Let them take their photos and talk. I don’t even care.”

I really have no desire to see them.

He looks relieved. “Good.”

After we’re done, we bundle ourselves up and go for a walk in downtown Ottawa, passing Parliament Hill which is glowing in the night. We’re quieter now, each of us buried in thought. This week has been long and hard and very emotional. It shouldn’t even be this way. I should be living my happily ever after right now, but I’m a fucked-up mess instead.

I slow down and look up at him, feeling panicked.

“I’m worried I’m pushing you away,” I blurt out, swallowing hard. “I’m not opening up to you fast enough. I’m being unfair.”

He comes to a stop and looks down at me. “I told you I’m here, waiting.”

“I know that, but I don’t know how long you have to wait, Aidan.”

He frowns, looking upset. “This is what I was worried about, Ivy, about going too fast –”

“I don’t regret what we’ve done,” I quickly say, cutting him short. “I love us, Aidan. I do. I love us so much. That’s not the issue.”

“What is the issue?”

I search for the right words. “I’m hurting. I don’t know how to stop it, either.”

“We can get you into therapy –”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone about the way I’m feeling.”

“How is anyone going to help you then? You’re not managing well on your own.”

“I don’t know that,” I argue. “I’ve never been alone, Aidan. I’ve never had to work through my feelings. I’ve been surrounded by distractions this entire time –”

“Am I a distraction?” he retorts.

I frown. I’m saying this all wrong. “Never mind, Aidan.”

“Why never mind?”

“Because.”

“Let me guess, you don’t want to talk about this too.” When I don’t answer, he steps closer to me, dropping his head to my level. “Ivy, it’s going to fucking hurt, but you have to talk about your feelings at some point. Doesn’t have to be me you talk to, either, but you can’t keep burying it in –”

“You told me you know what that’s like,” I cut in, frustrated. “If you did, then you’d know I can’t just magically be okay enough to talk about my shitty marriage, or losing my daughter –”

“That’s not what I said –”

“I’m just not ready, Aidan.”

His eyes narrow. “Not ready to speak or not ready for us?”

My blood pressure spikes. “I don’t know anymore!”

I may as well have slapped him by how shocked he looks. He stares at me with wide eyes, speechless and hurt. Then he runs a hand over his hair and lets out a long breath. I don’t know what to say to him. I blurted that out without even