Authors: Xavier Neal
Presley
Theory 5: Love Makes You Protective
Monday's usually come too quickly for me, but not this time. In fact, this time, Monday took it's sweet time arriving. With Katherine doing a family dinner on Sunday, I spent the entire day drunk on nostalgia. I found myself so enamored with my past, I made various excuses to be left alone in solitude.
There's a knock on my office door. “Come in.”
Merrick's adorable face appears around it. “You sure you want me to come in?”
“Yeah?” I cautiously reply. “Why wouldn't I?”
“Because I knocked four times, before you answered.”
More romantic reveries must be clogging up my mental capacity. I have to get a better grasp of reality, even if it's not the one I pictured all those years ago. “Sorry.”
“It's cool, Boss Lady,” he assures approaching my desk. “I was just wondering if you got my proposal for the Spring Festival? I know I'm in charge of painting the booths, but I had a slightly different vision for the concert background.”
Realizing just how out of it, I am, I nod. “I will get those looked at before the end of the day.” Now baffled by his presence, I acknowledge, “Is that why you're here so early?”
“I popped by before class,” he says with a smirk. “My girlfriend had this thing she had to do, so I swung by early.”
“You should definitely bring her to the Spring Fling. I would love to meet her.”
“I will.”
Merrick attempts to continue to talk when there's another knock on my door. Welcoming more distractions to get me back on task and away from my wandering memory, I call, “Come in.”
Surprisingly Xander walks into my office. This is...this isn't good. In our entire relationship, the number of unexpected visits he's made are all accounted for on one hand. The first, he moved his sister in with us for two weeks while she waited to move to Rome. It was a nightmare. I slept in the office the last four nights in a hopeless attempt to stop the desire of smothering her in her sleep. The second, he volunteered for me to host Thanksgiving dinner for both of our families at our apartment. It was awkward and most of my food under cooked. Not a huge cook as it is and the added pressure did not help anything. If he's here in the middle of the day it means he's made another major decision without discussing it with me first.
Xander gives Merrick a glance. I find myself hoping a hint of jealousy will arise. Instead he questions, “Are you finished with her?”
Merrick nods and shoots me a wink. “See you later, Boss Lady.”
“Bye,” I call seconds before he shuts the door behind him. Mustering up a smile I sigh, “This is...a surprise.”
“I have news.”
Dread drags itself down my flesh. “Oh?”
“Dr. Swanson called. They can get me in Friday.”
“For what?”
“For my vasectomy.”
Completely blindsided I lift a hand. “What?!”
“My vasectomy,” he announces as if he were informing me that he just switched car insurance.
This. This is exactly one of the things I hate about him. While I was actively avoiding face to face moments with him, my mind did begin to rip him apart. From his looks, which are not something I've ever truly been attracted to. His thin, dark, Boy Scout haircut, to the way his day is completely routine based, down to the rotation of the color of socks he wears. Letting myself get lost in the romance of my youth has more than begun to rock the river of my present.
“I'm having one.” Xander adjusts himself in the chair. “You know I don't want kids. This will prevent that from occurring.”
Instantly I fiddle around in my desk for my emergency stash of mints. Keeping eye contact I question, “You made this decision without me? Shouldn't this be an 'us' topic?”
“Why?” The perplexity on his face is vexing. “Do I interfere with the choices you make about your body? Am I not pro-choice? Do I not believe a woman's body is hers to command?”
“You do but-”
“Then why would I feel any different about myself?”
I snatch the peppermint and shove it in my mouth. As soon as the mint stings my tongue, my sizzling nerves begin to simmer. “This is a little different, isn't it?”
“How do you figure?”
“It would be like me abruptly stopping the pill-”
“Which I would support-”
“In order to get pregnant.”
“Which I would not. We used multiple methods to prevent that from happening, Presley. I do not want children.”
“Well, I...I don't know if I do. What if I do someday? What if you change your mind?”
“There's always adoption, which logically makes more sense for the two of us anyway. We would be better suited to adopt an older child who is ready for school that requires less hours and attention than that of an infant. Between your job and mine, that's not a probable desire, especially with the retirement plan I am on.”
Discontent pushes me back into my seat.
“It's Friday morning. It's an in and out service. I am aware you will be working, so I have arranged for my mother to drop me off and pick me up.”
“You don't even want me there?” I whisper in disbelief.
“I don't want you missing work over something so minuscule.”
The chance to never procreate if I stay in this relationship is now minuscule. New found panic starts to set in. I suck on the mint a little harder, dizziness from the delirium, shutting down my ability to move.
Xander grins. “It's close to lunch. I'm already here. Would you like to grab a bite?”
Doing what I do best, I plaster on a phony smile in return. “I can't. I have to review Merrick's proposal as well as return a few calls in regards to the charity event.”
“I understand.” He rises to his feet. “I'll see you for dinner?”
“Yep.”
Xander gives me a nod and exits my office door sucking the life out of me with him. I never pictured myself in this position. I used to want kids. I used to want a life filled with laughter and excitement, charm at every corner. I used to be driven and full of zest yet here I am, at the bottom of a pit bereft of almost all vivacity that once was. How is this living?
**
Katherine chomps on her salad across from me, awe on her face as I devour the pasta she brought me. The combination of cheese and tomato sauce, swirl around my pallet, lulling all the overworked emotions back to slumber. I needed this. I need more food. More bread. More pasta. Chocolate.
She puts her fork down. “Okay Princess Linguine, how about you slow down on the carb fest you're ingesting and tell me, what's wrong?”
I drag my bread around the sauce. “Xander's having a vasectomy on Friday.”
“Thank God,” she mumbles. “Any more little robots like him wandering around and I would be worried the cyborgs have already begun to take over.”
Shaking my head, I snap, “I'm serious.”
“So am I,” she counters. “Why are you so upset? Did you want kids with Xander?”
“No. Maybe. I don't know,” I babble. “But I don't like the choice stolen from me like a thief in the night. He didn't ask. He informed like he always does. Declared it like fucking President of the United States of America. Like he's the fucking king of England and we folks don't have a say! No taxation without representation!”
Cautiously Katherine asks, “Why are you yelling History Channel moments at me?”
I drop the bowl on my desk. “Sorry. He was watching some special while I was trying to go to sleep. It stuck.”
“That was weird.” Katherine nods. “More importantly, you're expressing your anger with the wrong person. Did you try to tell him how you felt?”
“I did and he gave me some really well played speech about respecting women's' choices, so I need to respect his. If this were any other case, it would be valid, but it's not.”
“Because...”
“Because what if I do want children, Katherine?” I fight. “I'm not against adoption, but what if I want to carry a baby? And be swollen for 9 months? And nurse? And...” The end of sentence drifts and I take another bite of bread. “I don't know what I want and that's the problem.”
“Well if you don't know what you want, you can't be pissed off at Xander for knowing what he does.” Hating her valid point, I have another bite. “He always has, Presley. He may be very by the book, very boring, very precise, but he is always certain of what he wants and communicates that to you, even if it's not what you wanna hear. The problem is for the first time since I've known you, you've started to question your own desires.”
My chewing slows down as my eyes fall to my lap.
“It's not a bad thing if you ask me. You're twenty eight. You run an insanely well-oiled company. You're beautiful, brilliant. You've got a bright future ahead of you that doesn't stop at thirty, Pres. You have time to decide if you want a Xander or you want a Ryder. You can have the power to make those choices in your life, if you just take it back. As much as I hate what these little therapy sessions are doing to you, I'm glad something is. No one should wander through life alive, but not living. That's a waste. Stop wasting your life, Presley. You deserve more than that.”
I grunt my agreement and prepare to take another bite.
Katherine grabs my arm. “And stop eating your emotions. Talk. Let them go. Scream. Shout. Stomp. Something. But put down the bread and step away from the sauce.”
Surrendering, I drop the last piece. With a heavy sigh, I ask, “What's wrong with me Katherine? Why am I just now acting like this?”
“You've been dormant. Believe it or not, you're part of the reason, I enjoy writing these books. It's to help others wake up and reevaluate their own lives.”
Unsure I buy into it, but for the first time since we've been friends, gaining a new perspective on what it is she does, I simply smile.
“Speaking of.” A giggle comes from her before she wipes her hands on her napkin. Immediately after she pulls out her recorder from her purse and places it on my desk. “I was going to skip today and do tomorrow, but Carter's parents are insisting we go to some Yacht Club thing instead, so what do you say we go ahead and do it today?”
“How many more are left?”
“Just this one. We're practically done. Sadly...”
“Sadly?” I scoff. “You're sad you're almost done turning my life upside down.”
Katherine hits the button, leans back, and folds her hands on her stomach. “Am I turning your life upside or are you?”
Glaring at the machine, I respond, “No comment.”
She rolls her eyes. “I meant sadly, because I know at the end of all of this, the chance of you ever reliving these memories or level of emotions again, is slim. Which is sad to me because, a passionate you, a you filled with that much brio, is one I would love to see all the time.”
The temptation to put an end to the bread stick returns to my system. Katherine moves it away from me.
“Do you feel you were protective of Ryder?”
Flatly, I reply, “Yes.”
“Do you ever feel there was a time you were too protective?”
A familiar craving sweeps across my tongue. “I don't understand.”
“Can you recall a time where Ryder did something that maybe he should've been punished for but you took the fall instead? He was a growing drug addict. Was there a time maybe he took something from you and you convinced yourself you lost it instead? Maybe he lied about something and you lied on top of that to cover him?”