ANGELA : 023

ANGELA : 023
I WAS STUPID.

I FEEL stupid.

I don’t know why I reacted like I did. All I know is that something sprang within me like tripping a mousetrap. Samantha was being a superior bitch, but that had nothing to do with Parker. He already told me she was a bitch. He was divided about Duncan. He likes his old friend a lot, but Duncan was and always had been an asshole.

What about last night failed to meet my expectations? Samantha was a bitch; Duncan was an asshole; Parker was neutral.

Well, not neutral.

If Samantha was telling the truth, it sounds like the current Parker Altman is kind of a mess. And also kind of an asshole. He crapped on the old neighborhood; he did drugs and drank; he apparently had sex with more than one woman at once.

But the more I thought about it at home, after dodging more of Mom and Bill’s questions (many involving their reverse inheritance, which they thought I was working on) and sprinting into my room and crying, I decided that not much has changed at all.

I told Parker that he was that guy. But was he really? Or was this the expected progression of a man who grew up so damaged?

He craps on the old neighborhood today? He craps on his dad, my mom … maybe dusting me some in the process? Well, he did that growing up, too.

He does drugs? He drinks? Check. Those were just two of the many things Mom said made him bound for the pit of Hell.

He has sex with multiple women? He may have always done that, and now he’s a hot billionaire.

I don’t want to be with that Parker, but I strongly suspect he’s no longer on the path to being that Parker. During the time we spent together, he was kind and sensitive. Honest. And that, too, seemed familiar. He was such a delinquent hardass when we were kids, but when I got him alone and past his defensive wall, he was kind, sensitive, honest. It was hard to blame Parker for how he was back then, and I now see that it’s not fair to blame him for it now. He’s broken. The way I’m broken, but with different results and money as an accelerant.

Now that I’m in his building, I want to apologize, not blame him. I was unfair last night. I’d barely been back in his life for a day and not only expected him to change all at once (or rather, to become more truly who he’s always been all at once); I’d been expecting him to not have a past.

I should only care about the moment Parker pulled up in front of my house — that, and who he is deep inside, at his wounded core. Anything before then is none of my business. When you date a man, you shouldn’t care that he had sex with others before you. Same logic here, and even though adjusting means ignoring groups of women rather than singles, the principle is the same.

I’m at the door before it occurs to me that whoever buzzed me in was female.

Perhaps Parker has an assistant. I know he has one because his assistant sent my card. Maybe he has another one — a woman. Or a maid. Or an appointment in his apartment.

But the door opens, and I see Samantha. She’s in a loose robe, clearly naked underneath. I can tell her chest is surgically enhanced, and somehow this feels like a victory. She also has something on her cheek, but I barely register it before the smile crawls across her face.

“Oh,” Samantha says, “this is so much better than breakfast.”

Parker scrambles into view behind her. He’s wearing a suit with the fly open, and I realize that since we met again, I haven’t seen him out of formalwear — other than that time in the limo of course. Those two times in the limo. The day, it now seems with a resurgence of anger, that I joined the notches on the infamous Parker Altman’s bedpost.

“Angela!” he shouts.

I spin on my heel. The elevator doesn’t open into Parker’s apartment. For security reasons, it’s accessible down a short private hallway ending in another locked door. I’m traversing that hallway now in reverse. The elevator should still be waiting; it’s dedicated for this floor. The lobby attendant had to, after getting Sam’s buzz, unlock the elevator and let me in.

Parker will reach me before I get there.

“Angela!” he shouts, now running.

I can’t believe I was such a gullible little girl. Such a naive, gutter-trash conquest. I look back to see his frantic face running toward me, his shirt untucked, his neck maddeningly kissed with bright-red lipstick. Samantha is visible at the far end, still posing in the doorway like a minx.

I had all the evidence in front of me. Samantha had laid it all out. It didn’t matter that she was only telling me things I mostly knew. In fact, it was worse that she was telling me what I already knew. If she’d given me new information, I could blame Parker for hiding his true nature. But now it was clear that I was to blame. 

I let my heart get the most of me. No, no, wait; tell the truth … I let my vagina get the most of me. How the hell had I made the leap between “Parker wants me” and “Parker loves me”? Nowhere in our past or present had that been said or implied. That had been my heart. My foolish, stupid, naive heart made the leap from lust to affection then sold it upstream to my brain, which was desperate to believe it. Because it’s one thing to do what I did for love but another to do it for lust. The first made me almost noble: defying others for love. The second made me a disloyal, abandoning, sellout slut.

Parker runs to the door then holds it open.

“Angela! I made a mistake.” Huffing, catching his breath. “You were right about me. You were exactly right and — ”

I’ve heard enough.

I shove him hard with both hands, right in the chest, with all my strength. I hate myself for it, but I’ve already started to cry. Parker is a brick wall, and I’m slight, but still he staggers back, his face an awful mix of guilty and sad. As it should be.

“I know I was right,” I tell him.

The doors close.

I sink to the floor then journey to the street, sobbing.