The Ghost In The Living Room

The Ghost In The Living Room
“Ethan, what are you talking about?”

Aria said the words softly, her voice trembling just enough to sound like a confused lover, but underneath, her heart was screaming. She stepped closer to him, ignoring the wreckage of the living room, ignoring the overturned chair and the shattered glass on the floor. She raised her hand, her fingers shaking, and reached for his face.

She needed to touch him. She needed to feel the warmth of his skin, to remind him of the night they had just shared, to remind him of the love that had felt so real only hours ago. She wanted to ground him. She wanted to make him look at her and see Norah, the woman he loved, not the ghost he was accusing her of being.

If Ethan knew the truth, the whole truth, he would become a liability. Or worse, he would become a casualty. Marcus did not leave loose ends. And Norman Malcovich did not forgive betrayals. If Norman knew she was Aria, the hunt would not stop until she was dead.

But seeing Ethan looking at her in disgust is what Aria doesn't want to bargain for.

His eyes, usually so warm, so full of adoration, were now pools of dark, swirling pain. There was no anger yet, just a deep, crushing disappointment that cut her deeper than any knife. He looked at her like she was a stranger. Like she was a disease he had just discovered in his own home.

Ethan allowed her to caress his cheek. He didn't pull away immediately. He stood there, rigid as a statue, letting her palm rest against his jaw. He closed his eyes for a brief second, leaning into her touch as if he couldn't help himself. He wanted to feel the warmth of her hand on his cheek. He wanted to believe, just for one more heartbeat, that this was real. That she was Norah. That the last few months hadn't been a lie.

But the torn photograph in his pocket burned against his leg. The image of the little girl with the blue eyes, the girl he had mourned for twenty years, was a weight he couldn't ignore.

He opened his eyes. The softness was gone.

He gently took her hands away. His grip was firm, not hurting her, but decisive. He pulled her hand from his face and held it in the space between them. He looked at her hand, at the delicate fingers that had traced his skin, at the wrist where he could feel her pulse hammering.

“Norah,” he said, using the fake name like a weapon. “When were you going to tell me that your real name is Aria Delaney?”

The question hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. It sucked the oxygen out of the room.

Aria froze. Her breath hitched in her throat. She tried to pull her hand back, but he held it fast. She looked into his eyes, searching for a sign that he was guessing, that he was bluffing. But there was no bluff in Ethan Malcovich’s face. There was only the cold, hard truth.

“Is it when you finally pulled my father down?” Ethan asked. His voice cracked. “Is that the timeline? You sleep with me, you marry me, you destroy my family, and then you tell me? Or do you never tell me? Do I wake up one day next to a stranger?”

Hearing that Aria felt a pang in her heart. It was a sharp, physical pain that radiated through her chest. It wasn't fear for her life anymore. It was fear of losing him. It was the realization that the wall she had built, the perfect lie of Norah, had crumbled into dust.

She knew it's no longer a secret anymore. The game was over. The mask was off. He knew. He knew who she was. He knew she was the daughter of the man his father destroyed.

She looked at him with sudden, defensive anger. He was asking about his father. He was asking about the "pulling down" of the Malcovich name. He wasn't asking about her pain. He wasn't asking about how she survived. He was worried about the business. He was worried about the legacy.

She snatched her hand away from his grip. She stepped back, putting distance between them. If he wanted the truth, if he wanted Aria Delaney, then she would give him Aria Delaney. She stood taller, wiping the fear from her face, replacing it with the cold, hard resolve that the streets had taught her.

“You finally found out Ethan….”

Her voice was different now. It wasn't the soft, honeyed tone of Norah. It was flat. It was tired.

“What will you do?” she asked, her eyes flashing. “Take me to your father? Hand me over to the police? Or maybe you will do it yourself. Oh, so he could finish the job he started twenty years ago?”

She laughed, a bitter, dry sound. “Go ahead, Ethan. Call him. Tell Norman that the little rat he tried to burn didn't die. Tell him I am right here.”

“Why did I come back Norah…. Aria….”

He stumbled over the name. It felt foreign on his tongue, yet painfully familiar. He took a step toward her, ignoring her defensiveness. He didn't care about the police. He didn't care about his father right now.

“I knew the truth and I came to ask you Aria….”

He reached out, grabbing her shoulders. He shook her slightly, desperate to make her understand.

“Why did you lie?”

The question was a raw scream from his soul.

Ethan wanted to shout in anger but he couldn't. He wanted to rage. He wanted to throw the furniture like she had apparently done earlier. He wanted to demand to know why she had let him mourn her. Why she had let him visit her empty grave in his mind for two decades while she was alive, breathing, and planning his destruction.

Even now, looking at her with the blood on her lip and the defiance in her eyes, he couldn't hurt her. He loved her. God help him, he loved the liar more than he loved the truth.

“I asked you a question!” Ethan’s voice broke. “Why? We were friends. We were best friends. I was the boy who pushed you on the swing. I was the one who held your hand when you were scared of the dark. I was your only best friend. Why did you come back as a stranger? Why did you make me fall in love with a ghost?”

Aria looked at him. She saw the tears standing in his eyes. She saw the boy she used to know, the boy who had been sent away to Zurich.

But she also saw the Malcovich blood. She saw the son of the monster.

“If I came to you as Aria you wouldn't accept me.”

She stepped out of his grip, walking over to the window. She looked out at the city, the city his family owned.

“Do you think I wanted this?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Do you think I wanted to erase myself? Do you think it was easy to become Norah?”

She turned back to him, tears streaming down her face now.

“If I walked up to you as Aria Delaney, the orphan from the slums, the daughter of the bankrupt dead man, your family wouldn't dare look at me twice!”

She pointed a shaking finger at him.

“You live in a tower, Ethan. You live in a world of gold and silk. Your father, Norman, checks the pedigree of everyone who walks through his door. If I came to you as Aria, I would be the help. I would be the charity case. I would be the girl you pitied, not the woman you loved.”

She choked back a sob.

“I had to be Norah. Norah was equal to you. Norah was worthy of you. Aria… Aria was just broken glass.”

Ethan hearing this was shocked. He stood there, stunned by her words. Was that what she thought? Did she really believe he was like his father? Did she think he cared about names and bank accounts?

He felt a fresh wave of pain. She didn't know him. After all these months, after all the nights they spent talking, she didn't know his heart at all.

“Aria,” he whispered. “You are wrong. You are so wrong.”

He walked to her slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal.

“You never left my mind since I left for Switzerland,” he said.

He needed her to know. He needed her to understand the weight of his grief.

“Every birthday,” Ethan said, his voice thick. “Every Christmas. I thought of you. I wondered what you would be doing. I wondered if you would have liked the snow in Zurich. When they told me you died… ”

He stopped, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“I died too, Aria. A part of me died that day. I hated my father for sending me away. I hated the world for taking you. I spent twenty years looking for someone who made me feel the way you did when we were ten years old. And I never found anyone. Until Norah walked into that gala.”

He looked at her with intense, burning eyes.

“I didn't fall in love with Norah because she was a project manager. I didn't fall in love with her because she wore expensive dresses. I fell in love with her because she had your eyes. She had your laugh. My soul recognized you, Aria, even when my brain didn't.”

Aria listened to him. Her heart was pounding. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to fall into his arms and let him heal her.

But then she remembered the file. She remembered the recording. She remembered Norman’s voice saying, “Nathan was my best friend.”

Betrayal was in their blood. Norman had betrayed her father. Why wouldn't Ethan betray her?

Aria said with hate in her voice that sounded like jealousy, “Ethan you lied!”

She pushed him away. She needed to be angry. Anger was safe. Anger was a shield.

“You say you missed me? You say you mourned me?” She laughed, a cruel sound. “You have another lady in your life, remember?”

Ethan looked confused. “What? What are you talking about? There is no one else. There has never been anyone else since I met you.”

“Don't lie to me!” Aria shouted. “I saw you! I saw the way you looked at Miriam! I saw the way you let her hang around you! And don't tell me she means nothing. She is part of your world too. She is part of the club I can never join!”

She was grasping at straws, using her jealousy of Miriam to build a wall between them. She needed to hurt him so he would leave. If he didn't leave, she would crumble.

“Miriam?” Ethan asked, incredulous. “You are jealous of Miriam? Aria, she is a nuisance. She is a pest. I barely tolerate her for my father’s sake.”

“For your father’s sake!” Aria screamed. “Everything is for your father’s sake!”

Ethan stepped back, hurt flashing across his face. “Everything is not just for my father, Aria. I did everything for you.”

“Lies!” she shouted.

She walked up to him, her face inches from his. She let the mask drop completely. She let him see the rage that had been fueling her for years.

“Moreover Ethan,” she hissed.

“Your father killed my parents right in my face and you expect me to have Aria Delaney's name freely while with you?”

The accusation hung in the room like a toxic cloud.