I don’t want to know the reasoning behind the man currently dividing and conquering my wife and me. I don’t want to fucking empathize with him or understand his side in any way.
Furious with thoughts of this going on much longer, I push send and lift the phone to my ear before it goes to voicemail.
“This is Natalie Butler. Leave a message.”
The line beeps.
“It’s Crowne. Your name is Natalie Crowne,” I snap as the accumulating acid starts to pour out of me, “or did you fucking forget?”
Unsteady
X Ambassadors
Natalie
“Your name is Natalie Crowne…or did you fucking forget?” I replay the message Easton left last night, hearing his anger and frustration over the distance I’ve allowed between us. The last six weeks have been hell on earth for me, personally and professionally. On the rare occasions we’ve seen each other since Sedona, I clung to the hope that my father would finally look at me instead of through me, and I am always disappointed. Whenever our paths do cross, it’s primarily thanks to my mother’s attempt to bridge the gap. Even so, he remains unreceptive. Dad still hasn’t called me back to my desk at the paper but instead has kept me scrambling to keep up with his demands. Demands I’ve met to keep him pacified while trying to reestablish some of the lost trust. A confrontation is coming and soon, because after the anniversary party wraps, I’m going to try and mend my rapidly deteriorating relationship with my husband.
Exiting the stretch limousine I commissioned for the night, I stand waiting in my parents’ driveway in a glittering, deep jade gown my mother had her stylist choose for me. The neckline runs snugly against my collarbone, while the back rests at the curve just below the small of it. It had to be taken in a little last week due to the grief-stricken pounds I’ve lost and kept off. It’s both elegant and sexy—her style—and it’s only now, as it glitters in the setting sun, that I start to appreciate it.
After the glam squad left my apartment, I couldn’t muster a single reaction other than feeling like a glossed-up lie—a living, breathing expectation of my father. That seems to be the sum of my value now, at least when it comes to Nate Butler. Though I argued the same point with Easton recently, it isn’t the case. I’ve made the choices I have in recent weeks to be at my father’s side in an effort to fight for my future and his legacy. It feels like the aspect of choice got lost somewhere in my neck-breaking efforts to appease him. I can’t keep allowing him to dangle the paper over my head while keeping me at arm’s length—in exile.
In truth, I’m absolutely devastated and utterly shocked by my father’s behavior.
Dad’s done nothing to guard me from his anger. He’s not only furious about my part in the deception with Easton, but for hurting my mother and indirectly causing a small rift between them that could have cost him dearly. Even though they seemed to have bounced back, he refuses to truly look at me. More deplorably, I’ve allowed it. Allowed him to continue to order me around like I’m a grounded teenager instead of a nearly twenty-three-year-old woman capable of making her own life choices. But the truth is, I knew this is what loving the man I chose—marrying the man I chose—would cost me.
At this point, I feel I’ve paid enough.
Even if I’m justified in a lot of ways for my feelings, I also damned myself because I miss my father. His absence continues to rob me of security and peace of mind. I miss our easy camaraderie and our stress-releasing walks to the bar we used to frequent near Speak after meeting excruciating deadlines. What I miss most are the moments that followed as we shared beers chattering bluntly, more like friends than father and daughter.
All traces of that dynamic are painfully absent, as my need to please him and get back into his good graces overshadows my relationship with Easton. I’ve been put in the impossible position to try and please the two men I love the most—and like I predicted—I feel like I’m losing no matter what steps I take and in what direction. The only assurances that we have a chance at moving past this come from my mother. She has tried her best to play referee between us, despite the utter disruption in our lives that my marriage has caused.
It’s only when I speak to Easton—when I soak in his face on the screen, evident with the love I reflect—that the cost feels like less of a burden. But in the last week, I can feel Easton’s resentment starting to overflow. It’s apparent my neglected marriage needs nurturing, and I know the only way to try to keep it together is to fly to Easton’s side or allow him to come to mine.