CASSIUS
When Deira stormed out of the office like that, a part of me wanted to run after her, to grab her before she could escape forever. But something kept me frozen in place.
People rarely spoke to me the way Deira had just spoken to me. Michelle would yell at me when she was angry, sure. But yelling for Michelle was more like loud complaining. It was unpleasant, but there wasn't much edge to it. Deira's yelling... it had felt pointed. Like she'd found my weakest spots and plunged a knife in. I was left with the impression that she saw right through me, and that shook me to my core.
The other thing I couldn't get out of my mind was her face when I'd used Makayla's name, and then again when she'd realized that her snide remark about the private eye was true. She'd gone pale, somehow looking both terrified and terrifying at the same time. There was a fierceness to her, and a desperation, and it seemed nothing brought those out in her like potential danger to her child.
I suddenly realized that's what I was to her. The thought made me sick. I'd spent so much time over the past few weeks thinking about how I hadn't gotten to be a father, that I hadn't thought at all about how she'd had to be both parents. And apparently, her parental instincts told her I was dangerous. And damn it, maybe she was right.
After all, hadn't I practically stalked her? Hadn't I paid someone to find out personal information about her? Things that you wouldn't want a stranger to know? I'd gone to her apartment, for goodness sake! I felt a sudden relief that she hadn't been home. What would she have thought of me, showing up at her door like that? I doubt she would have seen a man who was trying to get answers. She probably would have seen an obsessive creep.
I put my head in my hands and massaged my temples. There was something else she'd said... that I was rich and thought the world belonged to me. In her mind, I was just some useless guy who got her pregnant and disappeared. All my attempts at the hospital to show how sorry I was about the car wreck; they had apparently come across as buying my way to whatever I wanted.
When I thought about it from that perspective, she wasn't wrong. I hadn't considered her side of things at all. I'd literally crashed into her life, and then decided that everything would go the way I wanted it to go, even before I'd known we had a kid together.
In fact, just now would have been the perfect opportunity to start fresh. All I had to do was begin slowly, introduce myself, and calmly suggest that I might like to be part of our daughter's life. Instead, I'd immediately jumped to confrontation, and now she wasn't just afraid of me, she hated me too.
I dropped my head onto the desk and groaned. I stayed there for a second, and then I took out my phone and called Scott.
"What's up?" he answered.
"Scott, you got any beer?" That was our shorthand for "I need to have a serious discussion, and I think there should be alcohol involved."
"Why?" Scott asked, sounding concerned.
"I screwed up," I said. "I think I really, really screwed up." There was a brief pause and then Scott said, "I'll be at your house after work. I'll bring lots of booze."
True to his word, when I got home that night Scott was already waiting in the driveway, two bags of alcohol at his feet and a pack of beers in his hand. We ordered pizza and started drinking. We had finished the six pack of beer and moved on to whisky before I finally felt ready to talk about it.
"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I'm confused. Why was she at the office today?"
"Because she interviewed for my assistant job!" I said. I should have started explaining earlier; Scott was terrible at following storylines when he was drunk.
"Oh, okay. Was it a good interview?"
I sighed. "The interview didn't happen because I confronted her."
"Okay. Got it, got it. And then she yelled at you and called you a useless rich jerk and ran away?"
"Not exactly, but close enough." Scott took a sip of whisky and considered this. "So now she thinks you're a jerk and also that you stalked her?"
"Uh huh."
He took another sip and made a sound of regret.
"What?" I asked.
"It's just, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have suggested you get the private investigator."
"That's right!" I shouted. "That was your idea!"
"In my defense, it seemed like a good idea at the time..." Scott frowned. "How was I supposed to know that she'd turn out to be that woman you slept with all those years ago? Who also is, in fact," he held up his finger and then pointed it at me, "your baby mama, and,and!" he stood up in the excitement, "that you didn't need to go looking for her because the universe was just going to drop her in your lap like that?" He paused. "Again. Actually,for the third time. Cassius," he said, and he put down the whiskey and looked serious, "is this some kind of fate thing happening here?"
I rolled my eyes at him.
"Don't be ridiculous. Besides, I didn't call you over here to talk about that. I need relationship advice. You're in the only functional relationship I know. What should I do?"
Scott sighed heavily and leaned back on the sofa, then he promptly sat back up and picked up a piece of pizza. He chewed it thoughtfully, and just when I was starting to think he'd forgotten the question, he answered.
"I think the big problem here is communication. You both seem inclined to leap to conclusions and think the worst of each other. You're impulsive, and you've got volatile temperaments. I'm sure part of the connection you felt before was because you're similar in that way, but now you have to do more than fight or make love. You have to actually talk to each other."
"Right," I said. That actually... makes a lot of sense. "But how do I do that? How do I even get her to take my call, let alone meet me and have a civilized discussion?"
Scott pondered this for a while.
"What if you don't call her?"
"You just said that I should try to communicate with her!" I whined.
"Hang on, hang on, let me finish. I think you should write her a letter."
"A letter? What, like we're in some kind of historical chick flick?"
"Well... yeah, kind of. I think maybe the two of you need a way to connect where less feelings are involved. Writing down your thoughts is one way to do that. It's actually a thing my therapist has me do with Emily sometimes. Because when you write something down, you can reread it, and revise it, and make it say exactly what you want to say. And you can give it a day, and read it over again with a cooler head. Face to face, you're forced to say what you think right in that moment, even if you're not thinking straight at all. If you write it down, you've got a better chance of actually being understood."
The whole idea sounded a little ridiculous to me, but I nodded and agreed. Past experience had taught me that Scott was really tenacious once he had an idea in his head. It made him really great at business, because if he couldn't convince you to accept his point of view through logic or charm, he'd just gently but persistently wear you down. I poured Scott some more whisky, told him he was a genius, and put the whole thing out of my mind.
The next morning, though, after I'd roused Scott from the couch and sent him home to Emily, I started to consider the idea again. For one thing, I was desperate. I needed a way to make a real connection with Deira, and move us past the point where all our interactions ended with some kind of bang. I also knew Deira was desperate, and I was worried that if I didn't act quickly, she'd pick up and skip town. I wondered; would it really be so bad to try a letter?
I thought about it over breakfast, and when I was finished, I went into the office and took out a notepad. I made a list of everything that I thought was important for Deira to know, about me, about my intentions, and about what I could offer her that she might not have considered. And then I made a plan, a series of steps for us to, hopefully, move forward together. I stared at those two pieces of paper for a long time, and then I opened my computer and I started to type.