What was she even doing there?
She had sworn up and down that she wasn't going to come. After being stunned in her office chair by his e-mail, she waited two days to start a reply and then a day more to actually finish it. Maybe, it was Jenna who had talked her into showing up at the downtown Toronto hot spot, Origins, to see him. The busty blond had talked in length about giving people multiple chances or, at the very least, hearing her well deserved apology.
"It doesn't matter how long it takes someone to be and say sorry, just as long as they do." She advised Clare genuinely when the journalist first told her friends that Eli had reached out to her after three years of distance and silence, of not being a present piece in each other's lives.
Alli thought the only reason Clare should go was because she had already e-mailed him that she would. Going through Clare's small apartment closet, Alli searched for something that would make a man sorry for messing things up as well as stop his heart, but she still told her best friend that if she wanted to cancel on Eli, she could. She didn't owe him a single thing.
At least twice while on the subway, Clare considered not going. Then she remembered that Alli had spent a lot of time dolling her up and she was a bit curious as to why Eli "really needed to see her again" out of the blue. Somehow, though, she found herself in the front entrance of the packed restaurant and bar. Privately, she wondered if she should have suggested lunch or coffee over dinner. This felt formal and almost like a date. In fact, it as nice than all the dates they went on over the years they were together and those were all pretty nice in Clare's mind.
As the host looked up from his seating cheaper on the podium, dressed as crisp as she had heard the place's Thai chicken was, he was just about to ask her if she had a reservation when she spotted Eli, in the distance, over his shoulder.
"No, I, uh, I see my party." Clare nodded directly at the host before stepping around his spot.
Eli looked good. Taller somehow, though she knew that was impossible. Last she had heard about him, through mutual friends, he was living in San Francisco and one of a group of four guys from NYU running a production company out there. The City by the Bay clearly had not hurt him at all. His five o'clock shadow acting as a guide line to his jaw was new to her, she had never seen that addition before, but she liked it very much. For a second, without meaning to, she imagined how it might feel rubbed up against her face, but she instantly shuffled the idea out of her head. She hated that power he had over her. Everybody knew Clare to be such an intelligent girl, but he always tied her brain into granny knots and sailor bends. His eyes found her right away and after tracing over her body in the navy shift dress that Alli had chosen, he laid them right into her, grinning like a little kid in line to meet Mickey Mouse at the very sight of her. Eli quickly rose to his feet and side stepped in order to get to her chair and pull it out for her, but Clare helped herself and took a seat.
Sheepishly, Eli chuckled once he was sitting again, "I didn't know if you would actually come or not." Clare had always been there for him. She always had his back, but he knew that he hadn't left things well between them. A lot of time had passed and she could have written him off completely for all he knew.
"Well, I'm here." She feigned a smile, focusing more on the menu instead of telling him that she nearly didn't.
"You look great." Eli didn't care about dinner. Clare was his main objection. He folded his hands up in front of him and kept his eyes bright on her. "I've always loved you in that color."
She wanted to tell him to stuff it. It wasn't easy for her to stay composed when he was paying her compliments and wearing the grin that always made her knees knock together.
"Eli, can we skip over the pleasantries?" Fixing her oversized blue eyes on him with a business-like stare, Clare tapped into the toughest version of herself. If she had to treat him like the subject of one of her newspaper stories, she would. "Why did you invite me for dinner? What is going on?" It was never nothing with Eli. He had been such a large part of her life for so long that she knew he always had a goal, ambition, or purpose. It was never just as simple as dinner for two.
"I'm in town. I wanted to catch up." His mouth swore it to be true, but the way his hips shifted side to side in his spot told a different tale.
"This is the first time in three years that you've been back to Toronto?" Did he really expect her to believe that? He had friends and family here, not to mention that the newspaper she worked for wrote articles about his latest movie which had been filmed primarily in Mississauga last summer.
Deeply, Eli inhaled through his nostrils. He dropped his head solemnly, it's weight from carrying great guilt and regret for the last few years and keeping it heavy on his shoulders. Slowly, he released the air from his lungs and found himself able to look at Clare again, almost directly in the eyes this time.
"Things are different his visit."
"We haven't seen each other in three years, so everything is different." Genuinely amused by him, Clare laughed and rolled her eyes around.
"I'm getting divorced." The words rolled right out of his mouth as if he was introducing himself to a potential work partner or asking for the time.
Clare put a few pieces together silently while Eli searched her face and then the hard door floor with obvious remorse. He couldn't say anything more though and she couldn't respond, the waiter, his white apron folded meticulously over his tailored black slacks, arrived at the table to fill their empty glasses with water and report to them what the specials were for the evening. His spiel took no longer than three minutes, but both Clare and Eli felt as if it went on for ages.
"Just your house red, thanks." Eli robotically replied. He hadn't so much as glanced at the menu since Clare arrived.
She followed suit and ordered the same, sending the server on his way.
"Marla left a month ago." Silence threatened to intervene, so Eli went straight to explaining. Clare was looking around, staring out at the patio at the very sound of the woman's name. In fairness, Clare had never met Eli's wife, but she had created a version of her in her head, and that woman was atrocious. "We weren't doing very well, we talked about therapy, but I came home after a casting meeting in Montreal and she was gone." It felt good to say it all out loud. "Even the mattress was gone, but she left me the bed frame." He shrugged and helped himself to a long sip of ice water. "You're not going to say anything?" Slowly, Eli finally asked, following Clare's gaze to the patio and bringing it back to him.
"I'm just trying to sort out why you're explaining this to me." She replied without having to take a second to think. "It's not like you've taken it upon yourself to share anything else about your life with me in the last three years."
"You have a right to be angry..." He started.
"No kidding." Clare snarled. After all the ups and downs she had followed Eli through, her patience had almost ran out. She was going to try her hardest not to let him just get away wih breaking her heart just a few short years ago.
"I didn't think you would be after three years through. I figured you would have moved on. You have a great career now and ... "
"You thought I would just be civil and okay?" Her eyes popped from kernels to a movie theatre treat. Clare hadn't come to the restaurant with any cruel intentions, but she wasn't just going to be a doormat or a kind old friend. "Eli, you were my big love! We were everything and then you asked for some space, a break, to go to New York as an assist and figure things out, and I was supportive. When we were losing touch, I was still trying to be there for you, and then I have to find out from Mike Dallas, of all people, that you were getting married. We were on a break for what? Four months?"
Reluctantly, Eli mumbled "Five." He held up all his right hand fingers.
"I should have been moving on then, but I stupidly held out for you. I really thought at things would settle down for you and we would pick up where we left off." Slowly, Clare slowed down her heartbeat. She took a quick sip of water and thanked the waiter as he brought the wine right on time, like he knew she was in need of something stronger than H2O. After clearing her throat with the Merlot, she waited for Eli to say something, but he was stunned quiet. She had said all the things he deserved to hear and, while he knew that, he was still unprepared.
"Not a day went by where I didn't think about you." Leaning forward, he whispered it to her like he was still keeping that a secret from the world, his love for the girl who saved him again and again.
"Don't say those kinds of things to me, I'm begging you!" She argued, her eyes shutting in distress. Clare didn't want to cry, not when Alli had out so many layers of black mascara on her lashes. "You never called, you never messaged me, not even a freaking smoke signal. You don't get to waltz into my life again, three years later. You could have called me, you could have been honest, but instead you acted like I didn't matter, as if all our history wasn't real." Clare's words came out with the kind of sincerity she used in all the articles she wrote and Eli could feel how much he hurt her with every breath she drew. Maybe he should have stayed out of her life. He had done enough damage. "You don't get to call me because your marriage is over and you expect me to be there for you."
"I know." Eli nodded, collecting his thoughts and wondering if he should even bother saying anything more. He gripped a curl of brown hair and scratched at his head, hating himself as much as it sounded like Clare had grown to. "I didn't email you because things with Marla ended, well that made it feel more ethical," Eli scrunched up his face, trying to be honest but explain himself properly at the same time. "I emailed you because I always will love you and I wanted to see you. Even if you don't want to or mean to, you make things better." Licking his lips, he told her, suddenly feeling more naked than when she was ripping a strip into him. "I'm sorry for how I handled things. I was a jerk and when I was out in New York, I got caught up and...I can't apologize enough. Everything these last three years has felt like a mistake. It has been a mistake actually because nothing is right in my life when you're not in it." Eli put everything he could out there. He didn't even care that the party of four at the table beside them were so clearly eavesdropping. "Well," suddenly Eli switched his demeanour from sorrowful to upbeat. He pressed his back into his chair and squirmed while fishing his cell phone out from the confines of his pants' pocket. "This is the only thing that hasn't been a mistake..." He scrolled through his screen a moment before reaching across the table to give the phone to her.
Clare stared at it for a moment, hesitant to take it in her own hand. When she realized what she was looking at it, she instinctively picked it up, her knuckles passing his as she did.
"Is he - " In a gasp, Clare began to ask.
"She." He corrected. "That's an old picture," He chuckled, it was just his favourite. "She's about twenty months now. "Nora."
Clare couldn't help herself. She had always imagined that Eli would be an incredible dad and while he had hurt her deeply, she was so thrilled that he was getting the chance to be the father he was supposed to be. It was also nice that he didn't use the baby names that they had discussed when they were together back in the day.
"She has your huge mop of hair." Clare laughed and handed the phone back. "She is very beautiful. Peaceful looking." That much was true, Clare couldn't lie.
Eli just laughed, "You wouldn't say that if I showed you a video." He had screwed up so much, but he was a good father and he knew that. He was happy to show Clare that fact because she had always told him in the past he would be, even when he was lost. "You don't owe me anything. I'm surprised you haven't thrown water in my face."
"It's crossed my mind." Clare mumbled with a slight shrug of her head to her shoulder and sipped on her red wine.
"But Nora is in town with me actually, her mom's busy with..." He stopped himself figuring Clare wouldn't care or need to know. "And I'd really love you two to meet." Eli could sense Clare's hesitance to spend any time with him or get close again, but he wanted so desperately for the two most important women in his life to meet each other. "You're the kind of girl I pray that Nora blossoms into." Without shame, he shared. "I thought, maybe, we could treat you to a day on the island tomorrow. We could meet you at the ferry." Eli had given the day fanciful thought the whole flight to Toronto from California.
Eli nearly broke a sweat, waiting for Clare to reply, but after swishing her Merlot around in her glass and narrowing her blue eyes in on Eli's chest, she started to warm up to the idea.
"I'm going for Nora, not you." She said, knowing that was only half true. In her mind, she could see Alli's wide eyes settling in on her with maternal judgement.
"That's enough for me." From ear to ear, Eli was grinning.
Clare hoped the damage between them could be repaired somehow. She thought, maybe, they could, slowly ease and creep back into each other's lives, but Eli was confident. He knew it would take all the effort he had, but he was going to have Clare as his again and he would not fuck it up this time. The last time was the last mistake he would make with her again. He was fighting with himself now not to tell her he loved her. Anybody could make a mistake, but only a moron made the same mistake twice and Eli Goldsworthy was no moron.
note: just sat down and wrote and hoped for the best. reviews would be much appreciated.