We All Were, Ethan

CW: Physical violence, suicide, sexual content

“Ethan, your mask.”

Clara appeared at my elbow, holding up the black silk thing I had tossed onto the limo seat. I let her tie it around my head like a child getting ready for Halloween. Her fingers were cold on my neck. A sharp pain in my chest muscles made me wince. Gym injury no doubt.

The Prometheus Club looked too grand to be in the middle of the city, its marble columns rising three stories tall as if they’d airdropped the Parthenon into the middle of 8th Street. Golden capitals caught the landscaping lights that illuminated the facade as a steady stream of masked figures ascended the red-carpeted steps. These people had money. Real money.

“There,” she said, stepping back to admire her work. “Very mysterious.”

I felt like a fool, but everyone in attendance was in the same boat as I was or worse. Feathers, jewels, some even covering the entire face. Clara looked good though. She always did. Thirty-three and blessed with the kind of effortless appeal from good genes and expensive skin care routines. Her red dress clung in all the right places. I’d chosen it for her a week ago and she wore it without question despite the dress code calling for white. No girl of mine will just blend into the crowd.

We’d met through her grandfather, one of my wealthiest clients. Estate planning, wealth consolidation, the kind of work that paid for limos and $45,000 tickets to New Year’s gala events like this. The old man had brought her to a consultation three months ago. I ended up fucking her in coat closet while he took a phone call.

“Come on,” she said, taking my arm. “I think I see someone from the Foundation.”

Clara did charity work. Ironic given how much money her grandfather and I had embezzled out of it. Something about literacy or feeding the children. She was pretty, awesome in bed, and didn’t ask too many questions. That was enough.

The crowd inside was exactly what I expected. Tuxedos and white gowns. Anonymous and wealthy. A screen displayed the ball drop in Times Square, still sitting impotently up high as people tried to fix the lights on the stupid thing. A touch of the modern in what felt like a cavernous Greek temple. Still, these were my kind of people.

Clara scampered off to chat with someone, leaving me feeling small and alone in the middle of the ballroom. The website promised an open bar, which is damn well better be for the entry cost. It was all top-shelf stuff and the bartender poured a neat finger of expensive sounding whisky I don’t dare try pronouncing.

“Ethan?”

The voice came behind me. Familiar in a way that tightened my chest.

I turned.

Blonde woman. Short. Curves that filled out her creamy dress that stirred memories I’d buried thirty years ago. Something about the tilt of her head, the way she held her champagne.

She lifted her mask with her free hand.

“Holy shit,” I said, genuinely surprised. I scrambled to place her in context. High school. Sophomore year. Big tits, got clingy, easier to move on than deal with the drama. “Julia? From—”

“West High. Yeah.” Her smile was wide. Too wide. Like the kind painted onto department store mannequins.

“Small world,” I said, taking a sip and buying time to adjust. Of all the people to run into at a New Year’s party. Her breasts were just as magnificent as I remembered them. “You look great. Really great.”

“Thanks.” She touched my arm with fingers that felt cold through my jacket. Like she’d been standing outside. She tracked my eyes down to her chest. “Same old Ethan, I see.”

There was an edge to her voice. Not hostile but not friendly either. Something in between that prickled my skin.

“So what are you up to these days?” I asked, because that’s what you’re supposed to ask when meeting an ex-girlfriend from high school.

“Oh you know.” She gestured vaguely with her drink. “This and that. Surviving.”

“Well that’s great. I—”

“Remember that time you told the whole school I gave you a titjob?” Her smile never wavered. “How you used to describe my boobs to your friends?”

The air between us was as cold as her fingers.

“Julia. I was seventeen—”

“Oh I know how old you were. She stepped closer, sipping her drink. “I was there.”

Her smile stayed painted on as she spoke, even in barely concealed anger. Like a doll’s face. Probably the Botox.

“I’m going to powder my nose, but we should catch up later, Ethan. We have so much to chat about…”

She drifted away towards the ladies’ room before I could formulate a response. I drained my scotch and ordered another, placing the glass on the bar with shaking hands.

Across the room, I caught the eye of a tall redhead as she spoke to someone I couldn’t see. Something about her freckles, her posture…

No. It couldn’t be.

She smiled and sashayed my way with that same confident sway of the hips she had in college.

Casey.

What in the actual fuck. How—

“Ethan.” Her voice was exactly the same. Smoky, low, with that slight accent that sounded good saying my name. “It’s been awhile.”

“Casey. Jesus Christ. I didn’t expect—what are you doing here?”

“I was invited, silly.” She tilted her head. “Why? Not excited to see me again?”

“No, I just—I mean it’s been what, twenty years?”

“Twenty-two, but who’s counting?” She smiled that same painted on smile Julia had worn. “You look good. Success suits you.”

“Thanks. You too. You look—”

“Remember how it ended?” She interrupted. “Between us?”

My mouth went dry. “Casey that was—”

“Cruel. But that’s okay. We all make mistakes when we’re young, right?”

She leaned in close, lips brushing my ear.

“I forgave you, Ethan, but I haven’t forgotten.”

She pulled back, patting my cheek like a puppy, and walked away into the crowd. Still smiling.

I needed to find Clara. Something familiar. Something real. This wasn’t right. Running into one ex at a party was coincidence. Two was—

“Ethan, oh my GOD, hi!”

I hadn’t pushed 6 feet into the crowd when I heard her. She grabbed my arm, spinning me around to face her just as I caught a glimpse of Clara’s red dress. Brunette. Short hair. Round face.

“Oh hey… you.” I stared at her. Did I know her? The way this night was going, chances were I did.

“From middle school!”, she said like it was obvious. Her eyes were bright with something that might have been excitement or rage. Hard to tell behind the mask. “Remember? After the soccer game? Behind the bleachers?”

“I-I’m sorry, but you’ll need to be more specific.”

“Emma! We were fourteen. You got me pregnant.”

I still don't remember. There were lots of girls behind the bleachers. But I never got anyone pregnant. I always pulled out. My game was strong.

“I don’t—”

“They threw things at me when my mom took me to the clinic.” Why was she still fucking smiling. “They called me a murderer. Slut.”

I could only stare. I didn’t remember anything about any pregnancies.

“Well, it was good seeing you, Ethan. Enjoy the party. Happy New Year!”

She melted back into the crowd. My heart was hammering now. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t—

I bumped into someone, hard enough for them to spill their drink on the white marble floor.

The person turned. “Hey Ethan!”

Amanda.

No.

No no no.

We were in our twenties. She was smart, ambitious, and ruthless. She mattered to me. I left her. I got bored. Commitment was a cage, there was always someone newer and shinier waiting.

“Amanda?” My voice cracked. “What—”

“I was invited!” She gestured around the room with her wine glass. “We all were.”

All?

I followed her gesture, really looking at the crowd for the first time.

Everywhere I turned, women were lowering their masks. Just enough for me to see their faces.

Faces I knew.

The goth girl from high school. Carrie something. I’d dumped her for being too depressing, always wearing black, cutting herself in bathroom stalls. Amazing body, but I heard she died. Took some pills or something.

But there she was. Staring at me with a smile she’s never worn before.

Bianca. I dated her for a few months last year. I ghosted meeting her family.

Yuki, the accountant from when I was an intern. I had her against the copy machine after she got drunk at the Christmas party.

Sarah. Lisa. Regan?

Faces surfaced like bodies from a lake. Some with names attached. Most without.

This whole fucking place was my exes.

I grabbed at the nearest man in a tux I could reach. “Bro, I need your help. I’ve been drugged or something. I’m going—”

They turned around. A man with light facial hair and vaguely feminine features. “Hi, Ethan.”

The voice was deeper but I knew it. Katherine from college, but transformed. Broader shoulders. Square jaw. The same features remade into something different.

“Kat?” I stumbled backwards. “You’re… are you?

“I’ve been on hormones for ten years, Ethan. Not that you would know. You never called me back after I came out to you. I trusted you.”

“CLARA!”

The name tore from my throat loud enough that the music stopped. The room was silent. Hundreds of eyes were on me. Staring. Smiling.

Clara emerged from the crowd, her face arranged in perfect concern. “Ethan! What’s wrong, baby?”

I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “THIS ISN’T REAL! Something is fucked up and we need to leave, right now.”

Clara just smiled at me.

That painted smile.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?” she asked softly.

Her face shifted in front of my eyes. Morphing and reconfiguring. Girls from high school, Julia, Yuki, Bianca, Sarah. Every woman in the room, cycling through Clara’s features like a hellish slideshow. Faster and faster until it was just a blur of eyes and smiles.

“Are you real?” I whispered.

The transformations stopped. Clara’s face settled into a beautiful amalgamation of every woman I had ever met. Dating. Fucked. Used. Left.

“Oh yes, sweetheart.” Her voice layered, a cacophony of voices as if the entire room spoke in unison through one pair of lips. “I’m very real.”

She pointed behind me.

“And so are they.”

The entire party stopped. Only the cheap speakers of the TV above the bar made a sound as I saw them all circled around me. Masks off. Every face familiar. Every face a memory I’d left behind, a name I’d never bothered to learn. Why would I have?

“I’ve been drugged. The whisky or something.” My voice was rising. What other reason could there be?

“We didn’t drug you,” Julia said, stepping forward. Something shiny in her hand. “You came here on your own. Paid your admission. Walked right through those doors.”

A pair of hands shoved me forward with force, stumbling into Clara.

“I had your baby,” the woman behind me said calmly. You changed your number. Changed cities.”

Michelle? Or maybe Miranda?

Clara pushed me back and into the crowd. Whoever caught me spoke into my ear. “You fucked my roommate.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I never cheated on anyone! I wouldn’t—”

“I was that roommate, Ethan,” a raven-haired woman spat, still somehow smiling. “I knew you were dating Hannah and I let you fuck me anyway. You said you were going to break it off with her. You left both of us.”

My vision was narrowing. Heart unable to pump enough blood for my brain to comprehend.

“Thanks for the herpes, Ethan.”

“You beat me when I said I would call the cops on you.” Another voice, who the hell was that?

“My father just died and you just wanted sex from me. No comfort. No empathy. I need you and you couldn’t bother.”

“I wasn’t ready. You pressured me. Calling me frigid.”

A chorus of accusations. I couldn’t parse lies and truth.

Carries stepped forward. The goth girl. Face still pale, lips dark. A glint in her hand.

“I trusted you. You held my life in your hands and you dropped it on the floor. My depression. I was suicidal. You said you cared, but you only cared about my pussy.”

“Carrie, I was sixteen—”

“I took pills the night you left me crying on the bathroom floor. Too high maintenance. Not worth it. Did you even know?”

“I heard something—”

Did you go to my funeral? Did you even think about me?” She stepped closer. “Even once?”

The glint in her hand raised. Steel flashed.

Sharp pain exploded in my shoulder. I looked down, saw the thin metal spike protruding from my tuxedo. It felt wet. Carrie pushed it in further with a strength I couldn’t stop.

“You barely remembered my name.”

Another searing pain. From behind me, the other shoulder.

“I died getting the only abortion I could afford.” Her voice was steady and clinical as she pulled the spike out to thrust it in again with every statement. “You wouldn’t answer my calls. Wouldn’t give me the money. You gave me no choice.

She left it in my shoulder as the crowd closed in around me. Hands all glinting with steel. I couldn’t run, the ones in the tuxedos were too strong to push past. Hands like iron, pushing me back into the fray.

Hands everywhere. Grabbing. Pulling. Holding me. Every hand with an ice pick.

“You said you loved me.”

Pain exploded in my chest. Before I could scream, another pick sank into my ribs. Then another.

“Thanks for the herpes, Ethan.”

“You never meant anything.”

I couldn’t see faces anymore, just a blurring carousel of smiles and eyes and glinting steel. I fell to my knees as the number of puncture wounds grew and grew. The pain was searing, blood pouring out across the slick marble floor and around countless sets of high heeled shoes.

“Please… I didn’t mean—”

“You never meant to.” Hannah said, kneeling beside me. “That was the problem. You never meant anything.”

She drove her icepick into my chest. Time stopped meaning anything as the onslaught continued. Minutes, Hours? The only thing was the pain. I should be dead. Blood loss alone should have killed me. But I wouldn’t die.

My body kept working. Heart still beating. Lungs pulling in air to let me scream.

I begged and apologized. The words dissolved into animal sounds, meaningless noise.

Through blurred vision, I saw Clara kneeling beside me, stroking my blood soaked hair with gentle fingers.

“Help,” I would only wheeze. “Please make it stop. Just let me die.”

“Oh Ethan. Sweet Ethan. That’s not how this works.”

She leaned in close, lips brushing my ear.

“See you again tomorrow, loverboy.”

The stabbing continued. The pain continued. The ball fell. Happy New Year.

_______

I stepped out of the limo with Clara.

The December air bit at my face as The Prometheus Club rose before us, all marble columns and golden light.

“Ethan, your mask.”

I turned. Clara held up the black silk mask, smiling. I let her tie it around my head.

“There. Very mysterious.”

I winced as I straightened my tuxedo jacket.

“You okay, honey?

Yeah.” I rubbed my shoulder. “Just this weird stabbing pain. Must have slept on it wrong.”

“Poor baby.” She took my arm, leading me up the steps. The club’s door stood open, music and conversation drifting out. “Come on inside. Let’s get you a drink.”

Her smile seemed unnatural tonight. Painted on. Perfect. Wrong.

“Yeah, a drink right about now sounds good.”

We walked into the light as the heavy doors boomed shut behind us.