to face me. “Tell me anyway.”
She heaves a sigh. “Well, I, uh, kind of fell off track at the end of my sophomore year . . . you’re sure you want to hear this?” My poor girl. It’s like she’s being led to the gallows.
“Yes.”
She nods at the firm tone of my voice. “Okay. So at the end of my sophomore year I found out that my long-term boyfriend had a wife and kid back home.”
Okay, not what I was expecting. “The fuck?”
Our gazes clash, and I see so much sadness reflected there. “Yeah, Nathan was a grad student from Ohio, doing his degree here. It really messed me up when I found out. I mean, we’d been together for almost a year, we’d even talked about marriage and having kids together. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the kinds of lies he’d spun for me.”
She seems even more worn out now than when I arrived, as if dredging up these memories is exhausting. “Anyway, after it all came out, I needed to escape, so I applied to do a year abroad in Spain . . . and I got accepted, but not until January. It was such a disaster, my junior year. I barely managed to pass my classes here at Stanford and when I finally got to Madrid, I didn’t do much better. Then, over the summer break, I went to Ibiza with some friends . . . and I, uh, never looked back.”
I can feel the frown on my face as I try to untangle what she’s telling me. I say try because my mind is tripping over words like Spain, Stanford, and Ibiza, and how they apply to my Ellie.
“After that, all I did was hang out and party for almost two years.”
She sounds . . . ashamed, and that further confuses me. Wouldn’t hanging out in paradise like that be amazing? Then my practical side comes up with, “Wasn’t that expensive?”
A rare blush starts to bloom under the dismayed expression on her face, confounding me even more. “I . . .” She flounders for a second, then re-starts. “So, there are a few things Ibiza isn’t lacking. Alcohol, drugs, and rich men, and I basically played that scenario out until I . . . couldn’t anymore.”
Huh? What scenario? “You’re saying . . . You’re saying what?”
“I’m saying I hooked up with guys who liked to party.” She then starts shaking her head jerkily. “No, I’m sugar-coating this,” she says more to herself, rubbing at her forehead anxiously. She hauls in a deep breath and starts again. “I slept with rich guys in exchange for a place to crash, all the booze and drugs I wanted, and gifts; designer bags, shoes, clothes, jewelry. Stuff I would pawn when I needed a break. Some ‘relationships’ would last a few months and some only a few weeks.”
Jesus. What?
My brain spins, trying to digest her words.
Because . . . What?
“In the beginning,” she continues, her voice reduced to a whisper. “I didn’t realize that I was chiseling away at tiny parts of myself. All I focused on was the ego boost after Nathan’s betrayal. Men wanted me and I didn’t like being alone with my thoughts. With everything being blunted by the booze, it seemed like a perfect solution to all my problems.”
I can only stare at her and note how she starts to hunch in on herself.
“It took a while, but I finally pulled myself together,” she says, uncurling her spine slightly as if she’s gathering the vestiges of her self-respect around herself.
It’s that change in her that shakes me from the shock. I’m not going to pretend that what she’s telling me hasn’t taken me by surprise. Because, what the fuck? But I haven’t heard anything that needs to be forgiven.
“So you can see why I . . . I’m not . . . it wouldn’t be appropriate for your girls.”
“Oh, El, come here.” I pull her onto my lap and tuck her head under my chin. “You don’t think my girls would benefit from knowing a woman who pulled herself out of a situation she recognized as damaging?”
“Scott –”
“Hang on. A woman who’s strong enough to completely remake herself and quit drinking? A woman who – if I understand correctly – is about to graduate from an Ivy League school? You don’t think she’d be appropriate?”
“I . . . no, I . . .”
“How many times have you told me that Piper is your past,