Fracture

by K L Hughes

  “What are you talking about?” Leigh asked him, slightly offended by his tone, but genuinely curious as to what had him so frustrated with her.

  “My best friend is a poised, classy, wealthy, successful, grown woman with an impossibly intelligent and sophisticated head on her shoulders. This woman,” he said, motioning to Leigh, “I don’t know this woman. The Leigh I know doesn’t aimlessly sleep around, nor does she accept offers of sex from just anyone willing, especially not some distasteful slut with a trust fund.”

  “Maybe you should just mind your fucking business then,” Leigh snapped out at J, unable to contain the vicious bite in her voice. She was on the defensive, and she knew, inwardly, that it was because J was right about her recent awful behavior and poor decisions, but she wasn’t ready to admit that to him or even, really, to herself.

  “Oh no, no, you don’t get to do that,” J said, turning on his best friend, his anger apparent in his eyes. “You don’t get to act like a fool and then chew my ass out whenever I call you on it. You want to get mad at someone? Get mad at yourself.” He grabbed his coat and keys from the bedside table in Leigh’s studio, and made angrily and hastily for the door.

  Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Leigh’s thoughts screamed at her for her behavior, screamed at her to pull herself together, and screamed at her for berating the one person she loved more than anyone in the world.

  “Shit, wait, J, wait!” Leigh practically yelled out as she realized her mistake, running to grab her best friend and stop him from leaving. He turned around and without asking for an apology or even saying a word, he tossed his keys to the floor, and grabbed up his best friend in the tightest embrace he could manage. She instantly broke, sobbing into his neck as he only held her tighter.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” Leigh whispered to him over and over again, and she squeezed him tighter, trying to pull him closer and closer, though he was already as close as humanly possible.

  “I know,” he whispered back to her, stroking her long, brown, beautiful locks tenderly as he finally settled her feet back onto the floor. He pulled her over to the bed and forced her to sit down with him. “Now, you’re going to talk to me, about everything. Everything, Leigh. I’m serious. I want the entire truth. Now, I know this woman seriously screwed you up, but now it’s time to share the details, and don’t brush it off by saying that I’ve read your book. Yes, I have, but the book, as intricate as it is, is still light on the more tragic details, so I want you to walk me through what happened. I need to know because that’s the only way I can help you. Please, honey, talk to me.” His voice was pleading, which made Leigh’s heart ache. She didn’t want to talk about her past. In fact, it was the last thing in the world she ever wanted to talk about, but she knew J deserved to hear the entirety of the story so that he could understand the depth of Leigh’s anguish over this woman. So, she took a deep breath, nodded her head, closed her eyes, and let her mind float her back through the years. Back to her youth. Back to her pain.

  ****

  “Jesus, and she just left it like that? Not a single fucking word?” J inquired incredulously, his hatred of this woman rising despite the fact that he knew that the woman’s hands were, in part, tied due to her extenuating circumstances when the two of them had become involved, but that certainly didn’t entirely excuse her. How someone could do that to a person that they claimed to truly, soulfully love was beyond him, especially when the person being hurt was a child, a vulnerable child at that. It nauseated him.

  “Nothing,” Leigh answered, her sobs having finally calmed down, tears still shining on her cheeks and leaking slowly from her eyes, but at least her breathing had slowed into a gentle rise and fall versus the heavy, ragged, gasping pant it had been during the more intense parts of the story she’d told her best friend.

  “Leigh…” J said softly, his voice trailing off as if he were afraid to finish saying what he’d wanted to say.

  “What?” Leigh asked, knowing what was coming.

  “How are you still in love with this woman…after what she did to you?”

  Leigh felt her chest tighten to the point of collapse, until she thought she might black out again. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. She’d never lied to J before, and she knew there was no point in starting now, not that he’d fall for it. She more wanted to lie to herself, for her own benefit, but after twelve years of pushing and pushing and pushing all that dark and depressing shit to the back of her mind, she knew it was time to just let it out and be honest. She felt her breath hitch in her throat as she choked on the renewed violent, forceful sobs, as the truth bubbled up her esophagus like acid, burning every inch.

  She didn’t want to admit the truth to anyone. She didn’t want to admit that she’d loved the woman for nearly fifteen years, the woman who’d abandoned her and hurt her so deeply, that she’d never stopped loving her. She didn’t want to admit that she’d compared every woman she’d ever met, every woman she’d ever been romantically involved with, to her past love, despite the astoundingly bizarre fact that she and her first love had never even had a relationship. They’d never been physically intimate. They’d never been anything more than desperately in love with each other, fighting their realities every long, painful, separate step of the way. She didn’t want to admit that in almost thirty years of living, she’d never felt a single shred of emotion even remotely close to what she’d felt with that woman. The closest she’d ever come was with J, and that stopped abruptly after platonic intimacy. He’d filled the hole in her heart that had previously threatened to rip her apart and destroy her, and for that she’d be eternally grateful, but a part of her always knew that it would never be enough for either of them. They both needed someone that they could share that final important passionate level of intimacy with. Sooner or later.

  “I don’t know,” Leigh whispered, “but I don’t think I’ll ever stop.” She quietly, slowly got up from the bed, pulled on her jacket, grabbed J’s hand, and pulled him toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. I need some air…and some coffee.” She made an attempt at a small smile, but failed miserably as tears bubbled back to the surface. J wrapped an arm around her and headed for the door, reaching up silently to wipe the tears from her cheeks as they stepped out of the studio apartment, headed for the cool touch of the nighttime city air.

  ****

  *Twelve Years Earlier*

  “I don’t understand,” Leigh pleaded with the older woman, tears flooding her flushed cheeks. “You can’t…You don’t want to see me anymore?”

  Both women shifted uncomfortably where they stood, feet apart from each other, both with their arms crossed tightly across their chests, embracing themselves. The park was cool that day, the sun shining brightly down on them as the cool autumn breeze caressed their skin. It was a strange sensation—the comforting external, physical caress paired with the burning, aching, choking pain radiating through every interior inch. Like nature itself was trying to ease them both through this awkward and awful agony.

  “I’m so sorry,” Beth told her, and she meant it. She’d never meant anything more in her life. She hated herself in that moment, hated herself entirely. She wanted to be able to say she’d do anything to keep from hurting the beautiful young woman in front of her, the young woman she’d fallen so deeply, so madly, so passionately in love with, but that obviously wasn’t true, and she wouldn’t insult Leigh by saying those words to her now. Truthfully, Beth didn’t even understand why she was doing this, why she was letting this happen. Her husband had had suspicions of her relationship with Leigh, and now he had demands. He’d heard the rumors. So had her entire family, and so had Leigh’s, but the brunette had never given up on them. She never caved to the pressures put on her. She kept her mouth shut and her head down, but she never stopped loving the older woman, and she never walked away.

  But Leigh didn’t have a husband. She didn’t have the same life, the same responsibilities. Beth gav
e herself a thousand excuses, but none of them sank any further than skin deep. She knew, plain and simple, that she was being nothing more than a coward. She wasn’t ready to tell the world, to upend her life, or to pull the last thirty years up by the roots and start over. The thought alone was terrifying, and as much as she wished she could, she couldn’t overcome her fears and follow her heart. And she knew, with absolutely certainty, that she’d regret this day for the rest of her life.

  “But…you said you loved me,” Leigh said, her voice shaking violently as she tried to hold her ground, tried to keep herself from falling apart inside all of the inferences and assumptions jumping off of Beth’s barely existent explanation and collapsing. She wanted to hear the words. She wanted to hear Beth tell her exactly what was going on, and more importantly, why. She wanted an explanation, a true one. She deserved that much, but the sickening sinking feeling in her gut told her she wouldn’t get one, at least, not one she would ever deem good enough. “What did I do? What did I…tell me what I did wrong? Tell me and I’ll fix it. I’ll be better. I’ll do anything. Just tell me, please. Tell me what I did wrong!”

  Beth cried fiercely, the streams dominating her cheeks and the lump growing rapidly in her throat preventing her speech. She simply stood there, shaking, weeping, and avoiding eye contact. She was a wreck. Leigh’s pleading words tore at her resolve, tore at her heart like nothing ever had. She wanted nothing more than to cave to it, to run to the brunette, wrap her up in her arms, and never let go. She wanted to cry harder than her body would allow without blacking out, though the dizziness clouding her thoughts implied that she might do just that. She wanted to scream. She wanted to curse the God she’d been raised to never question. She wanted answers, maybe even more than the sad and beautiful creature in front of her did, but she knew she may never get them. She tried to speak, tried to tell Leigh that she did love her, would always love her, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t crush her and claim to love her in the same breath. She couldn’t apologize anymore, because no amount of words could ever justify the depth of her sorrow. She couldn’t explain, because she had no explanation but for her own fear and shame. So, instead, she just shook her head and wept.

  “Tell me!” Leigh shouted at her, rousing a flock of birds in the nearest tree, each one bolting from the branches and taking to the air, much the same way that Beth wished she could now. She’d give anything to be able to fly away, to take Leigh’s hand and fly away with her, escape this cruel, wicked life that had done nothing but rob and rape the girl and force Beth to add to that pain.

  “I can’t,” Beth finally choked out, and with that, she turned quickly on her heel and walked away, leaving Leigh standing alone, the leaves swirling around her feet, the sun shining atop her head like a perfect halo. She left behind the truest, most precious love she’d ever known, and fought her own heart with every single step.

  Leigh simply stood there, the pain of a broken heart spreading through every ounce of blood, every inch of bone, and every millimeter of flesh. She felt the pain of the loss in every part of her, and she knew that pieces of her would always feel that pain. She’d watched the woman walk away from her, and as much as she’d wanted to run after her, she hadn’t been able to move. The shock, the anguish, the agony, had paralyzed her, her feet melting into the ground as she waited for answers to come that never would. She waited to wake up, waited for Beth to turn and come back to her. Beth never turned, though. She never came back. She was gone.

  Chapter 9

  Leigh tucked her head into the wind as she walked aimlessly downtown. She hated the cold, but she’d needed to clear her head, and nothing had ever helped her to accomplish that more than walking around the city, letting the sights and the sounds and the smells rush through her, remind her who she was, where she was, how far she’d come—remind her not to give in, not to give up—remind her not to take it, a single second of it, for granted. It was therapeutic, the walking. She’d always enjoyed walking, but once she’d moved to the city, her love of it only grew. She loved that she could walk freely through the city and just be another face, just another body. She reveled in the anonymity of it, in the way she could disappear, in the way it helped her to forget.

  Leigh was an analytical person. She took things apart in her mind, evaluated the individual pieces, and reconstructed the whole, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. She just couldn’t help herself. It was an innate need she’d seemed to have had since birth, the need to tear things apart, the need to destroy herself, the need to overanalyze, overthink. Question everything. She’d been raised on the principles of faith, though she’d long since abandoned that way of life. As far as she was concerned, if a God existed, he’d abandoned her a long time ago. Now, she lived the best way she knew how. She supported people and respected people, and she cherished every breath for what it was—beautiful, beating life. Despite the hardships she’d endured, and the pain she still harbored over them, she wasn’t bitter anymore, and that was a truly incredible accomplishment.

  Leigh rounded the corner, coming onto 16. She’d texted J to come and meet her for coffee before heading back to her studio, and she was a bit ahead of schedule, but she didn’t mind. She’d wait for him inside. As she neared the coffee shop, she finally lifted her head into the wind, taking a deep, soothing breath of fresh air. That’s when she saw her. There she was plain as day, walking toward the coffee shop, her coffee shop. Before Leigh even realized what she was doing, her feet had taken off without permission, hurtling her toward her destination. Her thoughts spiraled into a torrential rain of anguish and intrigue.

  “Hey!” Leigh yelled out, her voice coming out angry and distressed, just as the woman had grabbed the handle of the door and was about to step into the coffee shop. Her head spun around, and for the first time in twelve, almost thirteen, years, Leigh looked into the eyes of the woman from her past. Even from a bit of a distance, it was enough. Leigh’s heart exploded in her chest, her breath slamming through her lips as she forced her feet to slow to an abrupt stop. She and the woman were only about thirty feet apart from each other, neither of them saying a word, both just staring into each other’s eyes. Leigh’s breath came in ragged pants as the ache in her chest ripped through the rest of her body until she felt herself going under again, falling away from consciousness. She clung to reality, though, forcing herself to stay grounded, to stay awake, to stay in the moment no matter how much it hurt her to do so.

  Leigh’s tongue felt frozen to the roof of her mouth. She had a million questions, a million insults, a million apologies, a million confessions, a million of everything for this woman. She couldn’t contain it all, but at the same time, she couldn’t let it out. She couldn’t move. Her brain forced her to plant her feet and stay planted. Survival instincts. Her own body told her to stay away, warned her to turn around and walk in the other direction, to let this go, to move on, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. It had been over a decade, and it was time she got some answers.

  “What are you doing here?” Leigh managed to choke out, that bite of anger still audible in her tone. They continued to stare at each other. The woman took a step forward, and without realizing she’d done it, Leigh shook her head from side to side, a clear warning for the woman to stay back. She did. She stopped mid-step, obeying Leigh’s wishes, respecting her boundaries. “I asked you a question, and you can answer it from there.”

  When the woman finally spoke, her voice was broken, and Leigh could see the tears that brimmed over her eyelids. She resisted the urge to comfort the woman; the fact that she’d even had the urge to do so pissed her off. She didn’t want to feel anything for this woman. She wanted to shove those feelings underwater and hold them there until they drowned. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said.

  “Leigh? What’s going on?” That time, it wasn’t the woman who spoke. It was J. Lost in the moment, Leigh had completely forgotten that her best friend had been on his way to meet her for coffee, and as soon
as she heard his voice, her stomach clenched uncomfortably. This was bad. She was afraid of what J’s reaction to the situation was going to be once he actually realized who this woman was. She knew he wouldn’t be able to contain the rage he felt toward Leigh’s first love, and she didn’t blame him. If anyone ever made J feel the way that this woman had made her feel, Leigh didn’t know if she’d be able to stop herself at simply speaking her mind. She’d want to hurt the person. Badly.

  “J, just go inside and wait for me,” Leigh said softly, hoping that her voice wouldn’t come out sounding as shaky as her body felt, but it did. In fact, she sounded as if she might keel over any minute. Her emotions and senses had slammed headfirst into overdrive, adrenaline pumping as if she was running for her life, and every inch of her body buzzed and tingled and quivered with the riot taking place inside of her.

  “No, tell me what’s going on here? Who are you?” J said, confronting the silent woman staring at his best friend, though the sinking feeling in his gut told him that he already knew who she was.

  “My name is Beth, uh Elizabeth Layton, but everyone calls me Beth,” the woman said quietly to J, whose eyes widened at the name, though he’d suspected as much. Leigh’s knees shook when the woman spoke, when she voiced her name to J. God, she was going to pass out any second. This was all too much, happening too suddenly, too quickly, happening at all.

  “I thought so,” J said, his voice rigid and cold as he spoke to the woman. “You have some nerve showing up here, lady.” The woman didn’t say anything and neither did Leigh. They continued to stare at one another, neither of them moving even an inch. J shook his head. This was going to end badly; he was sure of it, but he couldn’t deny the tangible electricity in the air, sparking like arced lightning between the two women. He wasn’t sure if it was tension, or anger, or…desire. Whatever it was, it was impossible to miss. He stepped forward and put an arm around his best friend, doing his best to transfer his strength to her. Finally, the woman spoke again.