Heartless Few Box Set

by MV Ellis

  He yields finally, moving sideways to let me through the door. Their apartment feels eerily empty and quiet. My footsteps echo off the triple-height ceilings as I walk down the parquet hall to the living area. Marko’s outstretched hand guides the way. As much as I don’t want to believe it, I know instinctively that London isn’t here. I feel it. Or more accurately, I feel nothing. When she’s near me, I feel her.

  I turn on my heel to confront Marko. Surprised, he comes to a stop sharply to avoid crashing into me. I guess ballet gives you good reflexes.

  “Where is she?” I spit angrily.

  “Gone.” He shrugs noncommittally, and my blood runs dangerously hot. This could end very badly if he doesn’t play it right.

  I clench, then loosen my fists. I desperately need to stay in control. He’s the only source of information I have about London right now, so the last thing I can afford is to piss him off and have him shut me out. Not that he needs a reason, I’m sure. Regardless, I need to keep him sweet, or I’ve got nothing. Refraining from tearing him limb from limb is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I wait a beat or two before answering, buying myself more time to simmer the fuck down and start behaving like a civilized adult.

  “Gone where?”

  “Australia.”

  “What the fuck did you just say?” I growl. Who am I trying to kid? When it comes to London, I’m anything but civilized. Or adult. I swear to God, I’ll kill this son of a bitch where he stands and not even look back.

  “You heard me. She’s gone to Sydney to be with her folks.”

  I pace the living room like a prizefighter before a big bout.

  “You’re lying. Where is she?” Despite my own gut feeling, I sweep my eyes around the room frantically, looking beyond Marko, hoping to work out where in the apartment London’s room is. I hear rustling coming from behind him, and my anger bubbles over to full-on rage. I’ve never been much of a footballer, but from nowhere, I shoulder charge Marko like an all-star linebacker. A raging bull has nothing on me. Luckily for him, but not so much for me, Marko’s reflexes are on point once again—damn that ballet training—and he jumps sideways as soon as he sees me lunging for him. I connect, but the majority of the impact is taken by the doorframe as I slam painfully into it. Fuck. I think I screwed my shoulder.

  To his credit, Marko doesn’t punch my lights out like I probably would have if the roles were reversed. Instead, he reaches out to help steady me on my feet before putting both hands on my shoulders. Ouch. I’ve definitely fucked myself up properly.

  He looks straight into my eyes.

  “Listen, man, I’m not lying. She’s. Not. Here. Look.” He retrieves his phone from his back pocket, holding it out toward me. I reach for it.

  “She knew you wouldn’t want to believe me, so she sent me this from the airport.” I look down at the handset and see that what he’s showing me is a photograph of London’s boarding pass. Photographic evidence. She’s gone.

  “You’re lying. I just heard her moving around back there. You’re both fucking lying. You just don’t want me to see her.” Eyes wild, I get the strong urge to break something. Marko’s nose, for example.

  Possibly reading my mind, Marko presses down harder on my shoulders—Jesus, that hurts—continuing to look me square in the eyes.

  “You need to calm the fuck down, dude. Losing your shit isn’t going to help matters, not for you or for her. I’m holding back because she wouldn’t want me to hurt you, but if you carry on, I can’t promise not to take you out, okay?” I’d like to see him fucking try. He eases his grip a little. Thank fuck, because my shoulder hurts like a bitch.

  “She’s gone. The sooner you accept that, the better.” His hold on me may have loosened, but he maintains a firm but even tone of voice.

  Easy for him to say. He’s not the one whose baby she’s carrying. He’s not the one she left to wake up to an ultrasound photo on his pillow while she boarded a plane to the other side of the fucking world. He may have a point, but it doesn’t make me any less hell-bent on wringing his perfect neck.

  Maybe I’m losing my mind, but I know I’m sure as shit not hearing things. Yet. I’m about to question him again about the sound from behind him, but he beats me to it.

  “Jourdan!” he calls out in the direction of the noise. “Jourda—”

  “Yeah?” A redhead pads toward us from one of the rooms down the hall. She’s wearing only an oversized shirt I’m guessing belongs to Marko, as it positively drowns her. When she reaches the living area, she stands at Marko’s side, looking indifferently between the two of us. She has sex hair, and a slight sheen to her skin and puffiness to her lips that screams “freshly fucked.”

  Marko sighs. “This is Jourdan.” Oh. I vaguely recall London mentioning something about Marko and someone called Jourdan. The merest hint of a smile graces her lips for a fleeting moment, while she continues to look between us like a spectator at a tennis match. She’s so different from London. In fact, her air of aloof detachedness reminds me of Marnie. I ignore her.

  “She’s pregnant. With my baby.” Fuck. It feels so… monumental to say those words. It’s fucking surreal.

  “I know, man.” Of course he does. To find out I’m going to be a father after her best friend is an extra slap in the face. I get that they’re close, but this feels like a betrayal, pure and simple. I hate that this fuckstain knows more about my life right now than I do.

  “She left this on the bed, then took off.” I pull the ultrasound photo from the inside pocket of my leather jacket and hold it toward Marko. He doesn’t look at it, so I guess he’s already seen it.

  He speaks as though reading my thoughts again.

  “She had to tell me. I was the one holding her hair back and bringing her soda water while she puked herself inside out for weeks on end. She’s been majorly sick. She could barely hold anything down. You saw how thin and frail she was, right? Now you know why.”

  Oh man. With hindsight, that explains so much. Not just her appearance, but also the vomiting at various points, and even the sudden switch to decaf—I remember Jake telling me once that women can’t drink coffee when they’re knocked up, and that his wife, Kris, was extra cranky through her pregnancies as a result. I can’t say I blame her; I would be the same without jitter juice in my life.

  London said she had been more tearful than usual, which was something else I remember from Kris’s pregnancies. Jake tells a hilarious story about Kris crying for hours because he ate the last slice of pizza—still bawling her eyes out even after he had ordered more, and it had been delivered to their house.

  I had thought London’s puking had been brought on by nerves or anxiety; with the show, and more recently, all my shit, she definitely had plenty in her life to stress about. But pregnancy definitely makes more sense now that I know. How did I not think of this? Not even a fucking clue. The information on the top of the scan tells me that she’s just shy of twelve weeks pregnant, which means this baby was conceived… in Paris.

  Paris, where even though, at London’s insistence, our contracts stated that we were to keep things strictly business, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Paris, where we fucked morning, noon, and night, and where one time, in the heat of the moment, we got carried away and broke my “no bareback” rule.

  As London is… was on birth control, we figured we’d be okay that one time, because what are the chances? Even so, we vowed to use condoms from then on, just to be sure, and we stuck to it. Until last night. Last night was a whole different ball game. Obviously she knew we couldn’t get pregnant, because we already are, but I had no idea, and again I hadn’t thought twice about foregoing a condom. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say that the thought hadn’t even entered my mind. They say rules are meant to be broken, but I hadn’t just broken mine with London. I had taken a dump all over them. For someone who doesn’t trust easily, I went there with London in a heartbeat. I trusted her from day one.

  “
Look, she had her reasons. I’m not saying I agree with her decisions, but I respect that they’re hers to make, and I support her in whatever she chooses to do.” He looks at me like I’m something he found lurking at the bottom of a sewer. You don’t have to be a genius to read the accusation in his eyes. I guess he’s right—I can’t say I’m currently feeling as supportive toward her as he is, but then he’s her best friend, not her surprise baby daddy.

  I think about the different ways I could end him, and how I would dispose of his rotting corpse. He carries on, oblivious to how close he came to being hacked to pieces and ground into pig feed.

  “Look, I know I literally just said I respect her decisions, and I do.” He sighs, closing his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was struggling with his conscience. I’m intrigued.

  “She’ll probably kill me for telling you this, but…” He glances hesitantly at Jourdan, but if he’s looking for reassurance or reproach, he’s shit out of luck. She’s a perfect vision of bored indifference. If she has any opinion about what Marko is about to say, she’s keeping it well hidden. Shit, her poker face is better than mine. I do remember London saying Marko may have met his match with Jourdan. Good. From one asshole who’s been there to another, it serves him the fuck right. I hope he gets what he deserves, just like me. Karma very clearly is a massive fucking biatch.

  “I feel like you should know that she isn’t relocating to Australia for good. She was going half out of her mind here before she left. You saw her. She was run-down, exhausted, and over it. She needed a change of scene, and some home-cooked food will do her good, now that she can keep it down. More than anything, I honestly think she just needed a hug from her mom, and some time to clear her mind. She has an open-ended return ticket, but I’d bet my balls she’ll be back in a few weeks. Let her cool off, rest up, and get her head straight over there, and then the two of you can talk.”

  I need to get the fuck out of this apartment before I do something we’ll all live to regret.

  I hate hearing all of this from Marko—partially because I suspect he’s right, but more so because he’s not London. The fact that he is so involved and… invested in the lives of my girl and my baby guts me to the core. London hadn’t been wrong when she’d said that our life together was a wild ride. She doesn’t have the monopoly on suffering from emotional whiplash. The difference is that when shit goes down between us, I’m drawn closer to her, while her instinct is to push me away.

  “In the meantime, you know how stubborn she can be. My advice is to leave her be. Let her do her thing, work through her ‘process,’ and she’ll come back to you. I’m sure of it. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know what’s going on with her.”

  Having to take Marko’s advice is a bitter pill to swallow, but I guess he’s right. She’s gone to Australia at least in part to get away from me, so I need to let her have that, at least for a little while.

  I nod my agreement and leave. My shoulder is busted and bruised, but not as much as my ego. Whoever said that mighty things come in small packages was right—London may be half my size, but she has the power to cut me down like a chainsaw to a dying tree.

  Outside the apartment, I fire off a text to London, which I know she won’t get for hours—the flight to Sydney is ridiculously long, but I want her to see it as soon as she lands.

  Me: Found the ultrasound, and spoke to Marko. I love you and our baby. I’ll always be here to catch you both, even when you push me away. AJ

  Eleven

  Sleep evades me that night. My shoulder is inflamed and raw, but it’s not the only cause of my insomnia. Instead of trying to force rest, I gulp down a bunch of pain meds I’m not even sure are mine and drive to the studio. If nothing else, while I’m playing, I’m focusing on just that, not thinking about whatever’s eating away at me. So, often I play, and by the time I’m done, I’ve forgotten what I was pissed off about, or I remember, but I no longer give a fuck. It’s what got me through the years after my dad died without ending up in jail, or worse.

  Tonight I pace the makeshift stage in the studio’s recording booth like a prisoner waiting out his time on death row, allowing my anger to erupt like hot lava from a long-dormant volcano and pour into the words I sing. Some of the songs have been building in my mind over the previous weeks and months, but the rest are brand-new, developing organically as I let the lyrics pull me where they want to go. It’s a stream of consciousness, but the outcome is better than some of the shit we worked on for months for our previous albums.

  Fueled by endless coffees, cigarettes, adrenaline, and prescription narcotics for my shoulder, I go through the night and into the morning. At a reasonable hour, I decide to call Mom, aware of the utter hypocrisy of the move. Two days earlier I tore the guys new assholes for calling her on my behalf, and here I am now doing the same myself. I may be a hypocrite, but I’m also going to be a father—that fact puts a lot of other shit in perspective. Big-time. Mom would know that more than most people. Besides, I guess I feel like I owe her an update after our last call. She picks up on the first ring.

  “Hi, Arlo.”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “How are you?” Why does her voice sound like she’s bracing herself for bad news?

  “Been better.”

  “London?”

  What else would it be? I wouldn’t normally speak to Mom on the phone twice in the course of a year, and here we were on our second call in as many days. Of course London.

  “Yeah.”

  Mom says, “She’s pregnant,” at the exact same time I say, “She’s gone.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  “Pregnant? How did you know?” We speak at the same time again, laugh nervously, and fall silent.

  “You go first,” Mom concedes.

  “She is pregnant, but how did you know? I only found out yesterday.”

  “I don’t know, I just knew. When we met at the gallery, remember I mentioned she had that glow? I had a feeling in my gut right away. That’s why I was urging you to speak to her. I figured if she hadn’t told you by now, she must have been close to… assuming she wasn’t planning on keeping it from you indefinitely, or….” She lets her voice trail off and I know what she’s hinting at.

  “I haven’t spoken to her. I mean, I have, but not about this. I called her like you said, and I was surprised when she picked up and agreed to see me. We met up, talked, and it turns out she wanted to end it officially in person. We went back to my place for old time’s sake, and when I woke up the next morning, she was nowhere to be seen. That’s when I found her ‘calling card.’”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I looked across to her side of the bed and found an ultrasound photo on the pillow.”

  “I don’t understand.” She’s not alone.

  “She’s pregnant with my baby, and she’s gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Australia.”

  Mom sucks in a sharp, shocked breath.

  “You said you haven’t spoken to her.”

  “I haven’t. As soon as I found the ultrasound, I sped to her place, but she was already on a plane. I spoke to Marko, her best friend, and he told me everything. Namely that she doesn’t want anything to do with me right now. Not that I needed him to tell me. Bailing to the other side of the world without warning sends a pretty clear message.”

  “When was all this?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “So if you haven’t spoken to her, you don’t know if she’s…. Or if she’s going to….” Tearful, she lets her sentence trail off again.

  “You can say the word, Mom. Abortion. No, technically I don’t know if she’s planning to, or even already has terminated our baby. But to leave that photo and disappear without a word knowing that she had or was about to do that would be cruel. That’s not her style. If she loves you, she does it with her whole heart. Likewise, if she’s pissed at you, she’ll let you know in no uncertain terms, especially where I’m concerned
—she’s never been shy to tell me exactly what a douche she thinks I am.” Despite the pain in my chest, I smile a little at the thought. Like Gramps said, I have finally met my match with my little hummingbird. More than anyone, she’s happy to give it to me with both barrels when I screw up.

  “You know she struggled with the idea of the two of us for a long time, but she’s never done anything in the past to lead me to think she would be vindictive, no matter what I had done to her. I just don’t believe she would ever go out of her way to hurt someone. Even me.” Especially me. Especially under these circumstances.

  “But she is hurting you. I mean—”

  “No, Mom, let me finish. I get that it’s her body and her decision, and I respect that. I just know if that’s the decision she made, she wouldn’t drop it on me that way.

  “Apart from the fact that it would be out of character for her to do that, when I spoke to Marko, he told me that she’s had a rough ride with the pregnancy so far.” I pause momentarily at the foreign feel of the word on my tongue. It’s not a word I ever thought would be associated with me, but now that it is, I really want it to stay that way.

  “He helped her deal with the sickness, but it has taken a toll on her. She’s apparently over the worst of it, but needs time….”

  “A baby is supposed to bring you closer together, not push you further apart.”

  Is that so? I have no fucking idea. All I know is that when every fiber of my being is telling me to stay and fight, she always wants to take flight.