Enemies & Lovers

by Christine Zolendz

  “No, you need to stop. You need to stop idolizing a father who never deserved it and start thinking about the friend who needed you, when she found out the same thing we did at the same exact moment.”

  “She knew,” Chloe hisses, pointing a finger at me, “I told you that night. Claire wanted to talk to me about something serious and we never got the chance. She was going to tell me about the affair.”

  “No, she wasn’t. She was going to tell you—to see if you were okay with us being together. She wanted to tell you she was in love with me.” Fuck my life. This is killing me. We could have been together all these years. Why can’t Chloe understand? Why can’t she see the truth?

  Her back straightens and her eyes turn into saucers. “Oh my God! You’re sleeping with her?” she screams.

  “Chloe, just listen to me—”

  “No. You’re just like Daddy! If you’re sleeping with her, that’s it. You’ll believe everything she tells you,” she accuses.

  “Chloe. Think about it. Our parents never loved each other. They got married because Mom got pregnant with us.”

  “So what? He did the right thing back then.”

  “Chloe, that house was full of pictures of them laughing together, there’s not one piece of photographic evidence of a family in this house! Libby and Dad loved each other, and they had to hide it all those years,” I explain.

  “I won’t believe that,” she says, shaking her head.

  “Chloe, Libby Radcliffe killed herself because she couldn’t live after he died, she didn’t take all his money and live it up, she gave up everything and she chose to follow him into the afterlife. She didn’t even say goodbye to her daughter, she just couldn’t live without him.”

  “Is that what Claire told you?” she sneers.

  “She saved my life up there, we were in an avalanche and she dragged me inside. She could have left me out there to die. She asked for nothing in return,” I try to explain.

  “Again, so what?” she gripes.

  “She missed me, she missed you, and you,” I point to Matteo. His cheeks turn bright red. “Remember how much we loved her, Chloe?” I ask, turning back to face her. “Remember how you used to plan your weddings, how we made pillows forts and how we’d spend all winter anticipating hot summer nights with her? Try and remember, don’t let the hurt and humiliation of that night blur your reality of how close we all were. I get it, Chloe. I get not wanting to believe her and wanting to believe Dad, but he was the one who wronged us. All of us. I am so angry at him, not just for cheating on our mother, but he took my girlfriend away from me. He could have slept with anyone, but he chose the love of my life’s mother. I hated him for that then. I hate him for that now.”

  “I’m sorry, Vaughn. I won’t ever forgive that family,” Chloe says, walking to the door. “And I think you’re a fool to think Claire Radcliffe isn’t the same kind of woman as her mother.” Chloe leaves, quietly closing the door behind her.

  I turn to Matteo for some kind of help or encouragement, but he just stares at me with sad eyes. “I think I’m with Chloe on this, Vaughn. We don’t know who Claire Radcliffe is today. And I think you should stay far away from her, nothing good is going to come out of any of this.”

  Chapter 20

  Claire

  Around me the apartment goes silent, all except for the soft sounds of something being dragged or brushed against something in my bedroom. My pulse is racing, I can hear the rushing and thumping of the blood through my ears. I want to run but my boots are cemented to the floor. Whoever is in my bedroom has already heard me scream and the thought of turning my back on the bedroom door to go out the front one is too terrifying of an idea to me. All the hairs on the back of my neck raise up and my skin starts to crawl.

  I slip my phone out of my pocket and hit the emergency button without even bothering to open my phone. I hold the phone in my left hand and with my right, pick up my long-handled umbrella that’s been tossed into the mess on the floor. It’s the closest thing to me that I could use as a weapon until I can get to my knife drawer.

  The noise continues. It’s a hushed sound, almost rhythmic. Muffled, like someone is gently sweeping fabric over a surface again and again. I’m holding my phone at my side so I can listen carefully to whoever is here with me. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” I hear a low disembodied voice ask.

  I quickly bring the phone up to my lips and whisper, “Someone is in my apartment. In the bedroom. Please send help.” Quietly, I tell her my name and address.

  “Okay, please stay on the line…” I drop the phone down and slip it onto the couch. I take hold of the umbrella in both my hands like a baseball bat and continue to listen to the woman’s voice on the phone. She tells me to stay where I am, but I don’t listen. I’m not even realizing what I’m doing. I somehow just shift forward and end up standing in the doorway to my bedroom, umbrella at the ready to defend myself.

  But my room is empty and the sound I’m hearing is my curtain brushing against the wall because of the wind from the wide-open window. My knees weaken and I turn to jelly, collapsing in relief to the floor. I can’t stop shaking and crying. Why would anyone break into this apartment? I have nothing to offer anyone except for the small mason jar full of quarters I use for the laundromat.

  What if whoever broke into my apartment is the same person who is texting me from my mother’s phone?

  I rush back to the phone and explain to the 911 operator what is going on. She tells me because of the weather the police will be here in fifteen minutes.

  Fifteen minutes?

  Thank God no one was still in the apartment or by the time the cops arrived they would have found some crazy blackmailing lunatic wearing my flesh as a skin suit, eating what’s left of my cereal. I sit on the couch and sob. I want to call Maddie but I’m too scared to get off the phone with the operator—just in case she needs to be a witness if my stalker comes back. They record these calls, so she would be able to get his voice and maybe who he is. I talk to the operator mindlessly through my tears. I don’t know if I forgot to shut the window, if I caused all this to happen. I tell her all about my mother and her secret house, and the text messages from her phone. I tell her about all the fake pictures and how I might lose my job. I even tell her about Vaughn, which makes me bawl harder until I’m a blubbering incomprehensible mess.

  When I hear the sirens, I end my phone call and run out into the snow to meet them. The story gushes out of me like a dam break. I tell them every little detail I can.

  They search the house.

  More police arrive.

  For some reason they take all the sheets off my bed and my comforter too. They let me pack a bag of clothes, but for some reason I can’t find any of my underwear. Why would someone break into my house and take all my underwear?

  They go through my computer. My cabinets. Even the crawl space under the building.

  I’m too scared to stay here. I swipe open my phone and call Maddie.

  She picks up just before it goes to voicemail. “Hey, sweetie. How are you doing? How was packing up your mom’s things?” There’s music and laughter in the background and the undeniable sound of clinking of glasses.

  My voice trembles but I blurt everything out in a rush, “Uhh…I was in an avalanche. I got stuck there for two days. My mother was living with a married man and while I was gone my apartment was burglarized and someone is blackmailing me for my mother’s offshore accounts that I don’t even think exist. I don’t want to stay here alone can I come stay with you?”

  She gasps dramatically. “Oh my God, Claire! Oh my God, are you okay? Are you hurt? I’m…I’m not home. I took a quick trip to Miami Beach to get away from the snow.”

  Of course she did, that’s what people with money who live here do. I don’t know what to say, all I want to do is hang up the phone and cry. “Oh, that’s okay. I can call one of my girlfriends from work,” I lie. I don’t have any girlfriends from work.

  �
��Are you sure? I can probably hop on the next flight back home if you really need me,” she says.

  “What?! No, no way. I’m fine. The police are here and everything,” I say, faking an airy laugh.

  “I can’t believe this is happening to you, are you sure?” she asks.

  “Positive,” I manage. “Oh, uh…I have to get off the phone now, the officers need to speak to me. I’ll text you later.” I cut the phone dead and shiver. None of the officers needed to talk to me, they’re busy chatting with each other and writing stuff down in their memo books. I’m sitting on my couch, alone, with my whole world crashing down around me and no one seems to bat an eye at me.

  I should be used to this—being alone. Thing is, I don’t want to be, not anymore. I want to have someone to lean on and talk to, like how Vaughn and I talked on the mountain.

  But there’s no one. So I sit alone like that for hours, as the police mill around me, until my phone starts blowing up with text message after text message. Then phone call after phone call.

  Heat rips across my chest when I look down to see the headmaster of the school is calling me. A sickening twist knots in my stomach and tightens hard. Why would he be calling me? All the teachers from the school too. My hands are too shaky to hold the phone and it drops to the floor, cracking the screen even more. I don’t want to answer any of them, I’m terrified of what’s happening. I can’t catch my breath.

  I can’t see past my tears.

  My phone continues to ping wildly.

  Then Paul Luger is knocking on my open front door with wide-shocked eyes, darting between the police officers and me. “Claire? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  The officers ask him a thousand questions, but I’m in too much shock to hear any of them. I don’t know what’s really happening, all I know is it’s all rushing at me fast and the world is spinning frantically out of control.

  Then he’s sitting next to me, grabbing onto my hands. They’re wrapped into tight little fists, my hands, and Paul has to pry my fingers open to be able to hold them. “Claire, sweetheart, you have to breathe. Just take deep breathes in and out. That’s it. In and out.”

  I want to punch him in his face. I need to get the bag I packed and run away. I need to leave now.

  “Claire, you have to try and talk to me,” Paul pleads. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, up and down as he talks.

  I shake my head. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. It’s not going to be good.

  “There was an email blast, from the school’s newsletter,” he says gently.

  I shake my head, vigorously. No, no, no. I don’t want to hear this. Why can’t he shut up? I yank my hands back and cover my ears. I’m blind with tears.

  “Claire,” he says, sternly as he pulls my hands away from my ears. “Claire, talk to me. Why did you send that email to the whole faculty and the parents? Claire, who else did you send it to? Did you send it to the diocese? Claire, how could you do this? Help me understand what happened and why you felt you needed to do it.”

  I can’t speak. All I can do is sit here, shuddering, sobbing, and shaking my head. Why would anyone think I would do this—that I could do this? How could Paul think so little of me? How could they all think I would do such a thing? It’s like none of them know the real me, all they see is Libby Radcliffe’s daughter.

  The whore.

  Paul shows me his phone. There’s a video of a breaking news report. My school picture is plastered in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen and a reporter is telling the locals about what every parent in my private school received in their school newsletter mid-morning. Not just the parents and faculty. It was sent to every student email as well.

  My students saw those pictures.

  My second-graders. Why would anyone do such a thing to seven-year-olds?

  The emails were sent during the first lunch period.

  Paul continues to speak, while he plays the video, but I hear nothing. I see nothing.

  I feel nothing.

  I never understood what a suicidal thought was, until now.

  It’s like every cell I’m made of seeps out from me, leaving me utterly empty, dead inside. The only escape I can see, reasonably to stop existing.

  Paul shouts to get my attention. I flinch from the sound of his harsh voice. He’s asking me why I did this to him. I don’t understand why he thinks this has to do with him. “You ruined it for us,” he whispers, “we could have—” I close my eyes and ignore the rest. Us? I don’t know who this us he’s talking about is; I don’t even know who I am right now.

  How am I going to be able to survive this?

  The cops take my phone. My laptop. I told them this would happen when they first got here, but the story had already broken, I had been too frozen with fear and in shock to realize. That’s why they stayed so long. Not because of a burglary, but because everyone believes I’m a horrible monster who wants to scar children.

  Everyone talks over me, through me. Paul has me wrapped up in his arms, but I don’t feel him at all. It’s like my body is floating somewhere above it all. It’s as if I’m already dead.

  By dinner time I no longer have a job. I’m fired immediately. My belongings will be dropped off at my apartment sometime in the future, but I am not allowed within a specific distance of the school grounds. The headmaster talks at me over my phone. I’m not allowed to speak back or explain what I’ve gone through at all.

  There is no such thing as innocent until proven guilty in my world.

  On another news report a parent to one of my favorite students calls me a pedophile.

  I remain sitting on the couch, motionless, devoid of any feeling, while the rest of the world keeps on moving around the sun without me.

  Me, a pedophile? I wish that mountain would have crushed me.

  I wake to the early morning sunlight streaming through my small front window. I slept dreamlessly, sometime in the night Paul slipped me one of his Xanax. It might have been two, I really don’t remember.

  He’s still here. He’s in the kitchen, pouring water into my coffee maker, setting two cups out on the counter. He’s shirtless. Why is he shirtless in my kitchen? He’s unnaturally pale and hairy and far too past a boundary line for my taste.

  “Paul? You’re still here?” I ask in a raspy voice. “Please put your shirt back on.”

  He spins around and smiles sadly at me. “Of course, Claire.” He grabs his shirt off the table and shoves it quickly over his head. “I couldn’t see you being alone last night, so I stayed. Sorry, I was just trying to make myself a bit comfortable. How are you feeling?”

  “Humiliated and very, very angry,” I say, clearing my throat. My life is gone now, and I need an escape. I need to start over somewhere—all thoughts of ending things are thankfully gone—I can’t let that psychopath win, the police will find out the truth and my name will be cleared, but when that time eventually comes, I’ll be long gone from here and from everyone who didn’t believe in me.

  I stand up and stretch. My entire body feels weighted down and stiff. I must have been stagnant on that couch for too many hours. “Paul, thank you for staying, you could go, I’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay. You shouldn’t be here alone,” he says in a gentle voice.

  I’m instantly getting that creepy-skin-crawling feeling again. “Paul, thank you,” I chuckle nervously. “I appreciate it, really, but I think I’m just going to shower and head to the police station to see if there’s anything—”

  “That’s a great idea. I’ll take you,” he smiles.

  “No need to, I promise I’ll be fine,” I smile tightly back.

  “You don’t have a car, Claire. How are you going to get there?” he asks, shrugging.

  My car is still on the mountain. How does he know that? Did I tell him that yesterday while I was in my shocked stupor? I need to think of something to get him to leave. I want to be alone. I want to face this alone. I don’t need him he
re. I don’t need anybody here.

  “Paul, I’m going alone. Thank you for staying last night, but I need some space right now,” I say, tightly.

  “But—”

  “You can finish your coffee and then you can leave,” I growl loudly.

  “Claire, really? After everything that happened yesterday, you think—”

  “You accused me of sending those emails!” I screech, losing my patience. “That was the first thing you asked me when you got here yesterday.” I straighten out my clothes and tuck my hair behind my ears, hoping to put myself more together until I hit the bathroom. “I don’t have room in my life for people who underestimate me or think low of me.” What if it’s him? What if he’s the one texting me? What if I let the enemy sleep here last night? What if he goes feral and attacks me right now?

  He shifts his weight from leg to leg and breathes out a long remorseful sigh. “Claire, I’m sorry if I said anything to make you believe I felt that way, but the way it looks…when I saw your name on the emails…and those images…what else would I assume? What else could anyone assume?”

  “You can go now, fuck finishing your coffee. Get out of my apartment!” I explode, pointing my fingers in the direction of the front door.

  He steps forward, closer to me, and I scream like I’m being attacked by a grizzly bear.

  That makes him leave immediately.

  I lock the door behind him and pour myself a cup of coffee with shaky hands. Outside a firecracker pops off and I jump from the sound, sloshing the hot coffee over the rim of the cup and over my fingers. I cry out in pain. Stupid teenagers.

  I grab a towel and wipe down the mess I’ve made. There’s a strange expensive coffee brand on the counter, one I would never be able to buy myself. I toss the coffee into the sink without taking a sip. Who brought over coffee? God only knows if it’s rat-poison flavored.

  I need to get the hell out of here now. I don’t feel safe.

  I take a quick shower and blow-dry my hair. I throw on a pair of worn jeans and the only sweater that seems to be untouched by the insanity that tore through here in the last twenty-four hours. I search the apartment for anything I would need to take with me that might be of importance, but I really have nothing of value.