Forever and Never

by Ella Fields

  “Lars!” Mom yelled.

  I slammed the front door, blocking any other protests she made. Raking my filthy hands through my sweat-soaked hair, an exhausted sounding laugh rumbled free. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  Daphne inched closer, uncaring that her shit was leaking out of her bag onto the grass. “I didn’t come here to upset you.”

  “Yeah?” My hands fell as I moved right in front of her, sneering into her face. “Well, just the sight of you upsets me. Disgusts me.”

  “It does?” she asked, her voice soft. Vulnerable.

  I wanted to take that vulnerability and smash it wide open, obliterate her the way she’d done me. “Don’t you fucking get it already?”

  Her perfect brows slid down. “Lars.”

  “I hate you.” I hissed the words at her, then growled them for good measure, infusing them with every ounce of anger coursing through me. “No, I don’t just hate you. I fucking despise you, Daphne.” Her eyes glazed over with tears, but that wasn’t enough for me. I stepped forward and grabbed her delicate chin. “So don’t come here again. Don’t touch my daughter again. Got it?”

  She had the audacity to square her shoulders, the girl I once knew rearing her bold head, licking her lips, and swaying into me. “Or what?”

  I grinned, malicious warning rolling off it. “Or you might just find yourself regretting it the way I regret you.”

  She pushed my hand off her chin, but I didn’t care. I spun back around, heading inside.

  I waited behind the door, waited until I heard her car start a minute later, and then I released a breath and pushed off the wood, right into the unimpressed face of my mother, who handed me my daughter without saying a word.

  “Mom.” I held Lily away from my clothes so she didn’t get shit all over her.

  The slamming of her bedroom door was answer enough.

  She was pissed, which only riled me further. How she could be pissed at me made no fucking sense.

  Taking Lily to my room, I put her in her crib with a bunch of her favorite toys, then took the video monitor with me into the shower.

  She was punishing me. Mom. This was her way of saying that if I couldn’t accept help or swallow my pride long enough not to be a dick, then I could fend for myself completely.

  So be it.

  After taking the quickest shower of my life, I toweled off in my room as Lily barked at me, banging on the railing of her crib. “Ba, ba!”

  I quickly hung up the towel, then tugged a pair of briefs on before I lifted her out and pressed a kiss to her head.

  Daphne’s scent crawled inside my nose, and I fought the urge to put Lily back inside her crib.

  I ran her a bath instead, where I washed her hair, ridding Daphne’s scent and touch from her tiny body.

  An hour later, I was trying not to fall asleep, Lily patting my chest and cheek next to me on the bed, when a text came through.

  Cotton: I’m not trying to win you back, make you forgive me, or step on anyone’s toes. I just want you to be okay. I want to help. I’m coming over tomorrow afternoon. So … do your worst.

  Confusion pulled at my brows, thinning my eyes. I couldn’t help myself and began to respond.

  Me: I don’t need you. I’ll never fucking need you again.

  Then I backspaced it. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it wasn’t enough.

  Nothing I said would ever be enough to convey how deep she’d cut me, or how much blood my heart continued to lose at her conniving hands.

  Daphne

  “You’re pushing it, girl,” Glenda said, handing me a freshly changed Lily.

  I kissed both her cheeks, inhaling that addictive scent of hers. “It’s worth it.”

  Glenda huffed, returning to the stove to finish dinner. “I need to leave as soon as Lars gets home, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to fend for yourself if you insist on staying any longer than that.”

  “I think I’ll survive.” I grinned at Lily, setting her on the table in front of me as I held her hands. “Won’t I, sweet girl?”

  A laugh burst out of her, growing louder as we clapped her hands.

  Glenda walked over with a piece of paper and slipped it inside my purse. “The list. Lars didn’t give you much of a chance to grab anything.” She shook her head. “The arrogance.”

  Lily watched me, her little hands tight around my fingers, as I stared down at her bright purple leggings. “It was nothing I didn’t deserve.”

  Glenda was quiet a long while. “Not that I don’t appreciate not having a baby on my hip, but what exactly is it you’re hoping for here?”

  I’d thought about that. Long into the night, I’d tossed and turned and tortured myself with every outcome and every inconceivable one.

  He would never forgive me, and honestly, I didn’t know whether I’d ever forgive myself either. Not now that I was waking up to the storm I’d left behind.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  I hadn’t expected them to marry, or to have even moved out into their own place, but I’d thought that without me here interfering, they’d at least have tried something.

  Worst of all, I hadn’t expected to still feel this way, let alone feel it more intensely. For him. I had hoped that with a few fun encounters and time, I’d move on. I hadn’t. I was beginning to think I might never move on. And meeting Lily had only further complicated that.

  “I’m not trying to fix things, but I care about all of you.” I tipped my shoulders, then pulled Lily down onto my lap. “I’m just trying to make things right after making them so horribly wrong.”

  Glenda set a plate of steaming sausages down on the table, then a loaf of bread. “Good enough for me.”

  Lars arrived home twenty minutes later, and without so much as a look at any of us, including Lily, he went straight to the shower. He emerged with his white T-shirt pinned between his teeth as he zipped the fly of his jeans, flashing one hell of a glimpse of his olive skin, and the dark hair that snuck out the tops of his briefs.

  My knee quit the bouncing I hadn’t realized it’d been doing when he leaned down in front of me, his soap hitting my nostrils, dizzying my head. “Be good, baby girl,” he said, pressing an eye-closed kiss to her forehead, then her cheeks, then her lips.

  My heart cracked and swelled, and I floundered for something to say. He wasn’t kicking me out. He wasn’t yelling at me. He was just … ignoring me.

  Progress, I thought, all too hopefully.

  Straightening, he laid a hand over her head, and I noticed the tattoo on his arm read forever and never, the woman above the curved, ribbon-enclosed words appeared to be an eerily close depiction of me.

  A low hum settled deep in my stomach, stretching and warming my limbs, my heart.

  Why would he have done that? The answer was simple when I managed to separate my heart.

  He hadn’t done that. The woman could be any brunette, really.

  Still, I’d taken every hateful word he’d spat at me, every action, and digested them, knowing they came from the part of him that was still hurting. If he was still hurting, he was still capable of healing. If not now, then maybe one day. I was wrestling with the idea of one day, wondering if it was a possibility or another curse.

  Lars’s dark eyes settled on me as he rose to his full towering height to peer at me down the straight bridge of his nose.

  “What are you doing?” Glenda asked what we both wanted to know.

  He tore his gaze away, drifting out of the kitchen. “Going out. It’s been a while.”

  Glenda and I glanced at each other, our brows raised.

  “Lars, you’re just leaving Daphne here with Lily?”

  His chuckle sent chills zinging over my skin. “She said she wants to help, and fuck if I couldn’t go for some good weed, good booze, and a good woman.”

  Saliva thickened and dried over my tongue, my hands tensing around Lily. Acidic words aimed right for the heart.

  I
forced a smile at Lily, bouncing her a little on my lap. I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. Yet they still stung. “We’ll be just fine.” I didn’t look at Lars after daring to utter such challenging words.

  Glenda smirked, brushing breadcrumbs off her hands and into the sink. “Suit yourselves. I need to get ready.”

  Lars’s phone rang, and he answered it with a, “Yeah, I’ll be there in ten,” before the door slammed behind him.

  After showing me how to change a wriggling Lily and setting us up with her mushy dinner, Glenda left too.

  “Looks like it’s just us, sweet girl.” I spooned some orange mush into her mouth, rushing to scoop up the globs she let slide down her chin. “Go easy on me, okay?”

  She smacked her hand down on the high chair, knocking the bowl upside down, and laughed.

  I woke to the sound of faint ringing in the distance, my face stuck to something cool and my arm burning.

  My computer. Shit.

  Gingerly, I pulled my hand out of Lily’s crib and sat up, carefully moving my laptop to Lars’s nightstand.

  I’d been trying to finish an art history assignment in the kitchen when Lily had woken with a dirty diaper. She’d struggled to settle back down, so I did the only thing that made her quiet, and stayed on Lars’s bed, the last place I wanted to be, to try to finish my work there.

  I was too afraid to find out whether I’d saved the progress I’d made. Lily was on her side, her pudgy cheek smooshed into the mattress of her crib, and her hand still outstretched for mine. I itched to pull her out of there the same way I had last night and cuddle her. I’d never thought I’d be much of a maternal woman, not with a mother like mine, but apparently, I was. Or perhaps Lily had just turned me into a melting puddle of goo.

  I yawned and left the room, hurrying to the kitchen to find my phone when it rang a second time before it woke Lily.

  The front door opened, and I glanced at the time on my phone and the number calling, frowning. It was almost six in the morning.

  “Is she already awake?” Glenda asked, kicking off her work shoes near the door.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “But Lars just tried to call. He must still be out or something.”

  Glenda switched the kettle on, lighting a cigarette as she began to prep some coffee. “Should’ve known he’d make a big show of it.”

  I snorted, opening a text as I walked into the bathroom to splash some cold water onto my face and freshen up.

  Took you long enough: Call me.

  He answered after three rings. “Seeing as you want to help so bad and all, I thought you could pick me and my friend up from this party we’re at.”

  “You’re still at a party?” I asked, wiping smeared mascara from beneath my eyes. I suppose it was better than being at some random girl’s place. “The sun is rising.”

  “Can you be a sweetheart and help me out or not?” He didn’t sound wasted, but the coarse timbre to his voice promised he’d had one hell of a night.

  I hesitated for two seconds, then sighed. “Text me the address.”

  The words he’d said before he’d left were still pricking at every thought I had. But he was being reasonable. Nice enough, considering. So I pocketed my phone, tossed my head forward to tie my hair into a high ponytail, and grabbed my keys.

  Glenda pointed at the baby monitor on the dining table when I paused in the entryway. “She’s fine.”

  For fifteen minutes, I squinted through my windshield, wishing I’d remembered to grab my sunglasses as the waking sun lit the world aflame and I struggled to make out the house numbers. The mansions along the bay all differed in layout, and they were at least half an acre apart from one another along the deep stretch of winding road.

  “Number six,” I muttered, seeing number four and slowing.

  I stopped when Lars and some girl ran out onto the street, laughing with cigarettes in their hands and their heads thrown back, tugging at each other.

  My hand twitched over the gear shift, ready to put the car into drive instead of park.

  They saw me before I could move a muscle, and I looked down at my lap to hide the shock and hurt that was surely lining my already bleary eyes.

  A trick, I discovered as Lars climbed in and introduced me to his new friend. All of it a trick.

  “Daphne, this is Patricia. She speaks three different languages and can do so while sucking cock at the same time. Patricia, this is Daphne.” He flopped down over the back seat, reaching for the window button and tossing his cigarette out.

  Patricia had the decency to ditch hers before she’d gotten in. She got a point for that, and another because she had no idea what kind of shitshow she’d unknowingly just entered.

  Patricia smacked his chest, her laughter deep as she fell into his side, her long blonde hair falling everywhere. “Hi, Daphne,” she said in what sounded like a Russian accent.

  I cleared my throat, checking my mirror as a few other guys walked out onto the street. “Good morning.”

  Patricia rattled off an address, and I hit the gas, my ears ringing when I heard her giggle a moment later. A glance in the rearview had me snuffing the urge to pull over and vomit, as Lars pulled her over his lap and lifted her dress, only one of his hands visible on her bare ass.

  A light moan, and then the sound of their lips meeting grew more intense.

  My empty stomach was filled with thorns, their barbs piercing, flooding my bloodstream with a poison so venomous that it was a wonder I could drive at all.

  An entire lifetime passed before my eyes, replacing that of the silent, tree-dense, leaf-clustered road ahead. A lifetime of memories that took place in less than a year.

  Eight transformative, soul-staining months that would now forever be lost among the rubble we’d piled atop it.

  It wasn’t until I neared the three-story house tucked behind a maze of hedges, and I heard Patricia’s unmistakable cries of pleasure over the sound of The Eagles, that I knew with painful certainty where Lars’s other hand had been as she tried to muffle her rasping bliss.

  It wasn’t until that moment that I admitted to myself that I hadn’t just been here to make amends. I’d wanted him back, too. I was just too stubborn, too guilt-ridden, and too scared to admit it. To him and to myself.

  Patricia opened the door, mumbling a breathless thank you, her cheeks flushed, lips swollen, hair mussed, and her legs quaking as she walked to the gates of her estate.

  A lot can change in a short car ride.

  Fury had my hands gripping the wheel, the sweat coating my palms causing them to slip as I turned out onto the road and sped back toward Lars’s place. The entire time, I contemplated pulling over and telling him to get out too, but I knew it’d be pointless, and I’d only give that ever-bleeding part of myself away by saying anything.

  “Such a beautiful morning,” Lars mused, the sun cresting the trees and rooftops up ahead.

  In answer, I turned the radio up some more and ignored the low spout of laughter I could hear beneath the crooning sound of Crowded House.

  “You still listen to the oldies stations.”

  The sweat on my palms dried, but the barbs had now penetrated my stomach and were causing an all-out war.

  “Did I render you speechless?” he asked when I turned down his street some minutes later. “I’d apologize, but I did warn you.” I’d never heard him sound so casual with indifference.

  I pulled up in front of his house, got out, and went inside before he could say another word.

  Sitting on the couch with Lily drinking her bottle in her lap, Glenda shot me a worried look as I stormed by her and locked myself in the bathroom.

  I turned on the tap, leaning over the sink while I tried to contain the shudders wracking my body, my breaths, and my chest. Hanging my head, I watched as tears dripped from my eyes and mixed into the water swirling down the drain.

  Through the door, I heard Glenda say, “What on earth do you think you’re doing? It’s one thing to ind
ulge yourself, but I’m going to bed soon and you need to watch your daughter.”

  “That’s what Daphne’s here for, no?”

  Glenda’s voice rose, and I splashed water over my face before patting it with a fluffy green towel. “Nine or nineteen, I don’t care, I’ll still clip you around the ear.”

  Lars laughed. “Chill. It’ll be fine.”

  I wanted to go, run far from here, yet the thought of leaving Lily with Lars when he hadn’t slept, was probably still a little drunk, and clearly in a mood from the darkest depths of hell didn’t sit right with me.

  But he was right. She wasn’t mine. She never was, and she never would be.

  Just like he wouldn’t be.

  I opened the door, then began gathering my things. The bathroom door shut, and a moment later, the water came on. Lily began wailing, Glenda hushing her as she stood from the couch, trying to settle her by walking around the living room. She had her phone in her hand, and I knew what she was about to do.

  The war still raged, wanting an end to the horror already. I’d end it, but not at the cost of Lily’s and Glenda’s well-being.

  For them. I was doing this to help them. Just because I didn’t want to help Lars and play pin cushion for his angry alter ego didn’t mean I shouldn’t still help them.

  Glenda and Lily.

  “Put it away,” I told Glenda.

  She pulled the phone from her ear and sighed.

  I held my arms out for Lily. “I slept for at least seven hours, and you two haven’t. I’ll take her.”

  Glenda stared at me for a long minute, her phone hanging from her hand, then nodded. “Thank you.” Handing Lily to me, she then dragged herself to her room, and I knew she’d likely pass out as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  Within ten minutes, the entire house was silent, the door to Lars’s room closed.

  With Lily on my hip, I rinsed her bottle, then carried her to the living room and turned the TV volume to low as Jurassic Park came on.

  Lily slept on my chest, her back rising and falling beneath my hand while I stared at the Tyrannosaurus rex on the screen and replayed what Lars had done. The sounds. The sights. The malice. I had to. To desensitize myself. To stop the tears from falling.