The Price of Inertia

by Lily Zante

  I lift my head, feeling a sense of satisfaction. “Thanks.” I wait for Jamie to tell me more, but he doesn't say anything else. He gets up. “I'm going to cook us a nice dinner tonight.”

  “I can help,” I say, getting to my feet slowly. I want to help. I need to. I have to do something to get out of this funk.

  “Hey, no.” He ruffles my hair. “You don't have to do a thing. You just take it easy, Mari. I've got this.” He disappears into the kitchen only to return moments later with a bar of my favorite chocolate. He's stocked up on these, I've noticed.

  “This will make things more bearable.”

  I reach out for the brand-new unopened bar. “Thanks.”

  “I'd better get started on dinner.”

  “What else did he say?” I ask him as he walks way.

  “Who?”

  “Ward.”

  “Nothing else.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  WARD

  * * *

  It wasn’t easy getting hold of Rob again, but after the fifth message I left for him, he finally called me back. If he was hoping for a miracle from me regarding the manuscript, he must have been sorely disappointed because I asked him to send me the work contracts he had drawn up for Mari and Jamie. It’s how I got Jamie’s address. It’s the reason why I’m on his doorstep on Monday morning.

  Just as I had hoped, it’s Mari who opens the door. I’m hoping it’s because he’s at work.

  She looks haggard. Her skin is pale, her eyes hollow. She seems thinner, fragile, as if she’s about to break.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say. I fumble around, not sure what to do with my hands and wishing I had brought something. Flowers, a card, but I’m not sure of the etiquette. I’m not sure she wouldn’t throw the flowers back at me, or rip the card up in front of my face. She stands there, not letting me in, not moving a muscle. Just staring.

  “May I come in?” I ask her. She continues to stare at me as if she’s in shock. This concerns me, because the sassy and in control woman, the one I later came to know, isn’t here. She’s as broken as I am.

  “Please,” I beg. This might be my only chance to reach her.

  She doesn’t want me to come in, and she’s too polite to say it, so I push the door open, making the decision for her. “I won’t stay for long.” I hover near the closed door, mindful of taking up her time, and invading her personal space. “I’m so sorry about your mom, Mari. I didn’t know. I—”

  “I didn’t get to her on time,” she says, walking away, standing over by the window, as if she needs the distance between us to feel safe. “I missed out on being there for her because of you.” Her anger returns and spikes in an instance. “All because of you.” She jabs a finger in my direction, her face twisting with rage. I have failed her. I’ve messed up in a way that is irredeemable. “What happened, in the end?”

  “She died.”

  Of what, I want to know but I don’t think she will tell me. I take a step towards her needing her to know how genuinely sorry I am. “Tell me how I can make it up to you.”

  “You can get out. Leave. Never show your face here again.”

  She’s angry. Lashing out, wanting to hurt me. These are feelings I understand completely.

  What becomes apparent to me is that my anger vanished the moment Jamie told me about her mom. It stopped being about me, and the manuscript, and the donuts and my own funk. Hearing about Mari’s tragedy pushed me into action in a way that nothing else could have. Now that I’ve seen what a state she is in, I desperately want to help her but she won’t let me. I can try and try again until she gives in.

  “You’re angry. You hate me. I don’t blame you but—”

  “I never want to see you again.”

  “I understand but—”

  “I’m shocked that you have the audacity to show up here.”

  “I needed to see you.” I look at her forehead. There’s a tiny scar where she hit her head. “That looks like it’s healed,” I say, raising a finger to touch her but she flinches.

  “Jamie took care of it.”

  “I’m sure he did.”

  She stares at me motionless. “What were you trying to do, kill me?”

  I lower my head, brows pushing together, the weight of her accusation settling hard and heavy on my heart. I am aware how deep hatred can run, but I’m still not prepared for the depth of Mari’s hate for me even though she has every right to abhor me forever. “I was trying to protect you.”

  “By grabbing me and hurling me to the couch?”

  “You slipped and I was worried you were going to trip and fall into the fire.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  I blink, confusion rendering me speechless for a few moments.

  “That’s not what happened,” she insists.

  “What do you think happened?” I ask, slowly.

  “You had your hands on me. I tried to shrug you off but you wouldn’t budge. You scared me.”

  “I didn’t mean to take a hold of you, Mari. I was angry. You betrayed me.”

  She laughs cruelly. “By reading a few pages of your book?”

  “Yes.” She won’t understand, ever, and now is not the time to tell her. I doubt I ever will. “You hurt me and I reacted in the only way I know how.”

  “That’s worrying,” she throws back.

  “I’m not perfect and I have a temper, but I would never hurt a hair on your head.”

  She looks stunned.

  “When you tripped and hit the mantelpiece, I was scared you were going to fall into the fire. You were holding your cell phone in one hand.” She stares at me as if she’s replaying that scene in her head again, as if she’s unsure whether to believe me or not. “I let someone go to her death once and I’ve lived my life blaming myself for it. I wasn’t about to risk you falling into the fire, so I grabbed you and hurled you as far from it as I could. I should have been gentle but my main concern was for you not to get hurt.”

  She seems to believe me—she should believe me, because it’s the truth. There’s a softness in her eyes for the first time. Then, “Did you hit your daily word count?” she sneers. “Is it sex you want now?”

  The blow hits below the waist and my brain stutters, trying to make meaning from this. All those important bodily functions, like the heart beating and blood circulating, lungs breathing, they all slow down. She’s another one who means the world to me, but now she’s pushing me away.

  “Is that the reason you’re here?”

  I care about her is the reason I’m here. This isn’t me, this isn’t what I do, come groveling to someone, but this is exactly what I’m doing and she’s throwing it back in my face.

  But I also understand rage. I fool myself into believing that she doesn’t mean what she’s saying. “It stopped being about the sex a long time ago.”

  She scoffs, then shakes her head. “That’s what you’d have me believe. You’re incapable of emotion. Of feeling, of empathy. You think about yourself and no one else.”

  “That might have been true once.”

  “It’s true now.”

  “If I could turn back time and take that day back, I would do things so differently.”

  “Would you?” she snarls, showing her teeth. “What would you do differently, Ward? What?”

  I didn’t come here to talk about me. I came here to find out what I could do for her. But since she’s asking. “I’d take a step back. I’d ask you why you were reading my manuscript. I’d ask why you were taking pictures. I would behave a whole different way.”

  “Like a normal person?”

  “I never said I was a normal person,” I raise my voice without meaning to. She knew that about me from the start. I’m shaped by my past. Most people are.

  “You’re so far off the normal spectrum, I think about us and wonder what I saw in you.”

  That’s another blow below the belt. I’ll take it. I’ll take anything she wants to hit me with be
cause it means she’s getting her anger out, and she needs to. Built-up anger can poison a person as surely as strychnine.

  “I don’t regret a thing,” I tell her.

  “That’s because you got sex on tap.” She almost smiles, but it’s the type of smile that makes my blood run cold. Still, I take another step towards her, determined to get through to her. “That is not true. What we had was starting to be more than sex. You made me see things the way I should have. You made me feel.”

  “I should never have gotten involved with you.”

  “Getting involved with you was one of the best things I ever did.”

  She stares at me in open-mouthed silence. That seems to have hit a nerve. I advance a step closer.

  I consider telling her the truth, that I’ve fallen for her. But if I told her now, it would be taking advantage of her delicate state and I won’t do that. “I care about you and I feel bad that I hurt you.”

  “I can’t see you feeling bad about anything, unless you’ve run out of donuts.”

  I look at her in surprise. I have changed a lot these past few months. I managed to get out of my rut and she had something to do with it. I’m not that guy anymore.

  “I’m truly upset about your mom passing,” I say, ignoring her stab at me. “And I blame myself for breaking your phone and for you not finding out right away.”

  “You should blame yourself, because it’s your fault.”

  “I’ll take this to the grave with me. You cared a lot for your mother and she was lucky she had you.”

  She jabs a thumb in her chest. “I’m the lucky one. I was lucky that she was my mom.” She sounds as if she’s fighting back tears. I want to put my arms around her and hug her. I want to tell her that I’m going to take care of her and be there for her, but she twists the knife in deeper. “I’m just so sorry that I met you. I wish I hadn’t.”

  I refuse to give up. She will always blame me for what happened, and it’s something I have to live with. I can’t turn back time, but I want to make things right for her, if she will let me. “Tell me what I can do to make things better. Let me help you in any way. Let me pay for the funeral.”

  Her face drains of color. “Get out!” she yells with an animosity that knocks the air out of my lungs and leaves me struggling to get mouthfuls of air. “Don’t think this is me being emotional, and all over the place. I hate you, Ward. I regret that I ever met you.”

  I shake my head, refusing to believe that this is it. That it’s over.

  “Get out and never contact me again,” she begs.

  I was going to tell her to ask me anything she wanted and I would answer all of her questions, all those many questions she used to ask me before, all those questions about Lisa. I was prepared to answer everything, but the hate in her eyes rolls off her body in the same way that her desire once used to. I step back. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  I nod. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  As I walk to the door, she stops me. “I need you to know about the pen.”

  I turn around.

  “I didn’t misplace it. I never took it. I never touched your things. Jamie took your pen. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to fire him like you did Trevor.”

  At first, I want to believe that she’s lying. Everything I did, touching her the way I did, all the assumptions I made were based on her taking the pen. I thought she was playing games with me. I believed she had picked up on the unbridled energy I could feel between us.

  I can’t speak because her words have tasered me.

  “I wouldn’t lie about such a thing,” she assures me, fixing me with a hard stare. My gut tells me this is the truth. I wouldn’t have laid a finger on her had I known this then. Believing she wanted me was the thing that gave me the courage to make my move.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  MARI

  * * *

  I manage to get through my mom's funeral somehow, but it feels as if my body has been through a meat machine, ground into a million pieces, chewed up and regurgitated at the other end.

  I am still hollow but most of all, I am bone tired. I'm also still at Jamie's place, almost three weeks after my mom passed, but I don't remember each day clearly, or each week. I know of two events, when my mom died and the day of her funeral.

  And now I am supposed to somehow get back to normality, only I don't know what normality is.

  Jamie is as kind and as accommodating as ever, but in some far corner of my mind, when I get a few moments of clarity, when the fog lifts temporarily, I can’t stay here like this forever. I need to get another apartment and a job. I also need to take care of my mother's affairs, go back to the nursing home and get all her belongings. I have to see how much money I have.

  I can't rely on Jamie's good nature.

  He tells me he needs to go grocery shopping, and I manage to get out of bed and rise to standing. Lying around in bed all the time has wasted my muscles and killed any strength I had.

  “I'll go.” I stand up, but the look in his eyes--fraught with worry and concern--tells me more than if I looked in a mirror.

  I smooth down my t-shirt, try to pull the hem down so that it will reach further instead of hovering just below my panties. I should put some more clothes on, but I still haven't gone to Ward's to get the rest of my belongings and I've gone through the few clothes I had. They're all lying in a dirty pile in a corner of the room.

  “I should go,” I tell him, standing up straighter, trying to convince him that I am capable.

  He walks over to me and sits me down, then he crouches on the floor. “I'm worried about you.”

  “I'm fine. I'm going to be fine. I'm going to make plans.”

  He shakes his head. “You haven't had breakfast. You haven’t had lunch.”

  “I'm not hungry.”

  “And that's why I'm worried.”

  I bite my lip. “I'm not hungry because I'm lying around in bed all day. I can go shopping. I can be of use.”

  “Not now.”

  “I need to do something.”

  He stands up. “Fine. But let me go shopping, and when I get back, you can cook.”

  “Deal.”

  I reach for my purse which is on the bedside table. “Let me pay for this.”

  “No.”

  “Please,” I beg.

  “You can do it when you get yourself back up on your feet. When you've got a job. When you are able. There’s no rush.”

  “Okay, fine. Have it your way. But I’m cooking.”

  “And I’m looking forward to it. I'll be back soon.”

  I collapse back on the bed when I hear the front door close. I have to start looking for work again. Someone from Danny's place arranged an interview for me but I couldn't go. It was the week of my mom's funeral and I forgot to email to let them know. Danny says they weren't too happy about it. He explained the situation to them, and they said they'd get in touch again but they haven't, so I need to chase that up again.

  I also need to get my belongings from Ward's place. I might just go with Jamie sometime in the next few days and make sure I get everything.

  I lie back on the bed, then pull the covers over me. This is all I can handle for now.

  This. Lying here, remembering, revisiting, regretting.

  The doorbell rings, and I don't move. When it rings again, I groan and get up. Jamie gets a lot of packages delivered. He’s a typical guy always ordering his tech gadgets. It's the one thing I can help him with, being his personal package receiver. I rush to the door before the mailman disappears, but when I pull open the door, Ward's eyes stare back at me.

  Dark and hypnotic, they make my insides jump. From shock, maybe, or maybe from surprise. Unlike the last time he came, when he looked so rough, like he’d barely slept, this time he looks so much sharper. His hair is neatly cut, he hasn't shaved, but there's that light dusting of hairs around his jaw that I once used to love.

  I open
my mouth to say something, but his eyes start to dip down the length of my body, until he quickly manages to bring them back up to my face again.

  Old habits die hard.

  The old familiar heat begins to snake inside my belly.

  “I waited for you to get your stuff, but ...” he starts. It's then that I notice the bag at his feet.

  My belongings. “There's another one in my car, I wasn't sure you would be in.”

  “You packed everything?”

  “Everything. I took the liberty. Hope you don't mind.”

  He hands me over the bag. “I'll go and grab the other one.” He disappears and I rush into the bedroom and slide on a pair of jeans and throw on a sweatshirt.

  When I return, he’s standing in the doorway. “Here you go.” He puts the bag inside, but doesn't walk in. We look at one another warily. Each time I take in his face, and his build, and his countenance, I can't help but wonder how he has managed to turn things around.

  He’s not the one who lost a mother, though.

  But I remember, now that I am connecting the dots, that his mother had died not so long before we met. Knowing what I have been through, and knowing a little about his past, I find myself wondering about him and how he would have dealt with something like that.

  “You can come inside. I don’t bite,” I tell him. He seems reluctant to take me up on my offer. “I’d rather not have you standing in the doorway like that.”

  He walks in and shuts the door, but doesn’t move far from it.

  “I was going to come around with Jamie and get everything,” I tell him. “It’s been busy here with my …” I still can’t bring myself to say it.

  “It was last week?” he asks.

  “The week before that.”

  “It must have been a hard day.”

  I clasp my hands together as if I need the strength to hold myself together. He has packed my things and brought them to me so I should at least thank him. “Thanks for these, but I would have come over eventually.”