Broken Lullabies

by Nicole Simone

  “Yea? Like you have any idea how to organize a house.”

  “You do?”

  Winded, I made it to my destination and felt as I’d sprinted five miles. “I have lived alone since I was eighteen which is seven years of experience over you.”

  “Point taken.”

  He stepped aside and I walked into his living room piled high with boxes. The space opened into a state-of-the-art kitchen with stainless steel appliances. Sean’s mini wine cooler had already found its home on the counter. It was stocked with a few bottles he’d collected in his travels. A vintage red was corked open next to a glass filled to the halfway point and a platter of cheese.

  “You’re eating a cheese plate for lunch?” I asked.

  Sean followed my eyes and shrugged. “Yea. Why?”

  “You aren’t married anymore. You can start eating real food.”

  “Cheese is real food. Triple crème Brie, an aged blue cheese…”

  “You sound like a woman.”

  I whipped open his fridge, found a loaf of bread, an apple, a packet of turkey, and a jar mayonnaise. Setting the supplies down, I started to assemble two sandwiches. Sean knew better than to protest. Once they were done, they got heated on the stovetop so the Brie could melt. I slid my masterpieces onto a cutting board and cut the sandwiches into halves.

  “Do you have pickles?” I questioned.

  “What you saw in the fridge is what I’ve got.”

  “Too bad.”

  Due to Sean’s lack of seating, I carried the board to the living room and sat with my legs outstretched on the cement floors. He poured me a glass of wine and joined me.

  Nothing to see here, two grown men having a romantic picnic.

  We polished off our meal in silence except for the occasional sound of chewing.

  Sean brushed the crumbs from his pants and spoke. “I’m kind of worried at how useless I am at being alone.”

  “You have been single for less than a month. Give it time.”

  “I guess, but the fact I fixed myself a cheese plate shows how Bunny’s claws haven’t removed themselves from my spine.”

  “True. You are definitely still whipped.”

  We laughed, and for a second, the Sean I’d known returned. Before he’d met his wife, he’d been my partner in crime and the one I could count on to be up for a night of havoc, whereas Milo, Ash, and Luke were content sitting on the tour bus playing a game of cards. Can you say boring? If you are blessed enough to be a rock star, might as well take advantage of that power.

  “We’ll go out this week and I’ll re-introduce you to the bar scene,” I offered.

  “I think I have to work on my game some more before that happens. I saw a cute girl in the supermarket near the produce section the other day. We made eye contact and guess what I said?” Sean paused. “‘Nice melons.’ It was humiliating, not to mention ruined any chance I had with her.”

  I tried to tamp my chuckle down, but the image of Sean dejected in the middle of the supermarket was too funny. Sean shook his head, but the grin he was wearing told me he found the humor in it as well.

  “The bar is different. You’ll be drunk,” I said.

  “My tongue takes on a mind of its own when it’s loosed by alcohol. Sorry, but give me another week, maybe two, and you can find me a nice girl.”

  “You don’t need nice. You need a girl who will fuck you until you can’t remember your name.”

  “Dude, you’ve already run the well dry in Seattle. I’ll stick with nice.”

  “I’m not that much of a man-whore.”

  “Okay, then name how many women you have slept with the past two weeks.”

  Thinking it over, I counted approximately one. The girl from the bar who’d had skin as dry as the desert. After our tryst, I’d wanted to gift her with a bottle of moisturizer. Following her was Koral, which didn’t count.

  “Jesus, is the number higher than fifty?” Sean muttered in response to my silence. “You should get yourself checked for STDs.”

  “I have actually, and I’m clean as a whistle. But to answer your question, one.”

  “One?”

  His disbelief was insulting. “Yes, one.”

  “Remember when you had a threesome with that girl who had a lazy eye because her Victoria Secret model best friend wouldn’t sleep with you otherwise?”

  “That’s called being smart. You never pass up a threesome.”

  Sean contemplated my point and agreed. “Okay, you’re right, but still, one is really low for you. Isn’t it?”

  Considering how in the past I once had sex with ten different women in a week, then yes, that number was low. Like I said earlier, sex wasn’t serving its purpose anymore. Sean couldn’t know that though, nor would he understand.

  Swiping the cutting board off the floor, I carried it to the kitchen. “I’m getting old. My libido is slowing down.”

  “You are twenty-five, which is actually your sexual prime.”

  “Where did you read that? Cosmo?”

  “Actually, yes. There is a lot of insightful information in there.”

  We had a lot more work ahead of us than I’d thought before he transformed into the cigar smoking, whiskey drinking man he used to be. I turned on the sink and washed off the dishes I’d used to make the sandwiches.

  “Ha! Wouldn’t it be hilarious if this dry spell were actually because of a woman? Imagine: Matthew Lee, tamed. God, I can almost read the headlines.”

  Sean laughed as if the idea were as unbelievable as a unicorn showing up at the door with a pizza. I didn’t join in on his laughter.

  Sitting on my bed, I stared at my cell phone screen with Marlene’s number displayed. All I had to do was punch “send,” but something held me back from doing so. Actually, I knew exactly what was holding me back. The barrage of questions that would follow when I asked for Matthew’s contact information. She had been bugging me nonstop since the wedding about our supposed history. I kept telling her there was no history to speak of between Matthew and I, but Marlene didn’t believe me. Her pregnancy hormones were making her insane, which wasn’t a surprise. When pregnant with Nil, she’d become fixated on the ratio of ingredients in hot chocolate that made the perfect cup. It was weeks of cocoa powder, sugar, and rotating spices. I haven’t drunk the beverage since.

  Clicking the button on top, the screen went dark. I had a week to figure out how to weasel my way out of dinner with my parents or dream up an excuse for Matthew’s absence.

  Seriously, I’m such a moron, it’s amazing.

  Out of the thousands upon thousands of names, I picked his. Matthew -- who had an ego the size of Texas and a libido that matched. I don’t how I would be able to sit through a two-hour dinner without strangling him. My head plopped back onto my pillow as I sprawled out, each foot hitting an opposite corner of the bed.

  We have had less than three conversations, yet whenever we’d spoken, that same troublesome feeling surfaced. That somewhere, somehow, we’d met before. It couldn’t have been from that awful night four years ago. I knew for certain because, while Matthew was a selfish bastard, he wasn’t cruel. You could tell by how the grey dimmed in his eyes and the flecks of blue appeared that there was a kind man hidden under his armor.

  But...

  My memories had started to bleed into a smudged rendition of a painting. I tried to grasp on to what actually had happened versus what my mind had exaggerated, but the harder I tried, the fuzzier it got. Well, actually that wasn’t true. I did remember every last detail of my attacker. What he looked like, how his voice sounded, and how his fingertips were childishly soft as if he hadn’t worked a day in his life. None of that helped throw him behind bars. The police claimed they didn’t have enough substantial evidence. Can you say bullshit? My assailant’s hands were imprinted into my neck from when he strangled me. It smelled like corruption. Regardless, I soldiered on, because while my attacker committed the crime, it was the man cloaked in shadows who had done the re
al damage. If anybody should be put behind bars, it was him.

  Worthless cunt

  Ugly bitch

  By this point, his words have been branded into my soul. I couldn’t undress within five feet of a mirror without them bubbling to the surface and distorting my view of myself. My mother had raised me to be as strong-willed as she was, the opposite of who I was presently. Drab clothes, drab makeup, and reddish blonde hair that hadn’t seen the salon in years. I was meek and pitiful -- an outline of my former self. Searching for the old Camille was a fruitless pursuit though. She had gotten left behind in that alleyway. And as the days passed, my memories of the monster bathed in the shadows had begun to deceive me. His features grew warped like a Disney villain’s. I only had his voice to go on, but since meeting Matthew, even that was in question. Flames ignited in the pit of my stomach, stoking my frustration into a roaring blaze.

  I wanted my life back.

  I wanted ME back.

  My hands closed around the nearest object, a paperweight with my initials engraved into the glass. As it hit the wall, the paperweight exploded into prisms of light, and for a second, the beauty astounded me. Glass shards littered the floor. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as my breathing came in short spurts. My frustration gave way to shame. After all these years, that night in the alleyway still hold’s me prisoner. Grabbing a broom from the hall closet, I began to clean up the glass. I cursed as a stinging pain sliced the bottom of my left foot. Dropping the dustpan, I hopped to the edge of my bed and sat. As I suspected, blood coated my heel where a jagged gash resided. I might not be doctor, but it definitely looked like stitches were in order. Applying my hours of Grey’s Anatomy binge watching to use, I wrapped a discarded t-shirt tightly around my foot to act as a tourniquet. It didn’t work. Crimson soaked through the thin cotton and dripped onto the floor below. Scattered glass, bloody footprints -- my bedroom looked like a grisly crime scene.

  Since I couldn’t drive, I called an Uber and woozily made my way to the front of my building to wait. A black SUV slid alongside the curb not long after.

  A man in his mid-forties stuck his head out of the driver’s side window. “Are you Camille?”

  “Yes.” He assessed my injured state and I knew what he was thinking: the interior of his car would get ruined. Before he could speak, I put his fears to rest. “I’ll pay for the cleaning.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  No shit, genius.

  I kept my smart aleck response to myself. “Please, I really need to get to the hospital.”

  “I don’t know. This is a brand new car.”

  “Would you prefer I passed out and split open my skull instead? Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen if you leave me here.”

  The man sighed as if I was imposing a great burden on him. “Fine, but wait one second.”

  He ran around to the trunk and opened it. My foot throbbed as I distributed my weight to the opposite side. It was my luck I’d called a clean freak to take me to the hospital. The world tilted then righted itself. It seemed as if my threat had a grain of truth. If I stood here any longer, I would pass out.

  “Okay, all set,” the man yelled.

  He sat behind the wheel as I gingerly positioned myself onto the towel-lined seat. Once I’d closed the door, he handed me a plastic bag and waited till I slipped it over my foot before he started the engine. Seattle being a small city, it felt as if I blinked and we had arrived at my destination. It also helped that my driver navigated the streets as if he was part of NASCAR. Practically shoving me out of the still running vehicle, he roared off into the night.

  “Thanks for the ride!” I shouted pointlessly. It wasn’t as if he could hear me. “Stupid asshole. Nobody has manners these days. I swear to God…”

  My mumbling caught a few sideways glances, but I didn’t care. My foot felt as if a thousand-pound weight was attached to it.

  Turning around, I froze. Matthew was walking through the sliding doors with a slight limp in his gait. His moody grey eyes crinkled with concern as they locked onto mine.

  Grabbing the crook of my elbow to help steady me, he spoke. “What the hell happened?”

  “I could ask you the same.”

  “I slipped and fell in the shower.”

  “I stepped on a piece of glass.”

  He glanced down at the sodden t-shirt and paled. “Jesus, that’s your idea of a Band-Aid?”

  “Does it look as if a Band-Aid would do the trick?”

  “Guess you’re right. Let’s get you inside so you can get stitched up.”

  I jerked my arm away from his touch and swayed unsteadily on one foot. “I don’t need your help.”

  “Really? Because it looks like you do.” Reading my stubbornness, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re mad at me for what happened the other night.”

  “It’s not my business who you have sex with.” My statement sounded as false as a set of dentures so I kept talking until I didn’t know who I was trying to convince, Matthew or myself. “You are perfectly entitled to bring strange women back to your apartment. STD’s be damned.”

  “I didn’t touch her, Camille.”

  Woozy from blood loss and far from a sane mind, I hopped around Matthew toward the hospital doors. “Like I said, it’s none of my business.

  “Headstrong female…” he muttered as his fingers clasped around my upper arm. “Will you stop for a second? You’re going to injure yourself further.”

  I halted and glanced over my shoulder. Matthew’s expression of exasperation mixed with remorse baffled me. “Why do you care what I think?”

  “Because your opinion of me matters.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know, but it does.”

  The sidewalk buckled and swayed under my feet. Preventing me from face planting, Matthew slid his arm underneath my armpit and supported my weight. He smelled like burnt leaves in the midst of winter.

  “You shouldn’t be helping me if you’re hurt yourself,” I murmured.

  “I wasn’t here for myself. I volunteer in the children’s ward.” A grin quirked up his lips at the disbelief written on my face. “Yes, there is a shred of compassion living inside me.”

  “No, it’s not that...”

  But it was exactly that. Matthew didn’t strike me as the volunteer type or having the patience to deal with kids. Once again, he showed me a side I didn’t think existed. He was like a jar of pickles – those damn lids were impossible to open.

  “It’s okay. I know how I present myself.”

  “Not in the media though. You’re the golden child of Five Guys.”

  “It’s easier that way.” Railroading over his mysterious statement, Matthew spoke again. “Come on. Let’s get you the medical attention you clearly came here for.”

  We hobbled into the chaotic waiting room where the noise level blasted my eardrums. He glanced at the makeshift tourniquet then at the reception area.

  “Go sit down. I’ll handle checking you in.”

  Choosing the nearest seat, which unfortunately was next to a screaming toddler, I watched as Matthew approached the dour woman behind the desk. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was apparent he was using his charm and notoriety to his benefit. The woman’s expression thawed as she laughed. Matthew took the clipboard she handed him, and with one last wink her way, returned to where I sat.

  “A nurse should be out shortly,” he said.

  “What did you do? Bribe her with backstage passes?”

  “Nope, a private acoustic set for her daughter’s birthday.”

  “That’s generous.”

  Matthew’s shoulders hit his ears. “I have the time.”

  “I liked you better when you were an asshole.”

  “Don’t be fooled. I still am.”

  The blue flecks in his eyes disappeared, as did the warmth. Blame it on the blood loss, but I was impressed he could turn his feelings off like a valve.
I could learn a thing or two. A perky nurse bustled in with a wheelchair.

  As she was about to whisk me away, I grabbed Matthew’s hand. “Can you come with me?”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not good with needles.”

  He squeezed my palm. “Sure. I’ll come with you.”

  Matthew didn’t let go as we entered the stark white hallway. For me, hospitals weren’t cast in a negative light. They were a sign of rebirth and celebration. Nevertheless, I would play the scared little girl if that meant Matthew would stay by my side. His presence was oddly comforting. Matthew and the nurse helped me onto the exam table.

  “I’m going to remove the plastic bag and t-shirt. Okay?”

  The nurse’s voice was straight from a meditation soundtrack. I felt as if I closed my eyes, the image of crashing waves would appear.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She tugged plastic gloves over her hands then skillfully undid the masking tape. Matthew looked away as she peeled the soaked material off my foot and dropped it on the floor. I bit my bottom lip to quell the tears from flowing.

  “It’s a nasty cut,” she gently prodded my heel with her fingers. “We are going to have to remove any foreign bodies before we stitch it up.”

  “Are you saying there is something still in there? Because it didn’t seem like there was.”

  “Let me clean the wound and we’ll see if I have to use the tweezers.” She turned to gather her supplies. “How did you cut yourself?”

  “I stepped on some broken glass by accident.”

  Matthew’s chin suddenly jerked downwards, catching me in a stare that saw through my very incomplete explanation. I attempted to ignore it, but that proved to be unsuccessful. Unlike most people, he wasn’t fooled by the painted smile on my lips. Maybe the old Camille wasn’t lost. Maybe she was waiting for the right person to find her again.

  Offering my hand for moral support, Camille’s stoic expression cracked as the nurse dug glass shards free from the cut. Despite her obvious pain, she refused my offer, so instead I attempted to distract her with mindless chatter. All I really wanted to do was ask the true story behind how she ended up in the ER. You don’t simply step on broken glass by accident. There are events that lead up to that moment and she wasn’t the kind of woman who was clumsy. She had grace in spades. No, something happened -- something bad. After the RN stitched the wound, she gave Camille a blue pill for the pain and bid us a goodnight. Camille hopped on her brand new pair of crutches into the hallway.