by Brandi Aga
It’s no secret I cheated—he forgave me.
That’s what you do in a marriage when it gets hard. You fight. It’s more than just a piece of paper and a pretty diamond on your left hand. As for myself? I’m still working on forgiving her. That girl that I was trying so desperately to break free from when I destroyed my family. That’s not who I was, or who I’ll ever be again. That girl is long gone. A caterpillar turned butterfly. My wings might be slightly damaged, but I’ll still fly or die trying.
I worked the night shift last night. It’s not my favorite but right now with Maddy being so little, it works so I don’t have to put her in daycare all the time. Ryan is with her at night and I have the help of my trusty sitter during the day while I sleep. Today, though, Ryan is off, and I got to sleep in a little longer than I usually would. After the shift I had last night, I needed it. Every night at work seems worse than the last, lately. I lay here and stretch until I can’t any longer.
I grab my cover up and make my way down the hall. I stop just outside the bathroom where I hear their voices. Maddy is sitting on the counter in her PJs playing with her Barbie doll, while Ryan brushes the tangles out of her wet hair. He sprays the detangler on her hair and she laughs as some of the mist hits her skin. She has some of the most thick, darkest hair I have ever seen on a toddler. She definitely gets that from me.
“What are you guys doing?” I open the door and make my presence known. As soon as Maddy sees me, she’s on her feet standing in the middle of the counter and reaching for me.
“Morning, babe. You sleep good? I didn’t want to wake you.” Ryan gives up the fight of the hairbrush and accepts defeat now that I’m here.
“I slept so good,” I say in a singsong voice in the crook of Maddy’s neck while I blow raspberries to make her giggle.
Ryan glances down at his watch. “It’s like five but we can go get some food and hit up the store if you want. I put her in her PJs because I was just going to order some take-out while you slept, but it’s up to you. You too tired after work last night?”
I shake my head. “No, we can go. Just let me shower first.”
“Shit, I forgot the milk,” I tell Ryan as we’re already looking for the least crowded checkout line. I don’t know what I was thinking, agreeing to come to the store tonight. It’s crowded. Too crowded for this time of the day, and I’m not in the mood. I should have just put in for a pickup order and drove in tomorrow. First world problems. But Maddy and her milk. We go through several gallons a week, and at this point I should just invest in the whole damn cow. It would save me tons of money and late-night trips of peopling.
“Want me to grab it?” he offers.
I shake my head back. “I’ll get it. I’ll be quick.” I leave Ryan and Maddilyn to pick a checkout lane while I run back to the cold section. I quickly glance around at anything else we might need that I’ve forgotten and decide against it. I just want to get out of here and be done already. The whole store is shaped like a giant L and the smaller leg part, where the milk is, is scarce compared to the rest of the place. Thank goodness.
As I’m standing on my tippy toes reaching for the milk, a bulky arm wraps around my middle. I all but cry out, trying to spin around to see who has their hand on me while their other hand firmly covers my mouth.
“Shhh. I’ve got you,” he croons into my hair, towering over me. The smell of tobacco and leather float down to my nose. That voice. I struggle out of his grip and turn around to face him as soon as he releases me from his hold. He puts his hands up in defense and takes a small step back, fully prepared to take whatever I spit at him but still giving me the room to go off. I’m cornered like a wild animal ready to attack.
Eyes wide, I ask, “What are you doing? You can’t be here. Ryan is right around the corner.” My eyes scan the people around us as if he might pop out any second, suspicious of what’s taking me so long even though it’s only been a minute. Time seems to have stopped. Sludging through mud at a snail’s pace. I don’t know why that thought crosses my mind in that split second. The need to hide from Ryan. So what if he did see? I’m not doing anything wrong. Am I? It’s not my fault he’s here in the same grocery store as me. And I surely didn’t ask Roman to come here. The thought makes me even angrier that he’s here willing to risk ruining everything for me.
“I know. I needed to see you.”
I put my hand to my chest. The air around me so thick I can barely breathe. I force myself to calm my breathing, so I don’t go into cardiac arrest, but my efforts are useless. I have to get out of here. I push past him, but he grabs my forearm, stopping me.
“Wait. Please,” he begs, his once beautiful eyes holding my stare. Now there’s no emotion inside of them. Wait, that’s not true. No good emotion. I feel like I’m staring into a dark abyss of anger and destruction.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. I’m human after all, I have a beating heart. All the memories come rushing back. The bike. The ocean. His living room floor. But so does the pain. The deceit. All of the bad that he brought out of me. I close my eyes. I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not. I won’t be.
“You should have picked up the phone. Then. I can’t do this.” I look down at my arm where his grip still has a firm hold with no intention to set me free. “Let. Go,” I say through gritted teeth louder than necessary to make my point and shrug him off as I make my way through the crowd back to Ryan. I forgot there were so many people here. The fact that Ryan could have been one of them makes my heart race faster. It would have killed him to see that. I see his head over the checkout shelves and say a silent prayer that he’s found a spot and already checking out. I hope he’s almost finished and just waiting on me to get back with the forgotten milk so we can go home.
I excuse my way through the line of people waiting to check out behind us, set the milk down with shaky hands, and try to put out the flames of this fire before it even starts. I don’t know what Roman’s capable of. He’s done a lot of shitty things. I don’t think he’d give a damn if we were in a crowded grocery store or the privacy of our own home to make a scene. I mean, obviously, he came here after me. So that just proves my point. I’m not taking any chances.
“I don’t feel good. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think I need to go out to the car. I’ll take Maddy with me while you finish up here, if that’s fine with you?”
“Okay, babe. You sure?” Ryan looks at me in question, but only out of concern, not suspicion. Fingers crossed, anyway. I’m paranoid and overthinking everything.
I plaster on a fake smile to reassure him. “Yeah. We’ll be in the car. Do you have the keys?” I feel around in my purse, but they aren’t there. Then again, right now all I have is tunnel vision, so I keep digging just in case. My mind is all over the place.
“Here.” He reaches in his pocket and holds them out in the palm of his hand, and I can only hope he doesn’t notice how clammy my hands are as they brush against his.
Maddy cries for Ryan as I force her legs out of the cart. Don’t do this to me Mads, not now. I hold her against me despite her efforts to reach for Ryan. You haven’t lived as a parent till you’ve carried your kicking and screaming child kidnapper style out of a busy place in public while everyone stares at you. Fuck me, this day was supposed to be relaxing.
I almost forget where we parked and I hate myself for letting him have this effect on me, and I just want to get as far away from here as possible and go home before he’s able to stir shit up. I buckle her in her car seat all the while she screams that she has to sit in it instead of being inside with Ryan. I blindly root around her bag, while keeping both eyes on the door. If Roman comes out, I want to be able to see him at all times.
My fingers graze the rubber top of her cup and I pass it back to her in hopes that it’ll calm her down. Thankfully, as soon as it touches her lips, it does. I place my hand over my chest, over my heart, to feel that I’m still breathing. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s going to be
okay. Calm your crazy.
I sigh in relief when Ryan walks out of the double rolling doors first. No signs of Roman. Good. Hurry up. Let’s go already, babe. I’m chanting to myself without even realizing it. I step out of the truck to help when he gets closer and he smiles when his eyes meet mine.
“I got it, Ley.”
Oh, right. I forgot I’m not feeling well. I climb back in the passenger seat and wait for him to load up. Once he’s finished, he throws a bag of Skittles and a small assorted bouquet of flowers in my lap. The kind with the pink, blue, and yellow daises and roses that are kept cold in the little black bins. I look over to him and he winks back. I don’t deserve him, I really don’t. Here I am trying to secretly bury my past in a ten-foot hole and he’s in there buying me flowers and candy that he knows I won’t buy myself.
He puts the truck in reverse and drives out of the parking lot. I watch my rearview mirror the entire time we drive away, until the store is nothing but a tiny speck in the sunset, but I never saw Roman leave. I don’t know what’s more shocking. The fact that he’s had his arms around me again, or that he let me go unscathed. Part of me wonders if he was ever really there at all.
“I figured it’d be gone.” We roll up to the old house I lived in before. Some part of me kind of hoped it would still be available and I could just swoop it up and continue on with my life like before. Not that I was living much of one then either, but I could have been if I hadn’t royally fucked it all up. Now it seems I have to start all over anyway. I’m right back where I started, if not worse. Definitely worse.
There’s an SUV parked in the driveway and kids’ toys thrown about by the garage. A family lives here, taken over what used to be mine. Yeah, I’ve got money and yeah, the shop’s still mine. The building is, anyway, not sure how much the business is hanging on. But like Veronica keeps reminding me, they’re watching me ever since I got out of there, and I can’t go fucking things up. I can’t go busting out stacks of cash that are off the books without raising too many red flags. I don’t want to give the state too many reasons to look at me twice. So, for now, I lay low. Veronica insists I do things the normal way, whatever that means. Without breaking laws and shit, I guess. I’ve never really been a rule follower. I don’t know that I can start now. I can stay off the grid, but obedient I am not.
“I think I’m just going to sleep at the shop for now. Got room in the loft upstairs. I need to clean shit up there anyway.” I never bothered fixing up the upstairs before when we were working out of there every day. Occasionally the guys would hang out up there or take a girl back there, but no one ever really cleaned it up and took care of it. Never had a need to. Just stored shit up there that I didn’t have room for anywhere else. It’s a loft that has a tiny kitchen and space for sleeping with the bathroom right downstairs. It could pretty much be someone’s one-bedroom apartment. Plus, bonus points for me, it’s free rent and saves me some money I don’t have to spend on a new place. For now, at least. I can wake up and come to work. That’s got to look good for something.
“Are you sure?”
I look out my window and nod. I know she wants me to come back to her place, even if only temporary, but I don’t think I can do it. Don’t think I even want to. I flex my fists to remind myself where I am. I’m free. Relax, man. “I need to get a phone. Am I allowed to do that?” I roll my head in her direction just giving her a hard time about all the rules she keeps giving me shit for. But she’s tight-lipped and all of her once lighthearted attitude is long gone. I know I’ve rained on her parade in some way. Female feelings and all that shit.
“Yeah, you’re allowed to do that.” She white-knuckles the steering wheel the rest of the drive up the coast.
I’ve been chain smoking one cigarette after the other ever since I had Veronica take me to get some. I never should have smoked hers. I seem to have this reoccurring problem, that once I get addicted to something, I have to always have it. I take the saying ‘go big or go home’ and run with it. I go big over everything. I can’t half ass anything. Even the bad shit. Well, except relationships, obviously. Everyone that’s been in one with me would probably agree with that. That’s probably why I’m closing in on forty and I’m still single. Never been married. I laugh to myself at the thought of me with a wife. May God have mercy on the poor girl that ever takes that title.
I give Veronica the address to drop me off at the shop after our excursion, even though I’m pretty sure she already knows where it is. I need some time alone, to figure out my headspace. She said she’d stop by later, so I guess I didn’t hurt her feelings too bad. I need to figure this out with her, what she’s expecting of me, but that can wait.
I haven’t called anyone about my release yet. To be honest, I’m not sure how to start. My head feels loud and quiet all at the same time and it’s throwing me off. I’m never not in control of my feelings until all of this second chance case shit popped up and I’m learning it’s a weakness of mine, to feel this way. Like everything else seems to be lately. The ups and downs are a lot and I’m not digging it. Vulnerability makes me twitch and I’m one hair away from dismantling everything.
I sit down on one of the old barrels outside of the shop and lean against the side of the building. The bang of my feet on the hollow barrel echoing out into the dark California night. The lights on the fence the only thing alive around here for miles. If I wasn’t in such a headspace right now, I’d say it’s almost peaceful. But, unfortunately, there’s no peace going on here. The walls inside my mind wreak havoc, and I’m struggling to keep them all in place.
With unsure hands, I stick another smoke between my lips while my eyes adjust to the brightness of my phone. I flick the flame on my lighter off and on. Off, on until it’s too hot to touch and even then, I welcome the burn. Veronica insisted on adding me to her phone plan for now, until things get sorted. She said it looked good on record, or some shit. Stability, responsibility. It’s whatever. When I get the shop up and running again, I’ll figure it all out on my own. Which reminds me, I need to get in contact with Blaze soon and figure out what’s up. Why this place is a dead-end right now. That wasn’t part of the plan. I know I left him in the dark a lot, but this isn’t him. It isn’t us. I’m starting to see this pattern, too. Everything’s different. Fuck. I grind the palms of my hands into my eye sockets and rub them till my vision is blurry and little white dots paint the night in front of me.
Back to my phone, I squint as I scroll back and forth between the three numbers that I have in it, including Veronica’s. One, his. Two, hers. One, two, one, two. Once I do this, everything changes or it doesn’t, and I’m not sure which one would be worse. I’m about to find out real fast which way it’s going to go.
I click on Leylah’s number first. The smarter, better half of my brain knows I should probably just leave her alone, but I like I said, this is my second chance. If I don’t take it, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what if. I, of all people, have learned just how short life is. Eat the fucking cake. Buy the expensive car. Call the girl. Life’s too short, don’t set limits.
With a deep breath and my stomach in my ass, I press enter on Leylah’s name. My confidence is quickly shot down when it goes to a dial tone error saying that her number has been disconnected. I laugh to myself, because of course she changed her number. Hell-bent on being in control and having things her way. Right? I keep telling myself that anyway. It feels better to be angry than like a lost lovesick puppy. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her face, I’m second-guessing everything. This is bullshit.
I click up one to Blaze’s name and type out a text to him. I can’t handle being rejected twice in one night.
Me: B? It’s Rome. Need to talk.
I lay my head back against the building and smoke another cigarette. I’m going to need another pack by tomorrow at this rate. A minute ticks by, then another, then an hour. Just when I think he isn’t going to respond either, he comes through with an address.
&
nbsp; It’s Leylah’s old apartment.
I blew up an old air mattress and set it up in the loft of the shop last night. True to her word once again, Veronica came by after she dealt with an emergency client or something up at her office. All I know is, it was late. I was extremely drunk. She was also drunk. That’s probably why she’s naked under the blanket next to me.
Light from the warehouse airflow vents in the ceiling let in enough light to light up a runway, which is doing nothing for my post drinking binge headache. I glance over at her sleeping form. Her tan curves taunt my fingertips. She’s pretty in a natural kind of way. The kind of natural that can leave the house without makeup on and no one would notice. She’s got a small chest but the good kind of small, proportionate to match the rest of her. She’s just a cute, down-to-earth kind of girl with a good head on her shoulders. The total opposite of Leylah. Leylah is spicy as fuck and you know it the minute you see her. She’s crazy in all the best ways and she doesn’t hide any of it. I miss every inch of her attitude and all the rest. The good and the bad. So I can’t stop questioning what the fuck someone like V is doing in my bed.
With the room still spinning, I climb off the mattress as quietly as I can, but my efforts are wasted because every little dip on this thing moves the whole bed.
“Hey.” Her gravely morning voice slices right through my attempts at getting out of here unnoticed and I cringe. I’m not actively trying to be an asshole; it just keeps happening. It might as well be imprinted on my forehead.
With no need to be quiet now, I slip on my jeans and throw a t-shirt on. “Go back to sleep if you want.” I tilt my chin to the bed in hopes that she’ll stay and let me leave in peace or take the hint and leave herself.
“Come back to bed.” She turns over toward me now and sprawls out under the sheet, running her hand over where I was just lying. Her boobs are out on full display and believe me when I say just how close I am to crawling right back into that bed for a sure thing, but I can’t.
