by J. R. Rogue
Yeah, I knew it then, that I could love her. So I knew I had to leave her.
To mistrust yourself is to live a lie. The greatest violence I had ever known was at the hand of the man in front of me and I felt no fear when I looked into his eyes. The war was over, and we had both lost.
I heard the banging of a fist on the front door of my shop all the way upstairs just after midnight. I didn’t sleep soundly some nights, and it was because of him that I woke in the night sometimes.
After cautiously sticking my head out the window, I saw his painted face looking up at me. His cheek and jaw and eyes, the colors didn’t make sense. Deep reds and purples, even in the dim light of the street lamp I could see that something wasn’t right. I tried to calm my racing pulse, to figure out why he looked so strange. “I’ll be right down,” I shouted before I could stop myself.
I knew I should call the police or just go back inside and ignore him. But I wasn’t sure he would go away, and I didn’t want the attention of the local cops. I would go downstairs and talk to him through the glass of the front door. I wouldn’t let him in. I wouldn’t let him near me.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand and pulled it from the plug, illuminating the screen, checking the time. I was struck by the sudden appearance of a text from my mystery guy, I hadn’t heard from him in a while. I pressed my thumb into the fingerprint button and opened the device. I clicked the message app open and pulled the text to the front of the screen. It was a song, and the title pushed my already somersaulting stomach into overdrive. The title was “So Long, Goodbye,” the band was 10 Years.
I heard more banging on the door below and shook my head. I would deal with that later. After throwing on my robe and slippers, I grabbed the stun gun I kept at the top of the stairs.
When you live in a small town, it’s easy to find yourself lulled into a false sense of security. Most of the people I saw day to day were people I knew and had known my whole life. I had either grown up with them or their children, their grandchildren, their cousins, and on and on.
I no longer lived in a world bubbling with false security. I double-checked locks, I scooted past dark alleys when I took walks. Something infected me and I couldn’t shake it. And it all seemed so absurd. Some boogieman in the night hadn’t jumped out from behind my car and taken the most tender parts of me into his dagger mouth. The love of my life had done this to me. And now he was banging on my door and I was running down the stairs to meet him. I hated myself.
I kept the lights off as I made my way through the store. I didn’t want Charles to know I was close. When I made it to the front of the store, I stayed just out of the light. He was pacing the sidewalk in front of me, just beyond the glass. His gaze kept darting to my bedroom window above, to his phone, to the door in front of me. But he couldn’t see me yet.
I let the light once again illuminate his face, though it was hard to figure out what was going on with his constant movement and mutterings. When he walked closer to the door and looked as though he was ready to use his fist on it again, I flicked the flashlight feature of my phone on and shone it at his face, stilling him. His arm froze in midair for a moment and then fell to his side.
I walked up to the glass and shouted through the door, “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you, Kat,” he yelled back, getting as close to the glass as he could.
I saw it then, the mess that was his face. The blue and red hues were blood and bruising. My hand pulled up to my mouth on its own accord. Who did that to him? I hadn’t seen him this unhinged since the night he raped me. I thought I might vomit.
Instead, I propped my phone up so that the light was still shining into his eyes, hoping it would make him as uncomfortable as I felt in his proximity. “There’s nothing for us to talk about anymore, Charles,” I shouted back, my voice a little shaky.
“Look at my face, Kat! I need you to let me in.”
A brewing rage, one that had been bubbling up inside me all year, spilled out in that moment. My voice was foreign; my body was not my own. I slammed my fist down on a four-foot-tall dollhouse standing next to me. I felt blood coming to the surface of my skin immediately, spilling over my knuckles. I shouted and it sounded like a thousand voices all around me swelling in chorus. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
My rage blindsided him momentarily. I imagined it felt like a slap to the face to see me so riled up. The woman who didn’t even scream at him after he had violated her. He recovered quickly though.
“This is your fault,” he growled, stepping closer to the glass, slowly turning his neck, showing me every cut and bump in his skin. It was then that I noticed one of his eyes was so messed up that it was closed tight, blinding him. “I don’t know what you said to him but I know it’s your fault.”
“Said to who?” I spat. He was off the hinges, mad.
“Sera’s brother. That little bitch did this.”
The air left my lungs instantly. What the hell? What had I set in motion? Would I always swallow blame that was not mine? I was not reaching out and unlatching that door. I was not letting him inside, not inside this building, not inside the walls I had built inside of my body. Not inside of the small bit left I had reserved for people where pity was doled out. I found myself looking at people in harsher lights. Less forgiving, less accepting. Less, less, less. I turned the flashlight feature of my phone off. His face was muted, shadowed, and swallowed by dull yellow. He let his hand run along the glass—slowly, dramatically. The arrogant screech of his skin on glass fueled my hatred. I didn’t pull my eyes from him. I didn’t back down. When I spoke, my voice was even.
“Whatever he did to you, you deserved it.”
“What he did to me, it, it wasn’t his business, Kat. It was between you and I. Are you fucking him? Is that it?” He laughed cruelly then. “Yeah, that’s it. I thought maybe it was because you told that friend of yours and then she told her kid brother. Small town gossip chain of command. No, you told him yourself, huh? You told him, probably after you fucked him. Whatever happened to that guy you were texting while you were married to me? Forgot about him already? Or did you meet up with him and maybe it didn’t work out the way you hoped? Shouldn’t have put your marriage on the line for some cheap thrill, huh?”
“Fuck you, Charles,” I spat. He was saying all the things he probably wanted to say after that night. It was unnecessary. His actions had spoken these words the night he showed me who he truly was. He didn’t need to verbalize them. “Why did you even come here? Were you hoping for sympathy? Bruises and blood. Save it.” I wanted to go on but my hand started buzzing. My white knuckles were wrapped around my phone. I pulled it to my face and saw my best friend’s name on the screen. I hit the ignore button so that I could deal with my ex-husband. When I looked up at him, his face had changed through the glass.
“Kat,” he said, looking down, focusing on his words. It was so obvious he was trying to put a false face on. “I’m sorry I came over here, and I’m sorry for the scene.”
He was using his professional voice. If you decide to be a lawyer, to defend other human beings for a living, you have to be fluent in the language of manipulation. You have to have a talent not just for defending others, but for defending yourself. The tone, the inflection, the face he was now wearing, behind the bruising and blood, it was a skilled one. But it wasn’t going to work on me, not anymore. I had seen the beast beneath the man.
In my hand my phone buzzed again; I hit ignore again. I needed to get rid of Charles so I could call Sera back. She never called. She was a texter. It had to be important but I needed to focus on the man in front of me and figure out how to get rid of him.
I looked away from the glowing phone in my hand again. My eyes caught on the alarm glowing next to the door. I stepped forward to the glass deliberately. “Charles, I need you to listen to me.” His face softened even more. He thought his manipulation had worked. “I need you to get into your car, and I need you to leave. If
you don’t, I am going to trigger the alarm for my shop, and the cops are going to show up, and then your picture perfect reputation is going be compromised. The golden boy will be dirtied. Do you want that?”
“Kat,” he started.
But I stopped him by taking a step to the alarm, my index finger floating in the air, a warning. He held his hands up reflexively. He couldn’t risk his reputation, his career. It was more important than anything else. It had been a painful lesson to learn. He didn’t say another word.
I placed my palm on the doorframe, right next to the alarm. He knew where it was located, he knew how quickly I could trigger it. I didn’t move my arm until he was gone, his taillights vacant from my vision.
In the dark of my shop, all the air that had refused to enter my lungs came back all at once, and I felt dizzy. I dropped to my knees in the dark and wept openly. After what could have only been a minute of crying, I pulled myself together. It felt like longer.
I couldn’t get my thoughts to focus on one batch of information. Andrew attacked Charles. It was so out of character. He was all smiles and kissing and jokes and practically a walking cartoon character. He had beaten another man badly because of me. I wasn’t given a chance to think more on it. Once again, my phone buzzed in my hand. Sera.
I tapped the button on my phone and pulled it to my ear. The woman on the other line was a version of Sera that was foreign to me. One that was panicked. One that needed me.
It’s a strange thing to sit in a room with your best friend while her heart breaks for the first time when you have been alive for three decades. Statistically, it should have come sooner—a breaking like this—but it hadn’t, not for her.
Sera was very skilled at keeping herself closed off. I had watched her break boys’ hearts her whole life. It was natural for her when she wasn’t keeping them so much further than just an arm’s length away.
The romance she developed with Andrew’s best friend Chace had caught her off guard. It caught me off guard. It wasn’t until she was crying in front of me in the parking lot of the local Mexican restaurant that I realized how much she cared for him. When I pressed her, she confessed the full extent of her feelings. She was in love with him. She was in love with him, and she had likely lost him due to miscommunication and meddling third parties that wanted to pry them away from each other.
I was sure that I would tell her about the time I was spending with her brother soon, but now I needed to change those plans. She needed me and I couldn’t be bothering her with my little fling or whatever it was.
I took Sera back to her house, away from drama and curious eyes, and we camped out on her couch.
The drama of the night had me wired and jumpy. After wrapping Sera in a blanket in her living room, I went to her kitchen to fill her teakettle with water. I rummaged through her cabinets to find something mint, something calming.
On the counter my phone lit up with a notification. I walked to it and unlocked the device quickly when I saw Andrew’s name on the screen. I laughed a little to myself over my paranoia. Sera was in the other room. She couldn’t see my phone from there. Calm down.
I had multiple Facebook messages from Andrew. I scrolled through them, watching his panic unfold.
Andrew: Kat I did something crazy tonight. I need to talk to you.
Andrew: If your ex-husband shows up, don’t let him in. I’ll explain later.
Andrew: Kat I need you to answer. I know you haven’t seen these. I’m freaking out a little.
Andrew: Okay I came by and you weren’t there. That makes me feel a little better. Where are you? I need to talk to you tonight.
I tapped out a reply and set my phone down, reaching up to the cabinet in front of me, searching for two glasses. I placed tea packets in each and reached for my phone again when Andrew replied.
Andrew: I’m glad you’re okay. This whole thing is a mess. Can I see you? I need to talk to you. It’s important.
Me: I can’t right now. I’m with your sister. I’ll explain later but a whole bunch of drama went down with Chace and that girl Caroline, and it’s all a mess. She is a mess.
Andrew: Fuck, what happened? I’ll get ahold of Chace.
Andrew: But, can you get away? It’s important I talk to you tonight.
Me: We can talk about the Charles thing later. It’s okay.
Andrew: It isn’t just that…
Me: ???
Andrew: I need to talk to you in person about it.
Me: Okay. But it can’t be tonight. Sera needs me. Tomorrow?
Andrew: Okay. Tomorrow.
After we said our goodnights, I took two mugs of tea into the living room and spent the rest of the night comforting my friend, the one who never asked for comfort. I fell asleep knowing that I would see Andrew the next day and we would talk about whatever it was he needed. I fell asleep knowing that, but I was wrong.
The next morning, his Facebook profile was deactivated. I couldn’t find him anywhere. He was gone.
Kat and I kissed for so long on her couch I was worried I was going to blow it, literally. I couldn’t handle that embarrassment so I started trying to work out math equations in my head, but it was a battle I was afraid I was going to lose every time she pressed down on me.
I wanted everything to slow down, but time was a bitch. I could hear my heart racing in my ears, drowning out the sound of our breaths, huffing in and out, symphonically. I wanted to live up to everything she may have built up in her head. Maybe that was a bit presumptuous but we had been building up to this for so long she had to have, right? Honestly, the chances of being anything like she imagined were slim. I hadn't had sex in a year and a half. The last time being some random hookup up north while I was away. We were both so drunk that I wasn't sure the girl got my name and I forgot hers soon after.
I rarely went out while living with my mother but all my fuckups and the loss of band practices as a way to scratch my creative itch led to a lot of pent up red. Bottle me up and don't you dare touch the lid. I found painting soon after that and never really went out again.
The woman touching me right now, she needed to slow down. She needed to be a little less made for me. She needed to quit murmuring into my ear. I heard my name fall from her lips, tangling in my hair, and my skin was suddenly covered in goose bumps. I shivered and bit my lip so hard I was surprised I didn’t taste blood on the exhale.
This was it for me. She was it for me. It had been her for years now. I wasn’t going to run from it anymore. I was not going to be that coward anymore. I wasn’t going to stop this right here and now to discuss everything we needed to get out, I’m not a machine, but we would for sure get to that tomorrow.
In front of me, my hands roved every inch of her but we were still skating that line. She was so unlike the Kat I knew before. I was always smiling with the upper hand in my back pocket, but not now. Since I came back home and walked back into her life, she was the one pulling my strings. All my resistance had been pathetic, futile.
What finally pushed us over the edge was the slip of a finger. I wanted a reaction, and the one I got floored me. She still responded to my touch in a way that made me feel like I was floating just above the earth. It was dizzying. I wanted to see her come undone a little, and she did.
I traced my hand along her thigh and slipped one finger into her panties. That’s all it took to break the cycle of climbing and climbing up to the edge to a cliff we would never jump over. Two cowards, maybe both in love with each other, maybe just me.
Kat let out a moan so ridiculously vulnerable and sexy that I just could not fucking help myself. I gripped her hips and pushed her up. I quickly pushed her panties to the side and pushed myself into her slowly, deliberately. In return, she let out a gasp, but it wasn’t from pain. She was soaked, ready for me. Without warning, a sound escaped my throat that I would have been embarrassed by if I wasn’t a goner for the woman who just let me inside of her. Now, I wasn’t embarrassed by it, but it felt like it came fr
om someone else. Some part of me I had been hiding for longer than I cared to know.
She arched back then, in response to my vulnerability, gripping my neck, clenching her eyes, taking a moment to feel me inside of her before she looked at me. Her eyelids were droopy, and her lips were parted. Jesus fuck, woman.
I’m in love with her, I’m in love with her, I’m in love with her. I couldn’t stop the loop. I held her stare and hoped she could somehow read my mind. I wanted to blurt it out like the fool I was but I didn’t want to say something like that for the first time during sex. It felt tacky. It felt like something a dude said because it was expected.
No, this was not the moment. Maybe after. Maybe in the morning. The when and where quickly became unimportant as Kat began rocking her hips and kissing my neck. I was a goner.
I want to say that the entire night was full of sex and that I got Kat off half a dozen times and there was no way she would ever find a sex God the likes of me ever again. But that wasn’t our reality.
The truth was, Kat kept up her pace and I nearly blew it before stopping her. I pulled her panties off and we grabbed a condom and we started again. I didn’t last long that first time we made love. She smiled into my neck and when I pulled back, she brushed at my damp brow. She looked at me like maybe the same loop was playing in her mind. I stared as deep into her eyes as I could, hoping I could read into her, but I was still a little lost.
When we were done, we gathered our clothes into a pile and went into Kat’s bedroom. She pulled her covers back and we crawled in together. We had sex again soon after. I couldn’t help myself with her so close, and I made a better second impression than a first.
When we were done again, I pulled her as near as I could and spoke into her hair. She smelled like citrus and summer and a forgiveness I desperately needed.
