by K Larsen
Gabriel injured my flesh. Memories make me strong. It’s my hell. Shattered. Now I must take time to accept my dark reality. To kill the light inside my soul and lose my identity. My hands are frigid yet my heart hot. It burns with ire. Logic has crushed my spirit. I have nothing to lose. I’m beautiful pain and ugly joy. I do nothing.
No, I’m lying in wait with nothing to do.
~***~
The time was long past for honest men, Matteo thought. Sweet dreams were made from these small moments. Summer swung wide now but the rains that sat on the horizon would wash away the pain of the past and set the two of them free.
Matteo grinned and kept reading.
~***~
2000 - Spain/ Canada
My dreams have taken a new shape. I am the evil lurking. I am the monster hiding in the closet, under the bed, the shadow that follows. Waiting. In my dreams Gabriel looks up at me, pale and grim, pleading. I take no pity. I offer him no mercy.
I carved Teo’s and my initials in the dust with my stiletto heel so someone would know we had been there. That we existed in beauty together. Healed here together. Loved here together. I had pins and needles anticipating what was to come. We’re leaving our Spanish villa. It’s time now.
We’ve located Gabriel.
Her face had been so close to his then that they would have touched noses had he turned his head. He let her read the email from the private investigator. She’d cut her eyes to his and smirked. She had looked so incredibly joyful. He couldn’t resist. His lips found hers. Warmth had flooded him. Cece, his Cece, was so beautiful. So pure. And she was his. They were reckless renegades. A prelude to a shift. Together beginning a new chapter. It had been an exciting time.
Matteo closed the journal, content for the evening. He filled a watering can and watered the plants, all Cece’s favorites, before turning in for the night.
In bed, Matteo pulled the covers up over him. He snatched the empty pillow beside him and clung to it as he drifted into dreams where the past and the future fought to the death.
Chapter 5
July 2014
~ Matteo ~
LYING IN WAIT—the act of concealing yourself and lying in wait to attack by surprise
Matteo sealed the letter in the envelope and kicked the trunk of the Volkswagen to quiet the man, not that it mattered. He stuck a stamp to the top left-hand corner then addressed it.
He drove for two hours until he reached a copse of trees far off any beaten path. After putting the car in park he ran a hand through his thick dark hair. He opened the door, swung his legs out and reached in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. He let the unlit smoke dangle between his lips before pushing up onto his feet.
He rounded the back of the car and popped the trunk open. The country club tennis instructor lay tied and squirming. Matteo pulled the syringe from his pocket, uncapped it and squirted a bit out the tip before bending over the man in the trunk and injecting the paralyzing drug into his system. Knowing the man wouldn’t be moving or squealing would make it easier for him to dig the man’s grave. He started shoveling.
Sweat dripped from his forehead and blisters had already formed on his palms. He took a break to enjoy a smoke. He didn’t know what to feel really. Panic? No. Guilt? Only a little. This man was not part of Gabriel’s family but he did serve a purpose. Matteo watched the way the hot breeze ruffled the leaves on the trees surrounding him. He tossed the shovel aside and looked over his work. Good enough. He hefted the man into his arms, stood and walked to the grave where he dropped the man in unceremoniously. There was no point in theatrics.
The man stared up at him wild-eyed. A pang of disgust filled Matteo. He didn’t carry a gun. He absolutely wasn’t going to smash the poor man’s head in with a rock or other blunt object - it wasn’t in him. He wasn’t coldhearted. This was a means to an end. If there was a way to put him out of his mercy more humanely he would. But at present, there wasn’t.
Sighing, he picked up the shovel and began tossing the dirt back into the ground being sure to cover the man’s face first. It was unnerving having the man stare up at him. His was a senseless death, to anyone besides Matteo and Celeste. No one would understand it. It wouldn’t be a moment of clarity for the man, he would just continue staring up at Matteo and wondering why. Matteo’s heart raced. His blood thundered in his veins as he scooped dirt and tossed it in quickly. His work didn’t take too take long and Matteo was pleased when he finally dropped the shovel into the trunk of the car. He turned and inspected the site. The ground hardly looked disturbed. Not that it mattered.
Hours.
It had taken hours of his day to complete his task. Matteo stopped at a mailbox and dropped the letter inside before stepping into the convenience store to grab something cold to cool him. By the time he arrived home that night he was bone tired and irritable. Cece had killed before, but she’d had him to come home to when she was a mess. He had no one waiting for him. No one to take the weight off his shoulders - not tonight anyways.
He kicked off his shoes and washed his hands repeatedly. The soil seemed to stain his skin. He wanted the reminder gone. He trudged through the kitchen and into the living room and let himself sink deep into the chair and relax. He reached for Cece’s journal and laid it open in his lap, eager to read her words and imagine her voice. He needed her right now.
~***~
2002 - Canada
We took a trip, Teo and I, to the U.S., and from a very safe distance we watched Gabriel and Monique. My faith lies somewhere between lilies and pews. They have a secret life that they come home to every night. Matteo is outraged. How? he asks. It’s as if karma doesn’t exist. But I don’t know, so I have no words for him.
I want to watch them fall. I want to hear the sound of the break, the sound of all the years they’ve saved up together snapping. Crackling in a fire. How it will burn. They will finally feel the fear, the humility of it all. Twenty years of a golden life of lies, melted down to nothing.
When we arrived back to our rental house we’d wracked our brains. We had so much more direction now that we’d seen them alive and well. We had all the time in the world to plan and execute the way we wanted. There were no limitations for us. Money and time are two things that every devil needs and we have it . . . so much of it.
~***~
The scars of her love left him breathless. Scars never leave. They stick forever. Matteo was content knowing Cece had scarred him. It was something no one could take away. A scar couldn’t be taken back. Their mutual hate, their wounds, their love was all consuming and it burned brighter than a comet. The promise that for Gabriel, death would not end his suffering made their bond that much stronger. He didn’t need to die. He needed to suffer.
~***~
2004 - Canada
We’ve had the most fun. America has so much to offer a traveler. There is so much to see. Matteo and I have been able to travel all over Canada and the U.S. and it has been bliss. We’ve met the most incredible people. Seen jaw-dropping sights and indulged in fabulous food. I feel like we are the two luckiest people. We have each other. We have the means to do whatever we’d like and we share the same mindset. We are so fortunate to be able to take advantage of all these experiences. At night when we’re curled up in bed together, no matter where we are I get the strangest sense that everything has happened exactly the way it was meant to in my life. That the lingering darkness that shrouds me still will eventually explode into shards of light when we’re done.
When he’s done. There is no greater suffering than losing everything. So we will not harm Gabriel, physically. We will strip him down bare until there is nothing left of him but his own ruined memories. And then leave him to live with it.
~***~
Matteo closed the journal and his eyes and thought back to their time in Canada. He loved that the happier she grew, the more she embraced her feelings, the shorter her entries became. They’d had friends in the neighborhood where they rented. It had been
an exciting time for them. Potlucks and cookouts and festivals and game nights. There always seemed to be noise there. Alive. Writhing. Infecting them with all the world had to offer. Poisoning them with light. Everything in their journey did seem to have a time and place in hindsight. They had fallen into everything exactly when they had needed to.
~***~
Celeste stood at the window, feet set apart, hands shoved in her pockets, like it was Cece facing the world. Matteo didn’t know what she was thinking; he was afraid to know. When she stood so still, like she did now, her mind was dangerous.
“Cece,” he called. She turned to him. Her eyes, wide and vulnerable, flitted across his face, each of her breaths coming faster than the one before it. She licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and let out one long, slow blow that made him shudder.
“It’s done.”
He let the words hang out there like laundry drying in the wind. She walked toward him in even, measured strides. Using her fingertips, she followed his jawline, leaving a prickling trail behind. He wiped his thumb across her lower lip. Beyond thought, he leaned forward, lips parted hungrily. Her eyes darted between his mouth and eyes, gauging his expression, reading his desire. It was impossible to think about anything but her mouth on his, how she’d pull him into her arms and they’d burn together, forgetting about everything but the two of them. His body wanted it, his heart needed it, and it was clear hers did too.
They lay side by side in her bed afterwards enjoying their afterglow, reveling in the high of it.
“She is a fool for that boy Mark,” Cece laughed. Delighted really. Her laughter, as always, sounded like the breeze tickling wind chimes. “Teo, my love, Monique left. Left the family! It worked. One sad suicide note to her and she crumbled. Finally. How was it? Hard?” Her voice dripped with honey, too sweet for good intentions. He grinned.
“Tedious, but not hard per se.”
Cece snaked her arms around his waist. Lips kissed his bare chest.
“Was it very horrible going home afterward?”
“Without you there?” he asked. Cece nodded. “Yes. It left me alone with my thoughts fiore mio.” She nodded again at him, understanding.
“I love you,” she breathed.
“And I, you. Tell me, how are things going here?”
“Selfies,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Those damn pictures you take of yourself. Selfies. She made me contort my face into utterly ridiculous positions and take pictures with her.”
“Cece, what if she shows them to him?”
“Teo, you worry too much. What are the odds of a teenage girl sharing photos on her phone with her father?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know a damned thing about teenage girls besides those whose pants he’d tried to get into decades ago.
“Did you bring the ring?” she asked changing the subject. A sure sign that she was nervous. He couldn’t blame her, they were nearing the finale. A finale twenty years in the making. He lifted his pants from the floor and dug in the pocket until he caught the old engagement ring between his thumb and forefinger and lifted it out. “I did.” It sparkled in the lamp light, the diamond still brilliant. He held it out to her but she remained still, staring at it as if it might grow teeth and bite her. “Cece,” he murmured. Her eyes snapped to his. “It doesn’t mean anything. It holds nothing over you.” Wide-eyed she reached for it and let it sit in her palm.
“I don’t want to look at it,” she whispered. “It was a different life. String it on my necklace for me so I don’t have to look at it.”
Matteo leaned in and kissed her forehead. Cece sat upright. She sighed. He reached around and brushed her silky hair over one shoulder, exposing her graceful neck. Matteo placed a soft kiss to the bare spot before he unclasped the decades-old locket from her neck. She took one end from his hand and dropped the engagement ring onto the chain.
Matteo took the end she held and re-fastened the clasp. “You are the key, you know.” His fingers grazed the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck and she shivered. “You are the key to me.” Goosebumps broke out across her skin and he grinned. He let a finger trail her neckline.
“Teo,” she breathed.
“What is it you want fiore mio?” He kissed the shell of her ear. Then just under it. Another kiss followed lower, then another. “Tell me,” he urged.
“You Teo. Always you.” It was all the invitation he needed as he laid his wife backwards onto the bed.
~***~
Matteo rode the high from his visit with Cece for the next week. They had lain in bed afterwards for hours talking. Dreaming. Living. Only a month to go and they would be reunited. No clouds lurking above their heads. Free and clear like the ocean tide rolling in and out. Sparkling and beckoning anyone willing to visit it. He’d gone to the dealership and purchased a candy apple red Porsche to pick her up in. Celeste loved convertibles. She laughed and smiled and said that the fresh air did wonders for the soul.
He spent his final days arranging the house just so. He stocked the cabinets with her favorites and made sure a live plant sat on every windowsill. The next time he’d see her would be the last time they’d have to steal mere hours together. Matteo dug the last of the drug out of the case in the closet and set it on the kitchen counter so he wouldn’t forget it. It had been harder than they’d expected to get their hands on it but money seems to do miraculous things. Everyone has a price he’d learned.
Hopping into bed he let himself sink in the too soft mattress. Only five more weeks here and then they would go home. He missed their house. The smell of it. The ocean air, the freedom of the waves, their routine.
He cracked open the journal skipping ahead several entries. He didn’t need her words to relive their happy times.
~***~
2005 - Trip to US
Their life looks so pretty. They are country clubbers. There are kids. Comfortable wealth. Monique and Gabriel have managed to make a sweet little life for themselves. Start anew. It repulses me. But it’s evident in Gabriel’s eyes, even from a watchful distance, that something is missing. That he mourns the loss of his esteemed position perhaps. That this new life isn’t quite enough. If he only knew. It will never be enough. In fact, it will get worse-so much worse.
~***~
2005 - US
We moved! It’s a quaint town just five hours south of them. Matteo and I explored the area and simply fell in love. The ocean rushes and the salt hangs in the air. It’s heaven. Two months ago we bought a house. It’s ours and it’s a dream. No more moving. No more renting. We’ve planted roots.
Teo brings me plants for the garden nearly every day. I spend most of my time creating something beautiful for us to enjoy year after year in the future. In the evenings we take quiet walks down the beach nearby. Hand in hand. The level of bliss that consumes me, devours me here, is overwhelming. Teo makes a fire in the pit out back most evenings and we drink and laugh and snuggle. On the nights it rains he picks up a random paperback from the bookcase and beckons me to lay with him as he reads it aloud. If this is a glimpse into our future we are going to be the happiest pair God ever created. We haven’t lost sight of our goal but we’ve had a nice reprieve as of late to simply enjoy each other without anything looming over us. We have new papers. New names. We are Teo and Cece Grant. We’ve been Jezebel and Ahab for so long that we held onto those papers just in case we ever need to go back to Europe.
~***~
Matteo thought back to that time, to those names, and laughed. Jezebel and Ahab. Gabriel the king and Monique the harlot. It had seemed so funny then to pick those names. They had never used them together but on paper, that was who was married. In their hearts they would always be Cece and Teo. A familiar gnawing ache of separation spread through his chest. He thought about how they laughed together. She giggled at his puns but would get nearly hysterical at any type of potty humor. Some of their conversations could easily have come from a couple of ten-year-olds
snickering at the lunch table. Matteo closed the journal then set it aside. He tucked his hands behind his head and wondered if Cece was sleeping now or lay awake thinking of him, as he did her.
He heard her scream. Then again. Gabriel’s hands around her neck squeezed with inhuman force. The girl, Annabelle, stood grinning. The window separating him from Cece was thick-too thick. He pounded his fists on the glass but it didn’t make a sound. No one looked his way. Rain poured down on him. Cece’s eyes strained in their sockets before drooping closed. He screamed.
Matteo bolted upright, sweat beaded on his forehead, the bed empty beside him. In his head, he drowned his fears until they disappeared and he found sleep again. Everything was fine.
~***~
He opened his eyes slowly. Let the light filter in bit by bit until his eyes adjusted fully. Rolling to his side he grabbed the pack of cigarettes from the side table and his lighter and lit one up. She’d kill him for smoking in the bedroom but he still had time before she would be here to nag him about it. He was comfortable. He’d slept well after falling back asleep which was a surprise. Feeling lazy he reached for her journal and spread it open next to him on the bed. He’d read just a little more before getting up.
~***~
2006 - US
Brant is dead. I feel guilty, but not guilty enough. I was sitting in the car watching him. My body stiff, hyper-aware of the daylight and fear of discovery. He looked just like a young Gabriel. Handsome. My heart swelled then burst. The fury that sprouted inside my soul overcame me. I slammed the gas pedal down and closed my eyes. I killed him.
