by L. D. Davis
I didn’t have the patience to wait for the elevator. I knew it was possible for Larson to be lurking on the stairs, that’s where I would put the bad guy if I had been writing my story, but I felt rather reckless and slammed the door to the stairs open and started to descend.
I reached the small lobby without being ambushed. I wanted to stop and tell the guy at the front desk that he sucked at his job, but I kept moving. I looked around as I made my way across the street to my car, but saw nothing unusual, but I must have been looking for the wrong things, because just as I pulled my door open, a big hand slammed it shut. I spun around and Larson stepped up close to me and caged me in against the car.
***
I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t find my voice. Why couldn’t I scream? All I could do was gasp for air.
“I was disappointed to hear that you are going away for an extended period of time,” he said conversationally. “I was going to throw the flowers away, but once I was inside and had a look around, I saw that you had left your wallet. I knew you would be back for it. Did you like the flowers, love?”
“Go away,” I whispered. “Leave me alone.”
“I’ve missed you,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken. His eyes skated over my face, lingering too long on my mouth. “I don’t understand what you see in Breck, Noa. You are still with him even after you know that he had oral sex with that actress in the alley. Why?”
“He didn’t,” I managed. God, why was my mouth so dry? Why was my heartbeat so loud?
I shook violently, so bad that my keys jingled in my hand.
“So he says,” Larson said, frowning. “Noa, I said I wouldn’t come and collect you, and I’m not, but my patience is gone. You need to make the decision to come back.”
That thing that had uncoiled inside of me in the apartment was beginning to awaken again. It was struggling to push past my fear.
“I will never come back,” I said in a voice that was a little stronger.
“Don’t be so sure. Have you seen what’s trending on Twitter today?”
I was thrown off by his random question. Why would I care what was trending on Twitter? Unless, it was a story about Alden…
Seeing the question in my eyes, Larson nodded once. “You should take a look.”
His hand drifted down my side, across my upper thigh and to my ass. I cringed, and again, had to struggle to keep down my morning meal. His fingers inched into my pocket and a second later, he produced my phone and offered it to me. He gave me very little room to maneuver, but I took it from him, feeling uncertain about him, about everything.
“Go on, and take a look,” he said patiently.
With trembling hands, I unlocked my phone and found the Twitter app.
“What am I looking for?”
“Hash tag Breck’s bed hopping boo,” he said with a satisfied grin.
With great apprehension, I searched the hashtag. It only took a few seconds to see what he wanted me to see. Pictures of me with the senator.
Oh, god! What if Alden sees these? I need to explain.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked Larson as I scrolled through the tweets.
“Well,” he started and waited until I met his eyes. He did not like speaking to me if I was not looking into his eyes. “This can be the worst of it, or I can add fuel to this fire.”
I gave him a doubtful look. “By doing what?”
He smiled. It was like knives stabbing me in the face.
“Not everything you think you’ve lost is gone,” he said in a deceptively soft tone.
My fury was getting the best of my fear. I was glad. I needed fury. I was tired of fear.
“How cryptic of you,” I said bitterly. “Why do you want me back, Larson? You can’t find another willing participant to be your punching bag by night and still look pretty by day?”
“Oh,” he breathed almost reverently. “There’s that sarcastic woman I met many years ago.”
“The one you nearly destroyed!” I shoved him hard on the last word. I shoved him again and again until he was stumbling back against the building behind him. He looked shocked, like he couldn’t believe that I stood up to him. Hell, I was shocked. Scared shitless, but so angry.
“I don’t want you, Larson!” I shouted. “I will never want you again. I would rather die than to go back to you!”
“Stop yelling,” he growled, taking a menacing step toward me.
“Or what? You’ll hit me? Right here on the street? Why would you think that I would want to go back to that?”
A vein popped out in his forehead as he snarled at me. “You were on the verge of falling back into darkness. I saved you! If it weren’t for me, you would be dead somewhere, overdosed on too much cocaine and self-pity. You need me, Noa. You need me to keep you in line.”
I stared at him with an open mouth for a long moment before speaking.
“You did save me from one death and gave me another,” I bit out. “I’d rather die from a drug overdose than by your hand.”
I pulled open my car door. When he started toward me again, I screamed, “Stay away from me!”
“If you leave, I will undo you,” Larson promised. “I will undo you, and you will come back to me anyway, because you won’t have a choice.”
I shook my head at his madness.
“You are a psychopath,” I growled. “You are incapable of compassion and love—”
“I had compassion for you when I picked you up off of the street!” he grounded out. “I love you and that is why I want you to come back and let me care for you.”
“I don’t want you!” I screamed, knowing people were watching. “I don’t want you, I don’t love you. I hate you. There is nothing in this world that can make me come back to you. Nothing. Leave. Me. Alone.”
I got into my car, locked the doors, and fumbled with the keys to start the ignition. Ignoring Larson fuming on the sidewalk, I pulled out of my parking spot and sped away.
***
It took me a long time to stop shaking. I wanted to believe that was the end of things with Larson, but something he said was nagging at me.
“Not everything you think you’ve lost is gone.”
What did that mean? I didn’t understand.
I drove back into New York on autopilot, my thoughts still stuck out on the sidewalk in Philly and on the flowers spilled all over my kitchen floor. It wasn’t until I had parked my car in the garage that I realized I hadn’t called Alden or my brother. I must have been in a state of shock. They were the first people I should have called, after the police. I should have called the police.
I couldn’t deal with talking about it before my flight, though. I felt like if I started to talk about it, I would lose it, and I couldn’t lose it. I needed to keep it together until I got to California and to the safety of Alden’s arms.
I made it to the airport, through security, and the hour and a half wait for my flight without breaking down. I was numb. I just barely remembered to call Alden before we had to turn our phones off. Just as I was about to dial though, his name flashed on the shattered screen. I answered numbly.
“Hello.”
“What the fuck is going on, Noa? There are pictures all over the internet of you and some senator!” he roared over the line.
Shit. I forgot. I forgot. How did I forget?
“Um,” I started, trying to find my words. Trying to test out my tongue. “I…it’s not what it looks like. I promise you it’s not what it looks like.”
“Then what is it!” he demanded. “What the fuck is it then?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” I repeated. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get there. I’m on the plane and I have to turn my phone off.”
There was a moment of silence and then, “Why do you sound like that?”
I realized my voice sounded pretty dead.
“I’ll tell you when I get there,” I said again. “I have to go. I love you.”
I ended the
call mechanically and turned my phone off. I closed my eyes as we started to move down the runway, and I didn’t open them again until I landed at LAX. While I waited for the luggage to come through, I went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and tried to hold myself together.
By the time I walked out, Greg was standing near the conveyer, holding the handles of my suitcases. He looked grim.
“I know,” I said, waving an arm. “The Twitter thing. I can explain.”
He breathed deeply and closed his eyes for a beat. “Noa, it’s worse than that. You don’t know because you were in the air all day.”
“I don’t know what?” I asked, feeling something like alarm.
“About the video,” he said.
Oh, I thought. The video.
Larson
It was snowy and icy that morning. Many of the businesses on the street tried to clear the sidewalks before the start of the day, but there were still some icy patches. I was only two buildings away from mine when I saw the woman slip on a patch of ice and hit her head on the cold concrete. The contents of her purse and backpack scattered on the sidewalk and into the street.
I rushed to her, helped her sit up, and assessed her head. Her eyes were dilated and unfocused. I didn’t know at the time that it was a result of a morning snort of cocaine. I thought she had seriously injured herself. I made her sit while I dialed 911. I made her talk to me while we waited. I asked her name, how old she was, if she was in school, what was she taking. Her name was Noa. What an unusual name. She was pretty. No, she was more than pretty. She was striking, but she didn’t seem to know she was striking.
While we waited, I began to gather her possessions. I carefully put them into her backpack and purse as I continued to ask her questions. The paramedics appeared just as I reached for a flash drive that ended up behind the wheel of a car. Absently, as they asked me questions, I put the flash drive into my coat pocket.
I rediscovered it later that evening and put it in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing and tried to remember to catch up to the girl to return it.
It was two years later before I found the flash drive again. I plugged it into my computer out of curiosity, since whatever belonged to her now also belonged to me. There were a few documents on it and one video.
I opened the video. I watched it over and over and over.
I never told her that I found the flash drive, and the sex video that she had made with the man who later became a US Senator.
Noa
Greg led me into the silent house. All of Alden’s guests were gone, and Peyton had passed out in his new bedroom.
“Where is he?” I asked Greg as my eyes took in the large house.
“In the music room,” he said and began to lead me there.
I couldn’t even take the time to take in the décor of the house. I had tried calling Alden from the car, but he never answered. Then my phone eventually died. I knew he must have been pretty angry if he wasn’t answering my calls. I had to explain to him…
I had to tell him that I didn’t cheat on him with Todd. I had gone to meet him to ask him for a favor. I didn’t think it was fair that Alden and Peyton were suffering, unable to be together because of the shit that they saw in gossip magazines. They were holding Alden at a higher accountability than any other perspective adoptive parents. I didn’t tell Alden what I was doing in case it didn’t work. I didn’t want him to be any more disappointed than he already was.
The pictures were misleading. Todd had embraced me, that was true. But he had also apologized to me for what happened between us when I was eighteen. He was my professor, my ethics professor, and he was thirteen years my senior, old enough to know better. We had a yearlong affair, but it wasn’t just sex and sneaking around. We both had a coke habit, which is how the video came to be. We were both high. We would have never filmed ourselves if we were sober.
I had saved the video to a flash drive after we parted ways. I don’t know why. I was going to get rid of it, but then that morning after I hit my head and Larson came to my aid, I thought that it was gone. I thought that it had fallen into the street and been run over by a car or fallen in to the sewer. But I was high that morning. Larson had been right about that, I had been on my way back into badness. I had fallen off the cocaine wagon and I was losing control again.
Larson. He had the video the entire time. Why? What did he do with it? Why did he keep it? Why didn’t he tell me?
God, I must have really pissed him off if he saw fit to release the video while I was in a position where I couldn’t even defend myself.
Greg stopped outside of a door and paused.
“He loves you,” he said quietly. “Just remember that the depth of his anger is the depth of his love for you. I’ll be in the living room.”
I was really slow that day, because it took me until then to realize that we never got my bags out of the car.
Oh. That isn’t good.
Greg pushed the door open and let me walk past him into the music room.
Alden sat across the room on a stool, looking down at his phone. I paused inside of the door when he didn’t look up. I looked over my shoulder at Greg, but he sighed heavily and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
I took a few more tentative steps before I heard it. My own voice, laughing, talking, and then moaning. Moaning and more moaning.
He was watching the video. The video that had gone viral while I was hanging thousands of feet in the sky.
Any numbness I had felt before fell away and left me with terror, terror deeper than even what Larson was able to incite.
“You missed the part where you snorted cocaine while pleasuring yourself,” Alden said conversationally. “And you missed the part where you guys got into an argument over a grade he gave you on an essay. That is just hilarious, because he was an ethics professor snorting coke with and fucking his young student while his wife and baby were at home.”
I stopped about ten feet away from him, shaking. He still hadn’t looked at me.
“Alden,” I said his name so softly, I wasn’t sure if he had heard me.
“What is it?” he answered casually without looking up.
The sounds of my own moans and Todd’s grunts were killing me.
“That video is…it’s not recent…” I thought I should explain it to him, just in case he missed the fact that I didn’t have my tattoo yet, and my hair was a little longer.
“Did you make a new one when you went to meet him in DC? Maybe you made two – one in the townhouse and one in the hotel.”
“No!” I gasped and began to rush forward, but then he did look up and I froze in place.
The look in his eyes was murderous. Hurt, so fucking hurt. Devastation. And unbridled fury.
“I fucking trusted you!” he shouted as he jumped to his feet. He threw the phone so forcefully that it broke into pieces against the wall behind me.
He stalked toward me and I started to back away, but he reached me in a few strides. He stopped inches from my face.
“Did he fuck you the way you like to be fucked?” he spat out at me. “Did you sit on his dick and ride him hard? My dick is bigger than his, so maybe you didn’t enjoy it quite as much.”
I stood there with tears streaming down my face, my vision blurred. “Alden, I didn’t—”
“I was so worried about you,” he said in a low voice. “I was so worried that Larson would get to you and hurt you, but for all I know, you were fucking him, too!”
I slapped him in the face, and then was shocked that I did and started to back away again. He followed me, his face tight with menace.
“Are you hoping that you’ll hit me enough times to make me hit you back?” he jeered. “You like being slapped around? Is that it? Do I not slap you around enough!” he roared.
I turned away, intent on walking out of the door because I couldn’t talk to him when he was like this. I couldn’t deal with him.
“No!” he s
houted and grabbed me from behind. He spun me around and gripped my upper arms. “You don’t get to make me fucking love you, then kill me like this, and then leave! I never wanted to give my heart to anyone. I never gave a shit about anyone. I gave it to you, Noa! I gave it to you and you broke it! You betrayed me!”
“I saved you!” I shouted through my tears. I shoved him as I had shoved Larson earlier in the day. I shoved him again. “I went to meet Todd for you!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he shouted back at me. “You fucked the senator for me? I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I went to see him because he is friendly with the governor of Minnesota. They’ve known each other for a long time, even before I met him,” I explained as I sobbed. “I told him that what they were doing to you wasn’t fair and I asked him to please see if he could talk to someone and do something. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to disappoint you if it didn’t work out. I didn’t have sex with him. I would have never done that to you. Ever.”
Alden put his palms to his eyes and his fingers curled into his hair. “But you fucked him before. He probably didn’t do this shit for free, Noa! I’m not stupid!” he finished, taking his hands off his head and balling them into fists.
“He did it because he cares about me,” I shouted. “He did it because he agreed with me! He did it because he knew that it would make me happy to see you happy! I didn’t have to do anything for him or give anything to him. I know it looks bad on video, but he is a good man, Alden, and he fucking did what I needed him to do so you could get your brother!”
I turned away from him once again, and reached the door, but then he said my name. He sounded so…small…
“Noa,” he said again.
I didn’t turn around. I stood there with my hand on the door, breathing heavily and crying. Seconds later, I felt his hands on my waist.
“Noa, I’m…fuck! Please…fuck,” his voice broke.
I turned slowly to face him and found tears in his eyes. My big, cocky rock star was crying. Somehow, that hurt more than anything else did.
