by Stark, Avery
“You,” she stammered, “you’ve been fucking her for two years?”
“If you would’ve-”
“Two years,” she screamed into the phone. “And then you’re actually going to try and put it on me? Fuck you, Max. Fuck you and your bullshit lies.”
“Audrey, come on.”
“No,” she insisted. “I’m done.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said to her like a child, which only further enraged her.
“Yes, I do. It’s over.”
“You’ll never do any better than me,” he said, echoing the sinister version of himself from the cryptic dream that unsettled her so deeply. Audrey knew that it was a coincidence, but that didn’t stop the hairs on the back of her neck from standing up. It was a creepy kind of deja vu that made her as uneasy as the day that their relationship officially crumbled.
“I’m doing better without you than I ever have,” she said. It wasn’t the complete truth, but she wasn’t about to let him know that he wielded any power over her, not then or ever again.
“Sure,” he said sarcastically. “Let me know when you’re ready to come home.”
“I’ll never come home to you again.”
“Okay,” he said with a chuckle. “See you soon.”
Audrey hung up on him and threw her phone down onto the couch with a scream.
“Ugh you’re such an asshole!”
The phone immediately started to ring. She snatched it back up and answered angrily, ready for the fight to continue, “What?”
“Audrey?” Kim asked, “Is that you?”
Upon realizing that she was no longer on the phone with the enemy, Audrey struggled to disarm her tone.
“Y-yes.”
“Are you okay?”
She gulped down air and tried to force her racing pulse to slow enough to have a normal conversation. But when that wasn’t enough, she got up and walked out onto the home’s expansive deck.
“Yeah, I just talked to Max.”
“Oh,” Kim replied. “Well I’m going to be on my way home a little early, so if you want to talk about it I’ll be back around dinner time tomorrow. I want to beat the storm. There’s a lot to do around the house before it comes and there won’t be a lot of time left to do it.”
“That’s fine. Folks around here seem really nervous.”
“Can you blame them?”
Audrey shrugged her shoulders and responded, “I guess not, no.”
“Hey, I have to run but I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. Have a safe flight.”
“I’ll do what I can. Bye.”
Audrey ended the call and immediately went back to her conversation with Max. She mulled over every inflection and change of pitch in his voice, analyzing what he might have really meant by one thing or another. There was so much for her to sift through that it started to give her a headache.
Two years was a long time and an especially long time for him to hide an affair. And though her disdain for him was at an all-time high, it couldn’t totally block out the pain that started to grip her broken heart. She could almost feel it falling to pieces in her chest as the last threads of hope pulled away with every moment that passed.
She started to walk back and forth in front of the door with her hands and phone clasped behind her back. Things were going to start happening, whether she liked it or not. Kim would be home soon, which meant that Audrey’s surprise vacation was going to be cut short.
“And then what?” She asked to a pair of gulls that pecked around near the base of the steps, scaring them away. “What about Liam?”
Just the mention of his name made her stomach start to prickle and twinge. It happened every time she thought about him, actually. All she had to do was think about his messy hair, hazel eyes or powerful embrace to revive the sweet sensation that he left behind. Everything about his touch just seemed right, but Audrey wasn’t a fool. She knew what kind of situation she was hiding from him; knew that a lover was probably the last thing she should have picked up while in Florida, but she couldn’t stop herself. More than his chiseled features, the way that he took care of her was something that she hated to see tempered by Max’s selfish behavior.
As if putting a divorce onto her at the last minute wasn’t enough, he somehow managed to taint from afar every single kiss and caress that she and Liam shared. She thought back to the venom that Max so easily spit over the phone and wondered how long he had been waiting to say the things that he did.
By the time that Audrey was doing picking through their argument with a fine-toothed comb, she was so furious that she could literally feel the skin under her collar getting hot. It spread easily over her cheeks and forehead as she paced back and forth on the deck and tried to understand what happened to the man that she once loved. She still did love him, of course, but the man who left her the messages--the man that just spoke to her like she was scum--wasn’t the man she married. Though she didn’t know where it went wrong, one thing was glaringly obvious:
“It’s over,” Audrey relented to herself.
Without any more excuses to fight for a love that was gone, she fell back against the house’s wood door frame and sank to the ground. In a way, admitting that she could never get back something as precious as trust was like a signal of defeat. There was nothing that she could say to fix the wrong in her life. Instead, as she stared out over the home’s sweeping view, Audrey was forced to do the one thing that she promised not to do: she gave up.
You’re right, she typed into a blank text message on her phone. I’ll sign the divorce papers as soon as I get back. Have a nice life.
After she sent it away before she could change her mind, Audrey locked the screen and set it down by her side. She hoped that the crushing defeat would soon give way to relief, but at the time, it sure didn’t feel that way.
Audrey turned her phone off for the rest of the day and sulked back to the couch, where she put down roots and didn’t move, eventually passing out under the glow of the silent TV as it tracked the hurricane that threatened to throw her life into mayhem once again.
Chapter 10
A distant rumble of thunder pulled Audrey’s eyes away from the sandwich she prepared absent-mindedly. Through the kitchen window, she saw the first black clouds in the distance as the storm sat over open ocean and churned up strength.
“Ooooh,” Audrey said quietly. “It’s happening.”
She flipped the top piece of bread onto a pile of sliced turkey, cheese and lettuce and unceremoniously mashed the whole thing together with her hand.
For the most part, she still didn’t know what she was going to do, even as a few threatening flashes lit up the skies near the horizon. A heavy blanket of clouds sat over Cedar Key and much of northwest Florida, with passing showers that came in went in the blink of an eye. The bulk of it stayed off shore for the time being, but it was obvious that it wasn’t going to remain there.
Since she woke early that morning, Audrey watched the darkest clouds inch closer with every hour that passed. With them came a growing uneasiness, both about the weather and her litany of relationship problems. The idea of going back to Chicago early and picking up what was left of her life wasn’t exactly appealing. And then there was the divorce. The thought of endless court proceedings and mountains of paperwork made her stomach tie up in knots. But in the end, she knew that it was the best path for both of them.
In a way, having her mind made up about that one thing was a relief, even if it meant a ton of foot-work to get it done.
Audrey looked up to the clock over the oven and bit down into her sandwich, but before she could even finish chewing the bite, there was a knock at the front door. She rolled her eyes and set her lunch down.
“Coming!”
She jogged through the home’s circular path and eventually yanked the door open. Waiting there, Liam stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Hey you,” she said happily. “C
ome in.”
“Thanks,” he said and closed the door behind him. “Can I ask you about something?”
Audrey wrapped her arms around his neck and replied, “Sure.”
As she leaned in for a kiss, Liam stopped held his phone up so that it blocked her attempt.
“Did you mean to send this to someone else?”
The angry text that was intended for Max sat on the screen as Audrey looked it over and shook her head in disbelief. All at once, every lie and secret that she had been living was exposed, washing away the careful facade that she put around herself. Her stomach felt like it sank down into her feet and she could hear her heart rate rise as it pounded through her skull.
“How did you get that?”
Liam backed up a little, which forced her arms to fall away and land limply at her sides. His face was twisted into a frown and he was obviously upset.
“You sent it to me last night. Are you really married?”
She backed up just a hair, but the way that she did it and nervously crossed her arms behind her back made the answer to his question obvious. Liam shoved the phone into his pocket and smoothed back a wild chunk of hair that escaped his short, messy pony tail.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know how.”
“Bullshit, Audrey. It would’ve only taken three words to be honest.”
It was the truth, but the way that he said it made her uncomfortable. Like the dream-world version of Liam said, how did she know that he wouldn’t do the same thing that Max did to her? After all, she hardly knew him, when it came down to it.
Audrey backed up again with a nagging tug of fear in her gut, but she did her best to push it back down.
He wouldn’t hurt you. He might’ve been the one who saved you.
“Look,” she said nervously and held her hands out in front to put a little space between them. In spite of all the mental preparation she put into that moment, her mind went blank. She searched the recesses of her brain but she was unable to find words to articulate how sorry she was, nor the ones to make him believe that she’d never been happier than she was while in his arms.
Liam grabbed her healing wrist.
“And what about this, then? What’s this?”
Audrey’s stomach started to roll.
“And don’t tell me that you don’t want to talk about it,” he continued. “We’re a little beyond that point now.”
She tried to pull her arm away, but he held it firmly and just stared at her, waiting for a response with his bloodshot eyes that pierced like knives. His desperation for an answer, however, fell on deaf ears. Audrey was increasingly unnerved by his disposition, which made it hard for her to just spit out the truth. She sucked a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes.
“I’m married and we are getting a divorce because he,” Audrey paused and blew out the air in her lungs. “He did this to me.”
Liam’s grip on her wrist loosened before he said anything, but he didn’t let go. When he did respond, his voice was a little more restrained but not any less angry.
“You couldn’t tell me this? Did you honestly think that I wouldn’t understand; that I’m so unreasonable or something?”
“That wasn’t the problem.”
“Then what was?”
When Audrey finally opened her eyes, her vision was clouded by a barrage of fresh tears. She couldn’t see much, but she could clearly make out the blobs of black and gray tattoos on his hand. It eventually slipped around and held her from beneath like a cradle, instead of a shackle.
“I didn’t even understand. Shit, I still don’t. How was I supposed to tell you something that I didn’t know?”
Perhaps realizing the implication of holding that particular wrist, Liam let go. Before their skin could break from contact, Audrey snaked her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. He felt tense, but he didn’t try to stop her.
“Audrey,” he said quietly. “Yesterday I couldn’t believe how much I liked you and today I don’t even know if I can trust you. What am I supposed to do with that? You tell me.”
“You know that I can’t,” she sighed.
Liam stood there for a moment and then, in a heart-breaking show of contempt, pulled his fingers away from hers. They slipped out like threads of silk that were too slippery for Audrey to catch, though it wasn’t because she didn’t try. In the end, however, she knew that she’d lost the battle.
“Are you going to leave town before the storm comes?”
Whether she took it the right way or not, Audrey was instantly offended. Her heart raced and her head felt light from the tension between them. She was suddenly angry about so many things: Max, the divorce...all of it. Even though she was stuck on a roller-coaster of emotions, anger wasn’t one that she had the luxury of feeling until that moment. It was as if every bit of pent-up rage bubbled up to the surface.
“I’m sure you’d like that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Audrey didn’t mean to direct her anger at him but she had a hard time controlling it.
So this is what it’s like to lose it.
“Audrey?”
“What?” She snapped at him.
He tossed his hands up into the air.
“Excuse me but I didn’t do anything wrong here.”
It may have been true, but that didn’t stop it from pissing her off even more.
“You know what? Maybe I should leave for good.”
He sighed and said, “I didn’t say you should, I was just asking. Look, just forget it. Forget me, forget this week, forget everything, okay? I should’ve known better than to fall for someone that I barely knew.”
He jerked the front door open and stomped out. It was left hanging open as Audrey stood there and tried to make sense of the words and thoughts that swirled around in her head. By the time that he reached the bottom of the stairs, Audrey began to realize the brutal reality of what she did to him. And once he climbed onto his bike and the engine growled to life, the heavy burden of guilt forced her out of the door with one hand outstretched toward him. But over the bone-shaking noise as Liam revved the engine, her calls for him to stop didn’t stand a chance. Instead, she landed at the base of the stairs in time to watch the back tire kick up a long cloud of dust that was instantly whipped and blended into the air by the increasing winds.
Audrey fell to her knees in a small tuft of wild grass and sank her head down into her hands. Sure that nobody but the birds were close enough to hear her scream, Audrey let loose into her palms. Hot, sticky tears rolled through the openings between her fingers, which were just wide enough for her to catch passing glimpses of the darkening landscape.
A rumble of thunder partially snapped her out of her fit and drew her attention to the West. The storm’s most damaging parts were still some time away, but that didn’t stop it from instilling a deep, powerful sense of foreboding into all of Audrey’s thoughts. She didn’t know what was left for her, either in Cedar Key or Chicago. Everything seemed to have held together just long enough to fall back to pieces again.
But with Liam, the feeling was completely different. Audrey knew that, at the end of the day, she did him wrong. What she didn’t plan on was the fact that it felt almost ten times worse than being hurt. She wasn’t just a victim anymore, but also sat on the dirty ground as a perpetrator who had yet to atone for her crimes.
“I broke his heart,” she said and curled her knees up to rest her head on them. “I broke his heart because all I cared about was me.”
Audrey cried onto her dusty knees. The thin trails of tears quickly transformed into muddy streams that rolled over her thighs and carried the dirt back down to where it belonged. Soon after, a gust of wind kicked up even more of the gray dust that coated the sticky trails with even more grime. The area, which was usually full of noise from the native birds, was eerily devoid of their songs and honks.
It took a long time--and many more deep breaths-
-before she peeled herself off of the ground and pulled her body upstairs. She was so burdened with guilt that it felt like she suddenly gained a hundred pounds, making each and every step a chore. By the time that she trudged upstairs, stripped down to nothing and started a shower, she had to sit on the lip of the tub to keep from sinking to the ground again.
She ran her hands over her naked thighs and let the shower’s thick steam fill her lungs as she thought about Liam; about how badly he was probably hurting. She wondered what he was doing and if he was thinking about her. A million thoughts and questions raced through her head, but only one seemed to consistently come back and gnaw on her mind.
“Will he ever forgive me?” She asked to the empty bathroom.
Audrey raised her head up and climbed into the shower. As the stinging hot jets of water prickled her throbbing flesh, she knew that she couldn’t leave without seeing him just one last time. Even if he only allowed her one thing to say, that would be fine as long a she could apologize for all of the lies. As it turned out, Liam wasn’t the only one who had fallen hard. It just took Audrey a whole hell of a lot longer to realize it.
Near the end of her shower, she heard the front door slam and Kim’s voice, which followed right after.
“Audrey? Are you up there?”
She cleared her throat and tried to suppress any of the powerful emotions from showing through in her voice.
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
After one more dip under the steaming water, she turned it off, dried herself with a towel and scampered across the hall to get dressed. She pulled on some underwear, a plain white tank top and a pair of long jeans. It wasn’t cold yet but she didn’t want to be caught in shorts when things started to happen with the storm. The fact that they covered the new scrapes on both of her knees didn’t hurt matters, either.
With wet hair that fluttered behind and bare feet that led the way, Audrey hurried down the stairs and found Kim in the kitchen. She was busy drinking a glass of tea.
“There you are!” She hopped up from her seat and they hugged briefly. “How’ve things been? Aside from the storm, anyway.”
