Stronger

by Misty Provencher

  "So, what do you say?" Edith asks. "Walk with me? It's freezing out here."

  "I can keep you company," I say, turning back in the direction I came.

  We walk in silence. We're a block away from the store before Edith says, "At least the wind's at our back this way."

  "Yeah, that's good," I agree. I'm not up for chit-chat. For the first couple blocks, I'm still thinking of how I can ditch Edith and circle back, but by the time we reach my apartment house, I'm freezing and as infuriating as it might be, I've lost the urge to walk all the way back to the liquor store.

  "This is your place, isn't it?" Edith pauses in front of my building. I said I'd walk with her and I figure she wants me to walk her the whole way home, wherever that is, but I just want to go upstairs and bury my anxiety beneath my covers. I'm just relieved she isn't much of a conversationalist. The walk back has been excruciating and relieving and awful. Nothing I need to talk about.

  "Yes," I say. Of course, she must know Aidan and where he lives. I'm sure the whole meeting has already discussed how he moved into the apartment next to mine. "But I can walk you the rest of the way."

  "No need," she says. She takes a few steps before turning back, her gaze first finding my hand on the apartment house door. She smiles. "You coming to the meeting tomorrow?"

  Shit. I don't want to say yes. But I know the answer.

  "Yeah, I'll be there," I say. I want to slam my head against the bricks of my building's exterior. Edith smiles lightly.

  "Good," she says, swinging her purse to the front of her hip. She digs around in it before pulling out a card that she hands to me. "My number, if you want it. I'll see you there, then."

  "Alright," I say. I slide the card into my pocket without looking at it. Edith stands there, staring at me, and I realize she's waiting for me to go into the lobby. I go in and head to the elevator, looking back out the front doors when I punch the button. Edith's shadow doesn't depart until I step into the lift.

  Seeing that leaves a familiar-ish, warm tingle inside me. It's like the tingle from a date. No, that's not it. It's the feeling of getting flowers delivered to my door. No, that's not it either, but almost. I close my eyes as the elevator ascends floors, trying to locate a similar tingle from memory. It's the warmth and tingle of Jan offering me a job at the salon; of Mrs. Lowt telling me about her husband as she scoops flour and salt into plastic baggies for me.

  Yes, that's it. Definitely it. Holy shit.

  It's the feeling of friendship.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  GOING SOLO

  I stay in my apartment the whole day, until it's time for the meeting that night. I've paced the floor so much, I should've fallen through, into the apartment below mine. I know I have to go, but I'm worried that the meeting won't be at the same time or place it was last night. Hell if I'm asking Aidan.

  It's bad enough that my whole apartment is a reminder of what he's done for me. The lack of bottles, the mirror in the corner of my room, the scent of him in my bed, the couch cushion where he sat, even the bathroom shower. Every inch of my place has one of his memories coating it. Especially the coffee table and kitchen counters, covered in the ornamental overflow of my recovery. The salt-dough sculptures that seemed charming before, look ridiculous and amateur to me now. I decide to chuck them all, when I return from the meeting.

  We come out of our apartments at the same time. Well, isn't this awkward.

  He smiles and I throw back only a dismissive flash of a grin, striding past him for the elevator. He's right behind me the whole way, I sense him filling up the hall, looming. I'm not wrong. He reaches past me, pressing the button to summon the lift. As he does it, I inhale his cologne and feel the long heat of his body stretching down the side of me like a shoreline.

  We get into the elevator and ride down in silence. I watch the numbers until the doors open. Crossing the lobby and stepping out into the frosty night, he's behind me still.

  I think of all the small talk I could make, as well as the bigger questions I could ask, but I keep my mouth shut. I'm petrified of going into the meeting alone, but it's not so bad if he's following me in. I figure I'll sit in the back by myself and slip out the second it's over. Or I'll sit by Edith, if there's room. It's as exciting a trip as going to the gynecologist's office, but I'm going for the same reason: I need to.

  Aidan's footsteps pack down the snow behind mine. He's probably shocked that I'm not headed to Modo's instead. I hate that he's probably back there thinking he's right--the slut needed help. Or, he's just thinking slut and studying my ass.

  I like the idea of that last part. However, any extra swish in my hips still doesn't get him talking on the way there.

  I find my way around the back of the church, open the door myself, and even hold it for Aidan. He takes it, arm extended. I made it here on my own. I go down the hall without any extra enchanting shake in my stride. He doesn't deserve it.

  Rounding the corner, I take the first chair I see, sliding into it like home base. There's a woman to my right, with thick curls the color of boiled hot dogs, but she's busy talking to the haggard blond beside her. I tuck my arms tightly around my waist, eyes straight ahead, as Aidan walks past.

  He takes a seat in the table diagonal to this one, in the one chair that faces me. He greets the men around his table and picks up a card that a guy in a baseball cap slides across to him. Aidan nods and talks and glances, but his gaze strays back to me, again and again. He taps the card absently through his first and middle fingers, turning it end over end, as he watches me.

  I don't know if I'm turned on or infuriated. Maybe it's a sick little mix of both. That seems right.

  "Good evening," Edith's road-rash voice startles me. She walks past and takes the seat blocking Aidan from my view. I'm liking Edith a little bit more every time I see her. "Glad we didn't freeze last night. Looks like tonight's going to be just as bad though."

  "It's supposed to get colder?" I ask. It's not like I care, but I'm trying. I don't small talk like this and especially haven't talked about anything environmental in ages--not unless I had to detangle it from a pick-up line, or it was a necessary ingredient in a drink.

  Edith laughs. "You still need a sponsor, Lydia?"

  "I'm not even sure I need to be here. I haven't had a drink in a week." I don't bother to mention that I think of drinking every moment of the day. What counts is that I haven't done it.

  "Well, if you decide you need one, I'll sponsor you, if you like. It's up to you."

  The lady with the hot dog hair leans toward me as Leonard stands up from one of the front tables and starts the meeting.

  "You should really get yourself a sponsor. It helps. If you don't want Edie, you could ask any of us."

  "Thanks," I whisper. She shrugs when I don't jump at the offer and melts back into her chair.

  The meeting filters through me. I'm busy ignoring Aidan's stare and worrying that I just offended Frankenhair. When did I turn into somebody who gives a crap about offending anybody? I elbowed a biker in the face to get a spot center stage at a concert once; I've told more than one girl at Modo's to fuck off because her boyfriend wants me more than her. I've been downright awful on a million-and-one occasions, but in this most awful situation, I can't rise to the challenge. I'm actually worried about upsetting a pile of old ladies. I'm not sure when or how this happened to me.

  <<<<>>>>

  Aidan walks three feet behind me on the way home from the meeting. The snowflakes are fat and feel like rain as they soak my hair. I'm miserable for too many reasons, the last of which is being cold and wet.

  The whole meeting passed by without me really attending in any way except physical presence. Aidan caught my eye and held it a dozen times. We were a table apart with Edith between us, but when she leaned over to speak to a man at the table in front of ours, there were Aidan's deep brown eyes, watching me. His whole expression was focused and wandering at the same time. I could see him thinking of me and when our eyes
met, he blinked and his focus sharpened.

  I sank into his gaze. I pulled him into mine.

  In the first moment, my body tried to take over. I know the feeling instantly. Lids lowering, lashes fluttering, the tip of my tongue tempting the inner edge of my lip with a lick. My body was trying to pull him all the way in, eye-fuck his irises first, if that's all it could get. It would start there, and then, my body would get to work on its magic--signaling him throughout the meeting with strategic movements of my fingers in my hair or a seemingly absent self-caress down my neck. The meeting would end and I would rise from my chair. My body would assume total control then, swaying and undulating and strutting its way back to my apartment, keeping Aidan's already-hooked irises tethered to my ass. My body would string him along with the supple waves of my walking hips--drawing him into our lobby, up the elevator, down the hall, into my apartment, onto my bed, into me.

  My body knows how to lure a man as much as it knows how to breathe.

  But Aidan's eyes were not trying to screw me. Against my body's feverish desire, I loosened its grip with a blink. I let myself stare back. I let him swallow my gaze, until I was the one surrounded. The connection was more intense than any iris-fucking could ever be. Aidan was all around me and inside me. His vision looked beyond Lyddle, and Modo's Trophy Girl, and Des's wife, and the unfocused addict parked in an uncomfortable folding chair. Aidan's gaze breached me, saw me.

  Edith and Hot-Dog-Hair both turned when I gasped. My eyes shot away from Aidan and I didn't look back for the rest of the meeting. I couldn't. He made me feel like a virgin, deflowered in clear view.

  "I'm sorry," he says from behind me. After everything that happened in the meeting, the intimacy that was as tender as our bodies sinking into one another, I can't stop walking. I can't handle it if he tells me again that he shouldn't have. The feeling he gave me can't be turned into a regret. It would destroy me. I only answer him from over my shoulder.

  "You're always sorry," I say. He laughs.

  "True."

  We keep walking. We pass the liquor store. If I even thought to look at the sign, the snowflakes would blind me anyway. I keep trudging along, but then Aidan is suddenly there, catching my arm.

  "I'm so sorry, Lydia," he says as he pulls me to him. My chest crushes against his as he holds me; he pulls me onto the tip of my toes as his mouth opens on mine. I take his tongue like a sacrament. My body wants to devour it, but I hold back. I don't know how long I'll be able to control myself, but the warm taste of him in my mouth, placing himself there willingly, melts me and I don't want it to stop. It is different than the consuming lust I'm used to. This is a form of trust, a form of wanting, and its taste is much sweeter.

  He releases me gradually. I don't want to move away. My eyelids flutter.

  "I'm sorry," he says.

  "Don't be," I tell him.

  "I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but..."

  "Touch me," I say. I step into him again, but this time I can't control it. My body takes over; my hips roll with a sensual swell. My leg slides smoothly between his, the center of me rubbing against his thigh. I nip his jaw with pastel lips and whisper in his ear, "It's okay. Touch me."

  His fingertips grip my shoulders, pull me close, and he touches me.

  <<<<>>>>

  "You're going to keep going to meetings, aren't you?" Aidan asks. The sun came up hours ago and we're still lying here, tangled in my bed sheets together. He's playing with my naked fingers, our elbows touching on the mattress, our hands in the air. Two parts of one reckless prayer. At least, that's what it seems like to me.

  "What you really mean is, am I going to drink if we don't work out?"

  He slaps his hand lightly into mine, so we clap. "I guess I do."

  "I always want to drink."

  "We all want to," Aidan says. "Leonard said that sometimes he fantasizes about being told he has a terminal disease, just so he could have a shot. He said that it would be a great excuse to drink himself to death's door, but he's still not sure he would do it."

  "I would."

  "I'm not sure I would anymore," he says. He weaves his fingers through mine. "It would depend."

  "On what?" Depending on anything is so left field to me, I can't even fathom it. I close my eyes and imagine myself being blissfully terminal, swallowing down bottle after bottle of everything to bring on the old numb again.

  "If I have a family, for one." Aidan's voice dissipates my fantasy, like wind pushing away fog. "Kids. A wife. Grandkids. Good friends. I want all that and I'm not sure I'd want to waste one second of the time I had left with them being drunk."

  I try to stand in those shoes, of having beautiful little kids and knowing I'm going to die and leave them. I gave up on the possibility of children a long time ago, but in one breath, the whole scene becomes too real. I used to have this dream of family, until Des and I had a horrible fight one night about having kids. He said he didn't want more of a mess to weigh him down. He went out that night and didn't come back home for two days. When he did return, he was happy again. He told me he'd met Claudia.

  It hits me like a series of cannonballs. I wanted a family. I wanted a husband that loved me, children. I've buried away all my wants like a welfare child's Christmas list.

  I think again of dying and how, if I got so lucky as to get the family and friends I wanted, an entire store full of the numb wouldn't take away the pain of leaving them behind. The terror rises up like a silver bullet, lodged in my heart. I don't want to drink away one second of time with my fake family and friends. I open my eyes to make the horrific image disappear and my focus zeroes in on my tattooed ring finger.

  The epiphany keeps firing at me, crashing over the beliefs I've been carrying around in my head since Des left. I've been stuck, waiting around for Des in this broken-down bunker of a life, turning down every escape and ride out, hoping that Des would come to his senses and circle back to get me. But, it's backfired on him. I've been drinking away my feelings for him, slowly dissolving whatever love I had left for him. I hadn't realized that until now.

  I want to trade in my life. Trade up. I want the kids and husband and grandkids and good friends that will give me those precious, second thoughts before ever putting my lips on the rim of a wine glass, ever again. I want that life that beats out even the most incredible numb. I don't know how I never saw that it was out there, or that I could have it, but lying here beside Aidan, I get a good long glance at it and want it more than I've ever wanted a drink. So many million times more.

  "I have something I want to do today," I say. He smiles, curling our fingers up together.

  "We're finally getting you a Christmas tree?"

  "After," I laugh. "I want to go down to the court house first. I'm filing for a divorce."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ALL IN

  Fuck the no-change-for-a-year idea.

  Getting divorced, or at least filing the papers, is a lot like when I lost my virginity. I feel different, but I look the same. I come down from the courthouse steps, elated and giddy--shit, I'm never giddy--and when Aidan takes my hand with a smile, we tromp down the steps as if we just eloped. We walk a block or two, swinging hands.

  "Can you tell me about him now?" Aidan asks. I don't give it much thought. I'm still high from signing my name to the legal documents.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Everything," he says. I laugh.

  "It's a long story."

  "The Christmas tree lot is a million blocks away," he coaxes. "We'll stop for hot chocolate if you need more time to tell it all."

  "Alright." I grin. "I met him when I was fourteen. I dropped out of high school and we moved around wherever Des thought there would be work. We got married the minute I turned sixteen."

  "What about your family? Didn't your parents have a fit?"

  "No," I say. "My father was long gone. My mom was a single parent bringing in minimum wage. No matter how hard she tried, she could never make
ends meet with my sister and me weighing her down. She wasn't crazy about Des, but she thought he'd take better care of me than she could." The radiance of a moment ago is only dulled a tiny bit by the admission. I've had years to wall out the way my mother was relieved for me to be Desmond's mouth to feed instead of hers.

  Aidan doesn't give me the tragic face I expect, the one that made me stop telling people my history years ago. It's why I keep on with his questioning.

  "You never finished school?"

  "No."

  "But I thought you're a designer?"

  He's so naive. I flash him a pitying grin.

  "Desmond married another woman. A rich one," I say. I take a deep breath. This is really a do-or-die moment. Telling him everything could end what we have, but I know that we can't go any further unless he knows my truths. I take his hand. "Des wouldn't divorce me, but he didn't want to struggle to live anymore. He married Claudia for her money. He knew I didn't have any skills to earn a living, so he hires me as their designer. He has contractors do the work he drums up and pays me a bullshit consultation fee." I gulp before I tell him the raw truth. "It's all a scam. It's awful and I never wanted to be part of it, but when he left, I had no other way to survive."

  "So if you filed on your own, that's the end of the money," Aidan's voice trails off. I'm sure he's in shock. All I can do is nod. "And his other wife is going to find out."

  "Yes."

  "You could go to jail over this."

  "I know."

  Then he asks something I don't expect.

  "Why now?" he says. "What changed?"

  "I did." I wipe at the tiny sting in my nose that doesn't come from the rush of winter wind battering us on the sidewalk. "And I just realized that Des changed too. Probably a lot longer ago than I think."

  "I don't understand why you would keep going back when he was beating you," Aidan says. "He was beating you, wasn't he?"