He didn’t say anything else after that. Just stood by while I ransacked all of his belongings in search of anything that might hinder his sobering up. By the time I was done I’d turned up another bottle of prescription pain killers, a bag of weed and a stash of mini bottles he’d swiped from the last hotel and hidden in his socks. If it hadn’t been a clear sign that he’d already planned to sabotage the process, I’d have been almost impressed by that one.
Breakfast was quiet. Blaise was sullen and moody and I suspected we were already entering the beginning stages of his withdrawals. It had been nearly twelve hours since his last drink and with prospects of a dry future looming over him, his outlook on sobriety had quickly turned bleak.
After we ate, he disappeared in the bathroom for a long time and I could only assume he was having a spectacular pout prior to finally getting around to showering.
Then, it was my turn. And, like a good little rehab counselor, I made him stay in the bathroom with me the entire time just so I could be sure that he didn’t try to sneak out on me while I wasn’t looking.
It wasn’t until sometime around lunch that I started to see it. His hands were trembling. He was getting the shakes. Not convulsions. But definitely shakes. He tried to cover by popping his knuckles repeatedly, but that only confirmed my observations since I’d noticed that particular decoy tactic long before Bora Bora.
I had fish sandwiches on fresh baked baguettes sent to our room around two p.m., but Blaise was already past the point of eating and never even had a bite. By dinner, he had thrown up breakfast and I knew we were about to be in for it.
“This is fucking stupid, Ava. I’m a grown ass man. If I want to have a motherfucking drink, I will have one.” He was digging around in his suitcase. “Where is my fucking wallet?”
“I took it.” I was sitting in a chair across the room, my legs pulled up against my chest and making no effort to engage with him.
“Give it back.” His tone was cold and hard, but it was nothing compared to the rage building in his eyes.
“No.” I was doing my best not to let him see that he was getting to me.
“Give me my wallet you fucking cunt.”
It’s not Blaise. It’s not Blaise. It’s the monster. Don’t feed the monster. “No.”
In an instant he came flying at me, punching the wall behind me. He missed the side of my head by only an inch or two and I was already on the verge of tears, but I held them back.
“Feel better asshole?” I asked quietly.
Still fuming, he spun around and turned his back on me. This part would kill him later. I knew he’d never hurt me. Not ever. But he would hate himself for coming so close.
***
I walked away from Ava. The moment my fist had made contact with the wall, the severity of my anger had hit me. I’d left a massive hole behind where my rage had burst out of me, and even though I didn’t aim it at her head, the feelings were directed at her. A part of me had wanted to smash her face in. Not literally of course, but figuratively, I had wanted to obliterate everything that was standing in the way of me and a bottle of vodka. And Ava was in the way.
I went straight for the bathroom and repeatedly ran cold water over my face. I had started to break out in a sweat. I couldn’t tell if it was from the anxiety or yet another side effect of not having had a drink all day.
My hands were shaking again and there was a pounding in my head working its way into a full blown migraine. It had to stop. All of it. I needed it to go away. I wanted to feel better. It would be so simple to fix.
Then, her hand was on my back, the other reaching around my waist and turning me around to face her.
She said nothing as she peeled the already sweat soaked t-shirt over my head and replaced it with a cool wash cloth over the back of my neck. After, still silent, she turned off the water I had left running, took my hand and led me back into the main room and out onto the patio overlooking the ocean.
“Sit,” she finally said, pointing at one of the lounge chairs.
I did as I was told. I sat there hunched over, fighting the demons screaming within. I felt her sit down behind me, a leg on either side of my hip, her hands gently tracing over the bare skin of my back.
“What did I write?” she whispered.
My brain was way too fried to register anything. “I don’t know.”
“Pay attention.” Her finger swirled around my back a second time. Still, I didn’t have a fucking clue. “I don’t fucking know what you’re writing, okay? So don’t fucking ask me again.”
She didn’t. But she kept spelling out the same thing with her fingertip. Over and over again. With each time, my mind was pulled in deeper and deeper, until it couldn’t focus on anything else, and then, “Peace.”
“Uh-huh.” She ran her flattened palm over the same area as if she were wiping it clean. Then the fingertip returned to do its dance. “What about this one?”
I closed my eyes. “Do it again.”
She did.
“Trust.”
“Nice. How about this one.”
This time she wrote love.
I didn’t say it out loud. I just slid down until my head was in her lap, wrapping both my arms around her back and holding her close while she cradled my face in her hands and bent down to kiss my forehead. And I knew then and there, even in the midst of hell, she was the place I’d find peace, trust and even love.
Chapter 9
Things only got worse as the night progressed. Blaise was sweating and trembling so badly, I was constantly peeling back his eyelids to make sure he wasn’t stroking out on me. It pissed him off every time I did it, but I didn’t care. It was a teensy tiny bit of peace of mind all things considered and I was taking it wherever I could get it no matter what the cost.
Between the nausea and lack of appetite I hadn’t been able to get him to eat anything since breakfast and was struggling to even keep water in him. Then, at around three o’clock in the morning, the process of stripping his body of the substances he’d grown so dependent on peaked.
I was sitting on the floor next to the bed in the darkness, listening to his heavy breathing while he tossed and turned in the sheets.
“Ava. You have to do something. Help me, Ava! HELP ME! WE HAVE TO SAVE HER!”
I closed my eyes, biting down hard on my lip. This was the part I’d dreaded most. But I knew it had been inevitable. Even if we hadn’t spoken about it in nearly ten years, it was always there. Torturing him. Haunting me. Binding us both together eternally in the ugliest way possible.
“She’s dead. Ava… SHE’S DEAD!” It was a desperate cry into the night and I came up off of the ground to sit down on the bed beside him. Leaning against the headboard, I gently lifted his head and rested it in my lap, stroking his damp and matted hair.
“It’s alright, Blaise. She isn’t in any pain. Nothing can hurt her anymore. She’s safe. She’s happy. She’s free, Blaise. Your mother is finally free.” And soon you will be as well.
He whimpered, gripping the sheets in his fists. Moments like these I could still see the same boy I’d held at thirteen when we’d walked in and found his mother, drowned in the bathtub.
Neither of us had ever been the same.
The hallucinations continued for nearly three hours as he relived the worst day of his life over and over again, screaming and sobbing until he had exhausted himself into a state of silent cries that shivered through him time and time again, tears soaking through my sweats and t-shirt while I held him as tightly as I could, barely even noticing the endless stream running down my own face.
Then, as twilight came, at last it stopped. The beauty of a new day on the horizon had never struck me more.
“Blaise,” I whispered. “Wake up.”
His arms wrapped around my legs, hugging them tightly to him like a pillow, but his eyes didn’t open.
“Hey.” I shook his shoulders softly. “I want you to see this. Just for a minute and then you can go back
to sleep.”
“What is it?” His voice was raw and strained from crying.
“Come on.” I helped him up and together we walked out onto the patio. The glow of the sun was shimmering on the water in the distance. “It’s a new day. A new beginning.” I squeezed his hand in mine as I stared out into the open, zeroing in on the place where water and sky merged into one.
“I don’t deserve you.” It was so quiet I barely made it out.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve never deserved you. I’ve brought you nothing but pain, Ava. I take all you have and never give you anything in return. I’m the biggest piece of shit on the earth and yet, by some miracle, I’ve never had to take two steps without the most amazing woman this world has ever seen walking with me…carrying me.” He laughed harshly.
“Stop it, Blaise.” I hated when he talked like this. “You’re not the only one who’s needed to be carried in this relationship. We both know you were there for me long before you ever needed anything I had to offer.”
He shook his head. “That didn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because, we were nine. What did I know about what was happening? I was a stupid kid and anything I did to help you, I did by accident. Besides, even then, you were the strong one. You’ve always been the strong one.”
“It’s not like I’ve wanted to be. Just haven’t ever really had a choice in the matter.” I turned my attention back on the horizon. He was ruining the moment.
“Exactly my point, Ava. First your father walks out and leaves you to clean up when you’re just nine, and then you spend years doing exactly that. And then, what do I do? After watching you go through hell with your own mother? I make you do it all over again with me.”
If I’d had any left in me, the tears would have returned in an instant. “Why are you bringing this up now? What difference does it make?”
“Because, I want to be better, Ava. And I don’t just mean sober. I mean better. I want to be worthy. I need to deserve you. Because, I can’t lose you, Ava. I can’t. And I know if I don’t change, I will.” His hands had come up to my face, catching the wisps of hair the ocean breeze was sending flying over my forehead.
“You won’t ever lose me, Blaise. You’re my best friend. I love you. Nothing will ever change that. Not the past. Not your drinking. Nothing.”
He faintly shook his head. “You’re wrong. Someday, some guy is going to come along who’ll make you fall in love with him and then that will be it for me.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“No, I’m not, Ava. Because I won’t be able to take it. I won’t be able to stand by and watch. It will be the end of us. Unless I change. Unless I become a better man and make you fall in love with me first.”
“Stop it. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re just hallucinating again.” I rolled my eyes, trying to brush off the weight of the words he had just said. “Just, go back to watching the sun come up. It’s probably the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see and you’re missing it.”
His eyes never moved as his hands traveled down from playing with my hair, to gently holding my face in his palms. “I’m already looking at the most beautiful thing I’m ever going to see.” He searched my eyes for a long while. Then, he moved in slowly, letting me know exactly what he was about to do. He stopped, letting his lips hover over mine so closely, for so long, we were breathing the same breath. Short and ragged, strained by the anticipation of what was about to happen.
The wait was bringing me to the brink of madness and suddenly I realized, I wanted him to kiss me. Was desperate for it even, as his intent lingered in the moment, awakening feelings within me I’d never been brave enough to seek out.
I glanced up and caught his gaze as it swept over my face with an unwavering affection. Behind him I could see the sun burning red hot as it rose over the ocean, announcing the beginning of a new day. I held the image in my mind, closed my eyes and bridged the distance between us by softly tickling his lower lip with the tip of my tongue.
It was the end of his hesitation and his mouth came crushing down on mine, taking it, claiming it, claiming me. And I let him.
His arms enclosed me tightly, pulling me to him while mine snaked up around his neck, my one hand pressed to his back, the other buried in his hair. For the first time it didn’t feel like we were holding onto each other for dear life.
Life. Death. For one magical moment, neither could touch us.
“God you taste amazing,” he whispered against my lips.
“You really sure you know what you’re doing here?” I could barely catch my breath.
His mouth grazed mine as his lips stretched into a small smile. “No.” He leaned his forehead to mine, eyes closed. “But I know I don’t want to stop.” He kissed me again. Softer this time. Sweeter. The heat of the previous moments turned. Instead of explosive flames streaking the night sky, this time fireworks had been shot up into the air and morphed into something resembling pixie dust casting a blanket of magic upon us that made me feel like I was flying. Quite literally. I felt feather lite. Nothing and no one had a hold on me. Except for Blaise.
“This is so surreal.” I felt all hazy like my brain was in a fog. Maybe the lack of sleep was catching up to me. Only I didn’t feel tired. Not even a little.
I looked up. Blaise’s eyes were open too, intently staring at me.
“I’m going to do it, you know. I’m going to make you fall in love with me.”
“What if I don’t want to?” I could definitely think of smarter things to do with my heart than handing it over to Blaise Nolan. All I needed was for it to go missing one day right along with him.
He kissed the tip of my nose, then stepped behind me, wrapping his arms around my stomach and leaning his chin on my shoulder, his mouth beside my ear. “You won’t have a choice. Any more than I did when I fell for you.”
I didn’t say anything. Just stood there watching the sun climb higher into the sky while Blaise swayed us back and forth to the ever-present melody playing within him.
***
My head was pounding and it was only magnified by the way my heart was racing in my chest, sending the blood surging through my temples. For a brief moment I was numb to all of it.
Ava was standing so close to me, every inch of her was in some way molded to my body, right down to her feet which were perfectly situated between my own. Everything was so clear to me now and for the first time, I had hope that maybe she could be mine. Maybe, I was capable of being a good man. The kind of man she could trust. Depend on.
It had gone against all of my rules, but standing there, watching the sun rise over the ocean, hearing her talk about new beginnings, I had fallen for it and the words had just come out. And then, I had kissed her. She had kissed me back.
Every ache in my body was drowned out by the feeling her lips had left on mine. I couldn’t remember the last time I had kissed a woman just to kiss her. Hell, half of the women I had slept with I hadn’t kissed at all.
It was different with Ava. Suddenly making out didn’t sound like something for teenagers in the backseat of a car, but something I gladly would have spent hours doing even without the prospect of ever getting laid. Not that sex wasn’t on my mind. Shit. How could it not be?! Especially now with her ass pressing against me. She had to know what she was doing to me. What she’d been doing to me for the last ten years. Had there ever been a time I hadn’t wanted her? Not that I could remember.
The only thing that had always stopped me had been fear. I needed Ava. The only reason she had ever trusted me at all was because I was just me. The boy next door. The annoying kid who had made fun of her nerdy ass starting in kindergarten just so no one would notice that I couldn’t write my own name. Or later, read. In second grade I’d picked on the ridiculous pink raincoat she’d worn everywhere to divert attention from my holey pants and stained t-shirts. She’d been my scapegoat from the very begin
ning and she’d hated my guts for it.
Until I was eight. That year, things had changed when she witnessed my mother having a meltdown in the backyard over a ‘possessed’ rose bush growing along the side of the house. My mother had been out there, barefoot, wearing a night gown and jeans, ripping at the thorn riddled branches with her hands and screaming bloody murder at her imaginary demons. No one else had been home and I had stood by, helpless to stop her.
Then, Ava had shown up. She never said a word to me. Just walked up to the rose bush and started hacking away at the plant with her father’s garden shears. My mother had finally stepped back, carefully watching Ava work, sobbing quietly until she was satisfied that Ava had killed the beast.
After that, Ava had taken her inside to wash her hands and wrap them in dish towels until my father finally came home to tend to them properly.
We never spoke of the day again, but it changed us. From that day forward, I was no longer alone. I had Ava. And it was a fucking miracle that I still had her here with me fifteen years later.
Not just because I was an asshole, but because Ava was a chickenshit when it came to men. Her father had walked out when she was nine and she’d put it down on a permanent record. It was Ava law. Men would leave.
So, she dated assholes like Lee. Guys she didn’t give two shits about. It was a preemptive move, preparing for the day they would walk out on her. Because she didn’t ever want to be hurt the way her mother had been.
Convincing her that she and I were worth the risk wouldn’t mean just proving that I was capable of being sober. It would mean eradicating a belief she had rooted deep in the core of her being. It would mean proving her wrong about something. And I hadn’t ever been able to do that.
Chapter 10
I stood there wrapped in Blaise from head to toe and watched the sun come up. A million different things should have been racing through my mind and yet, all I could do was be fascinated by this new enigma that was Blaise and I.
Lost Avalon: A Finding Nolan Novel Page 7
