by Heidi Lowe
"These shoes were not made for dancing in," Diane complained once we'd returned to our table half an hour later. Camille and I had walked; Diane had hobbled. "I think I'm gonna call it a night. The twins don't like it when Mommy isn't home to read them their bedtime story."
"No, come on. Stay," I pleaded, tugging on her arm. In my alcohol-addled brain, boundaries had become a thing of the past. "Let your husband do it."
She chuckled. "Sweetie, my husband's got a voice like a drunk sailor with a viral infection! Not exactly the kind of thing you want doing the voices of princesses."
"And I've had three missed calls from my husband," Camille chimed in, holding her phone up so close to her face it almost touched her nose. "After two I get worried."
"Guys, seriously? It's only just turned nine." I shot Raymond a pleading look. "You're not going to desert me too, are you?"
"Sorry. Georgia gets back from Washington tonight, and I promised the house would be spotless." He got up with the others.
"So everyone's ditching me? And I'm supposed to stay here all by myself?" I slouched onto the bar stool, glowered at my traitorous companions. Without even realizing it I'd become that sad friend who never knew when to call it quits and go home; the one person in the group who didn't have anyone special waiting for them when they got there. If I hadn't been so wasted I would have cringed at myself, hard.
Camille put a hand on my shoulder. "No, Lissa. Go home. You can't avoid her forever."
She was right. Sooner or later I would have to see her again.
God, I hated nighttime!
TWO
"You gave me too much, miss," the taxi driver shouted to me as I staggered toward my front door. "Miss, hey! I asked for thirty."
I waved him away dismissively with one hand, while the other dug deep into my purse for my elusive keys. "Keep the change. It's her money. She can afford it."
He didn't argue. Just said thanks, then took off, probably afraid I'd change my mind, or realize that I'd just tipped him twenty bucks. And I hadn't even thrown up in his car!
The night air was doing nothing positive for my drunken state. And even with the floodlights blasting down on me, I still couldn't locate my keys.
"Where are you, you metal pieces of shit?"
It took me a minute to remember that I hadn't brought them with me that day. This realization made me giggle. And the giggle turned into a full-on hysterical laugh. The middle of the night and I was cackling like an intoxicated hobo.
She would be up. She was always up when I got home from work. I never got back to find my things on the doorstep, or the locks changed, no matter how much I deserved it.
I pressed a wobbly finger to the bell. Then hit it again. And again. And again, giggling to myself for the inconvenience I hoped I was causing.
On the fifth ding, the door swung open.
"How old are you?" Robyn glowered at me, the way she had the first day I met her, when she'd accused me of making a play for Jean. It seemed so long ago now. She must have seen something in me back then, long before I even did. A hunger for her beautiful vampire.
Her presence then hadn't angered me, but it did now. Back then I'd had no right to my anger, or to Jean. Now, everything here was mine. And Robyn was on the wrong side of the door.
"Get out of my way." I barged past her. "I thought we left you in Lox Ridge."
"I wasn't the one who should have been left in Lox Ridge..." She folded her arms across her chest, glared at me as though I was the filthiest thing on the planet. That look had a sobering effect.
"You would have loved that, wouldn't you? Then you'd have your vampire all to yourself. Except she still wouldn't love you. You would never make her happy."
Robyn's eyes narrowed, her cheeks burned red. I could almost hear her blood reaching boiling point.
"You think you make her happy? You think she's happy with you right now?"
"What the hell do you know about any of it?"
"I know that you're making her life hell, that she can't do a goddamn thing right with you. That you're just a selfish, immature little girl who refuses to grow up. That's what I know."
"Robyn, that's enough." I didn't know how long Jean had been standing at the living room door. I imagined she'd been there from the start, and she'd held back, allowed Robyn to rip into me because she was too afraid to do it herself.
I turned a look of hatred on her. "You've been telling her about me? About our problems?"
"Honey, no, nothing like that–"
I wasn't listening. The feeling of betrayal was too strong. "Your loyal lapdog, who's always there for you when you need her. Well done, Robyn, for being the loyal partner I never was. But it's kind of hard to be when the woman I'm screwing murdered my mother!"
The crestfallen look in Jean's face was so familiar to me now, it was hard to remember what her face looked like without it. There wasn't a day that went by, an encounter between us, where I didn't cause it to appear. I'd gotten so good at it.
"Did she tell you that part?" I was enjoying this, having the floor, no restraints. When would she reach breaking point? "And I say screwing, but we haven't done that in, well, months. But I bet you knew that already. Maybe that's why you're here, to do what I won't. Well, knock yourselves out."
I started toward the stairs, and Jean ran off, face in her hands, back to the living room.
"You selfish bitch," Robyn grumbled, before hurrying after her.
I only made it halfway up the stairs, and flopped down on a step. Dizzy and filled with remorse. Jean's sobs filtered out into the hall.
"Why do you let her get to you like this?" I heard Robyn say. "Throw her out. She doesn't deserve you."
"I would never do that."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because I love her. She's hurting, and she has every right to her feelings."
"But she doesn't have the right to treat you like this. That's not love, Jean, that's hate. Pure and simple."
How wrong Robyn was. Nothing was pure or simple when it came to me and Jean. And you couldn't have hate, real hate, without love as its basis. You couldn't want to inflict the sort of pain I wanted to inflict on a person you simply hated.
No, it went far deeper than that. Robyn could only see one side, and her vision was impaired by her love for Jean. She couldn't see that I was there because I loved Jean, because my love for her was an order of magnitude stronger than my hate for her. But I didn't know how to love her and hate her at the same time, and that was the problem. So we were both suffering for it.
"You never should have brought her with you," Robyn said. "Everyone, including her, would have been a lot better off."
Jean's silence sent a shiver down my spine. Did she think the same? Was she in agreement with Robyn? She must have wondered why I'd given her a second chance, why I'd come with her if this was how it was destined to be between us. Did she already regret her decision?
I dragged myself up the remainder of the stairs, then collapsed on my bed. Sleep claimed me within minutes.
I thought I would have slept right through the night, but when I woke up it was still pitch-black outside. I'd fallen asleep without closing the curtains or taking off my clothes and shoes.
My head ached and felt like it weighed a tonne. Physically I was in agony; but it was my emotional agony that plagued me, that I needed to address. Aspirin wouldn't help me with that. I knew what would.
I left my room and crept along the hall. Jean's door was closed, but light spilled out from beneath it. She was probably working.
I thought about turning back. And sure, if I took pleasure out of making her suffer I would have. But there was no joy in any of it. When she hurt, I hurt.
I tapped on her door. Inside I heard her stir.
"Come in."
She was in bed, not tucked away, but sitting up, a bunch of papers surrounding her.
"Hi." Her dark eyes were wide and hopeful when she looked at me. "Did you just wake up?"
I nodded, hung back at the door. I should have felt welcome in her room, but I didn't. We'd been estranged too long for that.
"Come, sit down." She frantically started sweeping her papers up and clearing space for me on her bed. I hesitated before sitting down, and did so as far from her as possible.
"What is that stuff?" I asked.
"It's the financials for a business I'm thinking of buying. It's failing, and I might be able to save it."
"You definitely like saving things..." I didn't mean it to come out as scornful as it sounded. She looked at me sadly for a second before putting her stack of papers on her nightstand. "What's the business?"
"A restaurant and bar. The restaurant business will be new to me, but the bar side of things, I know that stuff like the back of my hand."
"Maybe you can finally become the chef you dreamed of."
"I don't need that anymore. None of that is important to me now." Her look was intense. She didn't have to say any more to tell me what she meant. "I miss you."
We'd been living under the same roof for the last six weeks, saw each other every day, but I knew exactly what she meant.
I looked away. "I was a total jerk earlier. It won't happen again."
"You get to lash out, baby. No one blames you."
"Robyn does."
"She doesn't understand. Everything's one-sided with her."
I got up, slightly frustrated by my free pass to be an asshole. "But she's right. I can't keep doing this, making us both miserable. And she's right that you should never have brought me with you."
She got up too. "Lissa, don't say that. My life without you would be no life at all. If you hadn't come with me, I would probably have returned to Lox Ridge by now just to be close to you again."
She wanted to touch me, I could see her fingers trembling to do it. But it was still too soon. We weren't there yet.
"That was all I came here to say. I apologize for causing a scene, and it won't happen again." I started toward the door, ready to forever hold my truth. Remaining formal, like I was speaking to a stranger and not the woman I loved above all things.
She sighed. So close. So damn close to getting back to what we were before. But there was still an ocean separating us. And one late-night visit and a five minute exchange weren't going to fix that.
As I went to step out, I turned back to her. "I don't have the answers. I'm trying to figure this out just like you are."
Red tears fell. She looked more beautiful than ever in her misery. If I'd only had the strength to tell her exactly what lay in my heart – that I loved her, that I was trying to make sense of this so that I could love her uninhibited – the tears would have stopped.
THREE
I scraped the brush across the canvas, as I'd done a million times. A green line to converge with the red one I'd painted the day before. Waiting. Waiting for my muse to show up and guide me, to bring meaning to the random colorful lines I'd been adding every day for the past two weeks. She'd deserted me right around the time I'd left Lox Ridge.
I growled in frustration and tossed the paintbrush across the room. Behind me, a pile of discarded canvases of my unfinished artwork stared at me. A stack of failure. Had my art career already come to an end?
There was a light tap at the door of my studio, then moments later Sandra, the maid, entered.
"Sweetie, can I get you anything?" she said. Her chirpy voice had always comforted me, reminded me that not everything was terrible in the world. Another loyal employee of Jean's, willing to relocate anywhere she did. I was grateful for her.
"No, thank you. I have to get ready for work soon."
She hovered in the doorway.
"Was there something else?" I said.
"How are you doing, sweetie?"
Okay, so now the maid was checking up on me. Was that in her job description?
"Fine. I'm doing fine."
"Can't get the ol' artistic juices flowing, huh?" She stood beside me now, staring at my painting. Then she cocked her head to one side. "It's lacking heart."
"Is it that obvious?"
"You're painting, but you're not painting, you see."
I did, only too well.
"I want to want to paint, but I don't actually want to paint. Does that make sense?"
"Sure does. Maybe don't try to force it, then it'll come."
"I think I need to clear my head. But that's impossible right now." I sat down on the only piece of furniture in the room aside from the easel, a wooden crate that was there when we moved in.
"You know she comes in here when you're sleeping, or before you get home from work?"
I frowned. "Jean?"
"Yup. Comes in here, and just sits there and cries. She's surrounded by your work, and it brings her closer to you somehow. You see false starts, mistakes; she sees masterpieces. She's always loved your work. Everything you've ever done."
Why was she telling me this?
"Always? How long have you been in her life?"
"Since the beginning."
The beginning: my end.
"Did you know my mother?" It had never occurred to me that this lady, so unassuming and meek as she went about her tasks, hearing and seeing everything, would have known about our connection.
"We don't have to talk about that now, honey."
"So you did. And you must have known who I was this whole time. You watched me crawl into her bed every night for months, and you knew who I was." I didn't try to hide the bitterness; it came out in my tone, and in my glare. Had Robyn always known, too?
"Lissa, we can't change the past. Heck, we can't even change the present or the future. We are what we are, and where we are. It's a cruel fate what happened to your mother, but there's nothing cruel about the way you and Jean love each other. You're the only thing that matters to her in this world."
"I have to get ready for work. Excuse me." I hastened from the room when I felt my nose tingling and my eyes watering. Her words only highlighted the vast distance between me and Jean, and made me long for a simpler time when all we needed to do in order to feel whole was love each other.
The sun beamed on me on the twenty-minute walk to work that afternoon. Good weather was somewhat commonplace in this part of the country, and I walked to work most days.
After the conversation with Sandra, having been forced to reevaluate my broken relationship, my mind remained clouded. Even when I left Jean behind, locked deep down in her cellar, she was still with me. Having the job certainly was the distraction I needed. She'd questioned my need for one, just as she had in the past. Her money was mine, yada yada yada, and anything I wanted I just had to ask. She still didn't get it. Get my need for a purpose, or to make new friends. To exist outside of her.
As I crossed the street to the shelter, a motorcycle came speeding toward me. I dived out of the way and tumbled onto the sidewalk, the bike having narrowly missed me.
"Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?" I screamed, when the vehicle skidded to a stop at the corner of the street. A leather clad asshole turned his head to look at me behind his helmet, somewhat ominously. "If you're blind, you should probably stay off the road!"
When the rider removed its helmet, I expected to see a scruffy-looking man with too much facial hair and a stoned look in his eyes. But the messy blonde bob belonged to a girl. My age, possibly younger, and a pissed off look about her, as though she was the one who'd almost been knocked down.
"And you should watch where you're going. It's a road, you know, that thing that vehicles use..."
"Oh, so it's my fault?" I said, outraged. Not just at her, but at everything. Today it was almost being run down, yesterday it was something else. Those minutes before arriving at work were the worst, the most miserable. Work, surprisingly enough, was my sanctuary. And I wasn't in the mood for angry-looking, grungy biker chicks with hair that was badly in need of a wash.
She grinned devilishly, snorted a laugh to herself, before putting her helmet on, sta
rting up the bike, and speeding off.
I growled in frustration and stormed into the shelter.
I'd barely put my things away in the locker room when Camille burst in. "We've found the perfect family for Knight. They're taking him tomorrow."
"What? Who are they?" For how distraught I sounded, anyone would have thought I'd just been told that someone was taking my kidneys. "Is this what happens on my days off, you decide without me?"
"Sorry. We had to make the call. They're lovely people. Young kids, stay-at-home mom, were afraid to get a new dog after the old one died last year. They fell in love with him." She shrugged as if to say, "what are you gonna do?"
"What a rotten day," I mumbled to myself. But it came out louder than I'd intended. Always one to identify gossip from the quietest whisper in the air, Camille's face lit up.
"What else happened today? Trouble with the girlfriend?" She cleared her throat for effect. "I mean, the woman you share a house with?"
Ever since they'd tried to pry information out of me at the bar a week ago, many of our conversations went like this. If I complained about not sleeping the night before, they asked if I was up arguing, or having make up sex. If I said my stomach was hurting, they wanted to know if my girlfriend had put something in my food! It was like having multiple Petrs. I put it down to them all living insipid and dreary heterosexual lives, where the only entertainment came from their TV screens.
"Some idiot on a motorbike nearly knocked me over just now as I crossed the street. Now this." Her visible loss of interest amused me. Tell her I almost lost my life, and she didn't want to hear any more.
Knight's elated barks upon seeing me were bittersweet. There was something about his greeting that day that made me think he knew we were parting. I spent most of my shift with him, unwilling to evenly distribute my time among the other animals. They would have me forever; Knight and I were on borrowed time.
Of course, this scene had played out in my life before. Despite my best efforts not to think of it that way, it was exactly the same as April's adoption. And back then, as it was now, no family was good enough. On paper, sure, but not if it meant splitting us up. I couldn't do anything back then, but maybe there was still time now.
