“Così come ho, as will I, Tesoro.”
It had taken some highly skilled detective work to find out what mi mancherai meant. ‘I will miss you’. I already did; my heart that had been half filled was once again empty. I had done the right thing, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“It’s just a rehearsal, right?” Mya asked as she watched me from the doorway with a confused look on her worried face.
“Uh-huh,” I murmured as I riffled through clothes. I already had my lucky jeans on, but I was having trouble finding my lucky shirt.
“So, you could theoretically turn up in sweats and it wouldn’t matter.”
“Don’t be silly,” I scoffed. “Ohhh, there you are, you beautiful thing,” I said in a sing song voice, pulling the top from a hanger. I quickly pulled my worn t-shirt off, which had at one point belonged to Cain. I could acknowledge that wearing it was difficult and really didn’t help with the whole healing heart and getting over my long lost love thing, but like the diamond amethyst that hung around my neck, I simply couldn’t bring myself to give it up. Mya glanced away with a blush when she spotted me in my half-dressed state. I suddenly stopped and observed her as she shuffled nervously, trying very hard not to look at me. When her eyes did roam back, they dropped to my lace covered breasts. “Why do you always get so shy around me and freak out when I get changed?” She looked to the open doorway as if she were ready to bolt.
“I don’t freak out,” she grumbled.
“Yes, you do. You went to an all-girls school, you must have seen a naked girl or two. And let’s not forget you are also a girl with your very own girly body. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
She looked back, and I noticed her gaze once again drop to my breasts, only this time I saw something other than embarrassment in her eyes, which she quickly hid by squeezing them shut.
“Tell me when you’re dressed,” she huffed, turning her back on me.
“Mya, are you a lesbian?” I suddenly gasped with clarity. Mya sprung around to face me again, eyes wide open and a deep shade of red in her cheeks. “That’s why you get so uncomfortable when you see me in my underwear.”
“Normal people don’t fucking strut around a communal living space in just their underwear!” Mya snapped, but I didn’t miss the fact she hadn’t answered my question.
I grinned. “We are not in a communal living space right now; this is my private room. You’ve been secretly checking me out all this time.”
Mya rolled her eyes. “You wish.” I forced my grin away and sighed, knowing this wasn’t exactly a moment for laughter and teasing.
“So, you’re gay?” I gently asked.
Mya shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know.”
“Do you prefer the idea of a man’s body or a woman’s body?”
She glanced at my breasts again. “I’m not adverse to your body.”
“Wow, this is…” I struggled for words. “This is huge. I guess you will need a device to lose your virginity to after all,” I pondered. “But we need to find you a hot momma to help.”
Mya shook her head furiously. “You are out of your ever lovin’ mind. Violet, are you fucking high?” As soon as the words escaped Mya’s lips, I saw the panic in her eyes.
I waved my hand with nonchalance. “Trust me, if I was high you’d know.” I gave Mya an understanding smile. “I’m right though, aren’t I? You’re gay.” Doing her best to look anywhere but at me, she shrugged.
“I guess, maybe. I’ve never really met a guy I want to be with in that way.”
“But you’ve met a girl you want to be with in that way?” Mya’s eyes caught mine briefly, and I suddenly had a bad feeling.
“Kind of.”
“Is she a lesbian?”
Mya ran a hand nervously through her dark hair. “I have my doubts.”
“I don’t want to sound like an arrogant goober, but are we talking about me?” After a long moment of silence which clearly spoke volumes, Mya finally nodded.
“Cripes,” I said with a little amazement, collapsing to my bed.
“I don’t suppose you are bisexual?” Mya mumbled, and I found myself trying to suppress a giggle. This was a delicate situation that didn’t need me doing or saying anything that might embarrass Mya.
“I’ve never had the inclination to be with another woman.” Mya’s shoulders drooped a little. “I’m sorry,” I quickly added.
“It’s alright. I honestly expected you to say that.”
“You really don’t want to take on my mess anyway. My heart and head are pretty screwed up right now.”
“Is that why you are making such a fuss over your clothes?” I glanced down at the top I currently held in my hands. Feeling a little self-conscious now at being half naked in front of Mya, I quickly pulled it over my head. It was a lilac bat wing top that hung off one shoulder. Cain had bought it for me for my birthday last year.
“Yeah, I want to look pretty for the guy I hurt, and subsequently sent running into the arms of another which he is betrothed to and having a baby with. Like I said, I’m a little screwed up right now.” Mya sat down beside me.
“At least my infatuation is most likely nothing more than an attraction to a physical characteristic that stimulates the hypothalamus, causing elevated heart rate, perspiration, and a general feeling of sexual arousal. I mean, it has to be that because there is no way I would ordinarily want someone this messy.” I stared at Mya trying to decipher what she had just said. She was doing very well at ignoring my inquisitive gaze. “You, whatever you have going with Cain, it’s bigger. You’ve known him long enough to know all his faults, you’ve been with enough men to know what you are physically attracted to, and still, you want him.” Her dark doe eyes landed on me. “Are you really going to wear that?”
I glanced back down at my top. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s very…purple.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled a boot out from under the bed. I felt Mya’s eyes on me while I finished dressing. I wasn’t sure if it was all in my head just knowing she was gay, or if Mya’s walls of perversion had suddenly broken down and she was now brazenly checking me out. I turned, one hand on my hip.
“So, how do I look?” Mya raised a brow, blushed, glanced away then seemed to gather some unknown courage before she turned her dark eyes back on me.
“I guess I would prefer you took it all off,” she murmured.
I gave her a wink. “You can do better than me, you little geek.” Mya rolled her eyes. The word ‘geek’ had once held a wealth of hurt for Mya. It was a word the kids at school had used in cruel brutality on her, but a few months ago I started buying her shirts. The first one read, “Geek is the new Gangsta”. A week later I gave her another shirt which read, “I am Queen Geek in search of my Minions”. This went on over the next month before her birthday, where I presented her with a final shirt which read, “I am a geek and proud of it.” Her attitude towards the word had changed exponentially. Now she seemed to preen under the affectionate term. I had taken something ugly from her life and turned it into something beautiful. I only wish someone would do that with my mess. Take the name Cain and turn it into something less raw and heart-wrenching.
“Break a leg,” Mya said as I left the apartment.
So many lyrics are about love or loss of love, and singing those songs made looking at Cain difficult. So I tried in vain to keep my gaze on the empty seats before us. This weekend we were performing together for the first time in over ten months. Saying goodbye to my temporary band mates hadn’t been difficult, but right now my stomach was twisted into uncomfortable nerves, all over singing with someone I had been singing with for almost half my life. However, as soon as Cain began playing, I fell into the warm comfort of something that was so familiar it made me feel like a bag of rubbery bones. The song I was singing right now was about love of a different kind, the love of jazz, and it made me feel like a fifties jazz starlet as I moved around the grand piano.
/> “And all…that…jazz!” I belted out the final words, and Harry jumped up from his position before us, applauding with enthusiasm.
“About fucking time you two got your shit together,” he called out as he walked away. I gave Cain a bemused look, and he grinned with a raised brow.
“It’s like nothing has changed,” he said smiling. That brought my momentary good mood plummeting back to earth with a heavily weighted thud. The truth was, so much had changed. “Are you going to ask me?” Cain finally said with a sigh.
I took a drink from my bottle of water and shrugged. “Ask what?” I asked, feigning innocence. I had actually been dying to ask him, but I was terrified of the answer. I didn’t want to know if he was married. I didn’t want to know when the baby was due. I wanted to live in a bubble where I could pretend there was no Annabelle, no baby, no heartache.
Cain shook his head as he stood from the piano. I stubbornly moved away and sat on the edge of the stage, watching the hotel staff in the distance as they moved about, preparing the room for another function tonight. Cain sat down beside me, so close his shoulder touched mine. He had gained some weight and was looking more like the Cain I knew so well. His shoulder length hair was gathered into its usual messy man-bun. He was wearing a tight fitting grey shirt with a long sleeved thermal underneath to keep him warm as the New York winter crept closer, and a pair of jeans, ratty and worn in a delicious way. He looked perfect, as usual. Would I ever look at him and see a fault? I doubted it.
“You know, if it wasn’t for you, I would have done the wrong thing. I needed you to remind me that I’m not that guy.” I felt sick to my stomach as he spoke, but I needed to put on a brave face. Letting Cain go had been the right thing to do, it was still the right thing to do. He needed to be with Annabelle and give her and the baby everything he had to offer. I wasn’t about to make that more difficult for him.
“You would have done the right thing regardless of what I said, that’s who you are, Cain.”
He shook his head. “I was so messed up, so close to making the biggest mistake of my life, Violet. It took you to open my eyes, and that’s the funny thing; my life has always had more clarity when I’m around you. You kind of put everything into perspective.” I wanted to fall to pieces. I wanted to curl into a ball and sob like a baby. Instead I sat a little taller and tried hard to ignore Cain’s warm presence beside me. He gave me a gentle nudge with his shoulder. “Ask me, Violet,” he said in a low voice.
“Fine,” I threw my arms in the air a little dramatically. “When’s the wedding, and can I bring a date?”
He laughed at me. Laughed! The gall of him.
“There is no wedding, Violet. I am not marrying Annabelle.”
I was breathing a little heavy, trying hard not to turn into an emotional mess, so it took me a while for his words to make their mark, and when they did, I went still.
“Why not?” I asked, more than a little startled.
“I had to do the right thing, and that was to not marry Annabelle. I don’t love her and never did. She was a distraction, and it was wrong of me to string her along like I did.”
“W…what about the baby?” I stammered.
“Bringing a baby into a loveless marriage is wrong, Violet. I’m more than able to be a good father, to provide for my child and Annabelle without marrying her. Marriage is sacred, Violet, it is for people who love each other.”
“So, you are just going to live together?” I wasn’t sure what Cain was trying to tell me. Was he still with Annabelle?
“No, we aren’t going to live together. I told you, I don’t love her. We haven’t settled on what we are actually going to do or where we will live. I want to be close to my child; I want to be there for both of them. Annabelle is a good person, she will need my support, and I want to give that to her. But we mutually agreed that it would be for the best if we did it in the capacity of friends only.” I sat in stunned silence for a long time before another nudge to my shoulder caught my attention. “Just out of curiosity, would you have brought Peiro as your date?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was asking. I shook my head slowly. “I’m no longer seeing Peiro, not that I was ever really seeing him. I’m not sure what you would call what we had. Maybe a distraction, like Annabelle was for you. I guess I would have asked Mya to be my date since she seems to have a crush on me. I have no doubt she would have obliged.” It was Cain’s turn to be shocked.
“Mya is gay?” I nodded. “Wow, does Harry know that?”
“I have no idea, but I think it’s a recent revelation for Mya. She’s young and a little confused about her sexuality.”
“And she has a crush on you?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, I’m quite the catch.”
His eyes softened as he looked my way. “You are more than a catch, Violet. You’re a damn prize.”
I am pretty sure I blushed all the way from my toes to my nose, and when the back of Cain’s finger gently brushed my cheek, I shivered under the touch.
“Is Annabelle alright?” I wondered. I was honestly concerned; she didn’t deserve to be promptly shoved aside because Cain had finished playing with her.
“Belle and I were never really happy together. We are both able to admit that. When she got pregnant, we both panicked because we knew we didn’t have a strong relationship, and neither of us was brave enough to admit it. Annabelle is happy with this decision.” I shivered as his hand continued to caress my cheek. “What are we going to do about this?”
Even though it seemed a vague and ordinary question, I knew it for what it was. Cain and Violet, we had history and the potential for a future, but there were so many questions and worries floating around in my head. He was going to be a father to another woman’s child; the pang of jealousy I felt over that was substantial. My addiction was still a day to day battle. Would Cain be willing to be a part of that? And then there was the ever present snide voice in the back of my mind that still whispered thoughts of contempt and self-loathing. I still wasn’t sure if I was good enough for Cain, but I wanted to be, and for the first time in my life, I considered that maybe that voice was wrong. I could be good enough.
“I’m not asking to put a ring on your finger, Violet, not yet anyway.” My gaze jumped to his. “I’m asking that we no longer fight this. I’m tired of fighting it. I’m not someone who walks away easily, and when I did, it broke me. I’m not going to do that again; I simply couldn’t. I want to help you fight your battles. I want you to let me in, Violet.”
I nervously rubbed my sweating palms on the legs of my jeans. I wanted to give Cain what he was asking for, but what if I screwed up? What if I slipped and fell with my sobriety? I couldn’t drag him down like that again; it would destroy both of us. We could end up like my parents, so desolately in love. “You are not your mother, Violet. You are your own person, strong, independent, and able to accomplish anything. Don’t let her fate dictate yours.” The wise words of Dr. Brightman played through my mind. They encouraged me, filled me with the strength I needed.
“I guess,” I began with a deep breath, “I owe you a chance. God knows you gave me so many.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Violet, and if you don’t want this, then we move past it and get on with our lives.” There was a little anger behind Cain’s words, something I was more than familiar with. He was a passionate man whose temper sparked easily but fizzled just as fast. With that thought, he sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I just don’t want you doing this because of some misplaced notion that you owe me.” That’s not at all why I wanted to be with Cain. My need for him was much more selfish.
“Cain, the very first time I saw you, I was drawn to you in a way that scared the ever loving crap out of me. I’m not that scared little mouse anymore though, and I want to give us a chance to see how our relationship could grow because I’m selfish and don’t want to share you anymore. You are mine, so I hope you know what you’ve signed on for, buddy
.” With that Cain smiled; it was a smile I had witnessed thousands of times during our friendship, full of excitement, relief, love. He grabbed my cheeks and held me steady as his mouth descended over mine, catching me completely unawares just like his passionate kiss on New Year’s Eve which seemed like a lifetime ago. That kiss was more aggressive though, more desperate. This kiss was more like a pledge, slow, deep, tender, and when Cain finally pulled away, I was left feeling dizzy and breathless.
“Guess we better wrap this up, because in all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never had the pleasure of taking you on a date. I can’t wait another day, and I don’t want to give you the chance to say no.” Cain jumped up and dragged me back to the piano, his hand holding mine as if he was afraid I might run the moment he let go. The funny thing was, I didn’t want him to let go, I wanted him to hold me tighter, because somewhere in the back of my mind I was terrified I was going to lose him again, and that was something I simply couldn’t relive.
“It isn’t where you came from; it’s where you’re going that counts.”
—Ella Fitzgerald
As it turned out, I never said no to the date, but we didn’t go on one either. A panicked phone call from Harry had Cain racing from our rehearsal to fill in for a pianist in another band Harry managed. We hadn’t been on any dates yet, but over the past week we had spent a ridiculous amount of time texting each other and Cain had become a regular fixture in my and Mya’s apartment. We had also spent most of that time avoiding the topic of the ever present elephant in the room: Cain’s impending fatherhood. Currently, he was sprawled across the couch with the TV remote in hand, flicking repeatedly through the channels with a lazy indifference only a male could achieve.
“How do you know if the program is interesting or not if you don’t pause long enough to check it out?” Mya grumbled as she shoved her books into her worn backpack.
“I’m looking for something,” Cain murmured.
Violet Addiction Page 13
