Quiet Lies

by R. L. Griffin

  Reality crashes into my degradation and I hate him. I hate myself. I want to not want him. I’ve tried to not want him. I want to walk away with the knowledge we will never be okay. I’ll never be what he desires, what he loves, what he yearns for, I know that. My life is divided in two different worlds, the one I pretend I have and the one that in the deep recesses of my mind I understand. I hide from that understanding because I would have to leave if I thought about it for one second. I pull on my pants.

  “You’re a dick,” I mutter as I walk toward the house.

  “Your favorite dick,” he responds.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Match

  A few hours later, kisses trail on my shoulder and I cover my eyes to shield them from the ray of evil sunshine coming in from the window.

  “You’re still here.” Sleep coats my words, but my meaning is clear. It’s a statement and a question all in one, maybe even an accusation.

  “I wanted to be here when you woke up.” Sebastian pushes my hair off my cheek and kisses me as if I’ll break. He’s already in chinos and a button down shirt for his casual work day.

  “Why?” The question sounds haughty and defeated at the same time. I couldn’t believe I said it out loud.

  He cocks his head to the side and looks at me like I’m a puzzle he’s put together so many times that it’s now boring and a waste of his time.

  “Rebecca, are you taking your meds?”

  I close my eyes.

  “Are you taking your meds?” His words slow and don’t hide the forced calm, the rain before the thunder.

  “Of course,” I answer.

  His smile is disingenuous and doesn’t reach his eyes and I want to scream. “Good girl,” he condescends while patting my shoulder. He pushes himself off the bed and walks to the door.

  “When will you be back?” I call to his back.

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be today, I’ll text you.” He’s down the hall before I even blink.

  I spring out of the bed and run to the closet. Pulling on a sports bra, spandex and a long t-shirt, I check my phone for the time. I hastily grab my grey Clemson hoodie as I exit the closet. I slide my feet in my flips flops and I’m down the stairs within two minutes. I hear the chimes of the alarm meaning Sebastian has opened the door and I slow myself on the stairs. I count to thirty-seven and then run to the front door just in time to see his dark sedan reverse out and disappear around the curve of the driveway.

  I see my clutch from last night. I don’t remember putting it there. I put my hand up to my neck finally noticing my bib necklace is gone, both hands go to my ears and both cuffs are gone as well. I sigh.

  Sliding into my own SUV, I try to keep my breathing regulated. I press the button to lower the garage as I speed down the road the way my husband disappeared. I know the routine so it’s okay that I’m a little behind. I turn up the music and sing with the lyrics of some overplayed pop song on the radio, anything to distract my brain, anything to hold the delusion of my life for a few moments longer.

  After driving the twenty three miles to Sebastian’s most recent company, my blood pressure is so high I can feel it in my eyes. I see a lovely blonde woman leaning into the window of Sebastian’s car. Then she looks up and I recognize her immediately. It is the woman he’d been talking to last night at the event. Pieces of me explode all over the leather of the inside of my Range Rover. Tissue, brains and blood stick to the windows and drip down to the floor mats.

  “Breathe,” I say this out loud. “You don’t know anything.” The words bounce off the empty SUV, I smear my own blood from the windshield so I can see. My radio isn’t even on all of a sudden. My seatbelt unbuckled.

  I don’t believe this. There is something different about this than his other young work conquests. Something feels different. She, the whore, pushes her big black sunglasses up on her nose and walks confidently over to the passenger side door and gets in.

  “I will kill her.”

  I won’t.

  I’ve found that the mind does weird things in order to protect itself, at least mine does. After we got back from our honeymoon, which was in St. Thomas, Sebastian and I moved to Portland. We explored the city and christened every room in the little house we rented. When he went to work, I made jewelry. I made some really beautiful pieces, rustic metal with trees cut out, leather cuffs with twisted hearts in scorched metal. I put in my earbuds, put my mind on autopilot and lost myself in my delusion. It was in those hours where I burnt, twisted and scorched metal that I let everything out.

  We’d designated a little room at the back of the house for me to work, where I would create things that I loved, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, anything I wanted. On paper my life was everything I had ever wanted. Sebastian and I would walk to dinner, hand in hand, drink a bottle of wine and barely make it back to the house before screwing each other. That led to a quick pregnancy.

  We were young and horny and stupid. Well, as least I was and it bit me in the ass pretty soon after we started playing house.

  The ringing of my cell stops the playlist I was listening to on my phone and I answer it without looking at who was calling. I rub my pregnant belly protectively.

  “Becs.” The voice was like throwing ice water on me after I’d been sunbathing. I blink and look down at my screen. The number is her number, but it no longer has the picture of us and her name to accompany it. I deleted her number months ago.

  “No,” I say into the phone and hang up. I will not even entertain her voice.

  Pearl Jam blares back into the room and it seems too loud. I listen to the lyrics and an unwelcome hardness begins to cover my heart, or maybe it was already there, but there is a solidifying feeling. It scares me and comforts me at the same time.

  My phone rings again and I send it straight to voicemail. I was actually happy until that phone rang. Denial is a useful resource, it keeps you safe from things that hurt. It allows you to believe that it’s possible to have everything you ever wanted.

  Another call and my stomach flips manically. “Fuck you,” I scream into the empty house. Before I hit the phone again I see it’s my only friend from where I grew up, Samantha. Tentatively I hit the accept button.

  “Sam?”

  “Oh god. Becs. Have you heard from your mom?”

  Fear tingles in my gut. “No,” I answer slowly.

  “Oh, shit,” Samantha says to herself.

  “Is my mom okay?”

  “No, I mean, yes. I mean…” I haven’t spoken to Samantha since the wedding. I’ve texted her, but I can’t face her after what happened.

  “Sam?”

  I stare at the brick wall of my room that’s rustic and fits me. I like the roughness of the brick on the wall. I like that this room was added on as an afterthought to this house, like the home wouldn’t be perfect unless there was a room where I can go and lose myself in what makes me feel alive. Everything else disappears in this room. I’m not a girl without a family or friends. I’m not the wife who gets cheated on. I’m not isolated.

  “Your mom’s husband died today. I forget his name, oh god, I’m sorry.”

  I blink as I hear the news. “What happened?”

  “There was a huge pile up on 526. Apparently a huge eighteen wheeler’s brakes went out and he hit several people, your step-father being one of them.”

  My brain is processing her words, but gets caught on “step-father.” I want to correct her about that, but I know that’s not the point of the story. He’s not any sort of father to me.

  “Then three of the cars and the truck caught on fucking fire and his car was one of them. I’m so sorry. Do you want me to go to your mom’s?”

  I twist the metal piece in my hand into a shape that doesn’t have a name, but looks like a mangled car and the color is a bit dark on the edges.

  “REBECCA!” I guess Samantha had been talking, but I haven’t been listening.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “But
…”

  “I’ll get in touch with her. I’m sure she’ll be planning the funeral in the next few days before I can get there. I’ll call you back.” I disconnect and punch my mom’s number.

  “Rebecca,” a voice from my past that is definitely not my mother answers the phone.

  “Why are you answering my mom’s phone?” There are nails flying out of my mouth.

  “She was in Sam’s shop getting her hair done when she got the news. I drove her home. I just called you.”

  “Put my mother on,” I demand.

  “She’s hysterical. I’m trying to figure out if I should take her to the hospital. I mean, she’s going crazy. I don’t…”

  “Put her on Jessica,” I grind out.

  Silence.

  “Mom?”

  Then I hear the sounds of wailing.

  “Mom, I’m so sorry Mom. I’ll be home soon okay? I’ll help with everything.”

  The sounds from her wailing sound like a wounded animal and I pull the phone from my ear and look at it. It disconnects.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Immune

  I follow them to the apartment. It’s been several months since I’ve been here. My brain is devoid of all thoughts. I’m actually looking at Facebook on my phone to pass the time. I’ve been here before. I’ve loved my husband before and been sitting here when he walked out of the apartment with a different blonde, brunette, red head…Tiffany. Where is Tiffany?

  I fold within myself and try to find how I got through the last time, but again something about this is different. My brain seems empty of the memories I need to get through this chaos, this betrayal. Can you actually grow immune to betrayal? Is that possible?

  I squint at the door that I watched them go into, groping each other, tongues in each others’ mouths where God and everyone could see them. The top button of his chinos already undone. Once I allow the coils to unfurl from my consciousness, thoughts begin to spin uncontrollably. All the work travel, the late nights, early mornings. Click, click, boom. I lose myself in the planning, in the plotting, in the unraveling.

  I don’t know how long I sit here stewing in the madness that surrounds me. The evil colors me and everything around me, the edge of my vision is singed and a popping red in the air swirls around me.

  The sound of the door closing makes my head pop up to see Sebastian leaving and skipping down the stairs with glee. His bronze skin glistening with post coitous sweat. I seethe as he reverses out of his parking space and drives out of the lot with a speed that was remarkable. The taillights fade then disappear, but I continued to stare after them.

  My lips turn up at the edges as my vision blurred. The leaves on the trees run together into a blob of green, swirling into brown.

  “Why did he leave her here?” I ask, finally letting my mind take in what I just saw. “Her car is at his office.” Was he coming back?

  I look down at my phone and pull up my mirror of his phone. I mirrored his phone years ago, but I’m very careful about using it. Taking a shaky breath I tap on the icon to see his emails before he gets to where he’s going. I open the first one that is new.

  The email is from someone at work, it is scathing about his being late to a meeting. I’m a little taken aback at the tone as Sebastian is the CEO and no one should talk to him that way, which is totally irrelevant to my situation at hand. I mark it as unread. I move to the next email. I look up again at the door of the apartment.

  She’s in there.

  Why is he doing this to me?

  A cold fear trickles down my spine. When forced to face this reality I break off pieces of myself and shove them in my mouth. The funny thing about eating things your body can’t process is it eventually comes out, ripping you apart in the process. I sit in my expensive car, with my blonde hair and unrealistic expectations of how this will end in a puddle of my own blood. It smells like lies, humiliation and death.

  My death.

  It’s welcome.

  I usher it in until a face appears in my mind. Unfortunately, it looks just like my husband.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I Bleed Lies

  Later that afternoon, my long tresses are piled on top of my head and I’m waiting for the dye to set. Champagne rests in my hand and my smile matches it. It’s light and bubbly on the surface.

  I bleed lies. I open my mouth and only lies come out.

  I cut myself when I got home today. It didn’t hurt or help. Lies spilled out of my wound and poured on the kitchen floor. I left the mess for anyone to find.

  “Rebecca, where did you get your shirt? It’s amazeballs.” My overly cheerful hairdresser is poking around my head and looking at me in the mirror. I hate it when people say things like amazeballs. It’s not a real word, but then all these people kept using it like it was a word and they finally made it a word. Also, it makes me think they’ve never been hurt, they’ve never known such devastation that happy fake words run from them.

  “I don’t know,” I lie. I do know. It’s Banana Republic, but I find talking so exhausting today. I find living so exhausting. I slowly blink at the mirror. In focus. Out of focus. In. Out. Out. Out.

  She digs into my shirt and looks at the tag. “It’s Banana? I’m going to buy one of these.” It’s gray and drapes past the curve of my ass, but the back is all straps until it reaches the small of my back. Sebastian hates this shirt, he says I’m trying to get attention. Jealousy is a very interesting thing, what it does to a person. Believe me, I know.

  “You make everything look good,” she comments as she fingers my stackable gunmetal bracelets that are arrows.

  I sigh with discontent.

  “What? You do.”

  Melinda is a doe eyed twenty-something whose enthusiasm is difficult to deal with on a good day. She’s also been my hairstylist for five years. I left my last one when she started asking me questions that I didn’t want to answer. Why do people feel like they have to know everything? I don’t ask other people questions intending to scratch the surface of their life so carefully put together for others to see.

  “You know you’re gorgeous and you have that hunk of a man to show for it.” She grins at me over my head in the mirror.

  Her statement infers that I’m pretty, so I get a man who’s attractive who cheats on me with anything that wears heels and has a pussy.

  Mask firmly in place. “Thank you, but you know that makes me uncomfortable.”

  She tilts her head to the side. “You could go to the dollar store and look like a million bucks coming out of there. I don’t see how when I buy the same exact shirt it doesn’t look at all as elegant as it does on you.” Her black hair is angled at a severe cut in a bob that showcases her huge hazel eyes and delicate jaw line.

  I shrug and check my watch. I have five more minutes until she can wash my hair.

  “I have to use the restroom.” I rise out of the chair and put one Tory Burch ballet flat in front of another. I hate these shoes, they hurt my fucking feet.

  I smile at a mother I recognize from Bash’s school. She doesn’t return the favor. My brain clicks into gear to place her.

  I’m washing my hands when I finally realize I saw her the other night at the auction. I’m a victim of my anxiety and I stay in the bathroom for a few extra minutes. It smells like grass and reminds me of the lowcountry of South Carolina.

  My top skirts the top of my thighs and I pretend to have the confidence I exude. Questions run through my mind on repeat. Does anyone else fake everything? Is everyone walking around in a body they don’t recognize? Am I the only one that can’t get a grasp on where I am or what exactly I’m supposed to be doing? Surely the superficial tasks I endeavor on a daily basis are meant for someone else, I was going to be someone, do something remarkable, be extraordinary.

  A few minutes later, Melinda is washing the dye out of my hair and massaging my scalp in the most delicious way. She’s quiet because she can read my mood. I’m doing mental gymnastics. Can I leave? Do I
even want to leave? It costs Sebastian over two hundred and fifty dollars every other month for my hair to be the color he likes. It costs him over one hundred dollars every month in different gym memberships. My SUV is over eight hundred dollars a month. These are what he wants, but I don’t need those things. I once liked my brown hair, putting different bold colors in it. I had a small car in college that I paid for with money I made from making jewelry. I don’t need these things. I can leave, but I’ll need to get far away from Portland and that means Bash would hate me even more than he already does.

  I tried to have friends here and Sebastian ruined every single one of them for me. I open my eyes as Melinda finishes up and wraps a towel around my hair. I dig my phone out of my purse and text my only friend I had in Portland, maybe she’s still my friend.

  Can we talk? Lunch?

  My phone dings with a message before I even put it away.

  Of course.

  I smile. I’m going to need all the help I can get. I change her contact information to read Angela Weber in case Sebastian looks through my phone.

  “You want to try a different cut?” Melinda asks.

  “Sebastian likes this length,” I hear myself answer automatically. It dawns on me how my entire life revolves around what he likes.

  She smiles at me, but the look is mingled with pity.

  My eyes drop and I go through my phone in my attempt to look busy. My mind is counting the money I have now, wondering if I have enough. I have been putting away money and buying additional gift cards at the grocery store to go undetected for years. I may have enough.

  After a few minutes, she starts rattling on about her husband and his job. It’s not that I don’t care...okay it is. I don’t care. I have a lot on my mind. I haven’t felt so clear in years, maybe a decade.