Quiet Lies

by R. L. Griffin

  “You’re a criminal?” I mock, smiling. “I thought you were a problem solver.”

  “Gin,” he yells as he throws down his last cards.

  “Damn it.” I’m in love with a criminal and married to a sociopath.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  What We Deserve…

  Two Weeks After

  It is the dead of the summer and the heat is so oppressive it’s hard to sit outside. The fourth of July is the busiest time on the island and I make a note to leave town next year as I look out at the scores of people up and down the shore. The waves beat the sand and jagged pieces of shells dig into my skin. I haven’t showered in a few days and my hair is one enormous tangle. Clouds explode in the sky causing the horizon to go dark. Bash is riding the waves in front of me before the storm comes. We’ve come to a tenuous truce the last few days. I can’t determine if his personality is because of me or Sebastian or teenage hormones. Everyone tells me to relax, he’ll grow out of it, but it scares me. He scares me.

  Bash seems to like the beach house I rented. He’s taken to riding the golf cart around the island and ignoring me. I cannot pull my head from the haze that covers my life. Sebastian has been dead for a little over two weeks. I put our house on the market in Portland, only taking a few things with us when we left. I gave the Rover to Adrian. I told Adrian to take whatever he wanted from the house too.

  Last week, Tiffany met me at the same coffee shop from before and had everything for me, which was surprising. She wasn’t pregnant. Lies, truth, lies, truth. One last little ‘fuck you’ from him to have me worried about her always having her claws in me and Bash. Another little fabrication to think I could not rid myself of him.

  I didn’t think I would be able to rely on Sebastian for any money. I was ready to leave. I had enough money stockpiled thanks to Adrian and my growing company. So here I am, trying to be okay on my own.

  My Internet sales are out of control and I spend most hours of the days managing my inventory, mailing out pieces and sending out invoices. Each morning when the sun kisses my eyelids I worry and wonder if I’ll make it through the day. It sounds strange, but I feel like someone who has just been released from prison and cannot acclimate to society. This is why people go back, they are familiar with every aspect of their lives being controlled.

  “Becs,” I hear over the waves and wind.

  I turn to find Samantha standing there with her two kids, Delilah and Davis. I wave. The kids throw their towels down and run to get in the water with Bash. Delilah is one year older than Bash and Davis is a year younger. They appear to get along well.

  “Hey,” I say as Samantha sits down next to me in a low chair she brought.

  “You good?

  “Hmmmm, good?” I ask like it is the most ridiculous question I’ve ever heard.

  “I mean, that answers my question right there.” Samantha has a bright pink vintage bikini on with white polka dots and a straw hat that looks like a trendy cowboy hat.

  “I’m just trying to be happy.” I take a sip of my diet soda. “I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

  “You just move forward, like you’re doing.” She cracks open a beer and takes a sip.

  “Do I have to do the smile thing?” I tilt my head to the side, teasing her.

  “Nope,” she answers as she looks out in the ocean where the three kids are jumping in the surf.

  “Do I have to be nice?”

  “Not at all, I wouldn’t want you to be anything you’re not,” she chuckles.

  “You don’t think I’m nice?”

  “You used to be.” Her eyes never leave her two kids in the water getting beat down by the waves.

  “I lost myself,” I comment.

  “It happens to the best of us,” she responds.

  “I don’t know if I’ll get back what I need from my old self.”

  “Should we bury her?” Samantha puts her sunglasses on her head and looks at me. Her brown eyes sincere.

  “I think I buried her alive a long time ago.”

  “Let’s have a ceremony. Let’s put together a flower wreath and send it out to sea so that you can be at peace.”

  “I think that’s a pretty high goal to have.” My goals are smaller than that. I have a daily goal to live through the day. I have a weekly goal to laugh once a week. Adrian was the only one who made me laugh for as long as I can remember and I had to let him go when I left Seattle. He was adamant about us not contacting each other so I’m trying not to text or call him. Knowing him, he probably got rid of that phone already anyway.

  “Becs, I want you to stick around and I want the best for you. You deserve love and lust and laughs.”

  “I deserve nothing.” I squint out at Bash as he uses the skimboard to glide across the water. “Sam. I’m a shell of a person.”

  “No, you were a shell. The light in your eyes is back.”

  “Sam. Let’s just sit and watch our kids play. You tell me about your day and I’ll listen. That’s all I can do right now.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Samantha starts talking about her salon and doesn’t stop for hours. When you cut hair people seem to pour out their secrets to you, she hears everything about the women of Charleston. It’s crazy. She regales me with tales of people we went to school with and other people I’ve never met. It takes my mind off starting over.

  “Becs, I want you to be okay. You deserve to be okay.”

  “Do we deserve anything in this life?”

  Her big black sunglasses hide her eyes. “I fucking hope so.”

  “But what does that even mean? Do you think I deserved to be shattered for years, made to be terrified of my life?”

  Instead of answering me she grabs my hand and squeezes.

  “I didn’t mean to…” I start.

  “You deserve good things, Becs, only good things.”

  I’ve become silent in my pursuit of survival. This life I chose because I was under the impression a man could solve my problems with myself. A chuckle escapes my lips as I use my small soldering torch to melt metal and mold it into the exact shape I want. I’ve walked in the minefield that is Sebastian Pryor for so long that I got used to the danger, the manic love making and his ability to do whatever he wanted without any thought to the repercussions to anyone else. When we were first married I fought him, wanted to leave and grab my life back, but it became clear he wouldn’t allow that.

  Delusions of Grandeur became my solace, my world to pour all of my hate, rage and lost dreams. I named my company that because it is the opposite of everything I have. I create a delusion of a life where I have some self esteem, power, knowledge, hope or identity. All of those things were stripped so completely from me. My life is a three ring circus where I perform every day in a show that Sebastian created. He made it clear I would be fine, if I just played my part.

  I have been broken in so many ways by him that it’s laughable. I can still walk, but every rupture of my bone is fixed by a rod so that when I can walk again it’s with a noticeable limp. He has to fix me so that I can continue this charade that is Rebecca and Sebastian Pryor. I turn the torch off and connect two pieces of metal then turn it back securing their connection. It doesn’t matter how many times I try, when I put two pieces of this sort of metal together there is no hiding the connection, the obvious seam gives away the fact that they are not the same. I want them to be together seamlessly, I long for that connection too. Believe me when I tell you that when you dump all of your hopes and dreams into one man you will lose, every time, especially if that man is a conniving, malicious man who lacks any morals to speak of. He pulled the wool over my eyes so thoroughly before we were married I didn’t have a chance, but I know him now. I can see past the façade of beauty into his empty eyes and see what he’s thinking.

  Frustrated I look at Bash, coloring in the corner. He’s three now and comes with me to this seedy part of town during the day so that I can keep some of my sanity.


  “Hey man,” I call to him.

  He looks up with anticipation. His curls circle his head into a bit of an afro that I cannot get enough of. His amber eyes light up in delight when he sees that I have a piece for him. He runs over to my table.

  “Pretty,” he comments as he takes the metal.

  “It’s like a piece of armor,” I say as he fingers the twisted metal.

  “Mad metal,” Bash says.

  I blink.

  “What baby?”

  “You mad when you made this.” His chubby cheeks are red and he looks like an angel.

  I don’t want him to know when I’m mad. I was sure I masked my emotions in front of him. I must do better. I don’t even want him to ever know how I truly feel about anything.

  “No, honey.”

  “Yeah, you mad. You say bad words and then burn it.”

  Oh God, did I not know what I was saying when I was working? Was I so lost in my own mind that I was saying things out loud and didn’t realize it?

  “Oh baby, I was just singing a song.”

  I open up my mouth and lies pour out, I can’t even help myself anymore.

  “That a bad song. Can I take this one home?”

  I stare at him.

  “I want to show Daddy my mad metal.”

  Fuck.

  “It’s a secret for Daddy, we can’t tell him.”

  He looks at me and it feels like he is feeling around in my soul.

  “Okay?” I ask.

  “Okay,” he agrees casually and throws the metal down on the table and returns back to his coloring. Just then the door opens and Adrian pops his head in smiling.

  “Oh shit,” he says when he sees Bash. “Here I brought you these.” Throwing a brown bag with grease stains on the side at me. I catch it and smile too despite my trepidation that Bash saw Adrian.

  I look in the bag and my mouth waters. “A bacon maple bar?” The smell alone causes me to want to kiss Adrian.

  “And an Old Dirty Bastard, just for you.” His lips turn up in the crooked smile that I’ve grown to need so much in the last year.

  “Bad word,” Bash chastises from the floor.

  Adrian winks and closes the door, leaving me to eat the two donuts with Bash.

  “Who dat?”

  “Oh,” I say looking at the door. “He brings me food sometimes.”

  “What dat?” Bash points at the bag.

  “The best donut you will ever eat,” I declare and tear a bit of donut off and hand it to him. He grabs it greedily, shoving it in his mouth.

  “Mmmmmm.” He rubs his belly and then puts his hand out for more.

  “Right?”

  “Food guy is good.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “Food guy is good.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  Home Isn’t A Place

  Two Months After

  Bash and I flew back to Charleston after Sebastian’s funeral and have been in this rental house ever since. I’ve extended my monthly rental twice as I attempt to find the soul I once had by jumping the waves and surviving. I’m arranging things in the house on this island I used to visit as a kid. We could never afford to live on the island itself. I stare out the window at Bash, he’s really taken to the coast and is amazing at the skimboard and paddle board. The riptide is so strong I don’t allow him to go out on his own on the paddleboard, his pout looks the same as it did when he was five. When we go together it’s peaceful, like there’s a possibility we’ll be okay. One day I hope that my heart will open up and all of sudden be healed. I know thinking two months is enough time to fix fourteen years of pain is ridiculous, but every day I hope.

  A surreal feeling has embedded itself into my brain, it clouds everything I see.

  I fidget, I fear, I fight.

  A knock sounds at the door and I almost jump out of my skin. Seaver walks in casually like he’s been here every day his entire life. He fills the space and it suffocates me. He smiles at me and it infuriates me. I hide it. I’m so used to covering up my real feelings, it doesn’t even bother me that I fall back into that behavior.

  “Can I help you?” I look around for my cover up. I’d been on the beach earlier with Bash and I’m still in my new navy tankini. His eyes skate over me and I look out at the water. His fingertips lightly touch my shoulder and I refuse to acknowledge him. I needed him to help me with my plan that didn’t work anyway. I don’t need him anymore.

  “When we lost Laney my entire world crashed.” Silence hangs in the room and it threatens to explode. “I know I didn’t lose her with my body, but Rebecca I lost her too. You shut me out. I didn’t know how to deal with all of my feelings at twenty. You were about to graduate and I had already bought a ring. We would’ve gotten married and then everything changed. We were broken. I was stupid and made mistakes and my mistakes cost me the best thing I’ve ever had. They cost me everything. I live with that every day.”

  Oh, the words he should’ve said to me over fifteen years ago float in the air, parting my lips I blow them away with one breath.

  “Can I be in your life?” His hand reaches out and touches my cheek.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Chill bumps break out on my skin where he’s still touching me.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “You don’t know me anymore Seaver. You broke me, Laney broke me, but Sebastian pulverized me. There’s nothing left.” I wonder if this is really true. Is anything left? “There is nothing of the old Rebecca left.”

  “I might like the new Rebecca.”

  “I don’t like the new Rebecca.”

  His arms snake around me and I don’t react. I stare at Bash and he uses the skimboard to glide over and then into the waves. He exits the water and runs to ride another wave all the way into the shore, his face breathtaking just like his father.

  All of a sudden I am exhausted. I feel like I’ve been fighting the waves for so long. The tremendous deluge of Sebastian Pryor that took everything I had to survive. In that instant, with arms around me, I let go of everything and sink into the arms. It doesn’t matter whose arms they are, but the fact they are there comforting me. I haven’t had someone comfort me and mean it in...I can’t remember how long. I miss Adrian, he should be comforting me. It should be his arms around me.

  All of the thoughts of my marriage, my life, his death come out in screams, cries and coughs. The arms never move, never budge. I survived, but what that means I have no idea.

  “Wait, what?” his voice fills the small space

  “I have no credit.”

  “Well, I think I can help with that.” He tucks my hair behind my ear.

  “How could you help with that?” I run my hand down his smooth cheek.

  “I can do a lot of things,” he teases.

  “Oh, I think I know about that, but how is that going to make my credit better?” I chuckle.

  “I have all sorts of talents that you don’t know about.” He wiggles his eyebrows up and down at me.

  He’s still a bit of a mystery. I know he’s thirty-three, which is only eight years older than me. His laugh is one of my favorite things about him, only rivaled by his lips.

  “I’d love to see all your talents,” I kiss him. His lips are pillows that comfort me and welcome me without any regard to my lies. He knows I’m a liar. It’s another thing I love about him, he knows that I can’t be myself, but he wants to be around me anyway.

  “I plan on you learning everything about me,” he chuckles. Pulling me into him, I inhale a clean smell that I relish. I yearn for it. I want to lick and suck everything on him. I don’t, I lay my head on his chest and listen to his heart beat. It’s real. We’re real. I love him. That, he doesn’t know.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  Smoke

  Six Months After

  He’s like smoke, even now. Sebastian permeates every pore of my body. No matter how hard I scrub my body, it stains everything. It stings my eyes and burns my throat. It disappears when oth
er people are around and I analyze whether they can smell him on me or not. It’s been six months. Six fucking months and he is still everywhere. I’m sitting on the porch at the new house I rented, it’s a few houses down from the other one. I have a blanket wrapped around me to ward off the cold of December, the coffee has a hint of cinnamon and I enjoy it immensely. I pull my black Ray Bans onto my eyes from my head and squint toward the horizon. A glow begins to spread slowly causing my body to warm to the idea of maybe I can start over. Then I see it, the smoke.

  It clings to me even when I dye my hair back to my natural color, with a blue streak just to piss Sebastian off. Samantha said the blue was very “me.” He pervades my thoughts when I have student teacher conferences and they tell me Bash wants to win everything and won’t take no for an answer.

  The delusion of ridding myself of Sebastian once he died is almost laughable. How did I even think that I could move on?

  The fog of Sebastian clouds my life as much now as it did when he was alive. I’m seeing a therapist of my choice and it doesn’t help. She tells me to write a journal. Instead I’ve decided to write letters that I will never send to the man who saved my life and who I will never see again. I miss him. That man.

  The water helps. I pretend it can wash away all the years I stayed with Sebastian, trapped in a freakish nightmare. I stayed because I thought it was the right thing to do, but now I use the same survival techniques as I used to. I lie, I pretend, I live in my own delusion.

  Vapors curl into my mind and ask me questions. What was it about me that made him know I’d be a good victim? What changed me from a normal girl into someone who would lay down with a monster and let him ruin me? Did I want to be loved so badly I was willing to fall for the devil? Was it because my dad left me and I haven’t heard from him since? Was I the devil too? Was I so broken after losing Laney that I missed the hollow look in Sebastian’s eyes?

  No one can give me answers. Why can’t people who you pay to make you better give you answers? It’s not fair. I can’t move on. I can’t understand.

  I’m certainly not searching around my brain for answers, when I do I fall into an abyss so deep I will never escape. I don’t tell anyone I’m not okay. I think Samantha knows, she tries to help me, but she falls for my deception as well. I’m very good at it. I’ve started collecting awards again for my performance. They line the shelves of my study.