by Ava Lore
My mouth was dry. "Is that it?" I said.
Ashen-faced, Sadie nodded.
"Nothing about... about cancer treatment?"
She shook her head. "It's just a little bit of gossip," she said. "You should ask your mom."
But I didn't need to. In my chest, my heart crumpled.
My father tricked me, I thought. And, under it, a terrible thought I could barely face.
Did Anton know?
*
I found my father in the room he shared with my mother in my house, reading The Wall Street Journal. My whole body was numb. I shook with years of pent-up rage.
"I want you out of this house," I said. I didn't tell him why. He only had to look at my face, and he knew that I knew.
Curiously, he seemed almost relieved. The stress he had been living under hadn't been my mother's fake illness, but his own terrible lie. He had coerced me and sold me, all to save his shitty business from his own incompetence.
I hated him so much in that moment, more than I had ever hated him in my entire life. If Anton had kept a gun in the house, I don't know what I would have done.
But he didn't, and I watched, trembling, as he packed up his things—not many—and prepared to leave. It didn't take long. When he was done at last, he stood before me.
"Felicia..." he said.
"Don't ever talk to me again," I told him. "I never want to see your face ever again. Get the fuck out of here."
He swallowed and nodded. I stepped aside to let him pass by, the very thought of touching him making my stomach churn. Nauseated, I followed him to the staircase.
His stooped back was to me, his thinning hair sticking out at angles. He'd lost more weight.
It would be easy, a little voice whispered in my head, and for a hot, dizzy moment I contemplated reaching out and giving him a push.
Then he moved beyond my reach, heading down the steps, and the moment passed, leaving me afraid of my own anger.
I could have shoved him down the stairs, I thought. And I wouldn't have felt sorry about it at all.
I followed him down to the foyer. He didn't look at me as he left, and when the door closed behind him, I locked it.
I didn't know what to do. I floated from room to room, feeling useless. I had been such a sucker, such an idiot. I should have talked to my mom. I should have done something—anything—other than trust my father. But who would have thought he would lie about such a thing? Who does that?
This place wasn't my home. Every room was cold and devoid of my own touches. I sold myself for my father, and this is what it had bought me.
I looked down at my clothes. I wore a long heavy skirt and high-heeled boots. No underwear. My ass was cold.
I went up to my room. All my things were still there, neatly packed in boxes by hands that weren't mine. I dug through them until I found an old hoodie and a pair of jeans. I put them on, then hunted through my shoes until I found my working sneakers. The chime of the downstairs door told me someone was home, and I went down to greet whoever it was.
My mother stood in the foyer, divesting herself of her coat.
"Felicia," she said, looking at me with surprise. "What's wrong?"
Wordlessly I picked up the tabloid from the entryway table and handed it to her. She took one look at it.
"Let me explain—" she began, but I held up my hand. She didn't have anything to explain.
I told her everything.
When I was done, there was such disappointment on her face that I couldn't stand it.
"Felicia," she said, reaching out to me, and I let her enfold me in an embrace. She pulled back after a moment. "Did Anton know that your father lied to you?"
I didn't want to think about it. There was a good chance he hadn't. Except... except it was in the contract that my mother's medical expenses be covered. I had spoken to him about my mother's 'illness'. And he had encouraged me to talk to her.
Had he known?
"I don't know," I said. "I think you should go find a hotel."
For a long moment my mother watched me, and I had to suppress the urge to hug her again, to start crying into her cashmere sweater. I'd known for years that my father couldn't be trusted. How had I let him trick me like that? How stupid was I?
Don't talk to your mother. She doesn't want you to know. Fucking idiot.
My mother packed up her things from her room, then kissed me and wished me luck before departing. I knew she would go find my father and rip him to shreds, but no amount of vengeance could mend this.
I went up stairs, lay down on Anton's pristine white bed, and stared at the ceiling.
*
I was wide awake when he came home later that night. When he entered the room, he paused in the doorway, taking me in. I sat up and looked at him.
He watched me with hooded eyes. His shoulders hunched in a wary posture.
My father had surely told him what I had discovered. Now it was his turn to tell me what he'd known.
"Why did you marry me?" I asked him. I'd asked him this question before. Now I wanted a real answer.
But all he said was, "I wanted a wife."
"Did my father tell you he was lying to me to get me to marry you?" I asked. "Which one of you decided I should be the sacrifice? Was it him or you?"
Anton seemed to shrink. "It was him. He offered you up as a bargaining chip."
My eyes stung. "So you didn't want me?"
"I did. You were what tipped the scales."
He'd wanted me and he'd bought me. It was nothing I didn't know. But for some reason a lump of misery curdled in my stomach. "And my mother? Did you know she wasn't sick?"
Slowly, Anton nodded. “Your father told me of her addiction when we met. He said nothing of any illness.”
"When did you figure out that I thought I was helping my mother?"
Now it was Anton who looked sick. "The day after we were married," he said.
In my chest, my heart collapsed. Two weeks ago. He'd known for two weeks. A lump sat in my throat, too large to swallow around.
I stood up. “You lied to me.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I didn't know how to tell you,” he said finally. “I thought it was between you and your parents. I tried to get you to talk to your mother...”
“You said you wanted a companion,” I told him. “Is this how you treat someone who trusts you? You buy me, you realize I agreed under false pretenses, and then you don't tell me?”
He had no answer for that. The silence between us stretched out, and I wondered how many other things he hid from me. Why was he like this? What was his past? What was in his basement?
Who was Anton Waters?
I didn't know. I'd probably never known. And right now, I didn't care.
“I have to go,” I said.
He didn't stop me, merely stepped away from the doorway.
I passed him by, and I didn't cry until I was halfway down the street.
Chapter Eight:
Bartered Betrayal
I went home.
Not Anton's house—that wasn't home any more, if it ever had been—but my home. My tiny shitty apartment where this had all started. My studio now, I supposed, since all my shit was in Anton's house. I doubted he'd try to keep it all like some kind of jealous ex-boyfriend, but I didn't care about it anyway. It was just stuff. You can lose stuff. You can't lose yourself.
Or you shouldn't, anyway.
And yet that was what I'd done. I'd trusted Anton, let him fold me up and take me in and use me however he wanted because I loved the way my body felt when he touched it, and I'd loved seeing the man behind the mask. The one who sometimes laughed despite himself, the man who couldn't let himself lose control for even a moment, the man who sometimes seemed completely confused by me, as though I were some kind of exotic creature he couldn't understand. But I still didn't know him at all, no matter how many times I gave him control. I'd lost myself to him, and had nothing to show for it in return. I needed to go s
omewhere that wasn't his, that had never been touched by him, and clear my head.
I walked the whole way there. It was cold. My sneakers, my old familiar sneakers, were just canvas. The leather boots I'd been wearing would have been better, but those clothes were for Anton's wife. I was just Felicia Waters. I shared his last name, but nothing more. Not his house, not his life, and certainly not his secrets. He didn't even share my secrets with me.
My heart was a hole in my chest.
The wind cut through my hoodie, but I kept going until I reached my building. Wearily I climbed up to my floor, and when at last I found myself in front of my old door, I realized that I didn't have the key. I didn't even know what time it was, only that it was now fully dark and I'd been walking for hours. My feet ached. My head ached. My chest ached. And now I was locked out of my old apartment. Locked out of my old life, if I wanted to get all metaphorical about it. Locked out of my old self, if I wanted to be truthful.
I started to cry.
I really hate crying, but I knew I had to get it over with sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner, so I leaned against the door and let it come over me like an avalanche.
My shoulders bowed, my face crumpled, and I collapsed to the floor. Grief bubbled up in my chest, great wracking sobs that seemed to come from someone else completely, and a small, detached part of me listened to the anguished howls filling the small hallway, wondering what could have been so horrible that someone should make such a terrible, frightful sound.
I didn't even know. I didn't even know.
It's not like Anton loved me. It's not like he ever even hinted that he might. He'd explicitly said he didn't want a wife to love. And yet I'd allowed myself to hope, all the same, that our marriage might be something more than just a convenient arrangement. My stupid, dumb, hopelessly romantic heart had told me to hope, and I'd foolishly listened to it.
Sadie was right. I was stupid.
The sound of a door opening next to me startled me, and I quickly tried to wipe my tears away and pretend that some other girl covered in snot with a face like a tomato had been wailing like a banshee. It couldn't be me. I would never do anything like that.
My next door neighbor, Mrs. Andersen, stuck her head out into the hallway and glared at me.
“Felicia!” she snapped. “You don't even live here any more and you keep making a racket!”
I stared at her, tears leaking from my eyes.
She gave an exasperated sigh. Good old Mrs. Andersen. I could always count on her to not care. It was comforting. Almost.
“Well, what's wrong?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“I'm locked out,” I said. It sounded inane even to my ears, because no one was going to bray like a wounded cow just because they were locked out of their apartment, but I wasn't about to explain myself to Mrs. Andersen. She could just go on believing I was the worst neighbor in the world. And I probably was. I'd had the audacity to come back after moving out and leaving her with peace and quiet. The fact that I was going to be staying—given that I could get in, of course—would probably put a huge crimp in her day. Night. Whatever.
She fixed me with her beady old-lady eyes. “That's why you're bawling?” she said.
I nodded. “Yup.” I sniffled and settled back against the door again, just to let her know that I was Very Sad and Not Planning on Being Sad Elsewhere, so she had Better Get Used To It.
“Well, call the landlord!”
I'd neglected to take my phone with me as well, and told her so.
She sighed again and slammed her door. I pulled my knees up to my chest and put my cheek on them, trying to get back in the crying groove. I may hate crying, but getting interrupted when you're having a good cry is the worst. I'd had a good head of steam going, probably on the brink of losing my mind with sorrow and rending my clothes, and now I'd been cut off at the pass. I shivered in the cold hallway and closed my eyes, exhaustion sweeping over me.
Mrs. Andersen opened her door again and it was my turn to sigh with exasperation, but before I could passive-aggressively comment on how I wanted to be alone with my grief, thank you, she stomped over to me.
“Get up,” she ordered. “Stop sniveling.”
Ouch, I thought. For a moment I thought about not doing it, but then I realized that since I had no plans, going along with whatever Mrs. Andersen had in mind was probably a net gain in forward momentum. I could use a little push. Crying wasn't going to help anything, except maybe my mental health, and who needed that?
I stood.
Mrs. Andersen stepped forward, clearly ready to do battle with something, and shoved me out of the way none-too-gently.
"Hey!"
"You want to get into your apartment or not?" she asked me, her voice clipped. Then she squatted down in front of the door, her old knees creaking, and stuck two lock-picks in my door.
My jaw dropped open. "What are you doing?" I said.
"Picking your lock, what does it look like?" she said as if I were stupid. She jiggled the picks, turning and fiddling. I don't know. I'm not a master criminal. But she certainly looked like she knew what she was doing.
"I..." I stared at her. "I didn't know you knew how to pick locks."
"Very valuable skill," she said. "You should learn a valuable skill yourself."
Ouch, I thought again. "I have a couple," I said.
She snorted at that. "Sure. So what are you really crying about? Your pervert husband spank you too hard?"
My face flared. Of course she would know about that. Everyone knew about that. She was just the only person I knew who would be so gauche as to say something about it to my face. "No," I said. "He..."
"Cheated?"
"No. He broke my trust, though."
Mrs. Andersen made a very expressive sound. "Of course he did," she said. "That's the way of men."
I sighed. I didn't need life lessons from a woman who once told me to cough more quietly when I'd come down with bronchitis.
"Well, you wanna work it out with him?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," I answered truthfully. "I came home to think."
"Good luck with that," she said, and then something made a little sproing noise and she pulled herself to her feet. "There," she said. "Should be open now."
I reached out and turned the knob. The door swung open and the old, comforting smell of mold and dust and clay brushed against my face.
"Ugh," Mrs. Andersen said. "Figure it out soon, your place stinks."
"Thanks," I said. She just hrmphed at me and tottered back to her apartment, slamming the door behind her.
What a peculiar old woman, I thought, and went inside.
In the dark, the place was stripped and empty except for the old mattresses that I'd been using as my bed—now without linens—and my sculptures and tools, now just hulking shadows in the light spilling in from the streetlamps outside. They sat in my lonely apartment, the last remnants of myself that I didn't take with me into my new life with Anton. Anton hadn't touched them. My last piece, done while drunk the day after I had first met Anton, was a goat tied up and blindfolded. A crude metaphor to say the least. Clearly I was the sacrificial goat. But when I had become Anton's wife, I hadn't quite felt that way. I didn't know how I had felt. I still didn't know.
I walked over to the area where I'd worked. It looked so small now, after Anton's enormous mansion, and now that there was nothing left in my apartment I realized I could spread out. I could make whatever I wanted here.
I sat down on the bed and tried to think of something to make, but nothing came to mind. All I could think about was Anton, and the great sadness yawning inside me.
I lay down and looked at the ceiling, full of cracks and old water stains. The mattress under me was scratchy and sagged, and I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable.
What was I going to do?
I reached down inside myself, searching for the answer, but nothing came to hand. I was lost. I wanted to talk
to Sadie. I wanted to talk to my mom. But I didn't have my phone with me. And what would they be able to tell me anyway that I didn't already know? That I'd married a guy for money and shock of shocks it hadn't turned out very well? Who would have seen that coming? Clearly not me.
You should learn a valuable skill, Mrs. Andersen had told me, and she was kind of right. I was pretty helpless. Being Anton's wife... it had been somehow freeing in the way that solid ground frees you up to run. I had enjoyed the idea of no longer fighting to survive, no longer struggling to make it on my own. I had enjoyed being subject to his needs, knowing at any time I could stop what he was doing with a word. I had enjoyed trying to get under his skin, trying to make him laugh. I had enjoyed being the one who made him come. A powerful man, but he was still a slave to his own desires no matter how he tried to control them. And I was just a girl who wanted to give up the fear and the exhaustion and let him take it out of my hands.
Pretty stupid of me to think love could grow from that. Love had to be there first before we could be those things to each other. And trust had to be there.
I closed my eyes. I was just going around and around in circles and getting nowhere. Thinking was stupid. I hated thinking. Thinking about Anton, who was nothing but feelings inside me, jumbled impressions and bright flames of desire, was even stupider. It was like trying to think about... about something like food. You could think about it, sure, but it could only be experienced. Anton was purely experiential to me. I experienced him. I didn't know him. I didn't love him. And I probably never would now.
I curled up on my bare mattress and tried to sleep.
*
