Smoldering

by Tiffany Aleman

  “Bullshit!” A banging sounds through my door, vibrating the wooden structure. “You hear me in there! Get your ass out here right now or so help me, me and Jen will break this damn door down!” Candace yells.

  A part of me wants to laugh at her tirade. She’s such a tiny woman with such a good heart. Those words coming out of her mouth let me know she must be really pissed. When I don’t answer, she states. “All right then, if that’s how it’s going to be.” I can picture her with her hands on her hips, shaking her head in exasperation.

  The apartment goes quiet again, but only for a second. Pounding ensues on my door again, except this time it doesn’t relent. The sound of wood cracking and splintering echoes throughout my room. I fly up to a sitting position, my muscles protesting from the sudden movements.

  She’s fucking serious!

  As soon as a small hole appears in my door, a hand reaches through, trying to avoid the sharp needle-like points of wood, and all I can do is stare in shock.

  “If I cut myself, I will kick your ass,” Candace promises and I can only imagine how pissed she is right now. Still with no motivation to leave the safety of my bed, I don’t move. I just sit there, my blanket lying haphazardly around me and my jaw agape as I stare at the door. After a few tries of blindly reaching for the doorknob, she is successful and unlocks it. Candace pulls her arm back through the hole only to shove my door open.

  She barges her way into my room, fuming. Cautiously, Jen enters behind her, keeping a good distance between them. Candace crosses her arms over her chest, juts out her hip, tightly purses her lips, and a scowl mars her beautiful features.

  “Is your phone broke?” she asks. Her eyebrows rise as if daring me to lie to her.

  I shake my head, negating her question.

  “Are you done throwing yourself a pity party?” she asks.

  “Take it easy on her, all right,” Jen defends me. “She’s never had her heart broken before.”

  I shoot a pointed glare in Jen’s direction, silently telling her to mind her own business.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Candace states with a shake of her head. “She’s not acting heartbroken. She’s acting like someone died.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I whisper.

  “And she speaks.” Candace smirks at me. “I want you to get your ass out of bed, take a shower, brush your teeth, and eat something.”

  “Are you saying I look like shit?” My eyebrows rise at her commands.

  She laughs out a humorless laugh. “Oh, honey, you don’t just look like it, you smell like it, too.” She waves a hand in front of her face as if offended by my odor.

  Jen laughs out at her comment and nods. “I love you Kelsey, but you do stink.”

  I sigh in exasperation. “Fine,” I throw the covers off me, “I’ll take a shower.”

  “Oh, and you’re going to eat, too.” Candace smirks as she looks around my room. “Jen and I will clean up in here while you clean up in there.” She points towards my bathroom, “And when you’re done, we are going to figure some shit out.”

  Knowing it’s no use arguing with her, I nod and do as I’m told. As I make it into the bathroom, Candace shouts, “Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

  “Yes, mother!”

  “If that’s what it takes to bring you back to life, then fine,” she yells back.

  As I sit on the couch, freshly showered, teeth brushed, feet tucked beneath me, I lean into the corner of the cushion, sinking back into its comfort. It’s not my bed but if it means no more holes are put in my door, then I’ll settle for the couch.

  “Okay,” Candace says, her tone direct and to the point as she walks out of the kitchen with two plates filled with spaghetti. She hands one to me, which I grudgingly take as she sits on the opposite side of the couch. Jen follows seconds later. “Jen and I are calling an intervention.”

  “We’re worried about you,” Jen states. “And quite frankly, I’m tired of this… this shell of a person you’ve become.”

  My eyes flicker back and forth between my two friends who are obviously worried about me. The question is why? Don’t they see all I keep doing is hurting the people I love?

  “We know you’re hurting,” Jen says softly, “but he’s hurting, too.”

  I gasp at her admission. “You’ve seen him?”

  She shakes her head.

  “No,” Candace interjects. “But I have and since you’ve been ignoring my calls, I’ve talked to Jen.” She looks at me out of the corners of her eyes as she takes a bite of her food, daring me to argue with her when I know she’s right. “Anyway, I’ve talked to Riley. I know his side of the story,”

  “Then that’s all you need to know, right? It’s the same thing I told Brad. I have nothing to say,” I interject.

  “That’s it, huh? You’re not even going to defend yourself? Just,” she shakes her head as her lips curl up in disgust, “give up?”

  I nod as I look away from her, averting my eyes elsewhere.

  “I call bullshit,” Jen states angrily as she glares at me. It’s one thing to feel sympathy in Jen’s book, but to act as a coward is another. It pisses her off. “You’re taking the chicken shit way out and you of all people should know how much it pisses me off.”

  My jaw drops at her fuming tone. “Chicken shit, really?” I seethe. “Don’t you think I know that everything that has transpired is my fault? Fuuuuccckkk!” I shout. Setting my food on the floor, I stand up and look from Jen to Candace, arms spread out at my sides. “I hurt him. That in turn hurt his family. And all my self loathing is hurting you,” I point at Jen and then Candace, “and you, too.” Tears that I haven’t cried in a week well up and spill over. “What more do you want from me?” I sigh out in defeat. My head hangs as I croak out, “I’m handling everything the best I can.”

  I cover my face with my hands as silent tears wreak havoc on my body. My shoulders shake as my chest heaves, fighting for breaths. Arms wrap around me and I’m cocooned between two of the best friends a woman could have.

  “I’m sorry,” Jen whispers against my damp hair. “I didn’t know you felt like that?”

  “It’s not your fault.” My hiccupped words come out muffled from behind my hands.

  “Look at us,” Candace begs.

  When I do, a sad smile pulls at the corners of her lips. Candace squeezes me to her.

  “You’re not hurting us, you’re hurting yourself,” she whispers.

  “We love you, but you’re leaving us in the dark, making it so we don’t know how to help you,” Jen interjects.

  I nod in acquiescence. Deep down I know they’re right. I’ve been drowning in pain and, in doing so, I’ve pushed them away. Neither of them barricaded themselves in their room. Neither of them put their health or hygiene on the back burner. Neither of them evaded living. No, they carry the weight of my heartache on their shoulders because they’re here for me, but have no way to reach me.

  “What do I do?” I ask.

  “Call him.” Jen suggests, her tone soft and gentle.

  My body tenses at her suggestion. I yearn to hear his smooth, deep timbre, but at the same time, I don’t want to hear it, knowing only more pain will follow.

  “Listen to me,” Candace quietly adds. “You two are one in the same. Neither of you wants to call the other because you’re afraid of the outcome. One of two things will happen. Either y’all will talk it out and work through your problems or both of you will gain closure and be able to move on. But neither of you are getting anywhere until one of you makes the first move.”

  “I already went to him two weeks ago and look where that got me.”

  “I get that. I do. But relationships are not built on ‘well, I did this, so now it’s your turn’ bullshit. Sometimes you have to give a little more than you take.”

  “Okay,” I agree.

  Candace nods as she releases me. Jen runs off to my room and comes back out, powering up my phone as she does. Anxiety hits me like
a judge swinging his gavel in sentencing. This phone call will either make or break our relationship, or lack thereof.

  With shaky hands, I take the phone from her to see that she has Riley’s number on the screen. With a few deep breaths in and out, I push the call button. As it rings, I look between my two friends, rallied around me in support when he answers.

  “Kelseee,” he slurs into the phone as music blares in the background, making it difficult for me to hear him.

  Immediately, tears spring to my eyes just from hearing his voice alone. It’s the sound of home.

  “Hey,” I whisper.

  “Come here.” The woman in the background purrs seductively and I swear it’s in the same ear as the one his phone is plastered to.

  I’m disgusted by what I hear over the phone. Even though we’re not together and he can do whatever or whomever he wants, it still doesn’t stop the vomit from rising in my throat at the thought that he’s with someone else. I don’t know what I expected. He was with someone else the night I went to him. He thought I left him, when in all reality, I was just giving us some space.

  “Riley, where are you?” I ask. My eyebrows pull down in concern as tears spill effortlessly down my face.

  “Out,” he barks into the phone.

  “Where are you?”

  “Why the fuck do you care?” he sneers into the receiver.

  “Because I want to talk to you.” The desperation in my voice causes him to laugh.

  “Like I wanted to talk to you the night you walked out of my house, out on me,” he shouts with slurred speech into the phone.

  “I miss you,” I say, my voice soft and low.

  “Yeah, well you fucking left me,” he grits out as he hangs up on me.

  I pull the phone away from my ear, breathless, shocked, appalled, hurt, and angry. My eyes flicker between Candace and Jen, who mirror the same image as me, I’m sure. Anger takes over the hurt and suffocates the pain.

  “This is me giving more and taking less?” I ask, my tone eerily calm for the amount of rage that surges through my veins right now. Furious at the tears that spill for that man, I frantically wipe them from my face. “Fuck that,” I spit out between clenched teeth as I throw my phone across the living room. The loud thud of it hitting the wall does nothing to quiet the building rage within me. Resolve sets in as I stand up, square my shoulders, and stretch my neck from side to side. I’ve been sitting here for weeks, broken, gutted, depressed, wallowing about in self pity, while he’s been out fucking all of Savannah, drinking his way from bar to bar.

  Two can play that game.

  “I’m done.” The finality in my tone gains me a set of collective gasps from behind me.

  When I fell in love with Riley, I thought it was the forever kind. I thought Riley shared the same dreams I did. Turns out, I was wrong. People don’t envision the same types of forever. We mold ourselves around others so that those dreams collide and every once in a while, they work out. But now my dreams have changed. My dreams involve mending my broken heart the only way I know how. ‘The Riley Way’.

  Obviously, nothing is working for me. This deep, dark hole has swallowed me up and left me suffocating. And now I’m pissed. If fucking around works for Riley, maybe it’ll work for me, too. We can go tit-for-tat all day long.

  Let the fucking commence.

  When Riley’s hands used to run down my body, as if I was his temple to worship, he left me there smoldering with want, need, lust—desire. Now I’m left smoldering with something else—anger.

  Anger, it’s a tricky emotion. It can make you reckless with your actions, with no regard to who’s in the crossfire or who gets burned. Anger can start out as a slow simmer and turn into a flame that blossoms into rage.

  Lately, I’ve felt like being reckless.

  The past month has been one long, alcohol induced hangover. I’ve slept with nameless, faceless men. I’ve only had three rules. One, it had to be at their place. Two, condoms were a must. And three, no fucking Army men.

  No passion or love was involved, it involved nothing more than two consenting adults who wanted to feel, if only for a moment. For the men, it was probably more of wanting to get off, but for me, it was about feeling any other emotion other than anger. I’ve danced and partied more in this past month more than I ever have in my life.

  I sleep all throughout the day and party at night. Jen barely speaks a word to me anymore. I know she’s appalled by my behavior because she’s made it known. On more than one occasion, she’s told me to grow the hell up and behave like an adult and not a twenty-one-year old without any responsibilities. Actually, it seems that, as each day passes, our verbal exchanges become more and more heated.

  I haven’t seen nor spoken to Riley in the past month and half. When I talk to Candace every now and again, she tries to bring him up, but I shut that down real quick. I don’t want to know how he’s doing or whom he’s doing. I don’t want to know if he misses me or still loves me. I don’t want to know if he’s moved on. I don’t want to know one. Fucking. Thing. About. Him. The thought that he could dismiss everything we had, everything we shared in one week dumbfounds me. If he didn’t give a shit, why should I?

  The emptiness caused by Riley that used to dull my eyes is gone. Now they shine bright and vibrant with carelessness.

  As the dim lighting of the bar shines down on me and I finish off another Sea Breeze, the vodka tames the tanginess of the grapefruit and the tartness of the cranberry juice. I hold up two fingers, catching the bartender’s attention, and he knows to bring me another. I’m already six deep, so he might as well keep them coming. As the bartender hands me my drink, the pulsating beat of Jason Derülo’s Talk Dirty pulses throughout the nightclub. My hips are moving in time with the beat when someone brushes up against me and whispers in my ear, “Well hey there, beautiful.”

  I stumble turning towards the owner of the voice, my head swimming with fuzziness from the alcohol and a flirtatious smile creeps across my lips as I regain my balance. With my elbows braced on the bar’s ledge, I lean on them as my eyes scan my soon-to-be new dance partner and if he’s lucky, my fuck for the night. He’s tall. Even in my thigh high, black stiletto, fuck-me boots, he’s still taller than I am, And with his decent build covered in dark wash denim jeans, a white polo, his shaggy brown hair ending at the nape of his neck, and bangs that barely cover his eyes, he’s very attractive.

  When my eyes meet his, I smile. “Hey yourself.”

  The music transitions to Katy Perry’s Dark Horse. The urban beat pounds out of the speakers.

  He smiles as I push off the bar. With a drink in one hand, I pass by him, look over my shoulder, and with the other hand, I quirk my finger in a come-hither motion, beckoning him out onto the dance floor.

  I raise my arms in the air, swaying my hips from side to side seductively. The stranger’s hands fall to my hips as he molds his body to my back and dances with me. The grey jersey knit material of my fitted, three-quarter sleeved dress with a slight cowl neck hangs just below my breasts, the material feels smooth against my skin as it rides up on my thighs with our movements. I sweep my hair over onto one side of my neck, leaving the other side exposed to him. My head falls back on his shoulder as his hands travel from my hips to my stomach where they lay splayed.

  His breath on my neck makes my eyes flutter closed. The warmth of his lips on my ear encourages me to turn into him, but I stop short when he asks, “What’s your name?”

  My eyes fly open as I stare at him. I motion for him to lean down so I can talk in his ear and he obliges. “It doesn’t matter what my name is.” It’s not as if he’ll remember it tomorrow anyway, just like I won’t recall his.

  He pulls back and looks at me with confusion for a beat before nodding. My hand reaches up behind his neck before I pull his face down to mine. Soft lips brush against mine once, twice, three times before he slowly sucks my bottom lip into his mouth. He may be nameless and faceless but he knows what he’s doing w
ith his mouth. The stranger’s tongue sweeps out seeking entrance and I am more than willing to oblige. In the middle of the club, we stand there, caught in our own world while he fucks my mouth with his tongue. Our heavy pants blend in with the thumping beat of a new song. Just when I’m about to ask him if he wants to leave, our moment is interrupted.

  “Can I cut in?”

  I blink a couple of times as I try to pull myself out of my lust-drunk induced state. My eyes squint in confusion as I look at the man taking my dance partner’s place.

  The dark hair like mine seems familiar. The man’s sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, and lean runner’s build is a striking resemblance to someone I’ve met before but can’t place. With his hands on my hips, he turns me to face him. I tilt my head to one side as I try to figure how I know this tall and extremely attractive man.

  He leans in and chuckles, the vibrations tickling my ear. “You don’t remember me, do you?” he asks. I pull back barely shaking my head. He leans in again so that I can hear him over the thumping bass. “My name’s Lyle. We hung out with your friend Jen and my friend Turner like five months ago.”

  Recognition slams into me like a freight train and I gasp in surprise. I pull back, my eyes searching his face before I nod. “Of course. What are you doing here?”

  “I came out with some friends tonight. Actually, I was on my way to the bar when I saw you dancing.”

  “Well, Lyle that I’ve met before and just ran off my dance partner, what am I supposed to do now?”

  “Am I that horrible of a dancer? As I recall, last time I let someone else cut in and now you’re complaining about me saving you this time.” He chuckles against my neck.

  His words punch me in the gut. Saving? I don’t need saving. I need nothing from no one. Yes, I’ve been hurt, but I’m working through it. Yes, I’m angry and my problem was being remedied until Lyle cut in and interrupted. But saving? That’s not something I want.

  “I don’t need to be saved,” I whisper in his ear with a shake of my head.