Colour My Ugly

by A. Giannoccaro

  “I need to come tomorrow Rob, if you have time?” Rowan speaks to his friend and I see something in his eyes that makes my blood turn cold. It’s Robin’s expression that worries me more, its shame or anger or hurt I am not sure what. Feelings are not my thing. He simply nods at Rowan. A silent agreement that they don’t need to say out loud the air between them is thick with some sort of secret I don’t want to know.

  We step outside into the sunshine of the early afternoon. I know Rowan is dying to see or ask to see what my new ink looks like. He keeps glancing at my now covered up shoulder as if he wants to ask me. I am not ready to share yet. We climb into my very sexy looking car and head off to do some groceries. I already don’t know how old this morning’s bacon was and I am afraid to trust much of what was left in the freezer. The eggs only had one day to go to their expiry date.

  I don’t know why but there is an awkward silence between us and Rowan’s mind seems to be far away as we drive. He has been in a dark place all day if I am honest and the look he shared with Robin left me feeling scared of him all over again. The air in the car is awkward and tense. I decide to shop at a smaller shop just outside the city rather than in a big mall with thousands of people. My shoulder is rather sore now and I wince a little as I turn the steering to park my new car. Rowan notices but doesn’t say a word. His cocky half smile is giving me the I told you so he doesn’t dare actually say.

  We get out of the car and grab a trolley and head into the store, I am creature of habit and I always shop at the same chain of stores so I know where everything is. This was one of the very few luxuries I was allowed by Renzo, I could grocery shop once a month if I had behaved according to his rules. Never alone, he or one of his security team was always there but it was my little reprieve from hell and I loved it. There is some small talk between us over cereal and full cream or two percent milk as we shop. I have almost filled the trolley when I realize I have no money as in zero cents to my name. I am after all dead remember. I hope he knows he is paying for all of this.

  “Umm, Rowan, I can’t pay for all this.” I manage to mumble to him as I stop the trolley blocking the whole aisle for everyone else.

  “Ummm Lauri, I knew that he waves his credit card at me. You will get your bank cards and ID this afternoon, then you can access all your funds plus the original fund set up in your name before Mick died.” He states this all to me very matter of fact. I know that the money I had kept hidden from Renzo was over ten million Rand and as for the other fund I knew nothing of it other than that it did exist but while I was Ellia I couldn’t access it at all.

  “Thanks Rowan, you know for making sure he never got my money, he took enough from me already.” I look at the floor when I thank him. He really did save me.

  When we finally hit the checkout I have bought over eight thousand Rands worth of groceries, but Rowan really had nothing in the house and I am so used to shopping only once a month I don’t know how to do it any other way. The shopping fills my boot that I can hardly see out the rear window at all. Rowan seems on edge he is colder than he was last night and I am sure something is eating at him; he has been quiet all day. Maybe he is tired I heard him come in at around three this morning so he only had a few hours of sleep, like three maybe. I feel a bit bad for making a noise in the kitchen now.

  Arriving home just on an hour later Rowan unpacks the car and I pack the kitchen. Claiming it as my domain. After unpacking Rowan sprawls out on the couch and I start cleaning this morning’s dirty dishes and packing the dishwasher while I decide what to cook. I am so excited to cook. I have a million dishes floating through my head and all these new fresh ingredients to choose from, I feel so free right now.

  My shoulder and back are stinging something fierce; I got some gunk from Robin to put on it but just realized that I won’t reach to do it myself. Grabbing the tube of smelly gunk I head over to Rowan on the couch and sit next to him holding it out I ask cautiously. He is off today, something is wrong.

  “Would you mind? It’s hurting like a bitch now and I feel it’s bled into my clothes.”

  He grabs it from me and I turn away from him pulling my sleeves down to expose my back and shoulder to him the material scraping over my skin hurts like hell but I enjoy that pain, that pain is erasing the pain that came before. This pain is on my terms.

  I hear Rowan suck in a breath loudly.

  “Holy Fuck that looks amazing, did you look at it? Shit he is an artist. Hold still this will sting like a mother fucker for a bit.” He leans into me talking to me over my shoulder, causing me to tense at the proximity and prospect of him touching me. Calm down, focus, breathe, do not panic he won’t hurt you. I was wrong it hurt like hell. He doesn’t give me chance to breathe he starts to smear the gunk over my raw skin and he was NOT kidding holy shit. I hiss as he hits an overly sensitive spot. When he is done he passes the tube back over my shoulder and get up to go put on some not bloodied clothes. I am trying to fight the clawing at my throat the panic that is about to burst out. I need some distance between me and Rowan and my room gives me a few minutes of silence to tranquilize my frantic mind.

  After I change out of my blood stained clothes I wash my hands and tie up my now very unruly hair I am ready to go back into the kitchen to cook for us and our guest. The thought of anyone other than Rowan being here scares me a little. Once I am settled back into the kitchen I start prepping the fresh salmon I bought earlier with some garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and green beans and put it in an oven pan ready to grill later. Seasoning the fresh pink fish with herbs from the small garden outside the back door that has been teasing from the window until now. The smells are intoxicating and my mouth is already watering for this meal. I also make a fresh salad and some asparagus with lemon butter. I have the worst hankering for sweets so I decide to make a sweet chocolate and orange mouse for dessert. I look up to see Rowan having a snooze on the couch, the late night has finally caught up to him now. I smile at how uncomfortable his big bulky body looks all squeezed up on that silly little couch. He is going to have such a stiff neck. Idiot.

  CALLUM

  “Here I sit dangling my beaten feet off the balcony of the tragedy of love, pleasured by the chaos of my own chaos, nostalgic for all the people I have yet to fall in love with”

  ~ Christopher Poindexter

  I am a villain, I didn’t choose this path, I certainly didn’t want this life and I do not love what I do. I sell drugs, guns and blood diamonds. Worse than that I sell people.

  Well it’s my father’s business but I run things here in Africa, my punishment for being the useless unwanted son of his first wife was being sent to the ass end of the globe to do Pops dirty work for him. South Africa is a crime infested hole where it is all too easy for anyone with a bit of money and half a working neuron to get away with almost anything. My best friend Rowan is case and point, he sells murder. He has a very successful hit man business. No one even seems to find the dead bodies here, I am sure that it is serial killer heaven. I even use his services, because murder I cannot do. I can do almost any other thing you want but I could not kill someone. I have done it once and I just don’t have the stomach for it. I have feelings and in the criminal world that’s not a trait that you want but sadly I can’t help it. I feel. I spend my days associating with the scum of the earth, trading weapons, drugs and lives between war torn countries and drug infested cities. You see when you read that line that says there is no mob “in” Ireland it is not all true, the mob is there but they work all over the world where it is easy to be unseen.

  I don’t know how Rowan sleeps at night knowing how much blood stains his soul. I battle to sleep knowing that I have paid him for some of that blood. Tonight I asked Rowan to kill eighty five women in a shipping container. I feel ill thinking about those poor women but, Pops wanted to send a message to some associates and this was his way of talking loud and clear. Actions speak louder than words in t
he criminal underworld and I just yelled at a sheik in Dubai all the way from here. It’s the first time I have involved Rowan in the trafficking side of my life, I have kept it from him for years but I didn’t know how else to pull this off. He knows about the drugs, I am sure he suspects the arms, but he knows nothing of the diamonds and the people I sell every single day. Now it’s three in the morning and he is pissed off with me for being less than honest with him. Pissing off a heartless murderer is probably not the best plan of action even if he is your best friend. I feel sick as I sit here in my kitchen downing scotch out of the bottle I am not in the mood to go back to the slut I left lying in my bed when I took Rowan’s call. They are always just sluts, no ones that I don’t care about. I loved a girl once; only thing was she loved Rowan more. In fact she loved him so much that when he broke her heart with his cold as steel emotionless life she took her own life and the life of their baby.

  I remember clearly having to identify her body in the morgue. You see when the mob doctors daughter dies and her mobster boyfriend is missing they call his criminal best friend not wanting to garner any outside attention. I never loved a girl again after her, if Cassie had loved me not Rowan she’d be alive today. I always believed that Rowan could not feel at all. Tonight however I heard something in his voice that he almost cared about what he had done; it was as if my secret had hurt him. I had hurt the man of stone. He has never reacted to job like he did tonight. Never. I am pretty sure it has to do with the fact that his mentor and father figure’s daughter is holed up in his house after he faked her murder. I worry about that, no one back home knows he is alive. He is the last living Leahy boy and would be a huge target, something he seems to have forgotten along the way. Or he was never aware Mick kept him protected. Now the last of the Spillane’s is living in his spare room a match made in crime heaven or hell depending who you ask.

  I was so angry with him when he told me what he had done and that Lauri was in his house. Essentially he was holding her prisoner. I was livid she came from a family that you do not mess with. Her father may be dead but Mick’s brothers were very much alive, they may be hiding in America somewhere, but they are still powerful and that lady would be considered the boss if anyone knew she was alive at all. Mick was my uncle, so I guess that the prisoner in Rowan’s spare room is the cousin I was never allowed to meet. My Pop didn’t allow us to have anything to do with Ma’s family. Their marriage had in fact been arranged and was a bid to end the long standing feud between the two families. It didn’t work. My Pop killed her when I was three. I watched him do it right in front of me. He made his problem go away and I was left behind a disappointing reminder of her. An inconvenient blood stain on his life.

  When Rowan showed me the picture of my cousin yesterday I wanted to be sick, literally vomit. She has been mutilated. Her husband “Renzo” Lorenzo Baldini, who I have spent the day digging dirt on, has beaten, stabbed, burned and scarred her whole body. How anyone, never mind a petite woman like her survived that kind of torture is amazing. She must be made of cast iron. I have a feeling that Rowan’s sudden attack of feelings is directly related to her. He was in charge of keeping her safe when Mick died. He watched her like a hawk for eight long years to the point of obsession and when she married and seemingly had a perfect life he stopped and got on with his own life and business.

  Rowan doesn’t know that she is my cousin or that my mom was Mick’s sister it was a rather tightly guarded secret. I am not sure if I should share it with him or not. He doesn’t seem to care about blood lines or family or Ireland since he has no family at all. I do know that I want to kill her husband almost as much as he does, and I don’t do murder. He wants to try fix her, rebuild her life for her. I don’t know if he can? That kind of physical trauma can only have caused some pretty deep emotional scars that I don’t think can be healed. I do know that I will not let Rowan the heartless try on his own I am going to suggest he get her a therapist. I will even suggest mine. Given she is already privy to the fact that we are all cold hearted criminals she may be the only one that Lauri could see.

  I am going to his estate in Franschoek this afternoon to deliver her identity documents and bank cards. It will be the first time I see her in the flesh I have only even seen a few images that Rowan showed me when he watched her and the picture from yesterday that is burned into my brain. Why dear God, why could my father not have been a dentist instead of and international criminal? I am afraid to meet the girl that my family dubbed a ghost, Mick fled to Africa with her when she was only two years old. The family believed she was dead or “lost” when Mick was killed that was it as for as they were concerned Spillane was no longer a threat to their business. As with all things in this world though there will always be a hierarchy and no matter who thinks what, Leahy and Spillane will always be above O’Reilly on that list and if came out they were not in fact gone my fathers’ loyal thugs would go back to being loyal to the real bosses. My father stole the respect he has by murdering those in his way. He wouldn’t stop now.

  Rowan is so pissed at me that I am dreading the visit. I wouldn’t be surprised if he shoots me; if I was anyone else he would have been here, shot me and left already. It’s time to come clean about the trafficking with him. I know he is going to shit a melon over this. I hate it but I can’t get away from it. I am curious to meet the illusive cousin though, Lauri may be Rowan’s little pet, but to me she is a secret I can use with my family when I need a bargaining chip.

  Rowan is all I have here in this shit hole country we came here together and I am pretty sure we will both die here in Africa where our families sent us to rot. I am loyal to him, but only as long as I need him, no matter what, our families are sworn enemies I will have to choose them over him if it ever came to it. For now he is my brother and she is my cousin.

  LAURI

  “Because would love a girl with scars?”

  ~Unknown

  I am starting to feel the panic rising in my throat as the afternoon wears on; the thought of Rowan’s friend coming over has me shaken. Swallowing my own spit has become hard and my chest is starting to tighten with every breath I take. I was alright this morning to go to Robin but somehow this Callum coming here has me spooked. Rowan is still asleep on the couch blissfully unaware of my current stare of absolute panic. I have done all the prep I can for dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, I’m beginning to fidget uncontrollably now and it’s making it worse for me by the second. I need a distraction but I cannot find one, nothing could still my racing mind right now.

  When I was first got married I would suffer panic attacks the hours before Renzo would return home from work they became debilitating for a while where I couldn’t function for the most part of the afternoon. Over time my mind become accustomed to what was my reality and I no longer panicked but I did shut down mentally during the abuse. I can feel that this is a panic attack about to burst out and my chest is getting tighter, my breaths shallower and I am feeling light headed. I manage to lunge towards Rowan in the lounge and I think I squeak out his name before I do pass out my newly tattooed shoulder and head hitting the floor hard. My eyeballs fill with a liquid feeling I cannot control. Everything hurts then goes black.

  I wake up a little while later to Rowan’s worried face hovering over me way to close where I am still lying on the floor; I can smell the metallic iron smell of blood most likely from my stupid head hitting the tiles. I can taste it in my mouth too. I groan out loud and use Rowan’s shoulders to haul myself into a sitting position. I will have a few bruises from that fall; the slate floors are rather unforgiving.

  He looks so worried and is holding onto me rather tightly which is in no way helping my level of panic right now. Please let go, I don’t need to this all over again, I try pulling myself from his death grip.

  “What the hell Lauri are you okay? I woke up to you bleeding and unconscious, what the fuck happened?” He begged almost looking afraid shaking me by t
he shoulders, I need him to stop, to let go.

  “It’s nothing Rowan I had a panic attack I tried to call you before I passed out but I guess I didn’t.” I snap back now embarrassed.

  “It’s not nothing. You are bleeding, what do you mean panic attack? Has this happened before?” He inquires with a gentle rub to my now throbbing temple. I shudder at his touch and feel the muscles in body contract and stiffen into knots of anxiety.

  “Not in a long time but I felt it coming on, I’m sorry I am an idiot, I just started to panic about your friend visiting, people are not my thing.” I answer him looking at the floor not wanting to meet his eyes he is so close to my face I can almost see through them. Breathe Lauri, just breathe.

  “You were fine with Robin and Amya this morning? I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were this scared of people I would never have put you in a situation like this.” Rowan talks softly to me now almost trying to calm my still evident panic. My panic is unpredictable now, because I have never been in in situation where anything might happen and it scares me.

  “I’m not sure why this morning was different I think I was so excited about the tattoo that I didn’t get a chance to panic and you distracted me with my new car and talk of food shopping.” I start to play with the sleeve of my shirt pulling it over my hands, trying to focus on that and not Rowan’s hands on my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry Rowan I feel so stupid, I’m OK now we can just pretend this never happened.” I explain as I try to stand all the way up and push his hands off me.

  Rowan helps me up and sits me on a kitchen chair while he silently fetches the first aid kit to clean and patch my head. I think he can tell I don’t want to discuss it anymore and he leaves it alone. I can feel his phone buzzing in his pocket as he stands next to me wiping the cut with some antiseptic. The smell makes me want to puke but I try hide the fact from him. After eight years of cleaning and treating my own wounds the smell of antiseptic is stomach turning at best. The sting on the cut has my pulse racing again. Calm down just calm down Lauri. He is going to think you are a freak. Well more of a freak. I am instantly reminded of the fact that Rowan has seen my body and I pull away from his touch. He stops and I can see the questions that his mouth won’t ask burning in his crystal blue eyes. His eyes give away everything his mind has to offer in just a look. I just shake my head and grab the first aid kit. I see his head fall in defeat as I stomp towards the bathroom to clean myself up. God knows I have done it enough times before I don’t need him to be so close, to touch me, it hurts. A hurt that he will never understand.