by S. E Foster
I don’t see Damien on my way back out of the office so I make my way to the kitchen to see if anyone is around. I see Faith sat at the table spoon-feeding Anya some mulch, what can I say it does not look tasty. I take my seat across from her. “Where are Camilla and Charlie?” I ask her, trying not to sound like a lovesick puppy, wanting to know where my woman is.
“Hi Faith… How are you?... I’m fine, thanks… How are you? Nice to see you have the art of conversation to a T, Malc, would it have killed you to say hi first instead of demanding? I tell you, you’re both the bloody same, see your woman and go all bloody caveman.” I laugh a little at her running commentary on how the conversation should have gone. “She is taking a nap with Charlie. The park and walk really wore her out.” I nod at her answer to my question. Faith is good for Damien, after their rocky start things have settled down for them both and it’s nice to see my friend so in love. He deserves to have happiness in his life. It just seems I don’t and every time I try to be happy I lose that feeling one way or another, it always comes crashing down around me.
I leave the table mumbling a see you later to Faith. Dinner should not be too much longer so I will go and wake them so they can get ready. The sight that greets me on the bed has my heart pounding in my chest, her hair is longer now – the blue tips are nearly at her shoulder. She lies on her side, eyes closed, wearing only one of my shirts and a black lace thong that I can see peeping out from under my shirt. It takes all of my restraint not to kneel on the bed and start placing kisses up her bare legs. Instead I head over to the bed and kiss her cheek gently, calling her name quietly to wake her. I am greeted with a warm smile as she says my name, and damn if it does not make my trousers uncomfortable, hearing my name leave her stunning mouth.
“Hey,” she says to me. “Where have you been?” she questions me.
“Been at work, sweetheart,” I tell her. I’m immediately aware of what I’ve said and this is what I mean. Every single time I feel happy something or someone, myself included, always fucks it up. I see her close her eyes for a second and I know what’s next, it’s always the same. When something sets off the panic she needs to ground herself, make herself forget what has caused the pain. Using her coping mechanism, I can’t do it, not when she goes blank on me like this. I can’t let her use me, I want her to come to me because she wants me and not because her mind is telling her she has to. I pull up from the bed and move away from her, sitting myself in the chair near the cot where Charlie sleeps peacefully.
“Malc, please, I need you,” she whispers, and I know I’m going to stay strong and deny her. I have to, if I don’t we will just get into the same pattern that caused me to lose her the first time.
“No, Camilla, I won’t do it because you need it, the next time we have sex it will because you love me and want me, not just to make you forget until the next time your mind tells you that you can’t cope.” I am to the point with my words and it splits my heart in two knowing that I am causing her pain. But what else am I supposed to do? I won’t lose them again; they mean too much to me to sacrifice them just so I can keep fucking her. No matter how much I love being deep inside her.
“Do you need me to get Charlie up so we can go down for dinner?” I ask her, hoping that it will distract her from my last words, the quicker I get her past this little meltdown the better.
“Just leave, Malc, I will bring him down in a couple of minutes.” The tone of her voice is hurt and I can’t bring myself to look at her because I know if I do I will crumble, I will walk right over to that bed, flip her over, rip her thong away and fuck her so hard that she pushes up the bed, begging me to stop. So instead I make my way to walk out of the room like she asked me to, it’s better this way.
“Malc, I don’t want to stay here, please, it’s killing me. Everywhere I go I see him haunting me, I told you I couldn’t come back, that it would destroy me. I don’t want this life, Malcolm, I don’t want our son anywhere near where that scum has been. Please, Malc, I just can’t do it anymore.” By the time she finishes she is in tears and I don’t care what I said, my resolve crumbles. I run over to her and wrap her in my arms and hold her. I let her cry, stroking my hand gently up and down her back to try to get her to calm down and come back to me.
“Ssh, baby, it’s ok. I got you,” I whisper into the top of her head. “I won’t let anything happen to you again,” I promise her, trying to reassure her that I will do whatever it takes for her, for them.
After what seems like ages, her chest finally stops heaving, she pulls away and wipes her face on the sleeve of my shirt and I don’t care if it is covered in mascara now. She is beautiful whether she is dolled up to the nines with her trademark heels on, or like this – red rimmed eyes, her hair wild, sat on the bed in my shirt. She is mine and I love every inch of her, inside and out. Most people would not want her after everything she went through, but they don’t see what I do: the love that she has to offer, the tenderness when she carries my son in her arms, the passion that she has when we make love, the compassion she has for everyone around her.
I will do whatever it takes to heal her fractured heart, body and soul. If that means walking away from this, then that is what I must do because she deserves all of me.
“Come on, Krasivaya, let me take you home.”
“What does Krasivaya mean?” she asks me tentatively.
“It’s Russian for beautiful,” I tell her. I don’t use Russian that often around anyone except my father as he is fluent. Damien is speaking it more now since he met Faith, before that he just refused after what happened with his father and sister. Bella, Damien’s sister, was sold. His father kept it from him that he had sold her for his own gain, but Damien hunted her down. He was too late to save her, though, he found her dead and killed everyone who had a part in it, including his own father. To say he was lost until he found Faith is an understatement, but now he is like he was before – still does what needs to be done but loves his girls more than life itself, he will not ever lose them.
“That’s a beautiful word, and where are we going, Malc?” she asks, her eyes looking directly at me with something akin to hope shining in them.
“My home. If you’d have told me that this house brings you so many bad memories I would have never brought you back here. I only stay here because it is easier if Damien needs me.” I see her flinch a little when I refer to work but she keeps strong and takes a couple of deep breaths to get her through the words that I have just uttered.
“Thank you, Malc. I hate being here, don’t get me wrong I love Faith to bits, but it’s still too raw. This is the first time I have stepped inside the house since the wedding, I can’t remember too much of that as I was taking my medication at the time and it suppressed a lot of the anxiety that I felt back then. It was only when we found out I was expecting that I stopped taking them in fear that it would harm the babies. I never went to the doctor in Scotland to get more, because… well, I was coping ok up there – not that many triggers.” How could I have not seen the effect that this place would have had on her? She had the brunt of the attack, and he used to sleep under this roof. How could I have been so blind? I should have just taken her to our home but the fear of her seeing the nursery held me captive so I brought her here thinking it would have been better. I see now how wrong I have been and it is just causing her more pain.
“Pack up your things; we will have dinner and leave after that. I will explain to Damien and Faith why we are leaving. Don’t worry I have you, baby.” A slight smile lights up her face with my words and I think it must be the first one that has touched her eyes in months. I vow to put more smiles like that on her face.
“OK,” is all she says before she slips off the bed to go and get packed and dressed so that I can take her home where she belongs.
TEN
Cami
I expected the drive to be a long one to the house but it wasn’t five minutes and we were there. It is nothing like Damien and Faith’s hou
se. The little house sat proud in the street and the outside looked well-kept and clean, modest is the word I would use. A man that had money but did not brag about it by showing off his wealth.
He pulled the car to a stop outside and stepped out, opening the back door and unclipping the car seat to carry Charlie out. I stepped out of the car and closed the door waiting to follow him into his house. We walk inside but he seems tense like this is not how he wanted me to see his home, he walked tall and proud but every step was strained.
I noticed straight away that the house is bare and cold, not used as a home, more of a base. It is clean, bare but clean and he has the most minimal of furniture: a couch and TV made up the living room. He takes me straight into the kitchen and places Charlie’s car seat down on the floor. Then he goes straight to the kettle that is sat on the wooden worktop and proceeds to fill it up and place it on to boil. The kitchen is in desperate need of a upgrade; the 1970’s country style kitchen just does not fit in with the house, well, it does not fit in with the man. God, I have only been here five minutes and I am already planning on changing the house, decorating it to my taste – pathetic.
He places a cup of tea on the counter for me and I pick it up gladly, anything to distract from this desperate silence.
“Where will Charlie and I be sleeping?” I ask him, not wanting to presume that I would be in with him. I hope I will be but I keep that little snippet to myself.
“You both will be upstairs. Give me five minutes to have my brew and I will show you.” I feel a little dejected that he did not demand me to be with him.
“Ok,” I say not wanting to keep trying to break a silence he so desperately wants. He is still tense like he is preparing for a reaction to something, to what I’m not sure.
Leaving Faith had been hard. I had heard him shouting at Malc while I hid with Charlie. I couldn’t face her, she had just got me back and I was demanding to leave – it’s not Faith that I was running from, just her home and the memories of Jake roaming around that house were clawing at my insides making me gut wrenchingly sick every time I left Malc’s room. Even in the beautiful kitchen where we had all enjoyed meals and Lilly’s cooking – her food was delightful. I hope to see Lilly soon as she has always been kind to me, even though I had been standoffish at first with her. After the attack she came to see me in the hospital and swore to me that Malc had not left my side and he was not doing that under any orders from Damien, it was all him. The tension had been growing with him from the moment I met him – he was stunning, the closely shaved head a little longer on the top, the bulk of muscles that covered his body, the tattoos that cover most of his arms. I only saw half of them at the time because his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, offering me a glance at the delicious ink that covered his skin. I had a feeling that every one of those tattoos had a meaning and I couldn’t wait to find out what every one meant, to trace the lines of them with my hands, hell, even my tongue. Then he spoke in that sexy as hell accent and I knew straight away that he had a Russian influence that helped shape his English accent. That sexy as hell way he rolled his Rs, hell, it made me wet whenever he spoke to me. But I had to stay strong; I couldn’t be with him, with the family. I could not be in this life. I was seeing first-hand what it was doing to Faith, it was destroying her.
“You ready to see the rest of the house?” Malc’s words pull me from my running thoughts. Am I ready? Hell yeah, I am. I want to see his room, his bed.
“Lead the way,” I say to him, looking across to him. He has Charlie in his arms as we set off out of the kitchen and head upstairs. The walk up the stairs to the rest of the house is quiet, again with the tense silence. We get onto the landing; the open space has four doors leading off it, again all the walls are bare, no pictures hanging on the walls, and painted a stark white. Cold. Was my only thought.
He opens the first door and it is a nice and clean bathroom, the white suite looks brand new, like it has not really been lived in.
“This is the bathroom, towels are in the cupboard near the shower.” His voice sounds strained again and I am starting to get more anxious with each passing step. What was he afraid of showing me? I wish he would just hurry up and show me. “The master bedroom,” he grunts as he opens the next door, following close behind I step inside and almost gasp. It is empty apart from a bed frame, but what strikes me most is the still wrapped mattress that sits on the frame. This house is not even slept in.
“Where do you sleep, Malc? That bed is brand new,” I question him, why had he shown me an empty house, because this sure as hell wasn’t a home.
“I sleep in the next room,” he says, nothing more to add just a simple reply to my question.
Stepping out of the room we come to the other door, he pauses at the door with his head slightly down, shielding his face from me. Why does he look ashamed? Is it really that bad that he did not want to show me where he slept? Then I gasp when he opens the door and my heart breaks at what I see. This room is nothing like the rest of the house: the pale blue walls, the cars on the border around the room, the matching curtains that hang at the window, the stunning nursery furniture that is placed around the room. I cover my mouth to stop me from crying out. It is beautiful – all any woman could want in a nursery. I step further into the room and walk over to the rocking chair. Looking down I see the only picture of me holding our two boys and as I pick it up from the table my knees give out and I collapse onto the floor clutching the frame to my chest. My beautiful boy. It has been four months since I have seen Andrew, I see him every day in Charlie but it’s not the same, to look at him in the picture breaks me. Why? It’s that same question that haunts me. “Andrew,” I breathe and the tears coat my cheeks. The pain becoming fresh all over again, that ache in my heart that will never be fixed.
“You kept this picture,” I say not really for a reply, just stating a fact.
“Of course I kept the only picture I have of my wife and boys. It was all I had to get me through the nights, Camilla. Every night I slept in that chair holding that picture, it was my way of keeping you both with me.” His words stole the last bit of breath I had. I need to calm the emotions that are consuming me; taking big deep breaths I tried to stem the flow tears. After a few minutes I manage to calm myself enough to ask more questions, I want to know how and when he did all of this.
“When did you do all of this?” I ask him.
“The completion of the sale of the house was the day the boys were born. I wanted a home for us to be a family. The only room in the house that has had love put into it was the nursery for Charlie, I did it the week after you left me, I wanted it to be ready if you ever came home.” Even when I was not with him and ignoring him or even worse when I am using him, he still cares enough to do all of this for us, wanting us to be a family.
“I didn’t know, Malc, why did you never tell me?” I ask him.
“Would it have made a difference? Would you have stayed with me and fought?” His question was valid at the time but I was so blind to anything that was going on around me that my only feeling was to run, to numb the pain.
“No, I don’t think it would have, but why don’t you sleep in the master bedroom? You could have had the picture in there with you.” I need to hear the words; I want to know why.
“I was not sleeping in that bed without my wife next to me.” That does it. Why can’t I be what he needs? Why can’t I just forget the past and move on? Why do I let it destroy me? Because I am weak, that’s why. I am a coward who would rather run than stay and fight for what I want, fight for my man.
“I’m sorry, Malcolm.” What else can I say to him after I have destroyed everything he had? I was the one who took it all away, not Jake, ME. Now I have to try, that’s all I can do is TRY. He deserves that from me at least. I have to think of what he has been through, not just my own pain but I have to help him heal his pain. After all we both lost Andrew, not just me.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Camilla, y
ou did what you thought was best for you at the time. Besides, I think you were right, we would have only come to hate each other if you had stayed. I wanted what you could not give me at the time. I see that now.” Why does he do it? No matter what I do or say to him he always seems to forgive me for everything.
“Let me get him ready for bed then we can talk some more, how does that sound?” I ask him, hoping it is enough for now. I know how my mind works at the moment and I can feel the need rising inside of me to get him to fuck me so I can forget. The need to block it all out, to get rid of the feelings that are swarming through me, to hide the pain. He deserves better from me and I want to try and talk about it all with him – I need to.
I put Charlie to bed – kissing him on the head after I give him his feed, I then place him in his new cot. Then I go to sit in the living room and wait for Malc to come in so we can try and talk. It’s time to let it all out, get everything out in the open, our fears and our wants. He strides in and I can’t help but notice that he’s only wearing a well-worn pair of jeans that ride low on his hips, the tattooed chest is on display to me in all its muscled glory. Yeah, like that’s not distracting. He hands me a cup of tea while he has a beer in his hands, see, he doesn’t even realise that he is sweet to the core. Underneath all those muscles and that hard man exterior that he shows to everyone else, he knows I can’t drink while breastfeeding and he makes sure I have something I can drink. Taking a small sip, I notice that he has even made me decaf. Now I just have to avoid temptation while we try to talk, looking at him now that is not going to be an easy fate. He looks divine now he is sat at the side of me, on the one leather sofa that is in the living room. I can make out his aftershave and the pure scent that is Malc and it is sending heat straight between my legs. No, I can’t, I have to pull myself together so that we can talk. I need to clear my head of all the delicious things I want to do to him right here on this couch. I want to wrap myself around him and never let go.
