by Falon Gold
Dammit, Malisa, the damage is done now! You can’t keep crying over spilled milk.
Except, I can’t stop crying, and need one more day to get it out of my system.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday morning creeps into my existence, cloudy, gloomy and gray, as if it’s afraid to come anywhere near me. That’s probably because it’s finding me not much better off than I was yesterday. My legs are still wobbly. I slide to the edge of the bed and pick up the hotel’s phone. I call the front desk and request another night’s stay. First, I get a much too damn chirper female.
“I’ll be happy to charge Mr. Ford’s card for another $2500, Ms. Owens.”
I gasp and clutch the cord of the phone, wrapping my fingers around it tightly, damn near strangling it.
“Wait. I thought the room was five hundred a night!” I didn’t mean to yell rudely in the clerk’s ear, well, actually, I did. I must have been given Apollo’s room by mistake.
“No ma’am, our suites start at fifteen hundred. The standard rooms start at five hundred.”
“I’m supposed to be in a standard room,” I inform her.
“No ma’am, we got a call to…” I tune her out, realizing what’s happened. Apollo upgraded my room before I got here, spent ten thousand dollars for a weekend and extended stay, and then left me here alone to cry over him.
Is he out of his damn mind? Probably not, but he’s out of a whole lot of money, and he’s probably not going to let me repay him.
“Ms. Owens,” the clerk calls out worriedly.
“Never mind, I’m checking out and I don’t need a bellhop.”
I hang up on the woman and make myself take a quick shower, before putting on the outfit that was supposed to be for Monday. I'm packing up to go home, but not the one I’ve made in Utah. I need familiar, loving arms around me, and the space to reset. That can only be found in Colorado.
Apollo’s arms and space isn’t an option. I’m not stable enough to not break down in his presence when I look at him. Since he left, a storm of my emotions seem to be brewing just below the surface of my skin.
Normally, I’d order breakfast before leaving a fancy hotel like this. I’m not a girl who’s afraid to eat, but my appetite has been nonexistent since Sunday. A lot of other things left with Apollo, too (I mean Mr. Ford) like my courage to return to Utah and face him. I just can’t bring myself to do it, yet.
Maybe, I should just quit my job now. It’s been a long time coming anyway, and I should’ve done it a long time ago. I’d have a whole heart to give to someone else if I had, and could’ve skipped this sorry state that he’s left me in. To know he once loved me only makes the constant ache in my chest worse and my legs even wobblier than before.
I slump down on the edge of the lounge chair at the end of the bed and rub the side of my chest that’s housing the dull pain with the heel of my hand. My eyes settle on the desk along with a computer sitting across the room against the wall. I get an idea. Since I’m a damn coward who can no longer stand on her own two feet, I can email my resignation letter to Mr. Ford, with a sincere apology for not giving two weeks’ notice and a brief explanation at the end. I think it’s best for everyone involved if I make a clean break from Global Ford Enterprises. He can toss my belongings in the trash. Everything there will just remind me of Apollo, anyway. Most of the personal photos on my desk can be replaced with a call to my mother.
But my conscience has a tough time with just letting go of my irreplaceable possessions made with love. While I’m being a coward, why don’t I just pack it all in? Have a shipping company pack up my apartment and deliver everything to the closest storage facility, and then go backpacking in the next country, while hoping Apollo forgets all about the breach of the employee five-year contract that I’ll commit. It doesn’t end for another nine months.
I sit straight up on the lounge and groan, “Shit! The contract!”
I’d like to think that Apollo wouldn’t be so cruel as to make me finish it to the end of term, but I know he will. He has yet to let anyone out of a contract that Global Ford Enterprises benefits from. I still need some time to get myself together though, and I have weeks of vacation time that I never took. A few more days without me in his space shouldn’t hurt.
I gather my bags, all of them, and leave the room. I don’t want to go. This is where he told me he loved me and would never let me go. How did that change in less than twenty-four hours?
Maybe it was all a dream, I think, as I struggle with my bags onto the elevator until the doors close behind me. I stand with my back to them, huffing and puffing, trapped between the doors and the sacks, unable to turn around. I should have requested a bellhop instead of refusing one. The independent life is not all it's caked up to be.
I imagine that this is all a dream that turned into a nightmare when I left Apollo sleeping Sunday morning. But if it was all a dream, I can just forget it all ever happened and stop mourning the loss of my king, right? Maybe the world is flat with four corners, too. If I can make myself believe that, I can believe anything.
“I’m in deep trouble,” I murmur to the compartment, “and up to my neck in it.”
When the elevator arrives at the ground floor, I reverse out of it and approach the same bubbly clerk who unknowingly clued me in on Apollo upgrading my room. She’s even happier to call me a cab. My first stop is the local post office, where I have my bags one-day expressed to my parents’ house and avoid the legal stickup for a baggage fee at the airport, which is my last stop before Colorado. After purchasing a round-trip ticket to my hometown, Arrow, I leave the half-used round trip ticket at the counter. It’s symbolic; I’m leaving Apollo behind like he left me. Well, it’s symbolic in my mind at least.
Yeah, that worked so well on Friday, didn’t it? I internally curse symbolism. I didn’t know he loved me then. Now, I have an hour’s flight to convince to my heart to leave that love behind. I spend most of it trying not cry in front of the other passengers and wishing for things that I have to wait for. By the last leg of the journey, I know I haven’t fooled the person sitting next to me in the aisle seat at all, a little old lady who keeps looking at me sideways. I smile weakly whenever I catch her doing it, then go right back to wishing I was already home with my parents who undoubtedly will hover like helicopters.
I’m their only biological child, so their attention can get smothering, and their advice comes in bushels. I need all of that right now, without giving away the state of my love life. If I had at least one girlfriend, I could confide in her before I got home, but I’m paying the price for letting Apollo… dammit, I mean letting Mr. Ford monopolize my time. Now, I’m in danger of disappointing my parents if they ever find out why I haven’t come to visit in years.
I guess they better not find out then.
The plane finally touches down. When I’ve offloaded myself into the airport that’s fifteen miles away from Arrow, I turn my phone back on and join the queue for a rental car. I’m not going to be picky. Anything with a four-wheel drive and snow chains will be fine since Colorado is beginning its winter and tourist season. It comes with fast-approaching blizzards and the freaky snowstorms that appear out of nowhere.
My phone begins vibrating with back-to-back calls and texts. I’d turned it off for Sunday night to Tuesday morning’s crying fest and never turned it back on. Since the rental car line seems to be in the middle of rush hour, I start checking my missed calls. The latest is from my parents, only twenty minutes ago. I’m sure they’re worried like hell. It’s been nine days since I last talked to them. I usually call on Sunday, when I can steal a few minutes from Mr. Ford’s schedule.
I decide to surprise them instead and check the next missed call. I’m a little surprised it’s Mr. Ford. I guess I threw his world in turmoil when I didn’t show up today. Well, we’re even on that score, at least. He’ll have to put his big boy briefs on and wait for me to pick up where I left off in his office. Until I do, he’ll be fine. Eventually, so wi
ll I… at least I think so. I erase his number from my contacts on a purely petty impulse. It’s not like I won’t recognize his number when he calls, again… and he will.
Suddenly, I’m standing at the checkout counter, where I convey my need for a car equipped for the weather. The clerk promises he can help me, then he takes my credit card and helps himself to the fee for the rental, before handing me a set of keys. After directing me to the rental car’s parking lot on the north side of the building, I leave with my duffel bag on my shoulder, purse in my hand, looking for a red Jeep with all the amenities I need.
After a chilly walk in a light jacket, I find the vehicle. I toss my duffel bag in the back seat, my purse on the passenger’s, and my ass in the driver’s, then wait for the radiator to crank out heat through the vents. I start to sift through the missed text messages from the people that profess to love me. As expected, I encounter an angrily typed message from Mr. Ford.
720-596-0232: Where the hell are you, Malisa? I’ve been calling since Sunday night. I know you’ve checked out of the hotel today because I called. Get home immediately! We have work to do, and your parents are worried sick. At least call them back but get to work soon.
There’s nothing to indicate that he still loves me or where we go from here. Well, actually, his text does tell me where we go from here.
Work.
I punch the trashcan icon at the top of my screen, deleting the text.
I read several messages from my parents, who are asking too many questions which I’ll answer most of when I show up at their home unannounced. I ditch the phone in the passenger’s seat and begin the drive to my childhood home. It’s a modest two-story with nothing spectacular about it except the love that bursts out of every nook and cranny of it, and I need it.
The beauty of the scenery escapes me. Colorado is drop-dead gorgeous at this time of year. The sun reflects off the snow covering the ground in an impenetrable blanket of white. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains serve as a picturesque backdrop. If I sit here and wait, the base of the mountains will glow a reddish hue beneath the snow-covered peaks during setting of the sun. I get a little angry about not being happy to see any of it, after being away and too heartbroken to care.
A Couple of Forevers begins serenading me halfway through the fifteen-minute drive that I didn’t even bother to turn the radio on for. Since the roads are treacherous at this time of year, even with the added terrain gear on the tires, I slow down to a crawl and reach for my cell. Jenna from Global Ford Enterprises is calling.
Things must really be bad at work if she’s calling, I think. If I was feeling pettier, I wouldn’t answer at all. Instead, I slam the phone to my ear and snap into the line, “Hello.”
“Fuck, Malisa!” Mr. Ford snaps back. “Where the hell are you?”
The sound of his voice, even angry, is enough to break down the thin wall that took me two whole days to build to contain my turbulent emotions. I swallow convulsively, consuming the rising feelings before they get any farther up than my throat.
“Mr. Ford, what do you need?” My tone is much weaker than I would have preferred, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Just struggling to keep my heartache back is taking more strength than I have.
“Mr. For…” he starts then pauses. He inhales loud enough for my receiver to pick up. “Malisa, I need you. Here. Now.”
“I’ll be back tomor…” My voice fades out entirely. I don’t want to go back tomorrow or any other day if I didn’t have him, but that isn’t an option. When I go back is though.
“I’ll be back tomorrow or next week. I’m not sure, but I’m positive that you can find someone to help you until then. Actually, you have someone already. Jenna! Make her do her damn job for once and consider this as me calling in and taking the vacation days I haven’t used.”
I hang up and drop the phone in my lap, before my mounting misery chokes the rest of my ability to speak out of me. The misery rebounds in my chest, apparently disliking being pushed down. I stop the truck on the side of the road, which has nonexistent traffic, mercifully. I only have to worry about killing just one person on the road while driving blinded by incoming tears.
I let the floodgates to my heartache open up.
It takes several minutes to get my emotions behind the thin wall patched up with lots of Band-Aids. I’m already tired of hurting and crying. I glimpse in the rearview mirror at my blotchy skin and swollen, red eyes. When I arrive at home, my parents are going to know something is up, if they don’t already. Hopefully, I’ll get to yell surprise before they start with the questions and I break down, again.
It’s inevitable. I seem to be getting more miserable. My first real love has shattered my heart and the sound of his voice is working at the bits and pieces that is left of it. Still, I put the truck in drive and pull back onto the road, just before Chrisette sings out, again.
I cringe inside. Someone needs to teach Apollo when to stay, when to leave me alone, and when to quit calling, but the only someone available is me. I pick up the phone, and look down at the display screen, but it isn’t Apollo calling or anyone else I know.
“Hello,” I say into the earpiece, voice raspy and guttural from the number the tears just did on it.
“Malisa?” a familiar tone responds, but I can’t place it.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Derek.” Then he laughs.
I think I missed the joke, and I probably would for a while.
“Are you okay, Malisa?”
“Ah… yes,” I lie. “What can I do for you?”
He clears his throat. “Well, I was calling to see if you were available for meeting me tomorrow for a date, but you don’t sound good. Can I do anything for you?”
Yep, mend my broken heart, I think to myself, willing to accept help from even the devil himself with no questions asked.
“Uh no, I’m in Colorado right now, Derek.”
“No problem, I’m still in Vegas, only a flight away.”
I don’t have time for his agenda and my heartache.
“Derek, Colorado isn’t exactly a dating state at this time of year, unless you have a ski suit to keep warm and boots to keep from landing on your backside. I won’t be returning to Vegas, ever, or going back to Utah until tomorrow… or next week. I can’t decide, so I think phone conversations are all I can give.”
Anything else will just be too damn much.
“Want to tell me about it, Malisa?” His tone is sympathetic and undemanding, calling to every unshed tear that I have left.
“I’m… I can’t, I’m…” I give up explaining and try to regroup, but the breaks in my voice are a dead giveaway for my emotional overload, which I don’t think will ever let up.
I seem to just wear myself out, trying to get past it, and it just starts all over again with breaking me down. I’m supposed to be stronger than this.
“Dammit! I’m driving, Derek.”
“And you’re about to cry, so pull over. It’s safer… for everyone,” he adds dryly.
A trace of humor scales the heartache determined to break me, and it does what I can’t; push the aching back so I can take his advice. I drive under the extended canopy of a local motel only five miles out from my parents.
“Okay, I’m off the road.”
“What did your boss do, Malisa?”
Jesus! If Derek can figure out what went down, I have no hope of hiding it from my parents.
“How did you know?” I ask, so I can identify the signs that gave me away then hide them from everyone else.
“Malisa,” he says dryly, “I’m a private eye. I notice a lot of things that other people don’t. You and your boss have a very questionable tension between you two. I’d go so far as to say it’s sexual. Now, what did he do between Saturday night and now that’s driven you to Colorado instead of Utah?”
I’m busted, and don’t have even a snowball’s chance in hell of hiding sexual tension, but at least Apollo’s attraction to me
has already run its course.
I sigh, wishing it hadn’t ended as soon as it began, and I’d rather keep the whole sordid and embarrassing one night of my relationship with my boss to myself. But my troubles are weighing heavily on my chest, and maybe telling someone about them will make the burden of carrying them a little easier. Since Derek and I don’t run in the same circles and he’s self-employed, I have no fear of becoming water cooler gossip. I begin to give him an earful of the best night and worst day of my life in between the constant beeps of someone calling my second line.
Chapter Nine
“Wow, Malisa, that has to be the fastest breakup not recorded.”
I can’t help laughing at his jab. “That’s what I thought, too.”
“Are you sure he’s not just giving you space to cool down, though?”
My amusement flits away, allowing explosive anger to take its place.
“Who the hell needs two states of space? I only wanted him to calm down so I could explain that I was raised to do things for myself. So if a storm came, I wasn’t blown over with my crutch. He blew out of the store like a Tasmanian devil and kept going before I could explain. But of course you’d take his side. It’s the same crap your kind pulls and defends.”
Derek’s laughter rings outs. “My kind?”
“Men! The whole lot of you are not worth the trouble.”
“And yet you’re hurting over one of us?” he asks quietly.
I’m sure that question is rhetorical, so I say nothing.
“Listen, Malisa. I won’t advise you to give him a second chance because I want my first chance with you. But I’m not sure if that’s even possible, so I’ll help you with your current love life anyway. I think you both overreacted. He didn’t have to fly away at the first sign of trouble, especially since a man of his means should be thankful he wasn’t dating a gold digger. But you’re essentially quitting your job, breaching your contract. He could take you for everything you got.”
