Faye's Story: Crave Series, #2

by Heidi Lowe

  "You don't get to say that!" I explode. Now I don't care who I wake up, or who can hear. "You son of a bitch! You destroy my life, break up our family, all for one lousy year. You don't get to have regrets." My tears are heavy and abundant, matching hers. She isn't the only one who's been suppressing their emotions.

  "I know what I did, and I have to live with those awful consequences every day. Waking up and not seeing you beside me, not being able to touch you, to kiss you... I've been miserable since I left."

  "Shut up!" I scream, rabid energy overtaking my body.

  Her head hangs, her shoulders shake as she cries. "I want my family back. I want to come home, Faye."

  There can be no pretending I never heard that. I want to throw up. I press a hand to my mouth, tears trickle onto it.

  "You married her...in our venue, Nikki!" I crumble to the floor, just as I had when she announced that she was leaving me. I'm just as devastated now as I was then. "In our venue! I saw you. I showed up and watched you marry that woman. How could you do that to me?"

  "Oh God." She clutches at her hair with both hands, as though she's lost her mind. "I don't know. It was her idea. I should have said no. I should never have married her at all. I'm disgusted with myself. It's like...it's like I've woken up from a coma and realized that I lost everything while I was asleep. I saw myself doing these crazy things, but couldn't stop it. I don't know what happened to me."

  We're both blubbering messes. The room fills with our sobs.

  "You broke me," I say, shaking. "I've never hurt this much for so long before. You did that."

  She crawls across the floor to me. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I broke myself. I hate myself, I hate my life. I just...I just want to come home."

  "You can't." It's as if someone flips a switch inside me, on my emotions. I watch this broken woman in a heap before me, drenched in the misery of her making, just as I was, and my heart hardens.

  "Please. Please let me come home. I love you. I never stopped." She reaches out for my hand but I yank it away.

  "You can never come back. This isn't your home, this isn't your family, and I'm not your wife. You replaced us, remember?" I get to my feet. She peers up at me with a hopeless expression, as though I've stolen her oxygen away. If she's suffering as much as I did back then, it will probably feel that way to her.

  "That has never felt like home, and she has never been a wife to me."

  "That's not my problem. You're not my problem anymore." I'm unsteady on my feet, weak and light-headed from all the crying. "You can sleep it off on the couch, but you need to leave before Emily wakes up. I don't want her seeing you here."

  She calls after me, pleading with me, telling me she loves me, but I hurry upstairs and lock myself away in my room, afraid that if I stay there any longer my resolve will break again.

  Away from her, I press a hand against my bedroom door, tears pouring down my face.

  "Nikki," I weep quietly. "I want you to come home, too."

  TWENTY

  There's no sign of her the following morning. I must have already fallen asleep by the time she left.

  The first thing I do once I've gotten Emily dressed and we've eaten breakfast, is call Melanie. The phone rings for a long time without going to voicemail. I try multiple times throughout the day, but she never picks up. I don't blame her for avoiding me. I'll give her time. But really, it's me who needs time. Time to wrap my head around the catastrophe that was last night.

  I spend the next few days going through the motions, not deviating much from my usual schedule: Getting Emily to daycare, blogging, trying out new recipes, and making notes for my new book (which Ivy insists I write). But I can't seem to go more than a couple of minutes without thinking about Nikki and the mess she's made of herself.

  There's a bottle of wine Melanie bought a few weeks ago that's been sitting in the cupboard, untouched. I open it one Thursday evening after I put Emily to sleep. It's all I can do not to down the whole bottle.

  I'm about to take the bottle up to bed with me, to get an early night, when Sandra shows up.

  "Were you heading to bed?" she asks, giving me an appraising look, noticing that I've already changed into my pajamas.

  "Yeah. I thought I might get an early night."

  Her eyes drift to the bottle in my hand, and she shoots me a dubious look. "That's not a good look."

  "Don't judge me," I say with a sigh, tired not just from the day, but mentally, emotionally. "I won't drink it all."

  She doesn't seem to get the hint that I don't want company, and that I have no intention of sharing my wine with her. She lets herself in, and I have no choice but to postpone my sleep.

  "So what's the wine for?" she says, eying me cautiously as we sit in the kitchen.

  "Drinking," I say drily.

  "You know what I mean."

  I throw up my hands. "Because I just want to make everything go away, all right. The uncertainty, the pain, the anger...everything. And her! I want her to go away. I wish she ran off with that blonde bimbo and never came back."

  Sandra's silence confirms that she's already clued up. Nikki filled her in, probably told her what a bitch I was for sending her away. She broke down in front of me, was at her most vulnerable, and I still sent her away.

  "Can I tell you something, Faye? You're not going to like it, but I'm saying it anyway. And it probably won't change anything. You might not even believe me."

  What could she possibly say now that could make me feel any more miserable than I already do?

  "Just say it."

  "Some months back, Nikki confessed something to me. Something I had always suspected."

  I stare at her intently, afraid of what she might say.

  "I didn't tell you this at the time because she made me swear not to. She was inconsolable. Crying for hours, just a hot mess, blubbering all over herself. There wasn't anything I could say to stop it."

  I frown, wondering what could possibly have made her so upset.

  "You know what she said to me when I could finally get words out of her? 'I wanted to come back home a few weeks after I left, when I realized it wasn't love I felt for Angel, but lust. But I looked at Faye, Sandra, at what I'd done to her, and I couldn't live with myself. She would have given me a second chance, but how could I look at her again knowing what I'd done?' Almost word for word. After that it was just one bad decision after another, trying to justify having given up the best thing that ever happened to her."

  I swallow, a taste of bile in my throat. "I don't understand."

  "She wanted to make it work with Angel, she forced herself to make it work, because that way if it did, she wouldn't feel like she'd destroyed her marriage for nothing. I know it makes no sense to us, but in her warped mind it does."

  "So all of this, all of the crap she's put me through was what? Her proving a point?" I spit.

  "No, not proving a point, trying to find a way to live with herself, with her choices. But she's always wanted to come home."

  "Why didn't you say anything?"

  "I would have if I honestly thought it would have made a difference. She'd convinced herself that she could never redeem herself in your eyes. And hearing you talk about her, I believed it too."

  I feel numb, like someone has covered my insides and flesh with an anesthetic. I just want to scream and never stop. Run and hide, away from everyone and everything.

  Was this all avoidable? This past year, could the divorce, the heartache, the anguish have been avoided by simply communicating with each other?

  "I would have forgiven her." My voice cracks. "I could have. I wanted to. It would have been hard, but we were strong enough."

  "But she couldn't forgive herself. Every time she looked at you, it killed her. You were a constant reminder of how royally she'd screwed up. Now, I guess the reality of living without you is too much to bear."

  "That's just selfish! She was only thinking of herself." That's all I can garner from this revelation. "S
he was too weak and cowardly to face me, to try. So she ends up married to someone else, and I end up hating her guts!"

  "Faye–"

  "I want you to leave now," I say.

  "Faye, come on–"

  "Sandra, I need you to leave," I say more sternly.

  She gets up. "Okay, I'm going."

  "And you can tell your friend, my piece of shit ex-wife, that she made her bed, and she can lie in it with that whore!"

  "She left her a week ago. She's staying in a motel."

  I turn my back to Sandra, and eventually I hear the front door close behind her. I collapse on the chair, my heavy weeping echoing around the room.

  "Where are we going, Mommy?" Emily asks as I strap her into the car. I've just collected her from daycare and explained that we're not going straight home, that we're taking a detour.

  "We're going to see a friend of mine. You'll like her."

  "What's her name?"

  "Melanie. She has a cat." It's the perfect excuse to bring Emily around to meet her finally. If Emily's with me, she won't ignore my knocking.

  "What's it's name?" I knew that would pique her interest. She's obsessed with cats. The only reason why we never got one is because Nikki is allergic. Maybe it's time I revisited that decision.

  "His name's Michael Phelps."

  She giggles. "That's a funny name for a cat."

  The faint sound of dance music drifts out from behind Melanie's door when we reach her apartment. Good, she's home. But will she hear us?

  "Knock as loud as you can, honey," I tell Emily, who happily obliges.

  The music stops, and I tell Emily to knock again.

  "Who is it?" Melanie calls.

  "Emily," my daughter shouts back. That's all her doing; I didn't tell her to say that.

  Perhaps if she didn't, and I spoke instead, Melanie might not have opened the door, but she does.

  She stares at me, puzzled, then down at Emily.

  "Hello," she says, unsure, looking back at me questioningly.

  "Hello," Emily says, waving. "Mommy said you have a cat." She tries to peek into the house to get a glimpse.

  I shrug, feigning innocence. "Once I mentioned Michael Phelps, I couldn't keep her away."

  "I guess you'd better come in, then," Melanie says, stepping aside and letting us in.

  Emily gasps at the ginger tabby curled up in his bed in front of the entertainment unit. As soon as he sees her, the poor thing looks as though he'll bolt. Luckily, Emily's extremely gentle with animals, and when she starts stroking him, sensing she isn't a threat, he relaxes back into his bed. She'll be content there with him for at least an hour.

  "He doesn't usually like children," Melanie says, watching them. "I actually thought he would growl at her. If I know a friend is bringing her child, I put him in my room. But I didn't know you were coming..."

  "You haven't been answering my calls," I say sheepishly, keeping my voice low.

  "Let's talk in here." I follow her into the bedroom. The last time I was here, she was doing naughty things to me on that queen-sized bed. Spanking, blindfolds, the lot. It all seems so long ago now.

  "I thought it was time you met my daughter," I say once she's pulled the door up, leaving it only slightly ajar so I can hear Emily if I need to.

  She rests her hands on her hips. "Not that I don't want to meet her, but why would you do that?"

  "Because...because we're together, and...and I want you to get to know each other," I stammer.

  Her face doesn't change. "We're not together. Not really."

  "But I want us to be," I blurt out. "That's why I came. To apologize for the other night, to introduce you to my daughter, and...to let you know that I want more."

  She laughs without mirth. "You can't even look at me when you say that, Faye."

  "W–what are you talking about? I'm looking at you–"

  "Just stop!" she says, raising her voice a little. "We've always been straight with each other."

  I search her eyes for meaning, confused by her words. When I open my mouth to question her, she puts up a hand to stop me. "I met someone."

  "When?" I demand, not buying any of it. There's just something disingenuous about the way she shifts her gaze, avoiding eye contact. "Who?"

  "A week ago. You don't know her."

  "Bullshit! You met her a week ago, and now you want to end it with me?" I'm not angry at the prospect of another woman in her life, but that she's trying to convince me that one exists.

  "We agreed when we started this that I would tell you if I wasn't okay with the arrangement. Well now I'm saying it."

  "This is about the other night, isn't it? I'm sorry. She just showed up. What was I supposed to do?"

  She sighs. "You did exactly what you were supposed to."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that you did what any concerned, loving wife would do."

  "I'm not her wife!" I scream. This outburst seems to surprise Melanie as much as it does me. "Just because she's now sick of her actual wife, doesn't mean she gets to pick up where she left off with me, and come crawling back for a second chance."

  Her gaze is intense. "I asked you something at the start, and you never answered my question. So do it now. Do you still love her?"

  I shoot her a hateful glare, my breathing ragged. I hate that she's asking me this, because no matter what I say, it will never be the full story.

  "No," I say finally, through gritted teeth.

  "I don't believe you."

  And my resolve breaks. My glare wavers, and before I know it that leaky faucet that controls my tears starts dripping. She sits me on the bed. I cover my face with my hand, annoyed that I would do this here, in her home, in her bedroom.

  "You can't turn it off, can you?" she says, sitting beside me.

  I shake my head. "How can I still love her after everything she's done to me?"

  "That's not how love works, honey," she says, brushing the hair out of my face. "It's a real asshole that, once it digs its claws into your heart, never lets go."

  I laugh at the imagery of a gremlin-like creature clinging to my heart. I imagine it with Nikki's face.

  "I wish I could stop it," I say, serious again. "She doesn't deserve my love."

  "That might be true, but you deserve to be loved." She puts an arm around me and holds me. I close my eyes and let her. She comforts me while I cry about being in love with my ex-wife. There aren't many who are strong enough to do this. She's one of a kind.

  "What am I going to do?"

  "What do you want to do? You know how she feels... The whole neighborhood probably knows how she feels after that episode the other night."

  "I don't know. How can I ever let her back into my life now? Wouldn't I be an idiot? A doormat? She marries another woman, and I take her back?"

  "Forget all of that," she says, and twists me to look at her. "Do you want to try again? When you envision your future, do you still see her in it, beside you, growing old with you?"

  I'm terrified to answer, terrified of saying it out loud, because doing so would verbalize a truth I've been unable to admit to myself this whole time. I nod slowly, tears rushing down my face. This truth hasn't set me free, only put a burden on my shoulders. This truth is keeping me imprisoned.

  I won't say it; I can't. How can I say aloud to anyone that I never stopped loving Nikki, that my vision of a happy ending still has her in it, by my side?

  "If you get a second chance, Faye, you should take it. But you better make her work for it."

  She holds me in her arms and lets me cry against her chest. We stay like that for several minutes without speaking.

  "There's no other woman, is there?" I say after a while. "You just said that so I wouldn't feel bad about my decision."

  "No comment," she says, and when I look up at her, she's smiling.

  "Thank you for being so awesome, and for making me feel alive again."

  "What are friends for?"

  S
he must know that this will be the last time we see each other like this, as friends. She'll respect that, I know it. I hold on to her as long as I can before it's time to leave.

  TWENTY-ONE

  A violent rain batters my car as Jennifer Rush croons from the car stereo. Power of Love has been playing on repeat for the past twenty minutes. If I didn't already know the words in full, I would by now.

  Long ago, I couldn't stand the song, didn't care much for the singer, either. Then just like that, by accident, on my first date with Nikki, we happened past a house where the song was playing. We'd stopped to smooch, and there it was. I knew I was going to marry her when I heard it. It's hard to explain, but I felt it in my bones. Like an omen; a sign. It's been our song ever since. Funny, really. The thought of couples having their own songs seemed so cliche, until it happened to me.

  It rained that evening, too.

  I open my eyes and stare out at the drab motel. It's painted a dull pink, and looks as though it hasn't been refurbished since the 70's. Against the backdrop of a gray, cloudy sky and heavy rainfall, this looks like the worst place on Earth. If I know my ex-wife like I think I do, that's precisely why she picked this hole in hell.

  Her room is on the ground floor, and visible from my car. I see her car parked outside her door. Eventually I'll have to get out and face her. Really face her. But doing so will mean swallowing my pride, letting go of the vengeance that's been steadily building since she abandoned me. Facing her means dropping my defenses and being honest with both of us.

  When I step out into the downpour, I'm still not ready. I've had days to deliberate over what I'll say, but somehow none of those words seem adequate now.

  The short dash across the parking lot to her door leaves me soaked. She'd better open on the first knock.

  Her impatient voice growls for me to go away, which prompts me to knock harder, more persistently.

  "I said go the fuck away!"

  "Nikki, open the door," I shout, trying to be heard over the storm.

  "Faye?" Her tone is different, has dropped its agitation.

  "Yes. Hurry up and open the door."