by Amy Daws
I stop moving. “Stop it. Stop saying those things.”
“It’s the truth.” His gray eyes look up at mine, piercing me with a new found intensity I’ve never seen before.
I slide off of him quickly, curling myself into a ball on the opposite side of the mattress. “Hayden, this isn’t what we do. We don’t talk like this. We…we—”
“We help each other stay alive, Rey. I don’t want you leaving again.” He reaches out to pull me to him.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” I snap and stand, dragging the sheet with me, suddenly feeling the need to hide myself from him. “And don’t tell me what to do!” God. God, God, God! For the first time since waking up, my mind is clear. What the hell am I doing? “You need to leave.”
“No!” he barks defiantly.
“Yes!” I scream. “I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with you saying these things. If you knew…”
“Knew what?” He reaches for me again.
“I fucked Liam last night!” I scream using my words as a weapon to snap him back to reality. The room turns eerily quiet. The hum of the fridge and the faint sound of London traffic is all to be heard.
“Liam?” His face is horrified. “Marisa’s Liam?”
I nod, unable to meet his eyes. He will always be Marisa’s Liam to everyone else. The only other person that knows about what Liam and I did three years ago is my mother. And I only told her to hurt her.
I can feel Hayden staring at me for a painfully charged moment before he turns and hops up off the bed. He bends down and grabs his clothes up off the floor.
“Hayden,” I say softly, watching him clutch his pants and shoes to his chest.
“Enough!” he roars.
Unable to watch him leave, I turn and freeze, staring at a random smudge on the wall. Tears begin to slide fast and free down my cheeks as I feel painful heartache all around me. I flinch at the loud crack of my door slamming shut.
The sound shoots renewed life inside of me. Hayden is my friend. I can’t let him leave like this. I don’t know what he’ll do! I jump up and throw on a T-shirt and rush out after him. The elevator doors close just as I reach it and I slam my fist against the metal in frustration. I quickly dart down the stairwell, shakily running the four levels.
I burst out the stairwell doors and see Hayden’s back exiting my building. I run after him and stop dead in my tracks to find Hayden and Liam standing toe to toe on the side walk. Face to face. Glower to glower.
Liam is in the same lounge pants that I left him in back in Cambridge, but now wearing a white T-shirt. Hayden is standing there barefoot in his boxer briefs and T-shirt, clutching his jeans and boots to his chest. This looks so, so bad.
“Liam,” I say breathlessly as the two continue to stare each other down.
Hayden’s face flashes to mine like I just committed the ultimate betrayal by uttering Liam’s name instead of his. A stony scowl fleets over his hardened gray eyes as he turns his gaze back to Liam.
“She’s a fucked up mess. You can have her.” Hayden’s voice is laced with ominous threat as he moves to walk away. Stopping suddenly he turns back to Liam and adds, “But you might want to know…I was just inside her, mate.”
Liam’s eyes alight with anger. He pulls his fist back and sends it flying at Hayden, connecting it with his jaw. Hayden drops his clothes and tackles Liam around the waist as they both go stumbling to the ground, fists flying the entire time.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” I scream, slicing my hands through my hair in helpless pain.
“Oi! Oi!” Alistair’s voice shouts from down the street. He comes running up like lightning. “Pack it all or I’ll call the cops on the both of ye!”
Liam and Hayden both scuffle up off the ground and separate. Al’s small frame stands between the two of them, his arms stretched out to keep them separated. “Get shot. Now.”
“I was already leaving,” Hayden growls. “Good fucking luck.” He turns and walks down the sidewalk without looking back at me once.
“Reyna, are you alright?” Al asks me. His expression is wary as he stares up at Liam. For a short man, he’s definitely still able to intimidate even the largest of British men. Liam looks at me angrily, his nostrils flared as he fights to catch his breath.
“I’m fine, Al,” I croak out.
“Well, I’m not leaving ya with this bloke,” Alistair growls.
“I can take care of myself, Al. Just fucking go!” I snap meanly. I’m sick of people trying to get inside my life. I just want to be left the fuck alone!
He doesn’t even react. He turns and punches Liam in the chest with his pointer finger. “I’m just down the street. You do fuck all to hurt her and you have me to answer to. I may not look like much, but I promise you…you will regret it.”
Liam frowns seriously at Alistair and then nods. Once Al decides it’s safe to go, he shoots me one more withering gaze and leaves us standing there in awkward silence.
“I feel like I could be sick,” Liam says finally and sits down on the curb, taking in large gulps of air. His face is distraught and haggard.
I yank down on my T-shirt to make sure I’m completely covered and sit down beside him. “What are you doing here, Liam?” I glance around for people and am grateful I live on a quiet street. The only traffic that comes back here are the residents that live here and it’s after midnight so no one is out and about now.
“I came back because I couldn’t stand to be in that houseboat after…after.” He pauses, swallowing painfully. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought if I could just talk to you again, maybe…maybe things wouldn’t go so fucking wrong like they did before. I never imagined. I never suspected you’d…” He gestures down the direction Hayden walked away.
“I tried to tell you, Liam. I’m not good. I’m not right. You don’t want me.”
“I can’t wrap my brain around all of this, Rey. All of this pain. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know how you don’t see how good it could have been between us.”
“Liam,” I groan. “You bought a fucking ring for her. For Marisa. Were you ever going to give it to her?” I turn to face him to watch his reaction.
He has the nerve to look offended. “That’s your question right now?”
“Yes. I need to know.”
“I don’t want to tell you because it shouldn’t fucking matter, Rey! We’re living in today. Right now. I thought we could be each other’s salvation if you’d have just allowed us to be!” He slices his hands up through his hair. “Hell, even after all this, I still think we belong together!”
“Stop saying that!” I scream. “I’m not meant for anyone, Liam! Don’t you get that? I just fucked my best friend…and kicked him out of my flat. Don’t you see? I will crush you. I leave a wake of dead bodies everywhere I go!”
“Bullshit!” he roars and grabs me on the arms.
He moves to kiss me and I rip myself free of his hands and stand up. Disgusted by him and myself, I reply while calmly shaking my head. “This is all true. Something about me isn’t right, Liam. I can feel myself pulling you down and I need to stop it before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late, Rey!” Liam’s eyes are teary and strained. “That’s why the past three years have been such a fuck all mess for me. I’ve been trying to play the part of the good guy because I refuse to turn into the man that I was that night with you at Oxford. I don’t regret sleeping with you and I don’t regret telling you that I love you. But I do regret the timing. Always. I don’t want this to be another time I regret. I want to fix this. Properly.”
“I’m not a fucking project, Liam! I don’t need fixing. Especially not by you!”
“Stop!” he cries, standing and moving within inches of my face. “Fixing things is what I do now. It’s how I’ve learned to cope. You don’t get it. When Marisa died…you were the only one who could know what I was going through and you pushed me away. Do you have any idea how that can change a person?”
“
Yes! I’m terrible for people. My existence is rancid. I mean…look what I just did to my best friend!”
“Some best fucking friend,” Liam grumbles beneath his breath. “I’m tired of being a good guy. I’m tired of feeling frozen…like I’m stuck in this state of stone. Unmoving. Unfeeling. Setting life up for everyone around me instead of diving in myself. It’s not real!” He grabs my face in his hands. “You are as real as life gets for me, Rey. You are what I still want…after all these years and all this fucked-upness. That means something, don’t you think?”
“No,” I say firmly, clenching my jaw, completely cold and calculated. My face is the picture of frozen and unfeeling. You could hear a pin drop in our charged silence. His horrified expression only adds fuel to the inferno building inside of me.
“No,” he laughs sadly and stares down at my mouth waiting for it to dispute me.
“You need to leave me behind, Liam. We can never be friends.”
Deep.
Drugging.
Darkness.
I am sunk. Buried alive. Gone to the world. And vanished from myself. Hours pass before I move from the frozen spot I fell to on my bed. My tears are dry and crusty on my face as the loneliness envelops me. The place in my mind that I’ve slipped into is a stifling area that even I am not comfortable in.
I pace the floorboards of my small flat…constantly moving, shifting, restless. Unblinking. Unfeeling, but yet overwhelmed with feelings that I can’t control. It’s as if I’m holding a thin strand of fishing line. I’m stretching it as far as I can between my two hands, desperate to break it, but knowing that if I keep pulling, the string won’t break. I will.
My fragile, thin, marked skin.
I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My gray eyes are wide and haunting. I will myself to cry because if I just get a good cry out, maybe I’ll be able to function again.
Nothing.
Not a drop. Not a speck. Not a glimmer of moisture.
How is this my life right now? How did I get to here? In the span of twenty-four hours, I went from feeling good and healthy and on the right track, to fucking and shoving anyone who gave two shits about me. I have truly pushed every single person in my path as far away as humanly possible. Including my mother and Alistair. I pushed and pushed until I hit rock bottom and then somehow, the rocks gave way beneath me.
As night falls on Sunday, I call Frank and tell him I’m ill and can’t work tomorrow. I tell him I don’t know when I’ll be in next. I tell him I can’t estimate if I’ll ever come back. He’s pressing and pushing for answers. I push back until finally I hang up on him. Cold and calculating. Moves and counter moves against myself. Every step I’ve taken forward in the last couple weeks, I’ve yanked myself back from now.
If alone was what I wanted, I have achieved it.
Three days pass. I survive on random bits of food and alcohol. When I run out of all of those, I don’t bother replenishing any of it. I just let my body eat away at my insides for nutrition. It can feed on the agony just as my mind has been.
I ignore several calls from my mother. She’s out of town at a medical conference or I’m sure she’d be pounding down my door by now. I venture to guess that Alistair called her the minute I left the White Swan a few nights ago. He thinks I don’t know he talks to her, but I do. I knew that the first night I met him, he called her from my phone. The night that I drank to oblivion and passed out in a booth. I don’t know what they said, but I discovered in my call log that they spoke for almost an hour.
Frank’s has called three times a day every day since I called him and told him I didn’t know when I’d be returning. He leaves voicemails but I don’t check them. They all want to know how I am. What I’m doing. I haven’t a clue.
I’ve heard nothing from Hayden or Liam. My artful pushing skills have proven efficient this time. I sliced them both to the quick and neither want to go round two with me.
I can’t blame them.
Loud hollering pulls me away from my internal warring. “Oxford! Oxford, where are you?”
I frown and rise from my mattress, making my way over to my kitchen window. I pull it open and step out on the balcony to find Frank down below.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouts as his eyes land on me. His tall, gangly frame is standing on the sidewalk in an all denim ensemble. Slim denim shorts, a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up and a white tank top underneath. His wild red hair is messily styled into a rooster like comb on top of his head.
“Frank?” I croak. My voice is harsh and cracky. I realize I haven’t spoken to anyone in three days. Suddenly, I realize I’m dressed in only a thin white tank and a black thong. Nervously, I cover my chest to hide my nipples.
“Let me the fuck up, Oxford.” Frank’s face is pinched and more serious than I’ve ever seen it.
“Frank, what are you doing here?”
“I’ve been calling for three days and buzzing your door for hours. You let me up right the fuck now or I’ll shout down this entire neighborhood until someone calls the cops. I’m not to be trifled with, woman.”
“I’m not up for visitors. How did you even find me?”
“You’re my bloody employee! Use that fucking Oxford brain of yours. I have paperwork on you. Now, buzz me in!”
He’s mad. Like raging mad. And since I’m standing outside nearly naked, I decide that arguing isn’t the best idea right now. I turn around to step back inside my apartment and over to my buzzer. I buzz him in, crack my door and then rummage through my clothes for some pants. I slide on a pair of gray sweats and before I have time to find a bra, Frank is standing in my living room staring at me in all his fiery red-headed glory.
“This is even worse than I imagined.” His jaw is dropped as he looks around my small flat.
I look around to assess what he’s seeing and for the first time I can see just how deeply I’ve slipped. My kitchen is littered with several weeks worth of dirty dishes. I ate little to nothing these last few days aside from alcohol. Empty wine and liquor bottles are scattered throughout the entire flat. My bed is dirty and covered in spilled wine, crumbs, and tissues. I shudder to think what the bathroom looks like.
“I told you I wasn’t up for company.” I cross my arms to cover my large breasts on full display in my thin tank.
“I could give a fuck what you’re up for. What the bloody hell is going on?” He rests his hands on his narrow hips, waiting for my answer.
“Nothing.”
“This doesn’t look like nothing. This looks like you’ve entered the seventh circle of hell.”
“Frank, you’re my boss. This is inappropriate.”
“I’m hardly a boss. I’m a fill in. Lariza is due back next week and then you’ll be shot of me anyway. Now, spill.”
I swallow nervously at his menacing gaze. “I don’t need to spill. I’m fine.”
“The fuck you are.” He strides over to me and tilts my chin up to look him in the face. “You need a shower. You need a reset. Do you have a stereo? A Bluetooth speaker? What do you use for music?”
I frown at his odd request and point to the portable speaker on my built in shelves. He dashes over and snatches it up, then comes to me and grabs me by the hand, pulling me behind him. We enter the bathroom and he flips the water on in the shower.
“Strip,” he says as steam billows out of the shower. He pulls his phone from his pocket and searches for something.
“I’m not stripping in front of you, Frank.”
He looks at me in shock. “Like I want to see your wobbly bit. Fuck. Don’t flatter yourself!” Without hesitating he strides over and yanks the shower curtain open and man handles me into the tub.
“Frank!” I scream as the water soaks my clothes.
He shuts the curtain and growls, “Now strip.”
Not knowing how else to fight him, I peel off my wet clothes and deposit them on the floor of the tub. Suddenly, music echoes off the walls. It’s a haunting, deep, s
oulful voice.
“Who is this?” I ask quietly as the music begins to invade every cell in my body.
“It’s by Daughter. The song is called Lifeforms.” His voice is close on the other side of the curtain. “I’m going to turn it up as bloody loud as it’ll go. Stick your face in the water and just listen. Don’t think. Just listen.”
“Why are you doing this, Frank?” I ask sadly. This is so weird, but I don’t even have the strength to fight off his peculiar demands.
“You need this…a reset. This works. Trust me.”
I sigh heavily and do as he asks. Water pours down my face as the music crescendos and swells, moving itself into my body. The dissonance and harmonies push and swirl deep into my chest. The slow building tempo of the song carries my pulse with it. It’s otherworldly and completely powerful. When a loud, crying synthetic guitar rift echoes off the shower walls, I explode with un-warning tears. Holding my face under the water, I try to stifle my sobs so Frank doesn’t hear, but it’s useless. The emotions are too painful. I cry out on a painful sob, coughing—the ache in my chest intensifying with each wail.
Frank doesn’t say anything. I don’t even know if he’s in the room anymore. I don’t care. I slump down onto the shower floor and let the music move my tears. Yank. Pull. Stretch. And bend. It’s cathartic. It’s invigorating. It’s healing.
The song only lasts five minutes, but what it’s given me in that breadth of time is immeasurable. I cut the water off and Frank’s hand appears through the curtain holding a towel.
“I’ll be in the living room,” he says and I hear his retreating steps leave the bathroom.
I dry myself off and wrap the towel tightly around my chest. I patter out to my living room and find Frank perched on the edge of my filthy bed. He half smiles, his brown eyes warm and welcoming.
“Hiya, Oxford.”
“Hi,” I say, feeling like I’m seeing him clearly for the first time. I sit down next to him and he watches me thoughtfully. Without saying anything, I lean my head on his shoulder. “Thanks,” my voice cracks with emotion and I turn to bury my eyes in his shoulder.
