by L. D. Davis
Suddenly, I’m exhausted. I can barely lift my arms. She lays beneath me a bloody, bruised, whimpering mess, and I love it. I love it because of her face. I touch it with outstretched fingertips, tracing over her downturned mouth and feeling the blood and tears on her swollen cheeks.
“Your face,” I say with a sleepy joy. “Your face.”
Then she and the screaming child are gone, and I find myself kneeling next to my father’s body, sobbing. I’m hitting him, too, but not because I hate his face, but because I want him to wake up. To just wake up.
Daddy, please wake up. I’m sorry. Please wake up. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…
Then I am in someone’s arms, my ear pressed against a chest. I can’t hear his heartbeat over the sounds of my own sobs, but I can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, and I can smell him. That smell. That clean, soft, and masculine smell.
“It will be okay,” Grant Alexander murmurs in my ear.
“Yes, it will be okay,” Sharice’s voice says from somewhere behind me.
But they both lied, because nothing was ever okay ever again.
Truth or Fiction: I hated my mother’s passiveness.
Truth. Only my dreams showed me how much I actually hated it.
Truth or Fiction: I had a violent psychopathic fugue and attacked my mother.
Truth. I was sixteen when it happened.
Truth or Fiction: I enjoyed beating my mother.
Fiction. I can’t tell you that I did enjoy beating my mother. I don’t remember it much because I was high.
Truth or Fiction: Taylor witnessed me beating my mother.
Fiction, mostly. Taylor had not been born when I had that VPF, but she had witnessed me pushing my mother around when she was very young.
Truth or Fiction: My father died in front of me.
Truth. My father did die. I was the one who sent him to an early grave.
As the sun began to lighten the sky beyond my bedroom windows, I sat up in bed and tried to shake off the adrenaline, fear, and devastation I felt. My brain began the quick work of sorting through what was fact and what was fiction and what was unknown. I busied myself with my daily morning routines when all I wanted to really do was to pick up that damn phone and make the call, or, at least, sit down and fold paper until I created another stupid flower or another stupid star.
I made myself keep moving because I was in control. I was in complete control as long as I stayed on schedule. As long as I followed my routines, I was in control.
Truth or Fiction: My control was true. My control was real.
Fiction: My control was an illusion.
Chapter Six
My nightmare clung to me like a sticky residue. I couldn’t shake it.
I’d been having the reoccurring dream for years. Elements of it changed all the time, but Grant and Sharice had never had a place in it before. Another truth about my dream was that I’d spent the days and weeks after my father’s death in a psychiatric ward without visitors or contact with the outside world. Grant wasn’t my boyfriend at that time—he hadn’t even moved back to the state at that point—but Sharice had been there for me when I’d come out of the hospital.
Sharice…
I thought that I had forgotten the sound of her voice and the musicality of her laughter, but it had been buried in my mind like so many other things, but somehow, the dream uncovered that precious memory. Hours after dreaming of her, I could hear her in my head clearly.
I wondered if Grant remembered how his sister had sounded, or if like me, he mostly just remembered how she looked when she was dead.
I was only a little surprised to find him standing in front of the coffee shop again. Perhaps it was time for me to find a new route to work.
“Good morning, Mayson,” he said as I approached. He offered me a cup and a bag as he’d done the morning before.
I didn’t take them.
“What do you want, Grant?” I asked with mild exasperation.
“I told you yesterday. I want to talk.”
“We have nothing to—”
“We have everything to talk about, Mayson.”
“I don’t want to speak to you.” My works escaped through gritted teeth.
He looked at me for a long time, his dark eyes searching mine. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but I had the eerie feeling that he was able to see the parts of me that I kept hidden, not just from everyone else, but even from myself.
I broke eye contact first, because even if it was just my imagination, I didn’t like the idea of him seeing those hidden parts of me.
“If you didn’t want to talk to me, you would have kept on walking,” he said, closing the gap between us. “You wouldn’t have stopped and asked me what I wanted. You want to talk to me, but you’re too stubborn to admit it.”
“Fuck you,” I spat. I turned to leave, but he smoothly stepped in front of me.
I let out a frustrated growl and took a step back from him.
“If you’re waiting for me to thank you for saving my life, you will be waiting a very long time.”
At first, he seemed taken aback by my comment, but that passed. His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened.
“I didn’t ask for your thanks.” His voice sounded soft and rough at the same time. “Not only have I not asked you for a damn thing, Mayson, but here I am trying to give you something.”
“You asked to talk to me. You asked to have a few minutes with me.”
He shook his head from side to side three times, slow and purposeful. “I didn’t ask you, Baby Girl. I told you.”
I missed a breath at the sound of the familiar endearment, but I didn’t swoon. It only fueled the fire of fury that burned in my chest.
“You don’t get to tell me anything, Grant Alexander, and don’t call me that!” I leaned forward, pointing a finger at his chest as I let my words fly. “Why the hell do you want to talk to me? You want to remind me of the horrible things I’ve done and make me feel shame and less than human? Because I don’t need you to remind me, Grant. There are enough people in my life to remind me. Hell, I remind me every time I look in the mirror. I don’t need you to—”
My harsh words fell away with a brief, surprised sound when Grant’s hand shot out and gripped my upper arm. Roughly, he pulled me so close that our bodies were almost touching.
I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and stared up at him in alarm. My heart thrashed in my chest as fear washed over me. I wasn’t afraid of Grant, but it was my body’s automatic response to the unexpected closeness of a male. Fuzzy images of hands holding me and hands touching me zipped through my head.
My anxiety must have been written all over my face because Grant’s expression changed to mild alarm and confusion. He released my arm but didn’t give me the space I needed.
“Listen to me,” he demanded, his voice dark. “Don’t project your fear, self-disgust, and inability to forgive yourself onto me. Maybe it’s been a long time, but if you ever truly knew me, you’d know I would never beat you down for your past sins.”
My breaths were quick with anxiety and my heart continued to race, even though I felt more bewildered than scared.
“But…but you blame me for—”
“I don’t blame you for anything,” Grant said harshly. “You feel the weight of responsibility I have never assigned to you. I am not here to blame you, shame you, or to make you feel any worse than you already do. I am here because I have thought about what it would be like to see you again a million times over the years. I am here, Mayson, because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I first saw you in the coffee shop.” His voice and his eyes softened. “I want to know the new you. I want to know the woman you’ve become.”
I looked away again, which made me so angry. I never looked away, never backed down. People didn’t get to make me feel uncomfortable.
I looked down at our feet. With my voice quiet and bitter, I said, “Maybe I’m still the same broken,
useless, and worthless person you left behind all those years ago.”
A light touch to my chin made my head tilt up. I wanted to bat his hand away and yell at him for touching me without my permission, but instead, I just stared stupidly into his brown eyes as he spoke quietly.
“You were never worthless to me.”
For a long moment, we simply looked at each other. I think I forgot to breathe, because when he finally released me and took a step back, I let out a long, explosive breath.
Again, Grant held out the coffee and slightly crumpled bag. Dumbly, I took the items from him.
“Look,” he said, more gently. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning. If you keep on walking without a word or glance in my direction…” He paused and gave me a look of doubt. “I’ll leave you alone.”
Forcing myself to sound stronger than I actually felt, I asked, “Do you mean that? Do you promise?”
“I promise, but…”
“But what?” I demanded.
“But you won’t keep walking,” he said with such confidence, that I almost blew a gasket.
“Fuck. You.”
“I can fuck you,” he whispered. “All you have to do is ask.”
Then the bastard walked away, leaving me speechless and trembling.
After I somewhat recovered, I decided right then and there that I wouldn’t give him any more of my time. I promised myself that the next morning, I’d walk past him and dismiss him from my life once and for all.
“And then he said ‘all you have to do is ask.’ And walked away!”
Kyle’s eyebrow shot up. “Are you going to ask him?”
“Shut up, Kyle!”
I hadn’t planned on telling him anything more about Grant, but it had been agitating me all day. I wasn’t the kind of girl to call up my girlfriends when I had guy issues—mainly because I rarely had guy issues since I rarely dated anyone. Also, Kyle wasn’t afraid to be honest and straightforward with me. Almost everyone else feared that they’d hurt my feelings, like hearing some honesty might to force me into some dark alley and overdose on drugs.
I looked over at Kyle when I realized he had indeed shut up and had been quiet for a couple minutes. He was absently drumming his fingers on his desk as his discerning eyes watched me pace his office.
“Does he know?”
“Know what?” I asked, even though I already knew what he’d meant.
“About the incident that sent you into recovery.”
I shook my head. I had to work hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice when I answered.
“No. He was long gone by then.”
“What happened between the two of you?”
I snorted. “You and I don’t discuss romance, Sterling. You know I hate to think of you putting your tongue in my friends’ mouths, and you’re not thrilled thinking about some dude doing the same to me.”
I became friends with Kyle’s wife, Lily, after Emmy uprooted from the east coast, leaving Lily in charge of a bar she’d owned. I’d gone in there often to check up on things for Emmy and to have a drink. When the bar burned down about five years ago, I had helped Lily get a job at Sterling Corp. I gave her the very position that Kyle had booted me out of years before, the same position Emmy had occupied before she blew out of town. It had been rather amusing to see his face after he’d realized I had given him Emmy’s former bartender to take the job.
Lily, however, had been no slouch. She may have been just managing Emmy’s little hole in a wall bar before going to Sterling Corp, but she had an MBA behind her—which had been more than what Emmy had. Lily was almost as good as Emmy, maybe even better in some regards because she didn’t take any of Kyle’s shit. After a short time, even Kyle was impressed. He was so impressed, in fact, that he put his dick in her and started another employer-on-employee love affair.
It didn’t end violently for them, though. Five years later, they were happily married with two small children. Even Kyle freakin’ Sterling had a happily-ever-after.
“We don’t discuss romance,” Kyle agreed. “But I’ve never seen you this affected by anyone. You’re very agitated. What did he do to you to make you react this way to seeing him again?”
I didn’t stop pacing, but I did slow down. We didn’t discuss matters of the heart, but Kyle was correct. There was no one else that could affect me the same as Grant. From Kyle’s point of view, I probably looked like I was ready to call up my dealer at any moment to relieve the anxiety and restlessness I was feeling. That wasn’t too far from the truth.
I stopped pacing in front of a wall of glass and gazed out at the city as I thought about exactly what Grant had done to make me react so harshly.
Grant came to see me after Sharice’s funeral, still dressed in his black suit. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery, and he looked so damn tired and weary. He was twenty-six years old, but stress, heartache, and grief made him look three times his age. I knew I had to fix myself for him. I knew I was part of the reason why he looked so ragged and anguished. It made me feel so fucking guilty.
I was glad that he came to see me before I got moved to the psychiatric ward. We weren’t allowed visitors there during the evaluation period. I would have been able to talk to him on the phone, but I needed to see him face to face. I needed that physical contact to reassure and comfort me, just as I knew that he needed it for his own comfort.
He came in as he always did and kissed me tenderly on the mouth. Cupping my cheek in one hand, he asked, “How are you feeling, Baby Girl?”
“I’m not the one who just buried a sister.” I traced his jaw with my fingers.
Tears slid slowly down my cheeks. I was crying for Grant’s sorrow, and I was crying for my own. Shari had been my best friend.
He gently grasped my wandering fingers and pressed them to his lips, closing his eyes. We stayed like that for several moments. His own tears dripped on my hand, trickled down my wrist, and dropped onto my lap.
When he finally opened his eyes, he held my hand tightly and leaned down to kiss me. It started out soft and tender like the first kiss, but quickly developed into one of desperation. He held the back of my head with his free hand and kissed me as if trying to save a life, but I didn’t know if it was his or mine.
He pulled away suddenly, leaving us both breathless and slightly dazed. I watched him warily as he stood just out of my reach. He closed his eyes again and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. I knew I had to tell him something to ease his pain. There was no substitute for Shari, but we could find a patch of green grass amongst all the dead, brown landscape around us. We could find a piece of happiness together, and it had to start with me. I knew that.
I opened my mouth to tell him, but he spoke first, in a murmur so soft, I didn’t understand what he said.
I reached for him. “I didn’t hear you.”
He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t move his fingers. He didn’t come to me, even though I knew he could sense me reaching for him. He did, however, repeat himself.
“I’m leaving.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I understand, but you know the routine. I won’t be out of here for a few days at least. When I come out—”
He looked at me then and dropped his hand to his side in a fist.
“Mayson, I’m leaving. I’m moving back to Texas. By the time you’re released, I won’t be here.”
Astonished, I could only stare at him with my mouth open and my eyes wide. When he began to cry, I jerked into action and tried to go to him. He put his hands up to ward me off, though, like he was afraid of me. Maybe he was.
“I love you,” he said with such force that it almost knocked me over. “I love you, but I refuse to watch another person I love to get put into the ground. I can’t stay here anymore and watch you kill yourself. I will not hold your dead body. You are going to die, Mayson, and I don’t want to be here when it happens.”
He turned away from me, and I knew I would never see him again if he walked o
ut the door. As panic swelled in me, I scrambled to my knees, sobbing as I again reached for him.
“Grant,” I cried and began to frantically implore to him. “Please. I’ll get better. Please, please, please. I’ll go into rehab and do it for real this time. I promise. Just please don’t go. I need you. I need you.”
He stared at me for a few seconds with tears still streaming down his face. Then he came to me. He pulled me into his arms, held me tight, and kissed me fiercely. My heart just began to hope when he stopped kissing me and rested his forehead against mine. We stayed that way for a little bit, just breathing each other in and holding each other up.
Then he whispered the last words I would hear from him until thirteen years later on the streets of Philadelphia.
“I need you, but you don’t need me. I’ll never be the kind of high that you need.”
He released me, looked at me sadly, and left me on my own.
I kept the extended version of that memory to myself and gave Kyle the bare bones. There was no way I’d say the words “he left me” out loud and look like a vulnerable damsel in distress.
I deeply felt the contempt in my words. “He’s a disloyal, lying, cowardice, sack of feculence. That’s all you need to know.”
“You don’t have to say feculence to demonstrate your inferior vocabulary,” Kyle said blandly. He turned his attention back to the work on his desk once he realized that I wasn’t going to go any deeper and talk about my feelings and whatnot.
I chose not to use any words for my next vulgar statement and raised both middle fingers in his direction.
“Do you not have your own job to do somewhere else?”
“I thought you liked having attractive women locked in your office.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “I do. You should leave so I can let one in.”
I grinned. “You like my tits and ass. I think I qualify.”
Instead of doing as he suggested, I sprawled out on the leather couch in his office as best I could in a skirt. There was only about an hour left of the workday, but I had eaten lunch at my desk as I worked and had taken no other breaks besides quick trips to the bathroom. I think I earned a little down time on the company’s dime.
