TAT Box Set

by Emjay Soren

  “Turns out I was pregnant.”

  Ohfuckno!

  Yeah...fuck no!

  “After doing the math I knew it wasn’t Cory’s.”

  Oh God.

  She paused this time to look at me and I swear to God she could see the news of her bomb digging its claws into my heart.

  “Mine?” I barely could choke the word out and I wanted to tear something, anything in a million shreds. She didn’t have a kid, I knew that much. No way would the guys hide that from me, not even Mike no matter what he promised Cassa. Thoughts of abortions and adoptions started to rush through my mind when I finally noticed she had kept talking while I was freaking the fuck out inside.

  Her face was red and wet with tears and she wasn't looking at me. This story was only getting worse by the second and I had no fucking clue what right if any, I had to be as pissed off as I am right now.

  “I was scared that you would have thought I was trapping you. You hadn’t called me once or come back and it had been six weeks. By then I had faced the fact that you didn’t want me, but I refused to make any decisions before I knew all the facts. I had to go to the Doctor, but I wanted to tell you first and give you the option to come home. So, I went to your dad and asked him how to contact you. Don’t ask me how he knew but he did, and he told me to run and never tell you.”

  What.The.Fuck?

  “What?” I snarled. My hands were shaking, and I wished I had my longer hair back. I cut the fucking shit because I was constantly pulling it out. No fucking wonder I cut the shit. I couldn’t breathe. I cupped my hands over my face, my eyes burning with an intense need to cry.

  For the first time ever, I couldn’t look at Cassa.

  “He said you would resent me for it and he couldn’t bear to see me hurt. I was so scared and alone I did the only thing I could live with.”

  Oh God.

  “Please tell me you didn’t Cass. Tell me you didn’t have my baby alone...or worse.”

  Fuck, would my boys hide the fact I had a kid from me? Was I that selfish that they all thought my kid was better off? Words like abortion and adoption ran through my mind but I forced myself to breathe through the anger.

  “I told Cory the baby was his.”

  I saw red, literally saw red through my vision and refused to look at her. I tried to breathe but my eyes were burning, and my chest was tight. I couldn’t even think about what that meant for our baby, the thought made me ill.

  I couldn’t formulate a sentence, let alone a word. Grunts and groans were all I was reduced to; and thank God because it scares the shit out of me to think about what might come out of my mouth.

  My mother was a saint and she had taught me so little and yet so much before she passed. The one I remember now, while sitting in the center ring of my own personal hell, was her lecture on saying things you can’t take back.

  I had been fighting with my dad about the boat when I wanted to be at Downtown music with the guys instead. I had told her I hated him. She didn’t say anything to me, just disappeared down the hall, coming back with a tube of Colgate in her hand.

  “Hold out your hand.” She said, and I did. More so out of curiosity than anything. She squeezed a glob of toothpaste from the tube into the palm of my hand, and then handed the tube to me. “Now, to put all that toothpaste into the tube again.”

  I looked at her like she was crazy. “I can’t.” I said.

  “Exactly Shamus.”

  Tears dripped from my eyes at the memory and I thanked God for that woman every day and the years I got with her. I don't know why now of all the times to think of her I did, but I did, and I knew keeping my mouth shut was best.

  “What?” Cassa asked nervously, her fingers knotted together as she twisted and pulled them, just as nervous as me it seemed. Unlike me, she had four years to get used to this bullshit story that was still about to get worse.

  “Just go on.” I said through my pain, no longer giving a shit if she saw how bad this was killing me.

  “We went to Vegas that weekend and eloped. We spent the weekend in our hotel suite as I played the happy wife when he was around, but at night I would cry myself to sleep. I was nine weeks along when I lost the baby.”

  All that I heard was dead. My baby is dead. I buried my head and Sass paused in the story. I didn’t even look at her, my head hanging low I sniffed and cleared my throat. “Just continue.”

  She was silent for a second but cleared her throat as well before she continued. “I figured it had been the stress from my depression, but the Dr. told me it was common for someone my age to miscarry the first time. I had only been married for two weeks when I miscarried. Cory started changing then, he was sad at first saying he wanted to start trying the minute we got the ok. I fought him on it, saying that I wasn’t ready to be a mom and that maybe we should date. He called me stupid and I swear to God, my instinct was to file for an annulment. There was this tone in his voice that pinched at me that he was dangerous. I never brought it up again, but things just kept getting worse.”

  “Worse how?” I asked with a hollow pain that was evident in my tone. I just didn’t want to hear anymore. In less than an hour I had learned Cassa almost died. That in her heartache when I left her she married another man trying to forget me and that she was pregnant with my baby. My baby that died and I never knew a thing about that child and was now mourning the loss of something I would have loved.

  I was furious at Cassa, but this guilt outweighed it by a ton, so I just sat there hearing her tell me more about the nightmare she obviously lived in.

  “He started making small demands at first and they were weird. If I drank a beer he would get mad and tell me that white trash drank beer, and we were not trash. If I wanted to go out with the girls, he would pick a fight with me to ruin my night and if that didn’t work he started listing all the qualities about them that he hated. Qualities that didn’t exist outside of his own conclusion. Eventually he started keeping tabs on me. He wouldn’t let me work or visit your dad. He barely let me see Mikey. He found out I had been sneaking out to visit your dad and help him when he was too drunk. That was when he started hitting me.”

  Fuck!

  “I still went like a fool I would go when he called, and I tried to make sure Jerry never knew what I paid to see him. I was too addicted. Every time I would go there I would find a piece of you. I would catch the scent of you or see a new picture… It became my lifeline. I was obsessed with the mess I had made of my own life, so I swore to fix Jerry’s. Then he started to ask questions about my bruises and split lips. I evaded his questions and he finally stopped asking me. We were broken together and that’s why we were so close. You were gone and we both needed you to fix ourselves. But we had our pride and so we went everyday pretending nothing was wrong.”

  She looked at me and gasped when she saw the tears in my eyes. “If I had known?” I choked trying to gain my composure. Emotion had been a bitch for me my entire life, yet, it seemed now it was all bubbling to the surface. I didn’t like expressing emotion let alone showing it, it was just too far out of my comfort zone. Moments like these when my guard was down were few and far between, but I had never been able to hide from Cassa.

  She nodded in response but didn’t make a big deal about my emotional display and I appreciated and loved that she knew it was killing me to break apart in front of her.

  “One-night Cory and I were in separate rooms watching TV when the phone rang. He gave me permission to answer the phone but only because he was in the bathroom. Luck would have it that it was Dr. Baker telling me Jerry had been in a wreck. I didn’t think when I grabbed my purse and keys and ran. I was so scared he was going to die that getting to him was worth whatever repercussion I would face. Even now I don’t regret leaving that night. It was the end one way or the other.”

  Whatever she was about to tell me was key here. My Sassy began pacing the room again and she was keeping her distance from me. “Cory went looking through my things
trying to find out where I’d gone. I was always supposed to leave a note, and, in the rush, I forgot. That note would have changed everything, I was so stupid.” She started shaking her head like she was still battling the decision to leave without an explanation. It was hard as fuck watching her berate herself over something she couldn’t change.

  “He rummaged through my drawers when he came upon a letter I had written to you after you left. I was so stupid to have kept it, but it was all I had left to remind me of why I was in the situation I was in. I had read it to myself so many times the paper was creased and torn along the lines where it had been folded a dozen or more times.” Cassa stopped and walked down the hall to her bedroom and came back with a blood-stained sheet of paper.

  “I still keep it and read it sometimes. I don’t know why but it helps me when I get scared that I’ve ruined my life. You should read it; it’s about time. The rest you can put together.” Cassa handed me the letter. It was protected by plastic with an orange label on the top that read Evidence Exhibit E.

  She stepped outside and sat on her balcony and left me alone with the only answer she was giving me.

  *

  I looked around the apartment. She had bars on her windows though she was on the highest floor. Her doors had three deadbolts and chain locks. Her windows were covered in blinds and curtains and she had covered her fireplace with a book shelf. She was so afraid of someone getting in her house she went as far as to block out fucking Santa Clause. The thought repulsed me. She was scared to death and while she was made a beaten prisoner I was off touring the world making my dreams come true, whining about missing her. If I was a man with dignity and pride I would have come for her and confessed my undying love. I would have saved her. I couldn’t sit here looking at this apartment, knowing even a fraction of the hell she lived, knowing the people closest to me knew and hid it from me. This apartment is Candy’s too, and Cass’s fear has dug its claws in so far that Candy clearly lets her live in this state of constant fear. Allows it knowing full well I or Noah or any other mother fucking member of TAT would pay for the security.

  My own anger was getting the best of me and I needed the answers now. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I opened the letter. The first line put a lump in my throat.

  Her beautiful script was about to unleash hell on my heart.

  Shamus,

  I…fuck! I don’t know how to write Shame. Carrie is the writer, I take pictures and make my point through a lens. I don’t know what I assume this letter is going to do for me, other than taking the advice of Carrie and Noah and agreeing that I need to unload this shit from inside of me before I let it consume me.

  I’m pregnant Shame, and the kicker is, I’m carrying your baby, our baby. I don’t think I will ever come clean though, I can never tell you what we created just nights before you left me behind.

  No word

  No second thoughts

  Just drove away with TAT and let your dreams manifest into reality. A reality that didn’t involve me.

  I don’t think I can tell you about this baby and watch you try and be the bigger man and come back for me, for us. I have more pride than that Shame. I didn’t let your leaving me break me. I made sure to keep my sanity and move on. Anger is a fucking mistress to a broken heart, and anger is my mistress.

  I met Corey just over a month ago and though he isn’t you, he loves me just as hard and he wants this baby and me like he wants his next breath. Corey knows who you are, who you were to me before TAT made it big. He thinks this baby is his and the saddest part of that is I would rather him think it was nobodies than to ever think it was yours.

  He would probably leave me too.

  So, I will marry Corey tonight, he will hold our baby and think it is his and he will never feel trapped by me or this baby. He won’t leave me behind and turn his cheek when changes come.

  I however will look at our baby and see you, every day for the rest of my life and that will be my punishment.

  There will never be a day that I don’t love you Shamus. I will hold our baby, love our baby and maybe one day if the anger doesn’t consume me, then I will let you meet our baby.

  I don’t love Corey, not the way I love you, but I love myself and this baby enough that I will live this lie and suffer for it every day.

  Sassy

  At the last word, her signature of ‘Sassy’ I dropped the filthy paper. I needed my girl.

  Chapter Nine

  Cassa

  I sat on the patio chair and cried. I had finally said it all out loud to the one man I had loved for what seemed like forever. What I didn’t say, he had read in the letter that marked my fate. I wanted him to understand. I was so lost and alone I just wanted so badly to fill the void he left behind. I had no idea the mess I would have made of my life. I needed him to forgive me, though I wasn’t sure if the situation was reversed I could do the same. I saw through the blinds that he had set the letter down and any minute now I would hear the door slam.

  But then he stood before me staring with sadness in his eyes. I stood to meet his level when he dropped to his knees before me. I was stone still when he gripped my jeans in one fist, the other working the button of my jeans. I tried to pull away, fear creeping in as he tried to expose what Cory had left me with. “Please don’t look Shame.” I begged with a plea of torment.

  Shamus worked frantically like a man possessed to see what I was hiding. A strangled cry left my throat when he exposed the tender skin.

  *

  Shamus

  I felt the earth shift below my feet when I came face to face with her scars.

  “Oh baby…” I dropped a kiss to her hip as tears choked me. “I’m so fucking sorry baby.”

  They were jagged and messy as if Cory's sole purpose had been to make it impossible to put Cassa together again. They were deep red and swollen, raised from her skin like ropes of agony and searing pain. They would be impossible to miss if she hadn't enlisted a genius to try and hide them. Even with Noah’s gentle hand they were easily seen if you were looking. I was looking, killing myself and her because of the need to see and feel what another man dares do to my girl.

  Cassa fought to free herself from my touch. My head still rested upon her stomach while I traced my fingers along the jagged scars.

  She clawed at my arms, her tears rolling fiercely. "Please Shamus, let me go." She cried when I looked up to her face. I pulled her tighter and spread her jeans further open. Then as soft as a feather, I kissed her scars.

  Tenderly as I could with shaking hands, I gripped the back of her jeans, scared she would disappear. "Oh God Sassy...." I choked on the tears hidden behind my eyes and lay my head against her tender, hollow womb.

  "Sssh" Cassa said running her fingers through my hair. She had agonized over her scars. Mike and Roni had cried at her bedside, as well as Noah and Carrie and Candy. Jerry had gone crazy learning the truth of the night she almost died. Her story was old news to everyone they loved, but to me it was fresh and agonizing. Tears were falling between us, but I knew she was there with me, afraid to break the closeness. I stayed holding her, my Sassy, my baby in the freezing cold air and on my knees where I should have always been.

  *

  Cassa

  I hated the tremor that raced over my body from the cold. Shame was up and off his knees in an instant and I felt the cold once his body pulled away from mine. “You’re cold.” He wasn’t asking me as he warmed his hands up and down my arms.

  I followed Shamus when he took my hand in his. We walked inside, and he led us to the couch where he leaned back and pulled me against him, my back to his front. He cradled me close, his arms holding me tight. We sat there quietly for what felt like hours, and when I looked at the clock I realized it had been and was getting dark outside. The time with him was like heaven, so special and freeing. I always thought if this day came and Shamus learned the truth that he would hate me.

  He did the opposite though.

  He kisse
d my scars.

  “Let me up babe.” He whispered, and I leaned forward, watching as he walked to my bookcase and moved it away from the fireplace. Panic, the little thief, waltzed in and stole my comfort. "What are you doing Shamus?" I cried out in shock rushing over to stop him.

  "Putting an end to this nonsense Sassy. You can’t live in fear like this." He said before gently nudging me out of the way and finished moving the shelf. He bent down and laughed. On the tiled pit floor sat a bundle of wood. He picked it up and looked at me with a smile. "How old is this wood?"

  I laughed because it felt good knowing he would not handle me with kitten gloves. Right now, he was teasing me like he always did, and it was normal. I desperately craved normal. "We used to have fires when I first moved in. Then one night I had a nightmare that Cory had gotten in the house, by the fire place." I laughed nervously realizing how ridiculous I sounded. "It scared the hell out of me."

  He bent down and looked up the shoot and laughed again. "Cassa it’s about a foot wide up here, unless Corey is the size of a twelve-year-old girl and he could be I haven’t had the pleasure of breaking his face, he wouldn’t fit in here."

  "Stop Shame it was a scary dream."

  “But realistically you know it’s not possible right?” He laughed when I went to smack his chest, but he jumped back. I hadn’t laughed at myself in a long time and I wanted to bask in the feeling it gave me. Playfully I reached for the firewood debating if I should open the shoot and have a nice fire, when he grabbed me by the hips and spun us until we were face to face.

  I didn’t have time to gasp in surprise when he slanted his perfect lips over mine and kissed me. All the sorrow and fear washed away the moment our lips touched. I wanted it to last, wanted to live in that kiss but the reality of our lives now made it impossible. Shamus was taken and not mine any longer. Images of the rude blonde bimbo from last night popped in my head forcing me to back off.