by Raven Scott
Here I was, in a closet, in an apartment that wasn’t mine and could be barged in on at any second, crying over a man that had strung me along for five years. I was so, so stupid and I couldn’t stop thinking about all the mistakes I’d made. My first one would be agreeing to sleep with Darren the second time.
My lips quivered and my eyes stung as I struggled to breathe through my clogged nose. Scratching my scalp, I pushed my mom’s contact with a wobbling thumb, and the hairs on my arm stood up. Against my ribs, my heart went haywire. I tapped the ‘speaker’ button rather than summon the energy to lift the phone to my ear.
Anxiety curdled my blood and my eyes throbbed fiercely as I listened to the ring cry out shrilly. The sound filled the entire closet and weighed down on me. With each ring, the weight grew heavier, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my dry mouth.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but the automatic voicemail that trilled overly loud made me wince. Disappointment suffused every cell in my body, and I ended the call to lower my head between my knees. Tears dripped off my eyelashes and down my bare legs, as a sob clogged my throat. That black pit in my chest that’d been growing and deepening for years had finally turned into a swirling vortex of pity and self-hatred and bitterness.
A soft knock on the closet door made my brain rattle in my skull, and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled wildly. The pitch blackness around me turned light grey, but the hinges didn’t creak in forewarning.
Looming over me, Carlyle crouched down to prop his forearms on his knees. An almost sincere look of concern flashed on his shadowed features.
I turned my head to hide behind my knee.
He sighed in preparation. “Delilah, what are you doing in the closet?” His voice was so soft and gentle, so different than his usual hard, unyielding tone.
The sob in my throat dislodged violently. A snort dribbled down my lips and chin as huge, nasty, joking cries wrenched from my throat. My cheeks ached from the force of my frown and I shivered as a bitter, freezing cold gripped my bones. “Why doesn’t h- he care?” Sputtering wildly, my question strained my ears and wrapped around my heart to squeeze in a vice. Somewhere in my grieving mind, I knew how fucking pathetic I was asking that question. There wasn’t an answer; Darren just wasn’t as invested as I was, but at least he had the option. Misery puffed out my lips, and I sniffed viciously.
Carlyle sat on his ass on the carpet. “I can’t answer that, but I’m not the one you should be asking, Delilah. Darren’s landing soon. Do you want to come or just sit in the dark in the closet?”
Shaking my head as my lungs screamed for air, I blubbered a ‘no’.
He went silent for a long moment below then he spoke, “...You know, when I was a teenager, my sister used to sit in the closet when she was having a tough time. It’s an instinct thing, I suppose to be somewhere dark, small and peaceful when you’re hurting.”
“No one cares about your pathetic, dead fucking sister,” the angry snap just flew from my trembling lips. I glared hotly as tears bore ruts into my face.
Two feet away, Carlyle stiffened, his expression tightening while the turmoil in his eyes brightened.
I just went on, “Shut the fuck up about her she’s dead…dead and rotted. What does she have to do with me, huh? Oh, she was lonely too, but don’t kill yourself like she did, so I can avoid the guilt of being the reason you did it. Fuck you. If you didn’t step all over me, Darren would’ve stayed a friend with benefits. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be this way. And before you say I agreed, you better remind yourself of all your fucking intimidating and promising money and that my life wouldn’t change, and that I-I...Boo fucking hoo your sister killed herself, but don’t you fucking try that shit with me.”
I don’t think I’d sworn so much in my entire life as I had these past few weeks.
Carlyle just sat there with genuine shock lifting his brows.
Maybe, this was the only actual emotion I’d ever see from him, and I wiped my eyes with my hands to rub my cheeks raw. Panting shortly, my lips stuck together when I swallowed, and my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth.
“...You’re right. I apologize, Delilah.”
My lips twisted ugly at this, and
Carlyle’s lips quirked in a little, rueful smirk that didn’t reach his eyes before they downturned. “Maybe, that’s why I feel so upset seeing you like this because I took something that wasn’t anything and made it something to benefit me. If I hadn’t intervened, you wouldn’t be feeling so terrible, and I’d probably still have Darren. In hindsight, it was wrong of me to involve you when all you did was sleep together a few times, months and months apart.”
The silence was deafening, and a thin thread of surprise weaved between my vertebra at the fact that Carlyle admitted he was wrong, and that he was sorry. His clipped tone buzzed up the walls of the closet, and I scoffed with a disgusted shake of my head. My momentary distraction with his sister slowly seeped from my brain throbbing behind my eyes and I rested my forehead against my knees.
“Do you want me to get you a plane ticket back to Oregon?”
All my emotions fell into that black vortex in me, swallowing up every tear that didn’t escape my eyelids. “Why? You ruined my relationship with my family, too. I haven’t seen them in half a decade because you fucking decided that the only job I could do was being a ‘model’ ”
My bitterness cut into him, and Carlyle pursed his lips thinly as his eyebrow twitched from the lash.
“Almost anything else, my parents would’ve supported, but no … I had to move to L.A. to be a whore addicted to coke, my favorite pastime being throwing up in public toilet stalls when I so much as smell a donut. I don’t have friends. I don’t have anyone or anything of my own.”
For a heavy moment, Carlyle just sat there and stared at me, the denseness in the air worsening until he couldn’t take it anymore and stood up. He didn’t shut the closet door either.
My lip curled in a snarl as he practically ran away from the responsibility of his actions.
This was entirely Carlyle’s fault. He’d implied threats, lied to me basically used any tactic he could to get me, because of my weakest thread to Darren. Before Carlyle, I thought Darren was hot and good in bed, but I was determined not to get hung up on him. Darren was a legal alien in America, and he worked overseas. Can’t have a relationship with him if he’s never around, right?
But, somehow, Carlyle took those few hookups and made them into something they weren’t, and I believed him. I clung to the promise of the future far too hard, and it came back and bit me with sharpened, long teeth right through my palms. After so long, being worn down, being told a little while longer...
I was running down a hallway that never seemed to get shorter.
Blowing out a hot, shallow breath, I closed my throbbing eyes to slump against the wall. Against my leg, my phone began to buzz, but this time...I didn’t even bother looking at it. Grabbing the device to turn it off completely, I threw it out of the closet, and it bounced along the carpet with muffled, soft thuds.
6
Darren
“Delilah? Babe?” My heart thundered hard against my ribs, my palm sweated when I curled it to knock on Delilah’s bedroom door. Straining my ears, there wasn’t a single peep from the other side and dread gnawed at my gut. Leaning on the door frame, I closed my eyes and gulped down the disgusting taste that coated my tongue. “Delilah...open the door please...”
Grinding my teeth as the silence stretched, I reached for the doorknob before hesitating. Irritation at myself creased my brows and the sourness on my tongue intensified. Now I hesitated, when things were breaking down rather than when I had a chance to stop it happening in the first place. When I should’ve been tentative to leave, I was tentative coming back.
Holding my breath, my heart stuttered when I grabbed the doorknob, and I pushed open the barrier to be met with gloomy darkness. My gaze went to the bed, but Delilah wasn’t curled up under
the pristine, cream-colored sheets. Glancing around through wide eyes, I pursed my lips at the front of the open closet door. I could almost see black tendrils of misery slithering out from behind the flimsy wood and guilt clawed at the roof of my mouth.
“Oh.” Sucking in a sharp breath through my nose, I tensed as I caught sight of Delilah, curled up on the carpeted floor.
Red-faced and puffy-eyed, her breaths were more like soft hiccups.
I pushed my knuckles against my teeth. The sight of her was a punch to the gut, and sickness roiled my stomach dangerously at the knowledge that I did this to her.
Seeing her for the first time in months, Delilah’s curves looked the same, but her cheeks were raw and sunken. Everything always showed on her face, which was why she always hid herself when she argued with me the morning after. Because she didn’t want me to know how horribly hurt she really was, so she wasn’t so disappointed when I left her.
“Jesus...” Wrapping my hands around my neck as horror wormed through my veins, and my knees wobbled dangerously. Goosebumps blanketed my forearms as my gaze framed her, laying there, exhausted from her own emotions. Kneeling down before I fell down, I crawled deeper into the closet to slump against the door frame.
My ribs threatened to crush my heart as it struggled to beat and I clutched my chest as I sat back on my ankles.
Delilah hiccupped lightly, her hand reaching to cover her face as if she knew I was there.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and her goosebumps cast shadows on her skin. “Delilah...I’m so stupid.” All this time, I managed to fool myself. I told myself that Delilah was fine, as fine as I was when we were apart. That she had something to occupy her in the same way I had a job.
But the truth was that she was just lost and listless, and it was entirely my fault. Delilah was stuck in this place, unable to leave, unable to have anything of her own. No friends, but all the creature comforts. Even her fucking coffee maker wasn’t stocked with something she chose. Everything about her life was so out of her control and I’d never taken her seriously.
Ducking my head, I covered my mouth as my stomach roiled dangerously. Tearing my eyes from her face, my trembling thighs burned as I stood up to stumble out of the bedroom. This apartment wasn’t hers… nothing inside it was hers. Even her clothes weren’t really hers. For years, she’d had to stave off only that she was being used, but also being stripped of her sense of self and her identity.
When did Delilah become an extension of me? When did she look at herself and no longer see anyone but ‘Darren’s girlfriend’? When did her purpose in life become being dangled in front of me, trying to get me to this point?
So many questions raced through my head and beat against the backs of my eyes. I leaned on the wall to push my palms into my sockets. Grinding my teeth hard, the overwhelming guilt and regret that clogged my throat crawled up to glue my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
What if I can’t fix this? Dread gnawed deep into my gut. What if Delilah, rightfully so, just decided that I wasn’t worth it anymore? What if I’d put her through so much that she turned and walked away? I wheezed a breath and squeezed my eyes shut as I tried to get some semblance of control over myself. The blood drumming in my ears slowly retreated, and it became easier to breathe after a few seconds.
“Okay… ” Huffing softly, I rubbed my face roughly with clammy palms before forcing my eyes open. For years, I’d chased after Delilah, but all we ever did was have sex. We’d tumble around for an hour or a night, and then I’d leave again. Maybe, I mistook enjoying her body for enjoying her as a person, and if that was the case...
I had to find out. If these past five years were all just fantasies on top of lies on top of misplaced expectations, I had to discover for myself what lay beneath.
“What are you doing?”
Her crackling, feminine voice jabbed my ears like knives and my head whipped up to find Delilah standing in the doorway to her bedroom.
Her beautiful, green eyes shimmered with emotions, terrible ones while tears, and her red-rimmed lids intensified that glow. Surprise blew her pupils when she really saw me as she hugged herself. “What do you want?”
The hairs on my face and the back of my neck bristled. “I...I was… ” Clearing my throat roughly, I straightened.
Delilah’s whole face twisted in an intense, sad frown at the sound of my voice.
“I was going to ask you...out...on a date?”
“...A date...?” Sluggish and thick with disbelief, Delilah tightened her arms around herself. She looked so thin and frail, now, flattening her bust with her forearms and wearing a too-long shirt that lapped at her knees. “Why?”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t force any sound out. Panic slammed into my diaphragm, knocking the air from my lungs, and I frowned under tightly knit brows. “Yeah, a date. That’s...I want to get to know you better, so...” Misery lilted my voice at how fucking stupid it sounded, and I gulped hard. “I don’t have any excuses, okay, and you’re totally justified for hating me, but...I thought we weren’t together before...not really. So, I’d like to take you out on a date. A casual date. No going home together. As few...expectations...as possible.”
For a long, tense moment, Delilah was silent, staring, the dazed look in her eyes intensifying until she finally pursed her lips thinly. “Okay.”
Surprise slackened my jaw, and I inhaled sharply through my nose.
Delilah stepped back through the threshold and shut the door, but I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Curling my fists by my sides, I shook my hands in triumph, punching the air as a childish glee almost overwhelmed me.
The doorknob turned, glinting out of the corner of my eye, and I bit my inner cheek as I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my dress pants.
Delilah peeked out through the crack, her green eye bright as it trained on me.
Holding my breath, expectation gripped my heart in a vice, and even my ears warmed.
“When?” she asked in a whisper.
“Tomorrow? At 6?” My voice wavered a bit.
She bopped her head in a nod with no change on her raw face.
Awkwardness wrapped around my ribs, and my lungs screamed for fresh air.
She spoke up again, “I don’t hate you. I just...hate...everything. I feel stupid. I know it’s not your fault, but...it still is your fault.” And with those parting words, she shut the door again, this time followed by a damning click of the lock.
Delilah’s words rang in my ears, sobering the ecstatic buzz behind my eyes, as I clenched and released my jaw. Turning on my heel to walk through her apartment, I ran my hands up my face and heaved a massive breath.
It was a start, as great a start as I could’ve imagined.
“How did it go?” Shutting the door quietly, I turned to Carlyle leaning against the wall opposite me to nod firmly.
A ghost of a smile tilted his lips and he gestured me to follow him before opening his mouth, “Things have gotten interesting now. You know I met with Aleksander’s brother and the disaster that resulted, Darren?”
Like a popped balloon, my chest deflated when Carlyle Santino jumped right into a work discussion. I rubbed my mouth and jaw absently. Of course, everyone knew about that insanity, including a few of my clients that had asked me why I’d worked for Aleksander if he was capable of such stupidity. “Can this not wait until morning?”
Carlyle Santino twisted slightly to catch me out of the corner of his eye, and I was stunned by the absolute power in just that small, bare gesture. It was as if I was a bug, humbled by the fact that he chose to pick me up and put me in his ant farm, and he wasn’t going to be make anything personal. Pursing my lips thinly, I flexed my hands by my sides as he continued down the hall. He’s really on a different level. Carlyle doesn’t let anything or anyone persuade him...except his wife, supposedly.
“I’ve decided to let loose have a little fun, as they say. It’s honestly a good opportunity for you, Darren. You have citizenship th
rough your father, so I was more than comfortable allowing you to stay in the States. However...” Turning to me to trail off ominously, Carlyle’s sharp, brown eyes narrowed into slits. A dark, devilish glee flared in his gaze and tinged his face. “Since I let you in, I have no choice but to allow Aleksander some freedoms concerning his half-baked, foolhardy plan to become Prime Minister of Russia. I’m excited to see what that idiot will do.”
The hairs on my face and the back of my neck bristled as apprehension curdled my blood. Carlyle wasn’t nearly as easy to predict or read as Aleksander… the fool. “You’re going to let him operate in your territory after what he did?” Well, it was more what Aleksander didn’t do, but...Aleksander was rude to everyone, refused to budge on any of his demands and repeatedly ignored the advice of his entourage. I had gotten the whole story from Ophelia, who was disgusted by Aleksander’s treatment. In her rage, she’d even flirted with the idea of following my lead and abandoning ship.
“To be honest, I don’t care about what he does. I don’t like Aleksander, and I never intended for that meeting to have any bearing on my decision. I needed a natural way to get you on my side, because your girlfriend just wasn’t cutting it.” Carlyle’s casual tone blunted the harshness of his words.
my lip twitched in a snarl.
He ignored me, gesturing with a wave of his hand to the door directly to his right only a wall away from Delilah’s apartment. “Not to mention, I’m sure that by now, Aleksander isn’t expecting me to allow him to operate in the States. His brother’s little rumor about running away from Aleksander’s bad decisions wasn’t quite believable enough. I understand that man’s brand of loyalty, and even his family has a point where they’ll preserve themselves. It makes me think that Aleksander’s dog and pony show isn’t as convoluted as he wants it to seem.”
“I’m indebted to you, Carlyle, but I’m not going to sacrifice my relationship with Delilah. Anything you plan for me would be in consideration to her, preferably.” I struggled to make my request less bratty and demanding, “No one is more important than her.”