by Nivia Borell
I set my elbow on the table, prop my chin in my palm, flutter my eyelashes, and flash him a challenging smirk. “Oh, I like a good catfight, so what do you have to throw at me? Because you’ll never get to witness me crumble in pain at your feet begging you to stop because I can’t take it anymore.”
He tsk-tsks and adds, “The night is still young.”
I pluck at the cuff of my shirt and give a bitter laugh. “There’s nothing you could say that’s worse than what I’ve already heard, seen, and witnessed tonight.”
He leans his head in my direction, his eyes burning with determination.
“I still have a few aces up my sleeve. Let’s begin, shall we? And I assure you, in not more than half an hour, your world will shatter all over again because there’s nothing worse than the guilt of knowing you could have saved her, but now it’s too late.”
Sweat beads at my forehead at his acid words, the firm tapping of his finger on his silver Roger Dubuis watch as he shakes his head, and his lips press in a firm line. This guy speaks in more riddles than the Oracle of Delphi.
“Are you ready, Damien, to hear a story about the illness, devastation, destruction, and self-punishment of a girl who stopped living seven years ago? Are you ready to hear how the life of the girl you shattered seven years ago went on?”
Damn, no! I don’t want to know, but this sick part of me thirsts to hear all about it. The questioning has kept me awake night after night. I gesture with my hand for him to continue, even though my chest tightens with fear. He grins, and it is apparent he enjoys toying with me.
“I don’t know if you have any information of my background, but I think it is worth mentioning because everything led to the day I first met Bria du Mont.”
Alexander’s face twists with sadness, and he croaks, “My mother died of a heart attack when I was twelve. Now, I realize she suffered from the same condition as Bria and also because of a man. In this case, it was because of my father. Quinn Hope never found much time for his wife or only child. With an invisible patch on his eyes, he didn’t detect my mother was fading away right under his nose. I spent the years after her death in the best boarding schools on this earth, so I could one day lead a company that caused the death of my mother.”
He raises his glass before gulping it down in one shot.
“My father and I never had a good relationship. I blamed him for my mother’s death, and he couldn’t look at me without guilt carved in his eyes. It was easiest for us both to be as far away from each other as possible, only seeing each other a few times a year. As time went on, we drifted further and further apart, strangers sharing nothing but the family name. I had a responsibility to continue the legacy my father built and would inherit one day. While I was avoiding him, I didn’t know how ill my father was, and he never confessed his state.
“But one morning he called and demanded to see me. My mouth hung open. His request twisted me. I usually came up with pretexts for only attending the annual family celebrations such as the big holidays and our birthdays, and with every passing year, he accepted with a smaller groan. Maybe it’s hard to keep a connection without a woman present to play the conciliator. Not only were our visits seldom, but also our phone calls. So, when he summoned me one day, I knew something was wrong. The next day, I flew to London. As I trudged through the corridors of Royal Hospital, I heard my father laugh and halted. I plopped on the chair next to his room and patted my leg. With every exhale, the image of my father twisted into one of a man I never knew at all. I shook my resolve and vaulted through the door. Numbness soaked me in as I had to see him beaming at someone else. With time, I accepted I had to unshackle myself from my past. And so, the little boy in me who pined for his father’s love and attention crawled into a corner.”
His voice stammers, and his face sets in a blank expression with him confessing the last part. His lips turn into a bitter smile in the corner of his face.
Isn’t it true how we ‘boys’ always want the attention and love of our daddies and still we say women have daddy issues. A bunch of hypocrites, all of us.
“I pulled the door expecting a man who was living his last days on earth and froze. Before my eyes stood the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. For a few moments, I thought my mind played tricks on me, as I blinked. I still relive every detail. How her slender frame was clothed in a casual green body-fitted tracksuit, and her long, golden-brown hair was pressed into a wayward pigtail. I have never seen something so simple look so enthralling on anyone else. The sun rays peered through the large window making her hair sparkle with golden tones, and her delicate cheekbones drank in the warm, radiant beams setting off her light, peachy skin. Her lips transfixed me. They were carnal, full, and rose with light lipstick, but otherwise, she wore no makeup at all. Her oval-shaped face was a portrait of unmatched beauty, but her lips sped up the blood in my body. I never believed in perfection until I saw Bria’s full and kissable lips, and I knew I had to have her. For me, she was a fantasy and so near I could grasp it. It took one glance to seal my future.”
He takes a sip of his drink, and I clench my fingers on my glass as I try to rein in the fury brewing inside of me at his blatant admission about his desire for Bria. Claiming to a pure will, I release the glass and jostle myself to catch the rest of his soppy story because his is entwined with Bria’s.
“Had I been clever enough to look first into her aloof, hazel eyes, maybe some self-preservation mechanism would have kicked in and spared me the frustration and pain of the next years because everything was enticing and warm about her, and yet, when she raised her eyes, they told of something different. They betrayed her beauty by revealing something hollow inside. It shook me to my core, so altering was it to stare into the abyss of her obscure gaze and glimpse a prison of pain behind long and curly lashes. I thought it was because she was ill enough to be in the hospital, but I soon discovered it was love that had broken her heart to such an extent. Those empty eyes that looked at me then were the same ones staring at me for seven long and torturous years of wanting something so unattainable even the pain it caused me made me feel alive and living on the verge of insanity. Nothing changed it, and now I know nothing ever will. Whatever Bria ignited in me was irreversible. I basked in the challenge she represented. She stirred in me a primal reaction of hunter and protector, shelter and comforter.
“Unwillingly and unconsciously, this woman has played havoc with my mind and heart for years, and this is why she will always have more power over me than she will ever realize. She radiated strength and calm, but when I looked closer, I found it artificially built like it was a role she had to master being with and by herself. She wasn’t alone in this world, I thought, and she doesn’t have to battle life by herself. I wanted not only to be her companion but also the one who would chase her demons away. I didn’t even know her, and yet, I was still damn adamant about not only saving her but also giving her back the sparkle that had left her eyes.
“Well, at first, I was naïve and contrite, and afterward too in love to recognize I couldn’t save her because she had already settled herself to lose.
“My greatest achievement was receiving a genuine smile from her. I don’t know if you ever saw her smile during these last four years, Damien, but let me assure it was forced. This is all I ever get from her, and at times, it was all I prayed to obtain, another beam from her. I counted them all because they were so special. Every time, I felt as if I had topped Mount Everest. And even after I knew everything, all the bold signs of danger flashed in my sight, my stupid heart still wished to play the hero, and I don’t regret it.”
His face turns red. As ashamed, he shakes it off while I swallow a lump and reiterate one sentence, ‘Don’t rip his head off! You need to hear this, you moron.’ This is your punishment, take it like the man you obviously aren’t. I’m not even my own fan anymore. How the mighty have fallen.
“With every day I have loved her, I scaled on patience, on shut your eyes and be there for
her, smash your desires and meld to her state and hope one day she picks you instead of her monsters. In that hospital room, my heart thundered, it deafened me, and I couldn’t make my legs inch further as I took everything in. The two of them were sitting at a small, round white table playing chess, and she had his king in check. This told me she was not only stunning but smart.”
My lips quirk into a grin at the memory of how good she can play chess remembering she had won trophies when she was in high school. She beat me every time we played. I had my theory that it became one of her favorite hobbies because I didn’t stand a chance at winning against her. Her eyes flashed with pride, and she spun around, clapping her hands together, as she won round after round. Even after all these years, the memories don’t diminish the euphoria they bring me. Alexander’s displeased and intense look jolts me off my trance as I pay attention to his story.
“They continued their game. I saw pride in his eyes and maybe a sparkle of kinship in hers. I made my presence known with a light cough. She peeked at me and introduced herself, Bria du Mont, no handshake, not even a second glance directed at me. She resumed the game. Her poker face didn’t fall even when she won. She only said, ‘Checkmate’ in a matter-of-fact voice while my father’s eyes glowed with awe as he whispered, ‘Extraordinary.’
“After the match, she stood up and gave my father a peck on the right cheek and put her hands on the back of his chair, looking both intensive and with a cutting longing for something I couldn’t name. Then she slid away and leaned on the window wall with her arms crossed over her chest as she peered through the large glass leading to the garden of the hospital. I kept asking myself what was so fascinating outside that held her undivided attention. Was it the packed benches as the patients were sheltered by their loved ones, the children’s echoes and giggles as they leaped and romped among rich trees making the illness surrounding this place bearable? Was it the birds singing and chirping to the sun as they bounced from branch to branch? Whatever it was, I didn’t know, and after a small sigh, she added, ‘Mr. Hope, remember our deal. I’ll see you after your heart surgery.’
“The inflection of her voice had a softness, yet the expressionless way in which she spoke was crisp and distant. I thought to myself, ‘Who are you, Bria du Mont?’ I found my answer quickly. She was a contradiction and a conundrum. After she left, her sweet presence lingered in the spot she vacated, our tongues tied. This is what Bria leaves behind when she leaves a room, dumbstruck men, while she seems unaware of it.
“I asked my father to regale me with the reason he summoned me as he shook his head, crossed one leg over the other and fidgeted with the king chess piece. My ears perked when he admitted to have developed a heart problem as a result of stress and long hours of work, about the stroke that left him immobilized in this hospital bed, and how he met Bria and she awoke in him the desire to save her as he couldn’t with my mother. The pause in his speech told me everything. I would not like it. I glanced up at the ceiling as he asked me to look after her if he didn’t survive the surgery. I balled my fists and shouted at him asking if he had gone crazy in my absence while he drummed his fingers on the table with a poker face on. I yanked at my hair and shook my head because he couldn’t be serious. And then he made me promise I would, and I grit my teeth and nodded to the last wish of my father. But what had my eyes bulge out were his plans if he survived. The moment she was better, she would come back with us as my dad expanded his invitation to me to, move in Dad’s penthouse and study management at New York University, and work side by his side in our pharmaceutical company, Holex.”
Alexander scratches his jaw as his lips quirk in a small smile, while he shakes his head. Yes, this story has something out of a fantasy, and then he goes on.
“Sweat shrouded my forehead as I wiped it away with the back of my hand. What if we didn’t get along? What about her parents? I asked him if she had agreed to his grand plan. He had thought of everything. He said, ‘Bria might never find out, but I have her parents’ agreement, and we all share the same intention, to see her well again. They were desperate to keep their hope for her alive.’
“This next is the crux, Damien. He begged me not to fall in love with her. He said she probably wouldn’t return the feelings and knowing would cause her more pain.
“Even though I fought with my contradictory feelings for Bria, I couldn’t stop them. Feelings emerged, and I couldn’t shield my heart. It was too late. I missed the alarms going off in my head.
“I then fell head over heels in love with her, and my father was right… she would never respond to my love as I wished, so to keep her in my life, I loved her from a safe distance becoming her best friend and chosen companion and living for the next smile she would offer me.
“I asked myself if I hadn’t listened and maybe risked our friendship and accommodating familiar relationship, would I stand here reliving old wounds and have this conversation with you, or would I have won her over and the two of us would be together, even in love.”
My hands squeeze into fists at the visual of him with Bria in an intimate relationship. Alexander notices my offensive state as he smirks and continues, “What stopped me from pursuing her was that it felt like it would violate her trust, and I would lose her in a more dreadful way. I guess fear and a false sense of what’s right made me a deer instead of a lion. Sick what love does to us.”
I observe Alex’s hooded eyes, lines etched in the corners, shrugged shoulders, and blank face. For the first time, I toss my false assumptions away, and realize he has always looked on edge. This time, though, it’s blended with an acceptance, and I raise an eyebrow.
As he was telling me his story, I found I had regard for this man who is selfless enough to give Bria what she needs and took nothing in return. The man lives to see her genuine smiles, for God’s sake! My stupid jealousy screams in frustration. I haven’t had even one fake smile in the last seven years, have I?
Alexander describes Bria like a man in love with a woman—my woman. My fist crashes on the bar. She isn’t mine anymore, so why this animalistic need to call her so? I’ll shout it until it drills in my skull. I am an incurable, selfish bastard, and I never got over it. I know I don’t have her anymore, but still, a part of me can’t let it go, not for good. It’s the main reason we humans are a miserable race. We may consciously give up on something or someone, but a part of us can’t accept we let it go. I ask myself if I have ever been worthy of her.
I come back to reality as Alexander continues his story.
ALEXANDER
I reminisce old memories while staring into nothingness, and Damien shoots daggers at my skull, his eyes blazing.
Seven years earlier…
I leave my father to retire to the hotel room I booked on my flight here. My fingers itch to knead the incessant throbbing in my eyes as I toss and turn in bed. Sleep eludes me with the real possibility I would lose my only living parent.
The morning finds me facing the mirror. A pale face with sunken eyes and a three-day stubble greets me. The icy shower doesn’t help either as I change into a pair of jeans and a bluish dark hoodie. The only reminders I stayed the night are a rumpled bed, pillows, the blanket on the gray carpet and my half-opened luggage abandoned in the corner. I pick up my wallet and cell phone and storm outside. I zip my hoodie to the top, the light breeze ruffling my hair as I thread my fingers through it. With my elbow resting on the windowsill and my head in my hand, I almost fall asleep in the cab as the pulsating engine lulls me into a daze.
My heart thumps like crazy in my chest as I plod through the hospital reception area as stark white walls and the rush in which everyone seems to be moving around with a purpose. Fear grips me in a tight embrace. The reality of my situation punches me in the face. My father could die!
When I crack the door ajar, my first image is of Bria by his side. He gazes at her, a sparkle flashing in his eyes, but even though envy still gripped me in its claws, some part of me found it acceptable. T
hey were strangers, but they had a deal—the life of one ensures the survival of the other. I hadn’t heard of anything similar. Maybe those two didn’t have heart problems, but rather, brain issues.
By now, I believe both are the case.
My father glances up as a smile takes over his pale and wrinkling-by-the-day face as he gestures me to approach his bed and introduces us. “Bria, please meet Alexander Hope, my son and my pride.”
I scoot over and give a little salute with my hand and say, “That would be me, but I don’t know about the pride part.” I thought my answer would earn me a reaction, maybe a smile, but no.
Then she cranes her neck and goes all business. “How long are you going to stay at your father’s side, Alexander?”
“As long as he wants me to,” I retort, and she nods.
When the nurse comes to take my father to the operating room, I’m jolted from my thoughts of the odd conversation. He signals to me, and when I am right beside him, he cradles my hands in his. Seeing him resting there in a hospital bed feels wrong. His weakness plunges me into despair, as I stare at his image of a collapsed giant. This is my father, and I have always seen him like a mountain, strong and undefeatable, as nothing would ever be able to affect him.
He tells me he loves me and I should never forget it. Then, he whispers, “Remember our agreement and be nice to her.” I nod and keep my mouth shut, fighting to restrain my tears.
He then extends his hand to reach Bria’s, places a kiss on it and pleads, “One smile, sweetie.”
I guess she’s a germophobe only when it comes to me. It’s a certainty people greet themselves in Europe, too, by shaking hands.
“You’ll get one, and a true one, when you open your eyes because I will be here waiting for you to wake up.”
Alone with Bria in his sparse hospital room decorated with only the necessities consisting of a bed, closet, and table with two chairs at the window, my head hangs, and my eyes well up. I can see in the corner of my eye as she eyes me with a strange expression that reeks of curiosity, and I tremble with annoyance. I’m not used to this type of girl… cold and in control of her emotions and wanting nothing from me. At once, I yank my chin at her as I unravel my anger at her.