Burning Muses

by J. R. Rogue

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  “In New York, space is a hot commodity. My apartment is pretty roomy, and I have a library there, just not like this one. I send books here all the time.”

  “Was that room always so big?”

  “No, my grandparent’s room was directly above the study. I had mom hire someone to take the floor out. To put in floor-to-ceiling shelving and ladders.”

  “It’s awesome. You’ve never thought of coming back here to live?”

  “No, never.”

  “I see.” His mouth turned up slightly when he said it.

  “Why?”

  “I remember what it looked like before you made the bestsellers list for the first time. You’ve had a lot of work done out here since then.”

  “I like to spend money,” I shrugged. I had to change this house. I had to rip it apart and start new. I would do it one day. One room at a time.

  “Yes, I know you like to spend money. I’ve noticed all the packages being delivered.”

  “I collect clothes the way you do bikes.”

  “I love those bikes!”

  “How many can you ride at once?” This had become our thing. Teasing one another. I loved the friendship that was forming.

  “One. Not relevant though. Each serves its own purpose.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “You should go riding with me some time.”

  “I don’t have a bike.” I had decided, before popping my Advil last night that I needed a road bike to ride with Chace. I jumped online and began researching. I decided to make an appointment at the nearest bike shop.

  “I know someone who does.”

  “You have men’s bikes.”

  “No, I have others. I have a couple girls’ bikes. And you’re short enough they would probably be perfect for you.”

  “So why cycling?

  “It’s easier on your joints than running.” He seemed slightly embarrassed with this answer. I couldn’t imagine why, but something was suddenly on the outskirts of my mind. Something I should know about him. I felt as though he thought I knew more about him than I did. I was such a selfish creature. What had I been told about him in the past? He had been Andrew’s best friend for years. My mother surely brought him up on the phone from time to time. What was I missing? I would ask her when she showed up today.

  The house quickly filled with the kind of loud noises I loved in these walls; laughter and the bustle of moving bodies. My mother and her husband showed up a half hour early, as usual. My brother, back in town, showed up a half hour late, as usual. Kat, some of my mother’s friends, as well as Andrew’s band members stopped over too. They were a fun bunch. I missed my grandmother’s presence.

  The boys, sans Chace, started up a game of volleyball in the back yard, pulling the net from the shop building. My stepfather and Kat even joined in. It was nice to see them let loose. My mother, along with her friends and I, watched from lawn chairs. I did not have aunts and uncles, but I had many stand-ins. My mother had numerous friends, mostly teachers. They were as warm and intelligent as she was. I could go to any of them with a problem.

  Surprisingly, my mother did lose one friend when my first book was published. She was very religious, and had strong opinions about my work. My mother, of course, defended me. The relationship became strained, and eventually died. I felt bad. I felt to blame. She assured me that I was not. I was lucky to have these strong women sitting next to me. Kat was as well.

  Kat never had a positive female figure in her life. Her mother chose meth over family. My friend spent a lot of time at our house. My mother was forever taking care of children, in and out of school. Much like Chace with Aiden.

  He had taken the boy to play baseball, past the volleyball madness. I was very sure Kat would be a wonderful mother one day. Yet, I was never sure of myself. I was not like my mother. I was not like Kat or Chace.

  I was not outgoing and warm, not since I was young. I did not have an easy way with children. I was a loner. I was selfish. Friends had suggested this was why I feared commitment. To avoid family. To avoid being selfless. They always suggested it in a nice way.

  I pushed my insecurities aside and took in my surroundings again. Kat was staring adamantly at her phone, furiously typing. I wondered who she was texting, and hoped it was not her ex. Her flushed neck made me think it was, and perhaps he was starting an argument with her. I cleared my throat to get her attention. Her eyes flew to me. I mouthed “you okay?” and she nodded. I didn’t believe her. But I wouldn’t press. I motioned for her to come into the house with me and she did. I grabbed the nearly empty lemonade container on my way. “Are we still on for lunch tomorrow?” I asked as I reached the fridge.

  “Yeah. Where do you want to eat? Peppers?”

  “No, I’m not in the mood for Mexican,” I answered, finding a Cheshire grin on her face. “What?”

  “How are you going to live with that guy and not fool around with him?”

  “Chace? What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Like I’ve said a million times, he is just too young. Look at him out there. He is like family.” It was in my mind. She didn’t need to plant it there. It wasn’t simply because of his looks, which were amazing, but his heart was getting to me. I wanted it. I wanted mine to be somewhat near its size.

  “He is like family to your family. Not to you. You’ve been gone. And it’s not like he is a kid. Hell, your brother isn’t a kid anymore.”

  “Kat, shut it. Are you hinting that you think Andrew is hot? ‘Cause, yuck.”

  “He is! Sorry.” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Kill me now.” I made a gun with my finger and placed it at my temple.

  “I’m not saying I’m going to hit on your brother. I’m just saying,” she paused, “I know age won’t be an issue for you if you get some wine in you.”

  I hated hearing that. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was a part of me I wanted to leave behind. The promiscuity. The recklessness. I didn’t want to sleep with Chace; I wanted to be more like him. More like Kat. More like my mother. Not like Andrew. Ha. I just didn’t want to be me anymore. Kat saw the change in my face. I always wore my emotions on them. I couldn’t hide.

  “I’m sorry, Sera,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. You just do what you want. You live in the moment. There’s nothing bad about that.”

  “I don’t want to be that way anymore. I just want to be here and write again. I want to be here for you. See my family more. Let’s face it, I haven’t been the best friend, daughter, or sister. I never come home. I should have come home. I’m that person who gets rich and forgets where she came from. And look how beautiful it is.” I looked out the window. The land was beautiful. The trees kept my secrets. All of my guilt was catching up to me. I was surrounded by everything that mattered today. All the things that should matter to a person.

  “You didn’t forget us,” she assured me. “You called all the time. Not a week went by when you didn’t text. And look at this house. You have helped keep it beautiful. I think you knew you would come back. I think we all did.” I guess Chace wasn’t the only one who thought I had been renovating this house because I would return. They were off. So off.

  “Maybe you knew something I didn’t. I never saw it.”

  “You know what I know? I know today is great. It’s because you’re home. Look at us all out there. We love you.”

  “I love you so much.”

  “I know,” she said, reaching for me. I hated hugs, but I needed hers. She needed me more than I needed her but once again, she was being the mothering kind. She was taking care of me when her life was falling apart.

  I dried my tears and headed back outside with Kat. To my surprise, she was able to get me to join in a volleyball game. I was horrible. The rest of the day went by quickly. When my mother and Paul left, they hugged me tight. They did the same with Chace. After helping me c
lean, he left to take Aiden home. He was barely out of the driveway when he texted me to not get ready for bed. He wanted to have a beer on the deck.

  I felt a rush at this, followed by guilt. I stamped it down and found a bottle of wine. A half hour later, his jeep lights lit up the drive as I sat reclined on the back deck. He went inside, grabbed a beer and joined me. It didn’t take much small talk before he asked me about my ex. It startled me. I was not expecting it. This was something men generally did when they were interested in a woman. I was such a presumptuous idiot.

  “What was it like dating a celebrity?” He took a swig of his beer.

  “Weird. Different. The same.” I had been asked this so many times. I never knew how to answer, honestly.

  “How? Explain it to me. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

  “The weird: people in the street waiting for us to leave a restaurant so they can get a picture. I didn’t like it. Being a successful author isn’t in the same realm as being a successful actor or musician. I didn’t sign up for it. So we went to great lengths to avoid the public. No enjoying the outside patio of our favorite bistro on a summer day. It felt like something was being taken from me.

  The different: I was with someone who was as passionate about something as I was. His career was as dear to him as mine is to me. It had been a while since I cared about anyone who didn’t seem to just be drifting through life, or had a job that just paid the bills but didn’t ignite passion. I was avoiding the thing I was most passionate about the entire year he was in my life. I wanted to pretend he could be the filler of my void.” I felt my old feelings flare up. Tristan was like me in so many ways, which could have been the reason for our failure. One among many.

  “And the same?”

  “The same: we drifted. He lied, I avoided. He left. I didn’t cry.” And that had bothered him.

  “So it ended pretty mutually?”

  “Yes and no. I went to this cabin that I write at sometimes. I told him I needed the weekend to focus and to get my head on straight. About the middle of the next week, I got a text from my best friend in New York saying I needed to check out People Magazine’s website. I found an article saying Tristan had ended his year long relationship with the author. It wasn’t the first time I had seen something false about me in the media, but the picture of him kissing his co-star from the new film he was working on was undeniable.

  It could have been an on-set photo, but he was wearing a shirt I bought him. I didn’t even get a chance to grab my phone and call him. Someone must have told him about the article too. He just texted me ‘sorry,’ nothing else. No explanation, no denial. I knew I should call him and cuss him out or cry, or throw something, but I didn’t respond. I went back to the City and found him at my door. He looked sad, but not guilty.

  He told me he had never been in a relationship where he felt alone. He said he had fallen for me before our first kiss. Every day he saw me on set, completely passionate about the books and the film. He would watch me take notes or write. It was beautiful to him. But I had not written a word since that first kiss. He couldn’t be the reason I had writer’s block. Because I wasn’t who he fell for. I was distracted, and aloof. He wanted me to fall in love with it all again.”

  “He sounds like a coward to me.”

  “Yeah, he just wanted to screw that chick.” I tipped back the last of my glass and laughed.

  “Thank God.” His voice was so relieved. “I really thought from the way you were telling me how he explained himself that you felt you were to blame.”

  “No. It was a chicken shit move. The way he let himself be photographed out in the open like that, the way we were so skilled at avoiding. It was obviously deliberate. I still don’t understand why he explained himself at all when he could have left it alone after knowing I saw them.”

  “Well Chicken Shit felt guilty about the chicken shit move.”

  “I guess so,” I considered. “But I was pretty aloof with him. I think it pissed him off more than anything that I never cried. What about you? Tell me more about that hot ex of yours.”

  “Ah, Caroline,” he opened. “I don’t know if she even counts as an ex.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We only dated for about a month. So who was the boyfriend before Mister Movie Star?”

  “Ah, no one really. Not since college.” I reached for the throw blanket at my feet and wrapped it around my arms. I felt warm from the wine but the goosebumps on my arms were telling.

  “I don’t believe that.” There was a flirtatious tone to his voice.

  “It’s true. I spend a lot of time alone. Nothing is stable. It can be, but I guess I like the change. Once I moved to Austin Texas for three months just to get out of the City and write from a new environment and perspective. It’s not exactly the easiest life for relationships. So I tend to always keep them casual.”

  “I see. So what was college boyfriend like?”

  “Casual,” I laughed. “We weren’t serious. And he is actually the man to credit for my career.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I regret this conversation.” I threw my arm over my eyes and bit my lip. Chace reached over and pulled my arm away. His finger lightly ran across the tattoo on my forearm. A kiss may ruin a human life. Oscar Wilde. I said it twice in my head before pulling away quickly.

  “Come on, tell me.” He laid his hand in his lap. I saw his knuckles tighten.

  “No, I don’t want to now.”

  “You can’t leave it like that! I’ll go nuts wondering what that meant! Was he a college professor who discovered your writing? Something like that?”

  “No, no. Not that tired old cliché. He was a senior like me.”

  “Your face is so red. You don’t have to tell me.”

  “No, I’m going to. Okay, um. He and I had a great sex life. We didn’t hold back from each other. It was fun. He knew I loved to write. So, he uh, he said I should write about our sex. So I did.” This was going into dangerous territory.

  “I wasn’t expecting that…”

  “I wrote up a little story about how we met, and everything about us. We had fun with it. I gave it to him and he loved it. He said I should try to publish it. I was not okay with that. He eventually convinced me to; I changed our names and everything. I just posted it online and it blew up.”

  “And now you’re a best-selling author.”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you still talk to him?”

  “Ah, about twice a year we will email.”

  “This is a really weird conversation.” He stood and pointed at my glass. I handed it to him.

  “Yeah, I was trying to avoid that.” It was too easy to talk to him; he brought it out of me. He retreated into the house to refill our drinks and returned quickly.

  “Do you turn red every time you tell that story?” I reached for the half-full glass in his hand.

  “I don’t tell that story. I just say it all comes from my imagination. Every book.”

  “So, they all come from real life?” He turned to me, eyes burning into my profile.

  “Yeah…” This was not something I told anymore. I could count the people who knew this on one hand.

  “I see.”

  “I bet you are thinking about them now right? My books…” Why did he have to tell me he read them? I shouldn’t have admitted this. My dark truth. I felt cheap. I was the demon in my own life. Loneliness didn’t seek me out. I hunted it down.

  “How many people know you write about your real life sex life?” Artax ran up the steps to Chace and laid his head on his owner’s outstretched legs. He reached down to pet the dog lovingly behind his ears.

  “My assistant. My college boyfriend. My best friend in New York.” My therapist. The unlucky four.

  “That’s it?” His blue eyes still burned into my side. Now I was the one avoiding his gaze as he did mine on the pavement two nights before.

  “Yeah. And now you…” I tipped back my
second glass of wine. I felt dizzy and warm. I felt a certain relief as well. I was telling a man I knew only a short time more than I had told Kat and it felt great.

  “How long has it been since you wrote? You said a year?”

  “Longer.” I hated the reminder. I didn’t need it. It was etched on my skin. It felt nearly as permanent as the ink covering my surface.

  “So you haven’t had sex in over a year?”

  “No, I’ve had sex. Tristan and I only split, what, a month ago?” Our sex had been amazing. It had been worth writing about.

  “So, why the block?”

  “I’m over it, I guess.” I was over it before the madness had begun.

  “Over writing?”

  “No, I love to write, but I want more. I want to write a real novel. With no sex. I don’t want to write anymore synonyms for ‘cock’!” He nearly spit his beer. I finally turned to him.

  “Oh, is that all?”

  “I want to write the way I did when I was a kid. The way I did in high school and college before this whole crazy train left the station.” I had forgotten what that even looked like. I needed to find my old journals.

  “I bet anything you write is great.”

  “Thanks.” He had only read my novellas. He wouldn’t know. I wanted him to know.

  “Why’d you tell me all of this?”

  “You’re very easy to talk to,” I admitted, “I can see why you have so many friends, and why my family loves you. The kids you teach are going to take one look at your face and know they can trust you with any secret they have.” I felt like I could as well.

  Tick…

  Tock…

  Tick…

  Tock…

  Shut…

  The…

  Fuck…

  Up.

  I was going to smash my watch. How could it be that loud from across the room? Another five days had gone by in Missouri with no writing. I was staring at a lonely Friday night.

  I had been so busy so the week flew by. Lunches with Kat, dinners at my mothers. I had probed her about Chace. I knew I was missing something about him. It nagged at me. When she finally told me, my memory awoke as well and I remembered his story before she had even finished. How could I have forgotten his story? It was tragic. I would look at him differently. Not in a bad way. There had been very little sight of Chace. Another busy week took him from home.