by Brenda Ford
“Stop it,” I mutter to myself before pouring another glass of wine. “Just stop it.”
But I can’t stop the snake of jealousy from coursing through my body. That’s an emotion I haven’t felt before. I haven’t ever been incredibly jealous when it comes to another man. Certainly not Lux, and none of the dates I have had afterwards. But I feel oddly protective over what I have with Nelson. I don’t want it to end.
“It’s just a party. Just one night of fun. There won’t be any girls there to tempt him.”
The thing is there probably won’t be. He has done nothing but reassure me. It’s just my self-doubt creeping in. Even with the confidence that I have built up, I am still the smallest bit damaged from the past.
“You can’t be jealous.” I swirl the wine around in the glass before taking a giant swig. “It isn’t a real relationship anyway. Even if Nelson seems to believe that it’s heading that way…”
It’s a challenge not to get all worked up when he talks about me and him forever, but I know that once the summer is over and he heads off to college, everything will transform. He will meet other girls, college girls, hot young smart girls who will blow him away. I can’t hold on to him then, I can’t pull him backwards when he needs to go forwards. I just can’t lose my head and get my heart shattered when it’s inevitable. I can already see which way this is going to go. I just need to get my head on straight and see it for what it is. A glorious summer in what has been a dreary love life so far. The sad thing is no one else will compare, not after him…
“Okay, it’s time to stop it,” I tell myself. “Stop thinking about him. Stop worrying about all of it.”
I top up my wine, needing my glass to be full at all times tonight. I never really drink, especially after living with Lux, but right now I don’t know what else to do. I need to distract myself. God, I’m a mess.
“You are going to get hurt.” I nod knowingly. “You should stop this now before it gets too far.”
I rise to my feet as a restlessness overcomes me, and I pace around the house. I need something to replace the images of Nelson with other women in my mind, with something else. Anything else. Without even realizing where I’m going, I head upstairs into my bedroom to stare into his room. For such a long time, this was the only way we saw one another, and it was fun to be admired and adored. It was something that I have been missing before and I liked it. It was a little game for me, a little sexual thrill… I never thought that it would become everything to me. That I would be this worried about him, this needy for him. I am more desperate for him than any other man that has ever come before. No one has ever meant this much to me. I’m falling wildly.
“Am I just a crazy middle aged woman who’s fallen for the toy boy? The freaking cliché?”
A part of me already wishes that he would come home early so we can see one another, so I don’t need to be alone, which is already me holding him back from fun. I would never tell him, of course. I don’t want him to know how crazy I’m getting over this affair, but it reminds me that college is going to be an issue.
“Fuck.” I press my hand against the window, sadness getting the better of me. “Fucking hell, don’t cry.”
Yep, I am definitely in too deep. I’m in way over my head. I like him too much. I can’t believe I’m here sobbing over an eighteen year old lad. A guy who I have been living next door to for a while and has now started having sex with like a fool. I shouldn’t be all raw and messy like this. I should just be enjoying the thrill.
I stare at the tree, imagining him swinging across it like a Tarzan, a hunky man coming just for me. I am seriously going to miss that when all of this is over. I might have to move to a new house at some point to get away from all of these memories. I suppose it will be great that Lux won’t be able to find me as well…
But I love this house. This has been my home, my place of happiness for far too long. I don’t want to go. I guess I will have to work out which way I feel with a shattered heart.
I slide my eyes closed and imagine what it would be like if I got everything that I wanted. If Nelson could just be mine. I picture us happy, living here together, loving one another, having the dream romance. Then the wedding, the growing old, the happy ever after I didn’t think I would ever get.
“No,” I whisper. “You can’t have that. You’re too old for him. It won’t work.”
My brain reminds me that it has worked for some people, that there are couples with a big age difference everywhere, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s for me. I guess I don’t believe I will ever get my happy ever after. If I was going to get it, it should have been with Lux, the father of my child and the man that I married, but it didn’t. That failed epically as has everything that has come since. This will have to be enough.
The door bursts open down the stairs, shaking me from my fantasy, my thoughts, grabbing my focus. My immediate though is that it’s Nelson and he’s missed me too, just as much. I wipe any stupid half drunken tears away rapidly, not wanting him to see anything of what a fool I have been, and I head towards the stairs.
“Mom!” Oh, of course it’s Rosie. Nelson doesn’t have a key so it wouldn’t be him. “Mom, you here?”
She sounds panicked though, which snaps me into action and makes me thunder down the stairs.
“What’s happened, Rosie? Are you okay?” I catch her eyes, she looks freaked. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Dad.” I stop running and gulp, trying to keep the vomit down. “He’s been looking for me.”
“But the restraining order… that’s supposed to keep him away from you too. He hasn’t been here. I thought that he was listening to it. I was sure that he didn’t want to go back to jail.”
“Well, I guess he got wasted and went looking for me. Since he has no fucking clue how old I am, he went to a high school party to find me. He was all crazy there and attacking kids.”
I clutch my stomach, feeling even worse. If Lux has attacked any of those kids like he used to attack me, then he is in serious trouble. He says that he’s changed but he seems to only have changed for the worse. He’s more extreme, angrier, wilder, more determined to get what he wants.
“Oh God, is anyone hurt? Is it bad? What has he done? Oh God, what has he done now?”
“I don’t know much but he never found me, luckily.” Rosie shakes her head sadly. “I’m glad he didn’t.”
“But he still might! We need to lock the doors and stuff. We need to make sure he doesn’t get in.”
“No, no, don’t worry, Mom. Sorry, I should have led with this. He’s been arrested again.”
Relief floods me. If he’s been arrested again, then he might get locked away. The police may realize that he isn’t fit to be in society and put him away again. Then I won’t need to sort out a restraining order until he’s out again. It will save me so much stress, especially if he isn’t listening to it.
“Okay good, so he’s in jail. That’s good.” It takes a couple of moments to get my thoughts in order. “Wait, so if he didn’t find you, then how do you know all of this? How did you find out about him?”
“Oh, Oliver. One of his brother’s told him. Erm, Wesley, I think it was. I don’t know, there are so many of them.” She laughs. “I’m pretty sure he said that it was Wesley though.”
He isn’t of high school age though. There is only one of the Smith brothers who would have been at that party. Nelson. I never told him about Lux, I never got around to saying what all that drama was about. I guess because I didn’t want to. I wanted it to be separate. But if Lux went around to some high school party to kick up shit, then he probably knows now. Shit, that’s terrifying. I haven’t been able to control that flow of information which means he might know some terrible things. Lux’s point of view when it comes to me isn’t great…
“You don’t need to look so worried,” Rosie says happily. “He’s locked away, I’m fine.”
“I just…” Shit, I can’t tell her where my head
is at. “I just don’t like him coming after you.”
Rosie pulls me in for a hug and holds me to her chest. “I know, it sucks, and I’m sure this is going to be an issue for a while, but he will get bored. You know that he will. He hasn’t been interested in my life this far, so he’s not going to be interested forever. I’m sure he will even end up moving away.”
I nod, hoping that she’s right. Unfortunately, I do know Lux a little better than she does, and I know that he can be a bit obsessive about things. If me and Rosie are going to be his obsession, then he won’t stop. But I don’t want to worry her more than I already have. I will just have to pray that it doesn’t happen.
“Okay, well let’s just have a hot chocolate and get to bed, shall we?” I smile thinly at Rosie. “I guess since it hasn’t directly involved us, the police don’t need us at any point?”
“I don’t think so.” She shrugs. “Plus, this will all just add to the final restraining order stuff.”
“True. So, we can write today off and hopefully have a drama free day tomorrow.”
A drama free day… that seems like a joke at the moment. Every day is filled with drama… just some of it is good and some definitely isn’t.
Chapter 19 - Nelson
“So, he threw the first punch?” the officer confirms for what feels like the hundredth time. He doesn’t seem to care that it’s late at night, I have been drinking, and I’m pretty shattered. Plus, I’m hurt. I don’t know if I have all the details right, but I have to keep on talking as much as I can. “He attacked you?”
“Yes.” I press my hand to my aching jaw, sure that a bruise is forming there. “It was him. Like I said, he came in to the party and was demanding to see Rosie Clark.” Or Franks. I’m still not too sure about that. “Since she’s my next door neighbor, I know her, so I went to see what was going on and he was acting all crazy. He was yelling at Jake, shoving him and stuff, creating noise where there didn’t need to be.”
“Is this Jake Spring? The person who’s home it was? The one who threw the party?”
“Yes, that’s right. Jake Spring. Anyway, he was drunk and not handling it too well. So, I thought that by stepping in and helping calmly, I would be able to make this okay. I tried to talk to him, but he was being all irrational. Yelling and saying all these crazy things about his ex-wife.”
“So, just to get this straight, this is Lux Franks talking about Amelia Clark?”
God, they know this! We have gone through this enough times. Why are they insisting on going through this again? They should know that I’m telling the truth and they won’t be able to catch me out.
“Yes, that’s right. Amelia Clark who is Rosie’s Mom and also my next door neighbor.”
“Your high school teacher too, right?” The officer nods. “That’s how you know her.”
“Er, yes.” I don’t see how that is relevant, but I chose to ignore it. “So, it escalated. I told him to leave and he hit me. Again and again. Yes, I did fight back, but I didn’t have any choice, I needed to defend myself.”
“And you’re telling us it ended when Jake Spring and some of the other guys tried to pull him off you?”
“No, no, that just made him angrier. He stopped when someone yelled that the police were coming. He looked like he was going to run away, but the sirens rang out and he knew that he didn’t have a choice.”
The officer looks down at the photograph that they took of me when I first came in, where my injuries were at their worst, and sighs. I tap my foot impatiently, waiting for the penny to drop. Lux doesn’t look anything like me, he got away almost scratch free and I look like shit. It’s clearly self-defense on my behalf.
“Okay, so I am going to get this statement typed up, then you can read and sign it, okay?”
“And then what will happen? Will I be allowed to go?”
The officer says nothing but walks from the room. I want to pace the room impatiently, just waiting for the moment when I can go, but I know they will be watching me, trying to see if I show any guilt here. I don’t have anything to feel bad about. Sure, I might have said a few things that wound him up, I didn’t deserve the attacking that I got. Not from a guy twice my age anyway. I didn’t stand much of a chance.
So, I do what I can to remain still in my seat, calm, okay. I want them to see that I’m the only rational person here. It’s really only Amelia that makes me crazy… God, what is Amelia going to think when she hears about all of this? Is she going to be mad at me for fighting with her ex? Will she be hurt that I now know the truth about her past? She didn’t want me to know, did she? Or she would have told me when he was dragged from her house. I would like her to be happy because I stood up for her, but I don’t know…
Urgh, this is hard. This is awful. I don’t like the last few hours that I have spent trapped in this room. I don’t know how I will cope if I get locked up for this. Even for a night. That isn’t going to look good on my college record, is it? Me being locked up. It might even make some of them retract their acceptance of me. What happens if I end up with nothing? No future. All because of one fight with some asshole.
“Shit,” I whisper without realizing that I’m being loud. “Oh God,”
My head falls into my hands and I close my eyes to block the world out for a few moments. I just need the darkness to shroud me, to keep me in place. But I don’t get any comfort in the dark, it just highlights what a fuck fest I have made of everything. I knew that my time with Amelia was going to affect me and my future, but I didn’t know it would be like this. I didn’t realize it would be because of her ex.
“Okay.” Thankfully, just before I start screaming in frustration. “I have the statement here.”
I take it from her and read through it quickly but ensuring that I take in every single word as I do, before I put my signature up on it. It pretty much sums up everything I have said. Since I’ve said it plenty of times, I don’t see how they could mess it up anyway! Once it’s signed, the officer indicates for me to stand.
“You can go. Your brother is waiting for you in the waiting room to take you home.”
I nod and start to walk away, glad that the whole ordeal is over at last. I called up Wesley when I got a chance because I figured that he would be the most understanding about it all, but now I’m not so sure that was the best plan. He’s definitely going to want to pry and the last thing I want to do is talk about it again.
“Nelson.” He jumps up the moment that he sees me, his face pale. “Are you okay?”
“I just want to get out of here,” I growl. “But thank you for coming for me so late.”
I storm out of the police station and move to Wesley’s car quickly, exhaustion getting the better of me as I do. Once I step inside the car, I slide my eyes closed and try to get some shut eye… but Wesley doesn’t get the hint.
“Fighting?” he declares as if it’s the worst thing that anyone has ever done. “Really?”
“I didn’t exactly mean for it to happen, you know. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t go out looking for a fight. Unfortunately, it just found me. Okay? But the police have accepted that it was self-defense.”
“But some forty odd year old guy? What the hell are you thinking at the moment? I know that it’s a stressful time, but damn… you are taking it to a new level! I don’t know what to say to you. This whole event has my mind spinning, and you know what? I have come to a conclusion that I know who you have fallen for.”
My eyes snap open as a bolt of coldness shoots through me. I knew that I couldn’t get away with it forever, but now isn’t the time for me to get into that. I just want to rest, that’s all.
“It’s Rosie, isn’t it?” Wesley declares. “That’s why you got so mad at her dad for threatening her. You like Rosie and you know that it will be an issue because she’s friends with Oliver.”
“Er… no.” I suppose I can see how this is the conclusion that he came to, but still… “No, that isn’t it.”
“So, wh
o the hell is it then? This is driving me insane. Whoever it is clearly is making you crazy because I have never seen you like this before. You’re always so sensible. So smart, dedicated too.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Wesley. You said I could come to you if I needed to…”
“That’s before you started getting into fights and stuff! Honestly, Nelson. This is different now. You can see that, can’t you? You can see why I’m worried. Please, just give me something.”
I sigh and shake my head. “I’m shattered, Wesley, done. We can talk about this another time, can’t we? Tomorrow, after a good night of sleep. I’ve had one hell of a shitty day.”
Wesley doesn’t want to let it go; I can tell. But he forces himself to do so because it’s what I want. Thankfully, he has that much respect for me. This allows me to slide my eyes closed, to get some rest.
“Argh!” I rub my neck hard as I force myself awake; my head crooked because I’m still in the car. There is a note beside me, written by Wesley which tells me that he tried to wake me up but wasn’t successful. It seems that just leaving me here after the shittiest night ever was all that he could do. I don’t know how hard he tried, especially after our heated talk before, but I suppose I can’t blame him. I might have left him here too if he was in my place.
I rub my neck and blink a few times, trying to wake myself up before I move into the house to go back to bed for some more rest. But since every part of me aches, I can’t be bothered to move at all yet. I just want to think. I want to remember everything that happened so I can properly process it.