by Brock, V. L.
“Which was?”
The dread I feel is overpowering; this is it, no turning back. The butterflies in my gut attempt their escape. I take a moment to stare into his deep, inquisitive eyes, and prop my hand on the side of his face. Flexing my fingertips, I offer a sad smile, my vision distorted once more as I absorb the sensation of his flesh beneath me, the prickle of his stubble, and the warmth of his skin.
“Use and abuse men, before they do it to you,” I mutter contritely.
Hayden gapes, his eyes grave and intense with shock. Sensing his disgust, he loosens his arms, and pulls away from me, and I feel a part of me die inside. I knew he couldn’t handle this.
“I would jump from man to man, something that I’m not proud of.” I raise my hand to touch his face, but he recoils and shakes his head, refusing me any supportive connection. “Never in those five years did I ever feel any connection to them; sex was my weapon…it was a way of feeling desired. When men wanted to have sex with me, it filled me with everything that The Bastard took away from me, made me feel wanted, confident, and attractive. Knowing that you’re arousing somebody fueled that assuring need that I craved. And that was how my promiscuity started.
“Soon after, the power that I held in the ability to say yes or no to a man who wanted me began to fade. Instead of the fulfilment of the desire I was receiving, I felt dirty, used and exploited. There have been many times that Jessie has had to witness my walk of shame. But when I confided in her about how you are making me feel, the fact that even after we had sex I still craved you…she kicked me up the ass.”
Hayden pushes himself up so he is sat with his right leg dangling off the bed, and his left leg bent inward. I push myself up so we can maintain eye contact at an equal level.
“On our first date when I walked out of the restaurant, I came back home and I couldn’t relax. So I went for a walk before coming to yours. And that was when it hit me.”
“What did?” he rasps, his expression and tone cautious as he scrutinizes me with his inconceivable glare.
I slouch, wanting to rest my hand on his leg but too terrified of his reaction. I feel encased in plaster, aware of the surface cracking, crumbling, slowly giving away to a pile of ashes. My body inflamed by my profound feelings and desires of what a future together could bring, yet cooled by the iciness of his glare. The only way I can uphold, is by the mere likelihood that Hayden can find it in himself to accept my mistakes and revive my aching, splintering heart. And like a phoenix, help me to rise above the ashes that I now find myself falling to.
“I didn’t want to begin anything with you because I didn’t want you tainted by me, and I didn’t want to hurt you. But I already had, and I…I accepted, and took responsibility for my actions. For years I blamed my ways on Him––on the way that he mistreated me. But I had a choice and I choose to go down a path which led to even more detrimental emotional flaws and fed my negative self-assurance. I couldn’t live my life like that anymore, the ego-boost that I felt I required, if anything made me worse. It was you.”
“Me?” he questions, a small V in the center of his brow becoming visible as he frowns.
“Yes. Hayden. You,” I smile. “You were the one thing that I needed to give me the strength to change…you restored my hope and faith. With you, Hayden, I don’t need anyone to desire me…because I have you and your desire. You’re all I think of, you treat me like a Queen, you make me happy and you make me smile…you make me believe that I can get my Happy Ever After.”
I notice his muscles relax, and I raise my hand again to his face. This time, Hayden allows me to touch him. It’s a relief.
“You are the first man since The Bastard which I cried myself to sleep over. You are the only man I have placed all trust into since my trust was purged years ago. You’re the only man that sees the real me.” I retract my hand from the side of his face, allowing it to drop into my lap like a boulder in the sea. I cock my head. “Now my cards are on the table. I know where I would like us to go from here, but I understand that you may see elements in me that you had with Addison.”
Bowing my head, I suppress every emotion that is journeying through my system. I won’t be a girlfriend whose partner can’t leave because he doesn’t want to see her crying, or hurt by his final decision.
“And for that reason, if you want to walk away…” I shuffle myself over and off the bed, a prickling sensation followed by the flow of cold blood gushes down my legs as I stand and meander over to the door. I grasp the gold doorknob in my hand, waiting to open it. I shake my head. “Then I am not going to stop you.”
Hayden heaves himself onto his feet and bunches his hands into his pants pockets before striding to the door. With him towering over me at six foot two, I twist the knob, and pull the door open a fraction.
While he stands in front of me, Hayden slips his hands from his pockets and presses against the wooden surface, pushing it closed. He glares at me, searching my eyes, my mind. I sense the electricity between us charging as he corners me against the entrance. Feeling his body heat radiating off him through his clothing and although he doesn’t lay one finger upon me, the proximity added with the intensity of his scrutiny sends me into a mass of squirming and relieved energy.
“Samantha, my beautiful, Samantha…” he whispers, trailing off as his fingertips skate down the side of my face, his eyes teeming with sympathy, compassion and regret.
I close my eyes, waiting for the one looming word that can rip you up and destroy you within a millisecond if it is spoken by someone you truly feel for.
With the single word revolving around my head like the proverbial tumbleweed in the desert, I wait for him to finalize the end of our relationship. I hold my breath as I hear his lips part ready to willing to release me from my despondency.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
My eyes spring open, and my breath is released. Did I hear him say that or imagine it because that’s what I want him to say?
“What?”
Bowing his head, he presses his brow against me, and rolls it over my surface. “I. Am not. Going anywhere,” he enunciates every word clearly, with devotion and purpose that sends my nerve endings into overdrive, making me tingle, and shudder, filling me with reprieve and gratitude. I follow my instincts and coil my arms around his neck, grazing my head away from his, and burrow my tearstained face against his chest.
He snakes his arms around my waist.
“I thought I had lost you, that I had pushed you away.”
He uncurls his right hand from around me and places it at the back of my head, holding me protectively against his chest, comforting us both. He kisses the top of my head, and breathes me in.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Samantha. I was scared that I was going to have to,” he whispers.
After what seems like an eternity, he draws himself away. With the absence of his protective arms around me, I am left bereft and cold and feeling unfortified.
“Stay with me tonight,” I urge simply, but my tone has it sounding more like a question. I’m still hurting over the events of the day, the walk down memory lane, and the fear that all was lost between us still chills my bones. I don’t want to be alone…not tonight.
“Of course,” he nods and I offer a relieved half-smile in return.
Snuggled up in the security of Hayden’s arms, we lay there, savoring each other.
“Beautiful…” Hayden murmurs as I relax against the soothing motion of his hand softly caressing my scalp, and the rise and fall of his chest.
“Hmm…” I can’t talk. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. I feel the darkness of unconsciousness creeping its way over my body.
“I–I…” I hear his stammer, but the grasp that slumber issues over my physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted body is too strong for me to battle. And I drift into a deep, peaceful sleep; unable to hear what Hayden wanted to finish saying, but the feeling of love and safety in his arms, brings life to my speculatio
n.
Even absent sight, the glare which bounds from my window and ricochets around my room causes me to screw my eyes shut farther, in an attempt to cling onto the vivid images that sleep delivers. But my effort is unavailing; the illusory world that I sink to fades and morphs into reality. Surrendering to wakefulness, I stretch my body, my muscles sigh indulgently as I straighten.
Reaching out, I search blindly for the protective, strong and gorgeous man that for most of the night lay spooning me and fingered through my hair until I drifted peacefully. Alas, I am greeted with cold and ruffled sheets beneath my wandering, caressing fingers.
I am startled by his unexpected absence.
Instantly assembling the covers around my body, I perch myself up in the empty bed. Fighting my way through the somnolent daze, I scan the room. My chaise longue lay bare of Hayden’s neatly folded clothing. Where is he? What has happened? Did I dream that he stayed with me the night? Did I dream that he said he would never go anywhere?
Pushing my disheveled tresses back, I peek at my alarm clock, 2:45 p.m. I have slept most of the day away. A new sense of disorientation surmounts a minimal amount of panic that obscures my reasoning. I fling the comforter off my body and heave myself out of my pit. I throw on my sweats and black camisole before I leave the empty room.
“Good morning, Sammy. Finally decided to emerge?” Jessie calls impishly from the living room while I stagger through the dining area.
The only word that I can manage to verbalize through my unsettled haze is, “Coffee.”
“It’s in the pot,” she answers from the comfort of the sofa.
I round the pillar to the kitchen and pour myself a full mug of much needed caffeine. Briskly making my way back around the bar, I slip onto my stool.
“I take it everything went well last night?” she hauls herself from the couch and strides to the unoccupied seat next to me. She straightens out her overly large, black, boyfriend sweater that hangs off her left shoulder exposing her red bra strap. Her hair is plated in childish pigtails, with identical tendrils on each side of her face hanging free.
“We now have no secrets that could be detrimental to our future if that is what you mean, Jess,” I mutter, stilling my mug in mid-air before taking a sip. “Where is he?” The notion of him being too much of a caring person that he couldn’t find the strength to leave me while I was staring at him in the eye fills me with dread.
With an ache in my chest and the inability to catch a decent breath, mixed with the fear that maybe last night was the last night together, sends me into anxiety overdrive. My head starts throbbing, my ears ringing and the room spins on its axis as G-Force holds me fixed, paralyzed to my seat. I watch the events around me unfold, but powerless to fight through it.
“Hey, sweetie, you look like you just seen a ghost. Are you okay?” Jessie brushes my matted hair back from my face.
“He’s left me, hasn’t he, Jess? He couldn’t do it when I was awake, so he waited until I was sleeping.” A sharp stabbing pain hits like a bolt out of the blue against my right temple, as tears begin to gather.
“Sweetie, you have been summoning tears like a noble woman summons her servants, over the last day and a half.” Withdrawing her hand from my rats-tails, she presses against the top of my knee and squeezes with a reassuring influence. “No, he hasn’t left you, but he did ask me to give you this.” She leans to the side and removes a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her skinny jeans and hands it to me.
I stare at the paper between my fingers then back at Jessie. Her bright, emerald eyes are brimming with love and diligence as she cocks her head and smirks at me.
“It’s a goodbye letter. I know it is, Jess.” I verbalize my insecurities, shaking my head in denial, pleading to the cosmos that I may be mistaken, and that my trepidation and negativity is misguiding my judgement of Hayden’s abilities to be so callous.
“Stop thinking the worst of everything, and just read it, Sammy.”
I concentrate on the lined parchment in my grasp. With great hesitancy, I unfold it once. Peeking up into her warm expressive, green eyes, her sculpted pink lips and high-rise cheekbones, she inches forward on the stool.
“I’ll be in the shower if you need me okay, Sammy.” And with a tender caress of my shoulder in and offering of comfort, she smiles her secretive smile, and leaves me alone with my letter.
It rustles as I finish unfolding its contents. In Hayden’s neat, italic script, I begin to read:
Dearest, Samantha.
From the first time I laid my eyes on you, I felt something in me shift and unfurl––awaken even. The words you spoke that day haunted my mind, it gave rise to a lost expectation I never imagined I could have recaptured. You said, “Before we begin.”
Well, Samantha, that was the beginning…it was the beginning of us, and you have consumed my every waking and sleeping thought since that day.
I recall the elation that I felt secretly exploding within me the first time you placed your soft lips upon mine. It was then that I knew that there was something different about you; you brought color into my dark, abysmal life, you made me feel hope. You unknowingly helped me rediscover feelings and abilities that I was convinced was lost forever, in an abyss that was slowly singing out to me like a siren’s song––to become a part of and to lose myself to entirely.
Well, beautiful, I have lost myself to the siren’s song…I have lost myself to you.
Every passing moment that I’m with you, I feel I can achieve anything, can do impossible things just for you, because you are my strength. You have done more than just give me your time and affection, you have ignited the furnace within me, showed me that I can make someone happy and make them feel special without the menial, stereotypical things that some desire…and that I am not a weakened man.
Your faith in me, unlocks the door to my self-loathing and I am gradually freeing myself from the cursed voices that condemn me to acknowledge the derisive sentiments they torture me with everyday.
My furnace burns for you…I burn for only you, Samantha Kennedy.
You are the light at the end of my tunnel. You are the air I need to breathe.
I worship the ground you walk on; for you are a Goddess…you are my Queen.
Forever yours, Hayden xxx
I brush away the tears that progresses to roll down my face and splatters against the elegant black ink of Hayden’s handwriting upon the paper.
My first love letter, what a way to wake up?
Pressing the paper against my chest, I smile deliriously, a smile so broad that it makes my cheekbones ache, but I am powerless to stop.
Reaching past the fruit bowl, over to the corner of the breakfast bar, I recover my cell phone and switch it on. I need to ring Hayden; I need to hear his voice. I need to thank him.
Within seconds of me turning on the device, it beeps and vibrates in my hand, startling me as it tingles and dances against my palm.
I open up the message.
*** Received: Sunday 21st October 2012 @ 10:30 a.m. ***
Good morning, beautiful. Sorry I had to leave before you awoke.
There is something of great importance I needed to take care of.
I beg of you, please trust me, and do not jump to conclusions.
I need to see you tonight, mine at 7:00p.m. xxx.
I snigger at his message, and nip at the right-side of my lower lip, wondering idly what matter of importance has to be taken care of on a Sunday?
Parking my blue Honda next to Hayden’s DB9 in the parking lot of The Paramount, I lean over to the passenger seat and dig my cell out of my purse. I chuckle in amazement as I rummage through bills, cosmetics and fresh panties, seriously, how I could fit so much junk in such a small space is beyond me.
Finally grasping the rectangular touchscreen, I pull it from its encasement and pull up Hayden’s number.
Just like clockwork, he answers on the third ring.
“Hey, beautiful, where are you?�
�
“Hey, I’m just parking. I will be up in a few minutes.” I check my makeup in the rear-view mirror, rubbing a smidgen of stray gloss away from the seam of my bottom lip.
“I will see you in a moment then.” I sense his lip curling into one of his luscious, suggestive smirks. A jolt shoots up my spine and through my hips. “The door’s unlocked, so just come straight in.”
“Okay, will do. See you in a few. Bye.” I hang up then toss my phone back into the deceptively small purse, before glancing back into the rear-view mirror and tousling the roots of my hair, giving it the ‘shaggy’ look that Hayden falls head over heels for.
After a torturous slow ascent to what I have come to name as, ‘Hayden’s Haven on the thirty-eight floor’, I stand before his apartment door. Cupping my hands together I expel a warm breath into the hollow they form while eagerly rubbing life into them.
I overhear faint music beyond the doorway. Out of politeness I knock on the wooden surface then, with caution I push the door open, sweeping it aside as though pushing it through deep snow.
Oh, my God. I am stunned, dazed, cemented to the spot whilst all breath is assailed from my body and tears take the place of my words.
The warm, deep sound of Kenny G’s, Songbird reverberates over the speakers, filling the apartment with the delicious duotones of music. Flames from the candles flicker to the silent beat of their own secret melody as they stand scattered in a perfect array around the rooms. Rose petals lay strewn across the dark, hardwood flooring, like a celebrity red carpet waiting for someone worthy to ambulate over their daintiness.
I seek Hayden through the gilded glow. Instantly locking eyes with my breathtakingly, gorgeous man as he leans against the arm of his sofa facing towards me, wearing simple, black pants and a crisp white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone. His thick, dark hair which is usually flopping at an angle over his brow is slicked back to perfection.