by Kiki Leach
“You’re telling me that you’re sorry,” she said, abruptly cutting her off.
Nikki crinkled her brows. “I think that’s what I was doing--”
“Are you also sorry that my kids wake up every morning, asking me every DAY when their daddy is coming home? Are you sorry that it takes every little bit that I have inside of me to remember that I am their mother to keep from telling them that Daddy is NEVER coming home thanks to some two-bit bimbo who couldn’t keep her legs shut around him?! ARE you sorry?” she asked again. But Nikki never responded. She shook her head and bent forward. “You’re not sorry for anything, Nicole Sanger, except for maybe being unable to actively choose between which man you want more. The one who left his entire family for you, or the one willing to give you absolutely everything that you ever wanted and more.”
“You don’t know anything about my relationship with William,” said Nicole.
“I don’t have to know anything about it. I can read as much as I need to on the cover of every society page in town. I’ve heard through friends about you nabbing the lead in Wicked thanks to the understudy suddenly falling ‘ill’. I can only imagine how well that worked out for you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that women like you only get things in life one way. Your talent has always been on your back and knees. I don’t see how, with such little experience, you could’ve landed such a prestigious role in that play without performing one act or the other. Or does the line that often waits for you around every corner of this city mean that can you do both at the same time now?”
Instinctively, Nikki pulled her hand back and struck Melanie across the face.
Almost immediately, both women stepped back from each other in shock.
Nikki’s throbbing hand hung high in the air as if it were frozen. Her eyes looked like giant saucers beneath the lids and her mouth fell open. As air passed through and down to her lungs, her lips, tongue, gums and teeth had become absolutely dry. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She couldn’t believe what she had just done, or why. It wasn’t as if Melanie didn’t have every right in the world to call her a slut, to label her as trash for sleeping with a man that she knew was married, knew had children, and knew wanted more than all of that combined with her. But it seemed as if absolutely everything and everyone had been getting to her as of late, between the stress of the play starting so soon and William’s suspicions, Oscar coming back around and then the incident with Sheila just a few hours before. She knew somewhere deep down that she was bound to snap at some point, due to being unable to handle it all in the way she once thought she could. She just didn’t expect, nor did she want the result of what seemed to be unraveling for her by the day to land directly across Melanie’s face.
Melanie’s cheek twitched from the sting of Nikki’s slap-happy hand. She rested her palm against it while snarling in her direction. And though she had the urge to strike her back, and hard enough to where she couldn’t get up again, she was more than aware that just slapping the absolute shit out of her rival until she bled wouldn’t solve as many problems as she would have liked and would have in fact created more. With people around, she knew it was possible that she would come out looking the worse of the two, because once she was able to get her hands on Nikki, there was no stopping her from going completely full throttle and pummeling her until only her mother was able to identify the body in the morgue.
As Nikki finally lowered her hand, she took a step forward. Melanie tightened her jaw and stared so hard and long at her, that Nikki thought twice about getting back into her space and took another few steps back instead.
“I’m sor--”
“Go to hell,” Melanie interjected, her words just as hard and angry as her face. “Don’t you dare even form your lips to say that you’re sorry for this! You’re no more sorry for slapping me across the face than you are for continuing to screw my husband. I don’t know what the hell Oscar was thinking! Not only are you an expensive whore, but a stupid one too. Because if you honestly believe that what happened here today with this meeting and your actions is going to stay just between us, you are dead wrong.”
Melanie shoved Nikki aside as hard as she could and reached down inside her purse for her phone while heading out of the park.
Panicking, and fearing that the news would get around to the entire city before she had a chance to even shine on her opening night, Nikki ran her hands across the top of her hair and began fidgeting.
“Mierda!” she screamed out. “Mierda, mierda, MIERDA!”
She reached down into her own purse for her own phone, and raced out of the park as fast as her legs could carry her.
Part Twenty-One
It had been hours since Nathan spoke to Vanessa on the phone, and as he lay back on the rotten cot lining his isolated cell, all he could think about was how much more concerned she was with Maurice than she had been with him. More and more he was beginning to realize what had basically been slapping him back and forth across the face for months now: everything she had ever felt for him had died a slow and painful death long before he was ever officially ready to let it all go.
If last night had proven anything, it was that everything they ever shared, wanted and had hoped for in the future was finally buried in a steel box deep within Vanessa’s soul – a box she forced herself to lose the key to the moment he admitted why he had once again gone out of his way to ruin her life. For her, love for him had turned into immense hate. For him, love for her had turned into pain and anger and rage and disillusionment.
He closed his eyes and attempted to think back on the times in which she seemed to hate him a hell of a lot less than she did that day, but was jarred awake by the gruff sounds of Officer Joe, who made it a point slide his Billy-club back and forth across the bars as soon as he entered.
Pissed enough to want to put his fist through Officer Joe’s face, Nathan was trying as hard as he could to keep from landing a permanent place inside of that hellhole and jumped up from his bed. He went to the other side of the cell to stare out of the tiny window in the wall that was just big enough for him to stick his head through and clinched his fists, then unclenched them, and then clinched them again.
“Hey, Taylor!” Officer Joe called out once he dropped his club to his side.
Nathan turned his head to the side and clinched his jaw while peeking through the bars. “What?” he angrily responded.
Joe wrapped his hands around two bars and leaned his head forward. “You’ve got a visitor. Someone really looking forward to seeing you right about now.”
Convinced it was Vanessa coming to bail him out after all, Nathan stood up straight and prepared himself for her presence.
“You ready?” asked Joe. He backed away from the bars and headed back over to the door. He opened it wide and nodded to the person standing on the other side, then held out his hand.
As soon as the person waiting to see Nathan stepped inside, he handed Joe what looked to be a few hundreds and some change. The moment the door shut, Nathan flung his arms through the bars and hung his head while balling his fists.
“Shit.”
Maurice stood in front of him and like an anxious child, waved his hands in his face. “Surprise.” His deep voice carried throughout the room. “I’m guessing from the pissed off look, you weren’t expecting to see me standing on the other side.”
Releasing a sharp breath, Nathan resisted the urge to grab him by the collar and pull him through the bars to join him.
“What the fuck are you doing back here, man? Miss me that much?”
“No,” Maurice replied. “V told me about you still being locked up, so I thought I’d come back by after stopping at the office to see you behind bars for myself, since we were separated.”
“Maybe you should stick around to see her again later when she comes down here to bail me out herself.”
He grinded his teeth and swallowed hard. “She told you she’d be down here
to help you out?”
“Straight up made a promise when I called her this morning.” He tightened his jaw.
“Really.”
“Yup.”
Maurice stuffed his hands inside his pockets and stepped forward.
Nathan unclenched his fists and lifted his head.
“You know the entire time I was in that dirty cell and staring up at the ceiling, aside from wanting to get the hell out of there, all I could seem to think about was how much I couldn’t understand what the fuck it was that she ever saw in you,” said Maurice.
Nathan chuckled and shook his head. “I could say the same damn thing about you, not so pretty boy. I never knew somebody who could fuck so many women before in his life but still be whipped by one for the better part of it. I hope before you fucked V for the first time that you were protected. She’d probably kill you if you gave her something she couldn’t get rid of.”
“Nah,” he replied casually. “She likes it raw.” He leaned forward and winked.
Nathan felt the anger bubbling against his skin like acid. He clinched his fists again.
“There’s no way in fuck she’d be with you without protection.”
“Alright. Alright,” he said with a smile. “You got me on that. The first time, we wore protection. She’s always known what I was about, but it never stopped her from wanting me back, even when she was with you. Because she knew that unlike you, I’d always put her first. And I wasn’t just looking for pussy.”
“I was never looking for just pussy when it came to V either,” spat Nathan. “It was always more than that with her.”
Maurice nodded while thinking back on their years together in high school.
“You used to tell me about it,” he said. “How much you loved her, but I never saw it. You’d say you wanted to be with her for the rest of your life and in the meantime, you were looking at every ass on every cheerleader on her squad that walked by when we stood out there on that field, as if she didn’t even exist to you. I told you after practice one day, remember? That if you kept treating her like she was invisible that’s exactly what she would become. I didn’t know you’d take it one step further by fucking her best friend too.”
“I didn’t fuck Sheila,” he said.
Maurice bobbed his head. “What would you call it? A friendly get together?”
Unable to answer, Nathan turned his head and focused his eyes across the room.
“What I did in telling Page Six wasn’t about you or Sheila in a personal sense. By then, I didn’t feel as if I owed you anything one way or another, loyalty-wise. It was about Vanessa. I never banked on her life becoming a spectacle after that. I just wanted you two to suffer for what you had done.”
“Then it was personal,” Nathan replied. “We’ve known each other our entire lives and you were willing to give up that friendship for pussy you never thought you’d taste.”
“But I have,” he said with a smile parting his lips. “And it tastes just like honey, straight from the hive of a Queen Bee. See, you were willing to give that up for a woman you don’t even love – one most of us questioned if you even liked outside of what she could to do your dick. And now you’re miserable as fuck and getting married, having a wedding you don’t even want. I may not be with Vanessa now, but we’re going to get back there. No matter what happens from this second forward, she’s never going back to you or that toxic life before me.”
Nathan swallowed hard, then sucked down on the inside of his bottom lip while violently shaking his head. “I never meant to hurt her like that,” he said. “I never meant to do her dirty in fuckin’ around with Sheila.” His eyes fell. “It was just something that happened and I couldn’t stop it… I didn’t want to stop it. After all that shit came out, I thought that once it died down, maybe we would have another chance. But once it got to a point where we couldn’t even walk out the front doors without cameras in our faces and reporters asking questions nobody wanted to answer, I knew that there would be no way in hell she was taking me back. Even if she wanted to, her pride wouldn’t let her. Neither would Alexis. But I never gave up on the idea of it happening again. Because being with her made me better than who I was. It might not have seemed that way at the time given my constant fuck ups, but it did. Being with Sheila after that…” He stopped and laughed to himself. “Over the last five years, she’s driven me crazier than a muthafucka.”
“But it’s not the kind of crazy that V drives me,” said Maurice. “The kind that keeps me sticking around for it even when I feel like I can’t take much more.”
Nathan quieted his voice. “Yeah.”
“Look, as much as I might want to, I can’t exactly tell you to stay away from her. I could beat the shit out of you again, but I’ve known you too long and with her coming here today, if she does, there’s no point. All I can ask is that you back the fuck off and let her breathe for a little bit. Like I said, she’s not going back to what you had. She’s not going back to that Adrian asshole either, whatever they had is done.” He waited a moment and sighed. “I don’t like fighting with you, Nate. We were boys for most of my life.”
“Yeah. Mine too. But I guess it had to come to an end at some point because of how you felt about her. I didn’t think she’d ever go down that route with you though, and at first thought that maybe she did it just to piss me off. But when I saw you together, I don’t even want to admit it, but I knew that it was honest, and that there was no way in hell that any of us were going back to what we had. Even so, I’m a stubborn muthafucka and I don’t bow out in silence.” They both chuckled. “But V did.” He stopped to think before continuing on. “I thought bringing out Adrian would shake things up and it did, just not in the way I had initially planned.”
“We’re not together,” Maurice replied. “That’s what you wanted.”
“Not now, but you just said it won’t be that way for long. And I believe that. I sure as fuck don’t want to, but I do.” He stopped, waiting for a beat to pass. “That being said, you do know me well ‘cause I’m I not gonna stay away from her,” he said. “But I won’t go out of my way to sabotage whatever the hell it is that you two have, again. I keep trying to get shit my way and it hasn’t done anybody any good. Now I’m locked up, she’s more miserable now than she was when we were together, and you got left with a face that only she and your mother could love.”
Mo ran his hand down either side of his face and smirked. “It’ll heal. And so will she.”
“Us too?”
Nathan cautiously raised his hand.
A suspicious Maurice looked down and waited a moment before raising his own hand and sliding it between the bars.
After moving them up and down in unison a few times, Maurice belligerently jerked Nathan forward, slamming his face against the bars.
Blood spewed from his nose and mouth and landed on Maurice’s shirt, but he didn’t back away. Nathan roared like an animal inside a cage as soon as one of the rusted bars smashed against his tooth. He tried pulling back, but Maurice latched his other hand around his wrist.
“I want you to understand something now,” he said. “We will never be good again. Ever. Fool me once and all that shit. And if you ever try and fuck her over again in any capacity, because I do know you well enough, a cell will be the last thing that your ass will need to be concerned about. Cause next time, it’ll be a coffin waiting for you, the same one that I buried you in five years ago right before you left for California. But this time, you won’t be coming out with just a few scratches. Because you won’t be coming out of it at all.”
Maurice forcefully shoved him away and Nathan tripped back to the center of the cell. They glared at one another but Nathan was the first to break away when he turned his head to spit out the blood coating his teeth. He wiped the blood from beneath his nose and flung it in the air, subconsciously hoping to hit Maurice in the face.
“I missed you for a lot of years,” Maurice told him. “You were like the brother I ne
ver had. But there was no reviving that friendship for me after what you did to her. She may eventually forgive you for that shit. But I don’t think I ever will.”
“It’s a damn good thing I’ll never be asking for it.”
“Damn good thing,” Maurice replied. “A real damn good thing.”
He wiped Nathan’s blood down the front of his shirt, then headed for the door and knocked a few times. When it swung back, he glanced over at Joe and nodded, then paced down the hall and out of Nathan’s sight.
Joe headed inside and saw Nathan walking around in circles while clamping his fingers around his nose and holding his head back to keep from bleeding out all over the floor.
Joe shook his head. “Do you need a medic in here? Or a mop?”
Nathan wiped his nose with the back of his hand and spat on the floor again. “No,” he said. “Just make sure that the next person who comes in here to see me isn’t--”
Joe raised his hand and shut his eyes. He was done listening to anymore of what Nathan had to say.
“Listen kid, you don’t get to make the rules in here.” He pointed to his chest. “That’s my job.” And then he pulled out his cell phone and flipped it sideways. “Now raise your head and smile for the camera.”
Nathan shut his eyes as soon as the bulb flashed and cursed to himself.
“My wife will get a kick out of this. She was never all that fond of you or that fiancée of yours from what she used to read,” said Joe. He stared down at the picture on his phone for a few seconds and laughed before stuffing it back inside his pocket. “I heard you telling the other one that Vanessa is supposed to be coming by here later to bail you out.”
“She’s the only other person I’d be willing to see.”
“Yeah, alright kid. If she chooses to show up” – Joe opened his hands – “I’ll let you know.”
Seconds later, Nathan was left completely alone.
He walked back over to the bars and slipped his arms through them again. Bending forward, he closed one hand around his fist and began to wonder if maybe life would in fact be easier if after marrying Sheila, they went back to California just as she had been begging him to do from the moment they stepped foot back in the city.