And now, it’s not just my marriage at risk, but me, if that makes any sense. I’m at risk of losing myself, somehow.
I tether myself to Mary when she’s here, and Liam when he is, but when I’m alone, it’s not good. The depression. The feeling of nothingness, bleakness. It’s dark.
And it’s so damn foreboding, like the end is near. Which is absurd, because there is no end. Not in this shitty story.
When I come out of the shower, the cold air hitting my hot skin sends chill bumps scattering across it, and I inhale a deep cool breath.
“Baby girl, you’re still so beautiful. You know it?” My eyes shoot up and see his in the bathroom mirror’s reflection. “After all that you’ve been through, you’re still just as beautiful. If not more.” His husky voice makes my breath catch in my throat. I didn’t think he would be home today, he usually doesn’t come home until Sunday.
“Shit, Liam. I didn’t hear you come in.” I duck my head to keep from having to look him in the eyes and make my way to my closet. I need clothes. I need something to do with my hands. Get dressed. I’ll get dressed.
“I took the day off.” His voice follows me as he does to my closet. “Actually, I took off the rest of the week. So, today, tomorrow, and the next day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I’m fucking rambling. Pardon.” He holds his hands up in mock surrender and smirks.
He smirks, and he looks just like he did when we were kids and everything was simple and easy. When everything was perfect.
“Sorry, baby girl. Please—” he nods towards me, “—finish dressing. I’ll be downstairs.”
He chuckles when he turns and leaves, and it’s almost endearing enough to distract me. Almost.
I’m flustered by the time I’ve pulled on some leggings and thrown an oversized sweatshirt on. I quickly braid my damp hair into a bun on top of my head and pull on some fuzzy socks, then make my way downstairs. All the while, trying to piece together all the different possible scenarios leading to my husband being home on a Wednesday afternoon and off for the rest of the week.
I have come to learn that people don’t change. And if anything seems too good to be true, nine times out of ten…it is.
When I make it into the main sitting room, I pause when I see him pouring a tumbler of Scotch and glance at the clock.
But my glance isn’t quick enough, when I look back to where he’s standing his attention is on me, instead of his glass.
“I called and spoke to your doctor today. We had a nice little chat.” His dark blue eyes soften their glacial glare, and his boyish smile shows off the laugh lines around his eyes. I feel my foolish heart flutter.
Stupid, stupid heart.
“Did you know you could travel? I discussed it with your doctor, and you’re cleared to travel. You have been since one week after…” His words carry off and a frown furrows his brows.
And my silly heart warms towards him even more. I keep forgetting that I used to love him before all this happened—that I used to love him—before I hated him. I keep forgetting he lost something, too.
“I know I have been. I didn’t know there was somewhere you were planning on going, let alone taking me. Where, Liam? I’ll go, I’ll be happy to go anywhere with you. You know that.”
This is when my silly heart asks my jaded mind, “One more time?”
When I married Liam, I knew I wouldn’t be getting married again. I’m not like my mother, I’m not like Mary. There are no second lives. Or third. Or fourth. There’s only one. And the person I chose to live my one with is Liam. I decided that then, and I’ll decide it everyday for the rest of my life.
I’ll live this life with him, or I’ll live it alone.
So, today I forgive. I smile and I forgive.
His arms link around me, and he nuzzles against my ear. “I know that,” he whispers. “I just like to make you say it sometimes.” After scattering kisses on my neck and behind my ear, he steps back and buttons his suit jacket. He picks his tumbler up from the end table and sips from it before setting it back down and continuing. All business Liam, but still full of his boyish charm. “New Orleans. I have a business meeting tonight at eight, but after that, the weekend is ours. You and I, old French history, Cajun food, and some of your favorite historical suites—on Canal street. What do you say, baby girl? Will you be my date?” His smile is so boyish, his voice is just deep enough and just light enough to be called the same.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Fucking hell.
I hate it, but hope, or something that feels a lot like it, flutters back to life when he kisses my forehead and his hands squeeze the tops of my shoulders, just before he whispers, “You finish getting ready, go pack a bag. I’ll go make a few calls, and we’ll meet in the foyer, let’s say, in an hour and a half. Clarence will drive us to the airport. Sound good, baby girl?” His arms slide around my waist before tightening and lifting my feet from the floor.
And that damned hope catches another breath of air and takes flight as he peppers my face and neck and shoulders with more little kisses, tickling me.
I laugh, giggling out the words, “Okay, okay. Deal.” When he releases me, I catch my breath and sputter out, “Deal.” But before I do as I’m told, I look up at him and smile. I don’t let him go either. I keep my arms around him. And I give myself a few seconds to gauge my husband’s sincerity. That’s awful, isn’t it?
It can’t possibly be normal. And shame creeps in, but I smile, covering it up before kissing his lips. “I’m excited, Liam.” I lie. I’m excited, but I’m also fucking scared to death. “Thank you for this, whatever…this is.” I smile as big as I can before heading towards my wing of the house and making my way back to my closet to choose outfits for today and the next few following.
New Orleans. Damn, I almost can’t believe it. Mary’s going to be so excited for me. I’ll be getting out of the house. Out of my dark room, out from under my dark blankets. My warm dark blankets.
“Is it warm there?” I ask over my shoulder, glancing at him by my bedroom door, texting on his phone.
He smiles before looking over at me, “Probably as cool as it is here, it could be warm though. Definitely pack a light jacket or a warm sweater.”
Perfectly answered. Like always.
When the plane lands, hope has spiraled into something new, a feeling. One I haven’t felt in quite some time. It’s something stronger than hope. Something more.
Something more of everything—including dangerous.
But I can’t think about that right now. I can’t think about it because it’ll drive me crazy.
And that’s if I’m not already insane.
The thought makes me frown.
“Baby girl? Baby girl? Hey, where’d you go in that head of yours?” Liam’s voice invades my rambling thoughts, and I look from the black baggage claim belt rolling in front of me, up to him.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, I hate being so scatter brained. “I still…get lost sometimes,” I tap my temple, “up here. It’s weird, but I’m told it’s normal. Hormones or something.” I explain away the turmoil I mentally struggle with day in and day out. I expect he can understand, but it’s still something I can’t fully talk with him about.
“I know, baby. I understand,” he somberly says under his breath as he grabs our luggage.
Once we’re pulling off the interstate and sliding into the flow of traffic in the French Quarter, his funny banter and chill demeanor finally fracture a bit.
And for the first time in as long as I can remember, since moving to New York, I see my husband again. My Liam. The man I know and love.
This can’t be good. But that damn hope, still defibrillating my wounded-and-left-for-dead heart, won’t acknowledge the thought.
“Lexy, I know this has been hard.” I watch his knuckles blanch when his grip tightens on the steering wheel, and immediately I prepare for the worse as dread swallows my stomach.
I don’t want to know the real reason for his odd
behavior lately. I don’t want him to say something he can’t unsay, as ridiculous as that sounds. But it strikes me, the realization of knowing and not knowing…what if knowing could cost me my last threads of sanity?
I just fucking can’t.
Not today. Not right now. Not so soon after…
“I’m afraid it’s going to get a lot harder before it gets easier, too.” His sigh followed by his words are enough to shatter my heart.
No, no, no, no. No.
I can’t.
“Liam, don’t. Please, just don’t.”
His eyes darken as his jaw tightens, but he never looks in my direction or away from the busy road. “Don’t what, Lexy? Pull your head out of the sand? Snap you into reality? Fine, if that’s the way you want it, fine. But keep these following words in mind when it comes time to accept the cost of living the way we do. These people aren’t like us, Lex. They are nothing fucking like us.”
Wait, what?
“Who is, Liam? Who is nothing like us?” I quip. “Mary and Charles seem pretty sane and functioning. The people in town are all nice.” I’m so lost. So, so, fucking lost.
“No, sweetheart. My colleagues, the people I work with. The ones who live like us.” After shaking his head he lets out another exasperated sigh, “You know what, never mind. It’s work, and I shouldn’t be bringing this shit home, especially on our little get away.”
Wait…what?!
As much as I want to dig for information, I just can’t.
There’s an invisible line between yourself and insanity. At least in my mind, anyway. And even though you can’t see it, you can feel it. It’s like a rubber band, you can pull it and push it like you can most things. But like most things, if you push and pull and fuck with it too much, it’ll break.
And I may be wrong, but my gut tells me that mine is close to snapping. Too close for comfort. Too close for anymore damn pulling or pushing.
So instead of pushing for more information, or trying to pull answers out of him, I accept my place in his world, in my life, and in this universe for where and who I am in this moment, on this day.
So today, I forgive. Again.
I smile and forgive and forget.
And I vow to take each of the following days, one day at a time.
Because it’s all I can do. To keep my husband and my sanity, it’s all I can do.
After our things are packed away and my wife is sleeping soundly in the massive bed, centering the master suite of the French Quarter penthouse at Ritz Carlton, I glance out over the dark bubbling Mississippi river and frown at the similarities between my foreboding future and the mighty river.
“Such a pathetic waste,” I mutter.
As I walk from the huge terrace overlooking the city, spicy food teases my nostrils and jazz music wafts up through the double doors leading back into the penthouse.
“What’d you say, Liam?” My wife’s sleepy voice comes from under the piles of blankets on the bed as her head pops up. “Sorry, I must’ve dozed off.” She yawns around her latter words.
“Nothing, baby girl. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.” After turning off the lamp on the bedside table, I lean over and kiss her forehead. “I’m heading out for my meeting. Don’t expect me back until late.”
On my way from the room though, her words stop me. “Liam?” When I turn back, she’s sitting up in bed. Her beautiful long, strawberry blonde curls curtain around her frail frame, and I realize…what I said to her earlier today, about her still being so beautiful, it wasn’t a lie. But, when I look through the dim room and into my wife’s eyes, I see the fear. I see the pain and hurt in them.
But I can’t fucking care.
I can’t.
I can’t for many differing reasons, but the main reason, at the center of it all, is a reason I won’t …I cannot look too closely at.
Because if I do, it’ll fucking kill me.
I watch the contrasting emotions flicker across her face as I stand beside the door leaving the master suite, and other than tilting my head I stay perfectly still. First confusion, and sadness, and hurt. Then hope, turning into hopelessness, gradually…but still turning, all the same. Then, finally…I watch as her tired, stressed mind, simply lets go. “Never mind, I just wanted to tell you I love you. And I hope you have a good time. That’s all.”
“I love you, too, baby girl. I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.” I close the door behind me and make my way from the suite.
Settled into the back seat of the limo Travis said he would send, I finally feel the tension in my muscles relax. I breathe for the first time since landing in this town.
I still don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I asked Lexy to come. I’d just walked into the her bathroom after getting home. I was supposed to just run home, quickly pack a suitcase, and head out. I was only required to attend the meeting, not stay three nights in a suite costing two-thousand dollars a night. But when I saw her, so frail and thin, so…pathetic, standing in the restroom without a stitch of clothing on, something beat against my hollow chest. My good mood must’ve taken control of my mouth.
And my mood had been good for only one reason. That was after I told Travis I wouldn’t have a problem picking up his old friend from the airport in New Orleans after my meeting with old man Jackson’s New Orleans CEO of Jackson’s-Orleans’ Agency, something changed. The tension that’d been building between he and I since that ominous phone conversation a month ago, just disappeared.
I’d just walked out of an early meeting with old man Jackson and Travis was coming out of his own office. As soon as he saw me, he waved. And after some idle banter, he asked me to join him for scotch and brunch at ten, slapped me on the back, and said he’d fill me in then. At brunch it was as though the entire last month had never happened. His demand of time with my wife was never revoked, however, but as far as I can tell, it shouldn’t be long before I’m good enough in his graces and paid up enough in favors to breech the subject of my wife again.
And did the favors ever stack in my favor during that brief brunch. First he asked if I could pick up an old high school buddy of his from the airport after my meeting. No problem, I told him of course. Never questioning why Travis could call and have a limo pick me up from the Ritz, take me to my scheduled meeting, then drive me around town fetching his old playmate and getting him settled into whichever hotel before returning me to mine, but not have called for his friend a driver. Nor did I question him when he asked me to keep ‘this’ between only he and I. By the time he and I had sorted out and split the coke we had between the two of us, and he’d let me know that Rhett Bennett—a friend of his since the tenth grade—wasn’t on his old man’s list of favorite people, but was still a strong business asset that the old man wanted…So when I say it’s safe to assume I’ll be back in his good graces soon, I’m not exaggerating.
I sigh and look out the passenger side window, barely seeing the slick black cobbled roads and sidewalks scattered with happy drunken people.
My monotonous life begins pulling on the edges of my sanity and I feel the tension tightening in my shoulders. I close my eyes and look away from the streets passing by and I can’t help but wonder, when did all this become so weak?
My plans. My ambitions. My goals.
When did my life begin unraveling?
It couldn’t have been the move to New York. The glass ceiling I left at Jackson’s in California was worth the move alone, add the bigger and newer house, and no—it wasn’t the move. It damn sure wasn’t riding myself of the constant burden that was my father. Other than the one little tie up I had with Travis, everything about New York has been fine.
Could it be the baby?
It wasn’t Summer. I mean she was a nice piece of ass. And her cunt was always warm and wet, but…
No. It wasn’t Summer.
It probably is the loss of mine and Lexy’s child. I’m sure if my mother were here now she’d be chastising me for not ‘fe
eling it fully’ yet, or some ridiculous notion.
“Mr. Dean, we’re here.” Drake’s voice pulls me from my darkening thoughts just as the limo pulls to a stop in front of August, one of New Orleans’ finest French restaurants.
While smiling and nodding, I make my way through the room and polite causalities. When I spot Mr. Brighton, Jackson’s New Orleans CEO, I direct my path towards him and in no time at all I’ve made my way to our table and introduced myself.
The business part of my job has never plagued me, and I like to think it’s because I really like to win…that, and I’m damn good at winning.
But in reality, I think it’s the chase. The thrill of it.
I like the business part because there’s no emotions. No feelings are needed. It’s black and white. Money? Or No? Are the dividends there? Of course they are, I said they would be.
If I’m pitching, you’re batting. And that’s when I’m on the phone, or when I’m in front of old washed up broker’s in frumpy suits.
Playing the referee.
I barely notice I haven’t heard a word he’s said in the last fifteen minutes when exhaustion settles in and the jet lag finally begins taking its toll.
Fuck. It’s like I can’t even focus.
“…if I’m the main southeastern branch, it doesn’t seem plausible.” His tone reminds me of the actors on Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, repeating, ‘Beuller?’.
I take a guess at whatever it is he was just rambling about, and attempt to pacify him at the same time, “Yes, sir. And that was a main issue Mr. Jackson struggled with, but after months of deliberation, there just simply is no other way. And it must be twenty percent. The original fifteen purposed was an undershot.” I point to the area explaining his fifteen percent, no sorry, twenty percent lay-off proposal in exchange for his new office space and buildings. “Look, Jesse.” I motion between the two of us, trying to show trust. Ever the referee. “You don’t mind if I call you Jesse, do you?”
He vehemently shakes his head, “No. no. It’s fine, son.”
See? Trust.
Mind F*ck Page 7