Chrysalis (Dangerous Secrets)

by Francis, Rose

  “No,” she said a little louder, still not turning around.

  She walked away, heading toward Maria who she found dipping banana pieces in the chocolate fountain.

  “Can we get out of here now?” she asked her.

  “Are you kidding me? I’m just getting started! Mmm...you should try this. I haven’t tried the white chocolate one yet, I wanna...”

  “He’s here—he just snuck up on me.”

  “Well forgive me if I’m not surprised. And you make it sound like he had his binoculars out looking for you.”

  “Maybe. Who knows with a psycho like that?”

  “He’s not a psycho and you know it.

  “Says who? Anyway, come on. We came together, we leave together, so let’s go. Or are you waiting to check out Eddie’s girlfriends?”

  “Girlfriends? That doesn’t sound like my Eddie.”

  “Shows how much you know your Eddie.”

  “No need to be cruel Sydney. Christ. Fine, let’s go. You’re such a party-pooper.”

  “Why, look who’s here.”

  They both turned.

  Evelyn was smiling like the Cheshire cat.

  She turned to Maria.

  “Are you bringing the entertainment this evening? A boxing match perhaps?”

  Then she turned to Sydney.

  “Why Sydney, I haven’t seen you around much. I’ve missed you terribly.”

  Sydney snuck a glance at Maria.

  Evelyn swept her arm in the direction of the food.

  “Help yourselves! Although I’m sure you have already. After all, who knows when next you’ll have the pleasure of such goodies. Oh, by the way, you don’t have to use your fingers. Toothpicks and plates are on the tables. And napkins.” She started to walk off, but spun around as if she had just remembered something.

  “Oh and dears, do stay for a bit. I’ve got quite a treat for you all later on. It’ll be fun.”

  Evelyn continued on her way.

  Sydney and Maria looked at each other, curiosity overtaking them both.

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” Sydney said.

  “And satisfaction brought it back. I know you want to stay too, don’t look at me like that.”

  “Okay, so all we have to do is avoid those guys for a bit. I think Nicholas will stay away for a while. I know him. He has to regroup and formulate some kind of plan—he’s not too good at spontaneity. I just hope the surprise doesn’t take too long.”

  “Yeah. Me too,” Maria agreed, except she sounded kind of dreamy, sort of far away as she said it, and Sydney soon saw why.

  Eddie had appeared with a blond by his side, a different one than she had seen before.

  He walked up to Allison, hugged and kissed her on the cheek, then gave her a gift. Allison held it with one hand, shook hands with the blond with the other, then went off to put the gift in her gift circle. Eddie and the blond headed to the bar.

  Maria sighed.

  “As delicious as that woman’s surprise sounds, I would like to leave right now. This is so pathetic. I am so pathetic.”

  Sydney wrapped her arm in Maria’s.

  “There’s nothing pathetic about it. If anything, he’s the pathetic one.”

  Sydney wanted to lead Maria off somewhere, but she didn’t know where to go.

  She felt trapped—Eddie on one side of them, Nicholas on the other.

  She decided to head outside but Maria didn’t cooperate until she could fill as many plates as she could hold with food.

  Soon, everyone who was outside with them was being ushered back into the house for one of the final events. When they came back inside, they noticed that the culinary decor had changed a bit. There were now five tables set up with small items that were the same but of varying colors. As they got closer, they noticed that they looked like fortune cookies except, like fortune cookies that had fallen out of a rainbow: one pile, a deep satin ruby red, another, brilliant sapphire blue, and another, mint-green. The other one was tan, the other pink-lemonade colored.

  “Your fortunes!” Evelyn said. “Wrapped up in cherry, blueberry, mint, cappuccino and strawberry. Enjoy!”

  Maria didn’t need to be told twice. She headed for the cherry while Sydney picked up a pink one.

  She could see Maria was excited.

  Maria ate through to the fortune.

  “Oh my god—that was so good,” Maria said, still chewing. Then she held up the strip of paper. “Okay it says: ‘You cannot eat your cake, and have your cake. Miguel de Cervantes.’” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Interesting. What does yours say?”

  Sydney broke the cookie.

  “You better not be planning to waste that beauty,” Maria said, staring at it. Sydney laughed and gave her half, then ate the other half. She made a mental note to grab a few more to take home with her once it kissed her tongue.

  “Okay, mine says: ‘The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.—Richard Bach.’ Even more interesting.”

  Maria let out a deep breath.

  “Well, that was fun and all, but I’m a bit disappointed. I expected fireworks of some sort.”

  “I bet that other fortune cookie you palmed says: ‘be careful what you wish for—you just might get it,’” Sydney replied, noticing Eddie heading for them. Maria turned to look.

  “Sydney, can you excuse us for a moment?” Eddie asked as he reached them.

  Sydney looked at Maria.

  Maria gave a slight nod indicating it was okay.

  Sydney backed away but was unsure where to go. She felt vulnerable now, exposed. She was sure if Nicholas saw that she was alone, he would pounce, so she stayed close, yet out of earshot of Eddie and Maria, trying to occupy herself with some of the snacks.

  She decided she wanted to try the cappuccino fortune cookie and grabbed one.

  “You can’t run forever you know.”

  Even now his voice still managed to climb her spine. She had to resist the urge to close her eyes and savor the feeling.

  “Only till I no longer have legs,” she replied, not wanting to look at him.

  “Sydney look at me please.”

  Sydney knew it wasn’t a good idea but she turned slowly and looked up, knowing she would regret complying to his request.

  Love washed over her heart like a massaging shower. She found herself wanting to put her arms around him and just hold him close, inhale his scent, savor the feeling of him next to her.

  She looked away, not wanting to reveal her thoughts in her eyes.

  “Sydney, please give me a chance. Let me talk to you. We need to talk things out—you can’t leave us like this!”

  “Wanna bet?”

  She turned to walk away.

  Nicholas grabbed her by the arm.

  “Please,” he said. “Come upstairs with me. Let’s talk.”

  Sydney tried to pull her arm away forcefully, but her body wouldn’t listen.

  She looked up at him. Then she looked around. They had caught the attention of several people.

  She relented, her shoulders sagging.

  “Okay. But not upstairs.”

  Her heart had leapt unexpectedly at his words so she didn’t trust herself with him. Nor him with her for that matter.

  “Okay, well we’ll go to...you name it. Wherever you’re comfortable.”

  Sydney thought about it. The first floor was full of young adults and probably the guest rooms, leaving Nicholas’s room on the third floor and one room on the second floor.

  “The cat room.”

  Nicholas laughed despite the situation.

  “All right, your wish is my command.”

  They headed to the second floor.

  When Nicholas opened the door to Glacier’s room his mouth dropped open.

  Sydney looked to see what took him by surprise.

  She saw Mrs. Dhalton hurriedly hopping off the knee of a familiar serva
nt, the young one who had been introduced as Jeremy.

  “Mom?” Nicholas said, still watching his mother in shock.

  “Oh.” She was wiping her mouth. “Nicholas! How are you doing dear? Sydney, hello. I’m glad you stuck around—I knew Nicholas wanted to see you.”

  Nicholas stared at the young man whose lips his mother’s had been entwined with, then laughed. Sydney wasn’t sure if he meant it.

  “I guess now I finally understand Jeremy’s purpose; I should have known. I guess the question is: so this is who you’re doing?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly.” Evelyn was smoothing her hair. “Jeremy was just...well, you know. Oh grow up. He’s the handyman.”

  “Yeah, I bet. I can’t believe this.”

  Sydney still couldn’t figure out how Nicholas felt about the situation. His words said one thing, but something in his voice said another. It was almost as if he was happy he had caught her in such a position.

  “Nicholas don’t be so naive. When last do you think your father and I were in such a position? Do you think he doesn’t have assistants in the same positions? For the same purposes?”

  “So two wrongs make a right?”

  “I never said that dear. Frankly, I don’t see the wrong besides me being married to your father.”

  Completely composed, Evelyn walked out, head held high. Jeremy followed, shrugging, an apologetic yet smug smile on his face.

  Evelyn turned once more before going out of sight.

  “By the way, didn’t you see the ‘Do Not Enter’ sign?”

  “Haven’t you heard of locking?” he said quietly, after she had already gone.

  Nicholas stood there for a few seconds as if still processing what he had just seen.

  “I feel weird about being in here now,” he said with an empty smile. “Like the room’s been tainted.”

  Then he looked at her.

  “Well, I guess we should start. Truthfully, I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “Let me help you. How could you do it?”

  His face collapsed.

  “I don’t know, Sydney, I honestly don’t know.” His voice was like a whisper, as if coming through a reed. “I don’t remember a single thing about it, I don’t know what happened to me...”

  “Probably because I socked you over the head.”

  Nicholas’s hand immediately went to the scar. It seemed like an unconscious move. “So I’ve been told. Honestly, I think the guilt made me forget more than that blow. Post-traumatic stress disorder or something.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible.”

  “No? I do. I would do it again—forget—if everyone else could.” He reached out for her. “I only wish I could erase what happened by doing so.”

  Sydney pulled away.

  “But don’t you see? That’s the problem. I can’t forget. I can never forget.”

  “But we can work through this! I mean, stranger things have happened. I’m not like that anymore and...I love you. You won’t believe how much it’s killing me to know I might have done something like that to you! You’ve been living with it for years while I just found out about it, but wish I didn’t have to live with it another day.” He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they were glistening with tears. “All I can say is, I’m glad I forgot about it, otherwise, I never would’ve been able to be with you...”

  Sydney slapped him as hard as she could across the cheek.

  “You are such a creep. Yeah, I can see it now—forget polygamous romances, and those involving people with twenty, forty, or sixty years between them, or johns falling in love with prostitutes. Rapists and their victims—the new unconventional romance!”

  She turned to go but her body swiveled back, her body and her mind in conflict, not sure where to go next.

  “What can I do? How can I make this better?” he asked softly.

  “There’s nothing you can do. All I want to know is why and how, and you can’t give me that.”

  “Look, I’ll turn myself in if that’ll make it better somehow. Whatever you need me to do I’ll do it, but you have to talk to me, we have to pound this out.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  “Sydney, I’m serious. If that’s what it takes, just say the word, and I’m off to the station to confess. Is that what you want?”

  She just looked at him.

  “Well, okay. First thing tomorrow...”

  “No, don’t. Let me think about this for a bit. I’ll let you know.”

  He looked hurt by her words.

  “Nicholas I...” she faltered, searching for the right words but couldn’t find them. She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  She left the room and went to find Maria right away—it was time to go.

  Sydney found Maria waiting for her by the finger foods.

  “It’s about time,” Maria said, wiping her fingers with a napkin. Sydney knew it killed her to do that, that all she wanted to do was lick the juiciness off her fingers.

  “I can’t wait to hear about that conversation. Talk about wishing you were a fly on the wall,” Maria said.

  “Yeah well I wanna hear about yours too, but I just wanna go home right now. We’ll have to discuss this later.”

  They left the house.

  As their car was brought to them, a thought occurred to Sydney.

  “Sons of you-know-what, they planned it!”

  “Sydney, what are you talking about?”

  “Them! They planned to come over the same time. To force us to separate so they could talk to us.”

  “I don’t know about you, but Eddie needed no plan to get me to talk to him.”

  They hopped in the car.

  “Well, Nicholas I mean. He got Eddie to help him get you away from me knowing you were my only safety net.”

  “Are you saying that’s the only reason Eddie came over to me?”

  “No, it’s just a theory. So what did you and Eddie talk about?” she asked.

  Maria scowled.

  “Nothing important.”

  Sydney waited.

  “Okay fine. He just asked about Brandon and I told him to go fuck himself, that’s all.”

  Sydney wasn’t satisfied. She continued waiting in silence.

  Maria puffed out a short breath.

  “He asked me how I was doing, how’s summer and other small talk. Then he said he’d heard some disturbing news through the grapevine, that some guy had committed some crime against me. I played stupid for a bit, so he came right out and held me by the shoulders and asked me straight out if I was raped, but so no one but me could hear him of course.”

  She stopped and looked out the window.

  “I’m so embarrassed Sydney, I totally broke down in front of him. He was looking into my eyes and he looked so concerned, so...loving, it totally melted me. Everything I feel for him just came in such a rush...”

  She shook her head, as if shaking off another bout.

  “Anyway, I took the pleasure of telling him to mind his own goddamned business. One of his sluts happened to be nearby so I’m sure he caught both my meanings. Before I walked away from him I said: ‘why the hell do you even care?’ and stormed out gracefully. I think.”

  She looked sheepish as she gave Sydney a small smile.

  “So what about you and Nick?”

  Sydney told her what happened.

  Maria sighed at the end of it.

  “I don’t know if this means anything, but he really does love you. Maybe you can forgive him someday. So have you decided what to do?”

  “It’s just not right, you know? He shouldn’t be allowed to get off so easily. And I’m not sure someone like that is capable of love.”

  “Sydney, stop your lies. You know he loves you and you love him, even though you want him to pay. Why bother with any kind of rehabilitation if we think people should pay forever? And you know what? It’s quite possible to hurt someone you love, deliberately or not. Just because someone hurts y
ou, doesn’t mean they don’t love you Sydney.”

  ***

  Sydney lay on her bed on her back, hands folded behind her head.

  Seeing Nicholas brought out too many things she didn’t want to feel or remember. Too many emotions she wasn’t ready to handle. As much as she tried to run away from it, it hit her tonight: she missed him. She missed everything about him—his smile, his laugh, his voice, his kiss. She missed their movie nights, his arms around her. She missed him.

  And she knew still loved him. She had hoped it would go away and make everything less painful and easier to deal with, but it had other plans. Instead of wanting to kick him, she wanted to kiss him. She wanted to hug him and tell him she forgave him, because although her head was telling her he had to pay, that he had to suffer for his crime, her heart was telling her they had both paid enough.

  She got up and went over to her photo album shelf.

  She started looking through their photos from over the past six months.

  She found herself laughing, then fighting back tears and losing the battle.

  Then she went over to her closet. She lifted out a box she hadn’t touched in years from off of her box of romance books. She dusted it off and started flipping through the contents.

  She found a letter that she had written to Nicholas in her freshman year of college, but never had the intention of actually giving to him:

  Dear Nicholas,

  I am writing this letter knowing I will never speak to you, and also that you will never see it. I’ve had a crush on you for the longest time. I think you’re really cute, and there’s a sadness about you that I can’t help noticing. I want to make it better, whatever it is. I’m not sure what it is that you’re so sad about, after all, you have everything. Still, I wish I could be something to you. You seem to be a nice guy.

  I’m not sure what to call this—a crush, infatuation, fascination...whatever it is, it won’t go away. And now that you’re at my college, it has only been escalating. I wonder what it’s like to live a life like yours? Perhaps this is my attraction: you’re free to do what you want and everyone still loves you. I guess I envy your freedom.

  She held the letter to her chest as tears ran down her face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Loud knocking eventually filtered through Sydney’s consciousness, waking her up. She listened for a few moments, wondering who was at the door and who would get it. The pounding filtered further into her consciousness and she realized that her own door was being knocked on.