by Theresa Jane
“So, what’s wrong with it?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
“It’s missing something,” I sighed, picking up my paintbrush again and twirling it in my fingers. I needed to keep my hands busy.
“I like it,” he blurted, and I looked back at him in shock as he kept his eyes trained on the wall.
“What?”
“I like it,” he repeated in a flat tone, crossing his legs at the ankles.
“You? You like my painting? On your wall?”
“Yes, is that so hard to believe?” he challenged, his eyes snapping to mine with annoyance.
“Yes.”
“Well, I do.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Silence fell between us then as we both sat back and looked up at the painting. It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable, it just was.
“Freya,” he began, and I slowly turned to face him, frowning slightly at how close he had got to me. When did he do that? “I think I owe you an apology.”
“Why?” I frowned. As far as I knew, he hadn’t done anything recently that was overly offensive.
“For everything, for all this,” he gestured at the wall before his intense gaze met mine again. I started to shift uncomfortably beside him, his eyes doing strange things to my insides. “I shouldn’t have forced you to do any of this.”
“It’s alright, Liam,” I mumbled, ducking my head, not comfortable with where this conversation was going.
“No, it’s not. I want you to know-I need to…” he let out a frustrated groan as he ran his hand through his golden hair in frustration. I just waited for him to continue. “I don’t like this…us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, scrunching my face up in confusion. Instead of answering me, he let out a frustrated groan before moving closer to me again. I felt my eyes go wider and my heartbeat quicken, despite my mind yelling at it to behave itself and remember that he was just playing with us. Like he had been for the past few weeks.
Sweet kisses, tight embraces, affectionate gazes, and holding my hand were all part of this illusion he had been creating. It was easy sometimes to forget that the media was watching our every move. Especially when I was lost myself in his golden eyes.
It would be easy to let myself become fooled by his act, like the rest of the world was. I knew the line was becoming an unidentifiable blur and I might be only one kiss away from ruin, one kiss away from forgetting the game altogether.
“I’m sorry, Frey,” he whispered and before I could stop him, his lips were on mine, his hands on my waist pulling me closer.
My body was paralyzed, too shocked to push him away. It seemed my heart had taken the lead. Before I knew it, my arms were wrapped around his neck, and it felt as if a wildfire was lighting across my skin.
He pushed me down until I was laid out flat on the hard floor, but my body was too preoccupied to notice the discomfort. I was too preoccupied to notice the purple paint I had spilled all over my left arm and the upper left thigh of my jeans. I couldn’t stop him, and no matter what I tried to tell myself, I couldn’t persuade myself that this was wrong. Not when it felt so perfect for him to be holding me so gently and kissing me so passionately.
Suddenly, he pulled away, and I felt a shaky grin spread across my lips as my eyes fluttered open. They quickly focused on his to find his pupils dilated and his breathing as ragged as mine. All I could think about was how alone we were. This moment was ours, not captured by some photographer for the world to the see and criticize.
It was a kiss to show the world we were in love. It wasn’t his hand against my lower back just so the world knew that I was his. It wasn’t a loud dinner in a chic restaurant downtown where everyone could see.
It was a private moment in the sanctuary of his apartment. Where the only people to see was us. The only people to know about this moment was the two of us.
However, my smile slipped when I saw the pain in his eyes. Most painful of all was seeing the regret. While I had been basking in the glow of our kiss, he had been regretting every second.
He gave me one last look before he disappeared back down the corridor. Moments later I heard his door close, leaving me cold and confused.
The paint chilled me as it seeped through my clothes. What had just happened? Why had he apologized? Why had he left?
However, I didn’t have time to ponder all the confusing thoughts running through my mind before my phone began to ring beside me. I looked over at it in confusion because no one ever called me. The only person who ever called was Liam, and I highly doubted he was ringing me right now.
When I read the caller ID, I shook my head in confusion before answering the call.
“Mason?”
“No,” the strong voice answered quickly. “Is this Freya? Freya Coleman, Mason's sister?”
“Yes,” I answered nervously. Why did this person have my brother’s phone? “Is there something wrong with Mase?”
“I’m Damon, I work with Mason at the firm,” he introduced, and I felt myself getting impatient.
“Okay,” I snapped.
“Look, he hit the bottle a little hard last night.” Of course he did. I inwardly groaned as I waited for the man to continue. “He needs someone to pick him up. My kids will be over soon. My ex-wife won’t like it if there’s a guy passed out on my couch."
“What’s the address?” I asked, both worried and annoyed at my brother. The man rattled off an address, and I quickly ended the call.
I went to my room quickly to grab a jacket and shoes. I didn’t have time to change, so I was just going to have to go out in my purple paint clothes.
As I walked out of my room, I hesitated at Liam’s door, wondering if I should tell him where I was going.
I heard him strumming his guitar, and I didn’t want to interrupt. Mostly, I didn’t want to get into what happened only moments before. My mind was too torn up to think about what happened. I didn’t want to face the emotions I was hiding just beneath the surface. He obviously wasn’t feeling the same. That kiss must have confirmed it for him.
Instead, I left the apartment and caught a cab to go and pick my brother up, again. When was he going to stop this?
* * *
All the way over to him, I was running our last conversation through my head as both anger and shame swirled through my body. Yet, no matter what he did to me, I would always be there to pick up his pieces. He was my brother.
“Freya,” my brother shouted loudly as Damon led me into his apartment. I found Mason sprawled on the couch, still clutching a bottle of whiskey in his hand. Apparently, we were bypassing the hangover stage and going straight to drinking again despite it only being nine in the morning.
“Come on, Mase,” I grumbled, standing a few feet away from him with my arms crossed tightly over my chest.
“Come on, Freya; the night is young. We still have a lot of drinking to do,” he shouted, causing me to cringe. Even from halfway across the room, I could smell the alcohol on my brother’s breath.
“The night is over, Mase,” I grumbled, looking out at the smog of early morning New York.
“Where did the night go?” He pouted, sitting up to squint at the sun, which was already high in the sky.
“Come on, Mase,” I mumbled, crossing to him and slinging his arm over my shoulder. He was still mumbling incoherently about the lost night as I hoisted him onto his feet.
“Are you going to be all right?” Damon asked reluctantly, and I nodded my head as we passed.
I was a seasoned expert in these situations. I just needed to get him home and in bed before he passed out. Otherwise, I’d be stuck babysitting him on the side of the road until I could wake him.
Damon seemed relieved to get my brother and me out of his apartment, and who could blame him? No one wanted to be saddled with a drunk mess.
I kept my brother awake on the ride back to his place. Somehow, managing to
get him up to his apartment before he passed out. I heard him mumbling drunkenly beside me as I lugged him toward his door, but as usual, it was nothing of substance.
Struggling under his weight, I didn’t miss the disapproving glare of one of his nosey neighbors. They were sticking their nose out into the hallway to get a better look at the mess my brother and I were. I fumbled in Mason's pockets until my fingers wrapped around a set of keys. I glared at Mason as he laughed the entire time until finally, I pushed the key into the door and stumbled over the threshold.
Once I got him on his bed, I let out a long sigh of relief as I rolled my shoulders back before moving to take his shoes off and pulling the covers over him.
“He didn’t mean it, Freya,” I heard him mutter, and I shook my head at my brother’s state. “He didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Go to sleep, Mason,” I mumbled, making to leave his room and get him a bottle of water and some aspirin for when he woke up.
“He was scared, so scared. Dad…” I froze in the doorway of his bedroom, and I waited for what he would say next. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t convince my feet to move. So instead, I stood there, my heart pounding, and waited for what my brother had to say.
“Dad was afraid, always afraid,” he mumbled, and I turned back to see him wrap himself tighter in the blankets. I moved closer as I saw his mouth moving, but his words were too soft to hear.
“He thought they would come back; he said they would come back…Freya, you should have stayed hidden.”
“Mason?” I asked desperately. “Mason, who are they? Why are they coming?” but he answered with a deep snore, and I knew he was never going to give me the answers today, maybe ever.
Like always, he was dead to the world. All his senses shut down and his mind swam through the oblivion he so often sought. Suddenly, I had a flashback to that day, after the fight with Liam in the coffee shop. Remembering the sensation I had of someone watching me, someone following me. I felt my skin crawl.
I quickly shook myself, dispelling my paranoia and my stupidity for believing my brother’s drunken ramblings. There was no one coming for me, why would they?
* * *
I decided to walk back to Liam’s apartment after depositing my drunken brother in his own. I needed the time to prepare myself for whatever waited for me when I returned. I needed to talk to Liam with a clear head. I needed to find out what he was thinking. I needed to know why he kissed me when no one was watching.
I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that the answer would affect me more than it should. There was one I sought more than the others, and I wasn’t sure Liam was going to give it to me.
Rounding the last corner before Liam’s, I let out a startled yelp as I bumped into someone and nearly went careening into the pavement.
“I’m so sorry,” I gushed, looking up at the man I had bumped into. For a moment, I felt a feeling of familiarity wash over me. His face seemed so familiar, and I ducked a little to get a good look at him under his navy baseball cap. Before I had a chance to ask him anything, he grunted and pushed past me before disappearing around the corner. I frowned for a moment before shaking my head. This was a really bizarre day. I couldn’t imagine what waited for me when I got back up to Liam’s.
* * *
Sighing in relief as the elevator doors finally opened at Liam’s floor, I walked out, having dread fill my heart as I realized my relief was short-lived.
The door to the apartment was wide open, and I could hear the sound of a party in full swing as I took a reluctant step toward one of my worst nightmares.
Several people had spilled out into the little foyer, holding cups of unidentified liquid and questionable cigarettes. None of them even looked up from their conversations or their avid appreciation of the human anatomy as I slipped past.
The scenes, as I had expected, didn’t get any better as I pushed my way through the apartment. The music was so loud it felt like a second heartbeat, and I found myself wondering how long it would take before the police came to shut the party down.
When I finally broke through into the main room, I was greeted by a mass of writhing bodies and even saw several girls dancing on the kitchen bench top.
I tried to block out most of the party as I focused on scanning the room for a certain rock star. As soon as I found him, I was going to give him several pieces of my mind, at a decibel I was sure was reserved for dogs. How could he do this? After everything, after this morning, how could he do this again?
Finally, I spotted his mess of hair in between the moving bodies on the other side of the room, and I began pushing through the people determinedly.
I was jostled from every direction, sweat from their bodies rubbing against my own as a look of disgust spread across my face. When I felt a hand on me, lower than any hand should be, I spun angrily to attack the unwelcome appendage but was met with a mess of limbs.
Feeling my blood bubble hotly, I took a deep breath to calm myself but regretted it immediately as my senses were assaulted with body odor and the stench of alcohol. Swallowing the bile in my throat, I spun back to my destination and readied my elbows to push through again when I realized I had lost track of where Liam was. Instead, all I could see was the scantily clad dancers around me.
I was bumped harshly by one of the dancers as I stood still and nearly toppled. I would have faceplanted if a hand hadn’t shot out and grabbed hold of my arm, pulling me back to my feet.
My heart slammed against my chest at my almost-catastrophe before I turned to face my makeshift savior. Their lopsided grin sending chills rippling through my body.
"Careful, sweetheart."
Chapter 26: Nightmares
“Jebediah,” I recoiled, trying to pull my arm from his but being met by unrelenting resistance. I felt the disgust sweeping through me like a disease, and all I wanted to do was put as much distance between us as possible.
“Don’t be like that, sweetheart,” he shouted, leaning closer so all I could smell was the overwhelming stench of his vile cologne. “How about a dance?”
“I can’t,” I answered curtly, tugging on my arm again, feeling the pinch of his skin on my own.
“I’m sure Liam won’t mind.”
“Excuse me?” I hissed, looking into his dark eyes for the first time since he caught me. They were watching me intensely, and I felt the overwhelming desire to run and scream all at once.
“I still don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but I suspect it’s not this perfect front you’ve been feeding the press,” he answered almost threateningly, but it was diluted by his slurred words.
“I don’t care what you suspect,” I spat, feeling my throat burn, watching helplessly as his hand reached up to play with my hair. I had pulled it back hurriedly before I had left the apartment this morning. Purple still clung to it from when Liam had kissed me, and it only made me more determined to escape. My dreadful day had started to morph into an equally awful night, and I was eager to have it end.
“Liam really knows how to pick them.”
“Please, I have to go and find Liam," I tried to smile politely. I felt his sticky breath fall on my neck, causing a disgusted shiver to ripple through my body.
“I’m sure Liam wouldn’t notice if the two of us slipped away for some...alone time,” he purred in my ear, and I suddenly found the strength to push myself away from him, stumbling back into someone in the still writhing crowd.
I needed to get away from him and find Liam. Now, I was also hoping he could keep his creepy friend away from me. I was tired from not sleeping the night before, and I had been dealing with my brother all day. I didn’t need this on top of everything.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he crooned, stepping closer as the crowd continued to jostle me. “I promise I’ll make it good for you, too.”
“How generous,” I mumbled, scanning the crowd for any escape. I needed Liam.
Feelin
g the inescapable panic begin to thrum in my chest, I pushed at the bodies around me until I was certain I had put some space between us.
Glancing around frantically again, my eyes finally rested on a blonde mess of hair. I felt a breath of relief before I was able to see the whole picture as the crowd separated.
Immediately, I felt a scowl spread across my face as anger filled my veins. It quickly dispelled any panic there had been before as I watched two girls wearing tight jeans and tops two sizes too small fawn over him.
However, I ignored them as I glared at Liam, who had a look of boredom on his face as he took another swig from the bottle in his hand. I was about to storm through the crowd to him when I felt my skin begin to crawl.
Seconds later, a hand wrapped around my upper arm, and I knew who it was without even looking around to see. There was a sudden tug, and I stumbled back into a hard chest, the unbearable stench of alcohol washing over me. It easily overpowered his overbearing cologne now that we were pressed so tightly together. My heart dropped from my chest, and my stomach did a somersault.
“Come on, sweetheart; I know you can’t resist me,” he slurred in my ear as I twisted in his hold, immediately realizing my mistake as I was spun to face him, his other hand slipping down and holding tight to my waist. His thumb was slipping into the waistband of my jeans. It took all that I had to hold the scream down as I felt the helplessness wash over me. How was I going to escape this?
“Please, let me go.” His eyes were drooping with the effects of alcohol, and I watched in horror as his head started to inch closer to mine.
The room started to spin, and it felt like the walls were closing in on me as panic overwhelmed me. The fear began to crescendo in my chest when I suddenly felt his hands loosen as someone from the thriving dance floor bumped him.
Quickly, taking my opportunity, I darted through the crowd with renewed desperation. I had no goal in mind except escaping and putting as much distance as I could between Jebediah and myself.