Madly In Love: The Novella

by Colet Abedi

  “Should I read it?” Erik interrupts my train of thought as he scrolls through the message as if I said yes.

  When he’s done looking at it he looks over at me with a serious look on his face.

  “I think we need a glass of wine for this.”

  Crap.

  I follow him to the kitchen and am happy to see two full glasses are waiting for us. But Erik is good like that.

  “Cheers bitch,” Erik says as he toasts me.

  “Cheers.”

  “So what does it say?” I say as I finish my first sip. The wine tastes real good.

  “Are you sure you want to go there right now?” Erik asks curiously. “Maybe after you have another glass or two inside then we can reassess the situation.”

  “I want to know now,” I tell him as I take another sip or gulp depending on how you look at it.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he tells me.

  “I won’t.”

  “Alright,” Erik gets all dramatic as he jumps up on the counter and holds my phone in his hand as if he’s about to recite Shakespeare.

  “Dear Sophie, since I know you will refuse to speak to me on the phone, I thought this would be the best way to communicate with you and tell you how you completely ruined my life.”

  Oh boy.

  I take a long sip of my wine then stand up and refill my glass. Erik looks up at me and makes eye contact.

  “Please continue,” I tell him in a calm voice.

  “We can stop at anytime,” Erik reassures me.

  “I’m totally good,” I reassure him as I consume half the glass.

  Erik studies my face to determine if I’m telling the truth. I must look convincing because he continues.

  “You were everything to me. The perfect friend. We were a match intellectually,” Erik says as he rolls his eyes.

  “Is he for real? Did he always talk like this?” He asks curiously. I can hear the disdain he has for Jerry in his voice.

  “Pretty much.” I admit to him.

  “Ugh,” Erik says as he obviously reads ahead, “It just gets cheesier—“

  “Finish it,” I command, daring him to even stop.

  “Alright! Get a goddamn grip, I’ll keep reading!” Erik says before clearing his voice and going on. “I actually believed you would become my most cherished wife and after, if we were so lucky and blessed, I wanted you to be the mother of my children.”

  Erik snorts.

  “I think I just threw up in my mouth,” he tells me as he rolls his eyes. “Who writes like this? What male heterosexual man do you know writes this kind of garbage?”

  “Erik,” I try not to add fuel to the fire even though I completely agree with him. “It’s sweet.”

  “Not the next part,” he warns me.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh, is right.” Erik leans back. “Shall I continue?”

  “Might as well.” I sit down on the stool and nurse my drink.

  “But then I saw you for who you are. The second there was trouble in our relationship, you ran off and had sex with a stranger,” I can feel my heart sinks and the familiar nausea grows in my stomach. “You complained that we were never intimate but what did you ever do to entice me, Sophie? You just expected—“

  Erik holds up his hand and looks at me.

  “I’m interrupting him here by saying that for the record, what you expected him to do was be a goddamn man and give it to you good! The nerve of this guy.”

  I don’t know if it’s possible for me to feel even shittier than before. Why did I want Erik to read this to me? Oh that’s right, because I am completely, one hundred percent without a doubt glutton for punishment.

  “It’s fine, Erik. Finish it.” Even though we both know it is probably the last thing he should do in my current state of mind.

  But he continues as I ask him to.

  “Sophie, you just expected me to perform on command. But when I kissed you or tried to touch you, I felt like I was with a block of ice. That’s how much you gave me in return. You were a woman lacking in passion and I was still willing to look past it,” Erik reads then snorts. “How generous of him.”

  And then he reads the final few lines.

  “I was the best thing that happened to you. And you gave it up to a man who has probably already forgotten your name.”

  Shit.

  “Shit,” Erik says. “I shouldn’t have read that last part. But the other stuff is actually hysterical. Jerry is a loser, this text is just proof of how big of a loser he really is. It’s honestly kind of shocking you were with him for as long as you were. How did we let you stay with him for so long?”

  “He’s not a loser,” I say as I put down the glass of wine. “He’s right. I was a cold fish with him and I did give it up to a stranger. And that stranger—“

  I can’t even bring myself to say the words.

  “Sophie, come on,” Erik says. “You’re actually letting what this idiot say affect you?”

  “He’s not an idiot,” I whisper to Erik. “Jerry was Magna Cum Laude.”

  Erik yawns.

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “At Harvard.”

  Erik shrugs his shoulders. “Big whoop.”

  I can feel the dreaded tears coming.

  “For the love of God, please don’t cry. I don’t know if I can take it.”

  I don’t blame the guy.

  “I have to. Just let me let it all out then I’ll be okay,” I tell him. “Just give me five minutes. I need it. I’ll cry alone in my room and come back here.”

  “Be strong,” Erik says to me. “Be fierce.”

  “I am fierce,” I tell him. “But fierce doesn’t mean I don’t have to let out some emotion every once in a while.”

  I know by saying every once in a while I’m stretching it but Erik chooses not to say anything of that nature to me.

  He looks worried but lets me walk out of the kitchen and into my bedroom. I shut the door and throw myself on my bed. Honestly, I can care less about what Jerry’s opinion of me is. He’s entitled to it. If the tables were turned I’d probably feel the same way about him but that last part, the part about Clayton not remembering me--

  That breaks my heart into a million different pieces. Is it possible? Could he have forgotten about me already while I’m here longing for him on a daily basis. That’s the part that kills me. The possibility of me being completely forgettable. I roll over on my side and stare at the empty pillow beside me.

  It takes less than a second for me to picture myself in Clayton’s bed, lying next to him. My imagination is so good that I can even hear the ocean.

  Clayton’s chest is bare and we’re in his bed facing each other. The moon is out and casts a soft glow on the bed. There were so many nights that I would lay awake and think about what would come after for us, but I always forced the thoughts away and pretended like everything would be okay and somehow we would magically work out.

  His eyes opened and the blue was so bright they had me mesmerized. His were one pair of incredible wolf eyes.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked me as his palm cupped my cheek.

  “Nothing,” I told him reveling in his touch.

  “Remember that I can feel you thinking,” Clayton reminded me with a grin.

  “How is that even possible?” I said with a laugh as I studied his face.

  Clayton shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “Never happened to me before so I can’t tell you.”

  I smiled.

  “So tell me,” he urged. “I want to know.”

  I took a moment before replying because I didn’t want to come off as sounding too cheesy.

  “I guess, I was just thinking about life in general.”

  He lifts a brow.

  “Now that’s heavy topic to be pondering at three o’clock in the morning, Sophie,” he said with some amusement.

  “I guess,” I replied with a laugh. He was right. But that was w
hat I did my whole life. I’d always wake up in the middle of the night and dissect everything happening in my life. I’d mentally re-read all my self-help books and try to piece it all together, make sense out of what was happening. I was the poster child for someone who couldn’t shut his or her brain off.

  “So what about is it about life that’s got you thinking so seriously?” Clayton asked me curiously.

  “I don’t know. I guess, the choices we make,” I told him honestly. “And where they lead you.”

  “And?” He prodded.

  “And regrets,” I admitted then asked him, “do you have any?”

  “Regrets?”

  “Yes.”

  “About what specifically?” Clayton asked with a frown.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Broad stroke life regrets.”

  “None,” he didn’t hesitate to answer.

  “That’s bold,” I said with a laugh.

  “Why should I regret anything? Everything I’ve done has led me to this moment, right now. With you.”

  His words caused butterflies to dance around in my belly. They had felt so sincere and real. And perfect.

  “And you?” he asked me.

  “None that have brought me here, with you” I told him. “So far my only regret would be leading Jerry on for so long, because I can now see it for what it was.”

  “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “I knew that it wasn’t right from the moment we started dating and I just stayed in the relationship out of fear.”

  “Why?” Clayton asked curiously.

  “When enough people start to tell you that you have the perfect thing and if you let it go, you’ll regret your decision one day,” I explained to him, “you start to believe it. That was Jerry. Everything about him was right. He should have been everything for me. But he wasn’t.”

  I was surprised Clayton wasn’t reacting with his usual annoyance when I talked about Jerry. He had a definite dislike for my ex since Jerry had tried to win me back by showing up at the resort. That had been ugly. I thought Clayton was still in Singapore on business for the night, but he had come back early and had found Jerry professing his undying love. Clayton had lost his mind and had to be pulled off of Jerry. It took a day but he had eventually gotten over his ill-founded anger. But still.

  “You can’t control how someone makes you feel,” Clayton said as he reached out to brush my cheek with his long fingers. “Everything can look perfect on paper or aesthetically but when there’s no rush or electricity, there’s nothing.”

  He was definitely right about that.

  “Did your parents ever have that?” I asked him as I fished for more information about his childhood. I was desperate to know as much about him as I could. Even though I knew they had a marriage of convenience, Clayton’s own words, I wondered if they had ever had anything more.

  I hope I wasn’t overstepping and he was about to get mad at me, but luckily he didn’t seem too bothered by my question. At least from what I could tell.

  “Do you want the truth?” He replied.

  “Always.”

  “No,” he admitted. “My mom was an American heiress and my father was a titled English nobleman. It was a solid match. They were both handsome and young and the families approved.”

  “I’m sorry but that sounds so archaic,” I said.

  Clayton shrugged.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But it worked for them. There were no expectations.”

  “Ever?” I asked still not able to grasp it.

  “Ever.” He said.

  “Did you always know that growing up?” I asked curiously.

  “Not always,” Clayton replied cryptically. “But then I had a rude awakening.”

  I was about to ask what he meant by that but he stopped me.

  “No more,” he said. “I’ve already shared more about my family than I usually do. A little at a time, Sophie.”

  “Okay.” Even though all I wanted to do was ask him a million more questions about his family and what it was he saw that became the rude awakening. There were many kinds of scenarios I could picture in my head. I wondered.

  “And your parents?” He asked me.

  “Love match all the way,” I told him. “But you knew that.”

  “Still?” Clayton clearly doubted the possibility.

  “More so than ever,” I said. “I don’t know what one would do without the other.”

  Clayton is silent, I’m sure his jaded mind is having a hard time grasping that concept.

  I take the moment to admire the way his skin looks in the moonlight.

  “Lucky them,” he said.

  “Very.”

  Chapter Five

  “Do you think that’s why you waited so long?” Clayton asked to my surprise.

  I know he’s referring to my abstinence. Virgin at twenty-three is not a normal thing at all. Believe you me, I knew it.

  “Maybe,” I never thought about it like that. There was probably some psychology behind it. “I guess I thought it was just the norm, you know. I didn’t really know how lucky I was having parents who love each other until I watched one of my friend’s go through her parents divorce. She found out that her dad was constantly cheating and that’s when I knew life wasn’t always a fairytale.”

  “That must have been one hell of a rude awakening for someone as innocent as you.” Clayton said as he studied my face.

  “It was,” I admitted with a rueful grin. “It definitely opened my eyes to the uglier side of life. I had been sheltered from it for so long that it was a bit of a jolt.”

  “Your parents couldn’t hide you away forever,” Clayton smiled tenderly. “But I don’t blame them for trying. I would.”

  My heartbeat accelerated. I wished he would lock me away in his house and throw away the key, with him inside right next to me, of course.

  “Would you?” I teased.

  “Yes,” he said possessively. “I already have a hard time sharing you with your friends.”

  “Sharing me?” I laughed. “Poor Erik and Orie! I have barely seen them the entire time we’ve been here.”

  Clayton cocked a brow.

  “I did come here on vacation with them,” I reminded him. “And since we met, I’ve essentially ditched them.”

  “Even so,” Clayton said arrogantly. “I hate sharing.”

  “I know,” I laugh. “Did you ever share toys with your brothers?”

  He seemed horrified by the thought.

  “Never.”

  “It’s shocking that you’re not even embarrassed to admit it.” I said with a smile.

  “Why would I be?” He slowly pulls the white sheet down so my breasts are exposed to his gaze and hands. “I’m territorial.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You are ridiculous.”

  “You were an only child,” Clayton pointed out. “Are you telling me you didn’t have a problem sharing? I would find that hard to believe.”

  “I always shared,” I told him honestly. I was beyond accommodating especially since I was always desperate to make friends or be part of a group. I hated being alone. “Our childhoods were very different.”

  “My world is very different from yours,” Clayton told me.

  That should have been red flag number four hundred and fifty but I was clueless and glutton for punishment. He was right. Our worlds couldn’t be more different. Clayton was an aristocrat who had grown up extraordinarily privileged. I wasn’t a pauper by any means, with my dad having a very successful law practice, but my idea of money and Clayton’s were polar opposites.

  “I know that,” I said and I was kind of annoyed that he kept pointing it out. And I told him as much.

  “It’s a fact,” was his response to me.

  His hand started to trace the curve of my body.

  “It scares me that you’re always bringing it up,” I told him candidly.

  “I can’t help i
t,” he said. He leans over and kisses me on the lips. “Maybe I’m reminding myself.”

  Again, why didn’t I jump out of his bed and run back into my own bungalow? It was obvious in retrospect. I was addicted to him and I didn’t care about any obvious sign that was thrown in my face that could possibly mean that we wouldn’t work out in the end. I was fooling myself into believing something could come of it.

  “Hey,” Clayton said as he pulled my naked body into his arms. “You’ve got that look in your eyes again. Don’t run away.”

  His thumb stroked my lip, then he tilted my face up to his.

  “I won’t let you go,” he told me.

  “Really?” I teased back.

  His gaze is piercing.

  “I’ve told you so many times, Sophie.”

  “What’s that?”

  I knew what he was going to say.

  “You’re mine now.”

  You’re mine now.

  What a load of crap that was.

  I shake myself out of my revere and sit up in my bed. I wipe the tears away and walk outside my room to find Erik spooning cookie dough onto one of my pans.

  “Feeling better babe?” He asks me.

  No, not really.

  “Yes,” I lie to him. “I’m sorry. I know that was super immature of me to run out of here like a child. I don’t mean to still be so pathetic. I’m trying. I know I have to grow up and grow some balls.”

  Erik seems surprised by my confession. He puts the spoon down and walks over to me and pulls me in his arms.

  “You never have to apologize to me,” he said sweetly. “Sophie, you take your time and do what you have to do to get over him. I know you. It’s okay.”

  I hug him back tightly and bury my face in his chest.

  “I just want it to stop hurting, Erik.” I tell him.

  “It will,” he tells me. “That’s what time does. And one day, not far from now, he’ll just be a fun memory.”

  I hope he’s right.

  “I have so much more experience than you do babe, I’m telling you that it always hurts the hardest at the beginning and then it just becomes a dull ache until its gone and you feel nothing.”