by R. Rodriguez
I sank down on the rug of the store and buried my head between my legs. Laura just stroked my head in silence. I finally found my voice about ten minutes later.
“Laura. What am I gonna do?” Laura didn’t have an answer for me and neither did my heart.
I spent the rest of the afternoon finding ways to tell Lucian. He really needn’t know what had happened and what was about to happen in a couple of hours. He’d be working all evening. Laura advised me to keep him in the dark for now.
“Grace. I think it best if you don’t let Lucian know about this. I mean, he’s gonna be way too busy to be bothered with such trivial news. Just let Dario say his hellos and dismiss him quickly. He’ll get the message. Put him at the back of your mind and move on.”
Laura obviously didn’t get the bond I had with Dario. She was never one to dwell on any lost relationship. She reasoned that there were plenty of fish in the sea and she was right. I wish I wasn’t so sentimental.
“At least I have you for moral support,” I sighed.
“Ah… Actually Grace, I have plans tonight. I have a group presentation for Music History class and today was the only day a couple of my classmates had available, so I basically can’t get out of it,” Laura apologized.
“I’m so sorry, Grace. So sorry,” she repeated.
“No, no, no. Laura. You can’t do this to me. I can’t face Dario on my own. I cannot be alone with him under any circumstance. You don’t understand.” I begged my friend to stay.
“Hey, Grace. I really, really can’t get out of it,” Laura repeated, already slinging her book bag over her shoulder.
“Laura … please.”
“I can’t, Grace. Hey, if you feel so uncomfortable maybe you should just not open the door. Let him knock, and knock. I mean what does he think? That he can just breeze back into your life on any given day and you don’t have other things to do? He made his bed. Let him lay in it.” That was the only sane suggestion Laura had all afternoon in regards to handling the Dario matter.
I knew I had to tell Lucian about it. I wasn’t about to start keeping secrets from him now that he meant so much more to me than before. Both resolutions would come to pass unfulfilled because Dario didn’t give me a chance to carry out Laura’s solution. He was already standing in front of the door ready to knock when Laura flung it open to leave. She eyed me worriedly and uttered and I’m sorry under her breath.
Dario didn’t wait for me to invite him in. He just waltzed through the door like he had never left. He strode towards me with a purpose and planted a domineering kiss on my lips.
He lifted his face to view my reaction and went for the kill. He grabbed my face with one hand and pushed me against him with his other arm to intensify his kiss. My reaction to his assault took me by surprise. It was like he’d never left. I may not have seen him in a while, but the chemistry between us was still as strong as before.
That’s exactly how it was with Dario. He just had a way of making me forget about myself. I didn’t remember anything at that moment. The weight of Lucian’s ring on my finger wasn’t enough to awaken me from this cursed haze that evolved around me in Dario’s presence.
“Babe. I’m back,” Dario declared after finally releasing my lips.
I concentrated on breathing normally again.
“Like I said.”
“No, no… Dario. You told me that you couldn’t come back.” I was regaining my composure and so my anger at him finally surfaced.
“I never said that, Grace. I said I couldn’t at that time, like we had agreed. My contract was for longer. That’s all. I came back as soon as I could.” He held my face in his hands.
“Besides, I need a place to stay until I get on my feet.”
How about wherever you were crashing before you ran into me at the book store? I thought.
“I thought it would be perfect if we continued where we started.”
“Dario… Those were our plans for the summer, when Laura would be home. She’s here, now. I don’t know how comfortable she would feel about you crashing with us.”
Here I was giving the totally wrong excuse. Never mind that I had a fiancé that I’d be marrying in less than four months.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, babe. Laura and I are cool. She still with Stan?” he said, walking to the fridge to grab a drink which he drank right from the carton like when we were together.
“No, she’s not…” I started to answer and then did a double take at where the conversation was going. It was time to address the real issue here.
“Look, Dario. I don’t intend to lay it heavy on you of how bad it was for me when you left, but I will just tell you this…” I began. “My life is not the same anymore. I have moved on.”
“I know. I know, babe. I know you’re probably into your studies again. Which is good being your senior year and all. The break probably did you good. It wasn’t normal, the hours we kept, babe.”
He thought his absence had been a blessing and he was right, but not for the reasons he alleged.
“No. It’s not just that, Dario. I—have— moved— on… with someone else.” I extended my hand to show him my engagement ring.
Dario gawked at my hand and I saw his eyes gather an intensity that I had seen before. When I had been pregnant with his baby and he asked me to get rid of it. He stroked an angry scowl with his hand anxiously.
He finally spoke. “So who is he, Grace?”
My cell phone began to ring at that moment. I made a movement to pick it up and silence it. I had no doubt that it was Lucian. He always called at the same time, but Dario was quicker than me.
He picked it up and glared at the name on the screen.
“Is it this jerk? Is he still hounding around you, Grace?” his scowl deepened. “He’s like thirty years old.”
“He’s twenty five, Dario,” I said defensively.
“My age? Well, look at how stuffy he looks, Grace!” he scoffed, seemingly unbelieving that I had chosen someone like Lucian over him.
“That jerk is the one. I’m engaged to Lucian,” I said, hesitantly starting to doubt the strength of my relationship to Lucian at Dario’s irrelevant criticism.
Dario found something extremely funny about the fact because he sniggered sarcastically.
“You have to be kidding me, Grace.”
“What’s so funny about that, Dario?” I defied him lifting my chin as high as I could.
“That guy will never get a rise out of you, Grace.” He approached me dangerously again until I could feel his hard body clashing with mine. “He might as well be dead as a pole.”
“And you know it.” He kissed my neck softly and ascended up to my chin.
My phone kept ringing and I didn’t have the will to answer it and maybe alert Lucian that I needed help. I knew I was in dire trouble when my knees started to buckle under Dario’s touch.
“So, get rid of him or I will,” he continued as he kept offering me butterfly kisses around my mouth.
A single tear ran down my cheeks and I was ashamed at how easily Dario could pull me back into his realm again. It was like cursed threads that tied me to him and try as I may, I couldn’t sever. Not even Lucian’s love was enough to do so.
My perfect world had just become a blur before my eyes. Where the past mixed with the present and the future didn’t seem so clear anymore. I thought Lucian was the love of my life. I had committed myself to spending my life with him. Things were already turning in that direction, but maybe he wasn’t my true love if I still had feelings for Dario and oh, how I did.
Chapter 14: Boomerang
I have no idea how or why I let Dario back into my life, but I did. I didn’t even put up a fight for what I had found with Lucian. I let him reel me into the dimension where I no longer mattered, but only how I felt with him. His dangerous ice blue green-eyes bore into my soul.
On some unconscious demented plane, I perceived Dario to be more suited for me. Lucian was too perfect, too g
ood. He didn’t deserve me. I would surely make him suffer in the future. My present state of progress and high achievement would end and I’d find myself shattering our perfect world.
Better now than later, I reasoned. I worked up the nerve to get in touch with him after a couple of weeks of avoiding real communication with him as I sank deeper and deeper into Dario’s spell. I was always conveniently busy, taking a shower or brushing my teeth.
Lucian’s trust in me was so great that he didn’t even question my sudden slippery unavailability. He thought I was busy with wedding plans and credited my sudden trip to a visit with mom to further wedding preparations. I couldn’t think of a better excuse for my avoidance.
Even he had a limit, though, and after he knew I was supposedly back and I was still not running to see him, he grew tired of my excuses and I had no choice but to set a definite date in which I wouldn’t be too busy to meet him. That was Lucian. He always respected my space. Maybe if he was a little more aggressive with his affections toward me, I wouldn’t swoon for Dario every time he showed up with a smile and pretty words. Great! Now I was blaming Lucian for my atrocities.
He picked me up at my apartment for a late dinner which was what we were accustomed to doing when he was working late on Fridays. As soon as I was enclosed with him in the intimacy of his black coupe, I felt like crying. He didn’t seem to sense anything wrong. He leaned over to graze my lips with a lingering kiss that I hardly returned. When had my heart changed sides? When had it become so attached to Dario that I couldn’t recognize that the affinity Lucian and I had established was just as strong as the attachment I had to Dario?
My heart began to gallop, and it wasn’t as a result of his touch, it was the vile secret that hid behind my treacherous lips. The guilt burned at me and I couldn’t let the night progress knowing what I was doing to us.
“Lucian, I’m so ashamed,” I blurted out, unable to control the shake in by body.
“Are you cold, hon?” He turned up the heat thinking that would file away my shivers.
“I don’t know how you’ll forgive me after what I’ve done,” I said, ignoring his concerns all together.
“What happened, Grace? Did you change the wedding colors again and forget to tell me?” he guffawed obviously not aware of the enormity of what had happened. There would be no wedding colors. There would be no wedding.
“No.” I let my tears flow freely now, even though they felt infinitely wrong. I shouldn’t be crying in front of Lucian when I was, in truth, incurring in every decadent experience that was forbidden to someone else’s fiancé, with Dario.
But, how could I fight against the bottomless bliss that Dario awoke in me? When had I let his words enrapture me and guide me to forsake my bond with Lucian and commit on impulse to him? Commit to him… for life, as I should be doing with Lucian in a couple of months. The words resonated in my head.
“Lucian, Dario is back,” I confessed.
I literally watched the glint Lucian had in his eyes every time he saw me die in front of me. He didn’t answer me immediately and his head hung low for and indeterminable length of time. What happened next was too much for me to take. I saw my strong and dependable Lucian appear vulnerable and insecure.
“What did you do, Grace?” he said in a low voice.
I grabbed his hands and cried into them as I confessed my unpardonable sin.
“We were married last Thursday,” I said quietly, not wanting to profess my act of betrayal completely out loud.
Lucian’s initial shock turned into pure torment. He barely held his composure. One eye betraying him as a single dignified tear seeped down his cheek. His whole face shook uncontrollably displaying the quiet reserved outcry of a very wounded man.
He wouldn’t speak to me as he mauled the truth around with repeated shakes of his head. When he finally looked up at me I felt like the worst human being on the face of the Earth. I felt desperate to escape what was to come.
I wasn’t ready to lose Lucian and that was exactly what I was achieving. I was changing castles for slums and I didn’t care because I was so enthralled with Dario.
I deserved to be expelled from Lucian’s life. I deserved to be outcast from all goodness, but I hoped that Lucian would understand. I hoped that he wouldn’t cast me out of his life. I hoped we could retain our friendship or any measure of it that could still exist.
I knew that was too much to ask for at the moment, so I wouldn’t be so crass as to suggest it despite my desperation. Lucian was too hurt. Who wouldn’t be? I expected to be insulted. I expected to be chastised. But, he didn’t do either. He didn’t insult or reject me. Lucian was too decent. He wiped the tears from his face violently and sighed deeply, all the while eyeing me with a look of defeat in his eyes.
“Have you not had enough of his pain, Grace?” he questioned.
“No, I guess not.” He answered his own question dejectedly as he looked at me.
“I hope you know that you’re taking the biggest risk of your life, Grace. I hope you know what you’re throwing away. I hope you realize how unique this love we have for each other really is in the long run.” He went out to open the passenger door of his car. Apparently he had enough of the conversation. I was desperate to make him see my position. To keep him in my life.
“Lucian. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I do love you, but Dario and I have a different bond that’s hard to break,” I pleaded for understanding.
“What bond, Grace? The one he made you get rid of?” he chastised bitterly. I deserved anything he had to say to me, but I wouldn’t be able to stand losing him completely.
“Lucian. I don’t want to lose you. You mean a lot to me.” I was able to get out between heart wrenching sobs. “Please don’t hate me.”
Lucian sighed again and knelt down to face me, covering me from onlookers’ inquiring eyes on the street, “Listen Grace. You will always be in my heart. I have never let anyone in, as I have you. I can’t easily erase what you mean to me, but I cannot be around you right now. I need to sort things out. I’m going to need distance. Lots of distance. Please try to understand me. I need to get over what you’ve just done. I don’t think I can stand around and watch you fall into that man’s arms. I can’t stand around while I lose you.”
“I’m still the same, Lucian. I’m still your best friend.”
“No, Grace. I’m still your best friend,” Lucian said before closing his eyes. “And since I hope this will pass so I can continue being that, I’m going to step away for a while.”
He helped me out of his car and pulled me to him for one last hug. I felt safe in Lucian’s secure hold. He never failed me. So why was I turning away from this that felt so much more than what I had with Dario? Dario riled up my senses. He brought me down to the bottom of the barrel and then lifted me up just as suddenly.
I slid my engagement ring off my finger. I had kept it on, since Dario hadn’t been able to buy me a wedding ring yet, but I knew it was right to return it to Lucian. This was part of mine and Lucian’s story, not mine and Dario’s. Lucian didn’t even attempt to look at what I was offering him. It seemed to offend his eyes.
“No. That’s yours. Just think of it as part of the set I gave you.” He shook his head emphatically. I just cried quietly, afraid to hurt him further while he took the ring from my hand and slipped it into my pocket. I hardly moved, afraid to scare him out of my life completely with the hysterics I felt coming.
“Grace. Let’s not cry over this anymore. Let’s not cry. I won’t be cast completely out of your life by him. I won’t. I just need some time. He better get ready for me because I’m not going to rest until I make you see the light. And… one more thing… Good luck telling your mother.”
Lucian closed the door behind me and kissed the top of my head before getting on the driver’s side. I saw my Lucian speeding away into the cold night. I didn’t crumple onto the sidewalk because somehow I forced my jelly legs to move towards the doo
r of my apartment building. Towards what I had picked. Towards my future or my regression into the past. It was too early to tell.
The next challenge I faced was informing my mother. She was outraged, naturally. I received from her all the lashing words that should have been Lucian’s. In the end she wasn’t surprised, she said. She always knew I couldn’t hold on to a good thing. She expected this from me and more. On and on her tirade went, until my dad interrupted her, concerned for me.
“Dad. Let her. I deserve this,” I said feebly.
All in all, my mother’s punishing words and Lucian’s anguished face were merciful in comparison to the torture that came soon after. A dark cloud that oppressed me for the next four years of my life. A dark cloud whose deathly grip I would barely escape and never emerge from the same.
The days of my gunshot wedding and reconciliation to Dario were so rushed that I didn’t stop to think about anything but trying to make it as Dario’s wife and in a short time we acquired a little bit of everything too much. We acquired a gargantuan credit card debt due to his accumulation of had been jobs. I ended up paying for it with my meager savings. We acquired a new pregnancy where we were getting two babies for the price of one. Twins.
I honestly don’t know what possessed me, but after Dario’s first departure from my life and the ensuing relationship with Lucian I saw no need to continue my birth control. Needless to say, no amount of convincing was going to make me get rid of my babies ever again. I stood my fort and I was keeping my babies. And now, in total contradiction of his former wishes, Dario alleged that he had gotten me pregnant on purpose.
“So you wouldn’t think about running back to that lame ass,” he asserted.
And thus began a life of lack as opposed to progress. I endured it all through the rationalization that all young couples surpass hardships presented to them the first year of marriage.
Luckily, I did achieve my degree in music despite the odds. Thus, I was able to continue with my plans to join the Chicago Symphony Orchestra which made things a little easier. Laura got her own place not too far away from her new job downtown. I decided to keep the small apartment we had rented since our junior year. I couldn’t be homeless in my state.