by Corri Lee
“At least, I thought I did at the time. That letter... Maybe she didn’t mind it being a rush at all.”
It all made perfect, bitter sense, really—as simple as I knew it had to be. I understood, as much as I sort of wish I didn’t because it was serious dick behaviour on his part. And rationally, I couldn’t be upset about any of it.
Yet I found a reason to torture myself further and ask more stupid questions that would only hurt if I got the answer I didn’t want.
“Did she get tailor made dresses for parties?”
“We never went out. Nobody knew we were married, remember?”
“Caroline knew.”
“I bribed her.”
Wow. “Did your mum come and wear a big hat?”
“How is that relevant?”
“Did she?”
“No. She never knew we were married, either.”
“Did you... Wait. What?” Connie never knew that her son had gotten married? How the hell do you keep a secret like that under wraps for a matter of years at a time, from such a major figure in your life? “She knows we’re getting married in her garden, right? We’re not breaking in while she’s on holiday or something?”
Blaze laughed for the first time in days and the simple sound of it warmed me up inside. Laughing was something we’d done so little of for nearly six weeks, along with smiling, singing or even kissing ‘just because’. I’d been sucking the joy out of our relationship during a period of what should have been immense excitement.
“I’m so sorry for ruining this. I’m ruining everything.”
“There’s no permanent damage done.”
“There is. Journalists poached the dress fitting and I just rushed outside without thinking. Esme’s face is everywhere. She hates me. She treasures her anonymity more than life, love and liberty. Now that’s gone because of me throwing my weight around.” And God, did I feel stupid for it now. No matter how pissed off I’d been, I’d been brought up in a circle where, by no means, was that type of behaviour acceptable. Worse, she’d been unmasked while laying the smackdown on me. She’d be outed as ginger and violent.
“Oh, come on. She doesn’t seriously blame you for that. She should have known better than to run out into the street, too.” I refrained from pointing out that she saved me from being a hit by a bus, as he still seemed mostly clueless. “The press will do whatever they need to for a story; kidnap, bugging, car chases—you remember that part of Gossip Girl?”
“My life is not an American television drama.”
“It could be. Have you looked it recently? You’re all the effortless beauty of Serena Van Der Woodsen, the sexy tragedy of Samantha Jones and the cruel command of Baby Jane Hudson.”
“What does that make you?”
Blaze grinned wryly. “Anything you want me to be, cupcake.”
“It makes you a fool, that’s what.” I didn’t have it in me to crack a smile. He was trying to act like nothing was wrong, which I appreciated to a certain point, but it didn’t solve the fact that everything was wrong. Everything with me, at least. “I don’t see how you can love me, being what I am.”
“Emmeline, if I loved you for everything you could be—everything I could turn you into with a little vetting and fine tuning—I would be the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the world today.”
“Are you honestly sitting there and saying that you haven’t vetted me—not even a little bit?”
Met with another dead stare, I realised that I was dangerously close to becoming argumentative again and neither of us had the will to contend with another round of Fat Emmy. I reluctantly stood, wobbled a bit, and ventured off to the kitchenette with my mug of untouched coffee to look for food.
It was time to move on from the fiasco. We needed to let it slide, admit our faults and get on with life because there was far too much riding on the next preparatory fourteen days.
Naturally, Blazed wasted no time in following me, whipping out a chopping board and setting to work creating one of his notorious easy to digest meat broths. I hovered around while he cooked, trying to steal tastes from the pot when he wasn’t looking, getting my hands playfully slapped away when I was caught.
It already felt like we were past the strife. Relief stoked hunger, and my bowl saw second, third and fourth helpings before I excused myself to curl into a little ball on the couch. I wasn’t sure I needed to sleep, but I was happy enough to watch Blaze go about his business while I dozed with a full belly.
Man, that guy did a lot of paperwork. I thought I was the administrative one of us, spending long, laborious hours scouring The Tudor Enterprise’s budgets. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I didn’t even know what half of his paperwork was. When he got to the stuff that looked too much like physics homework, I closed my eyes and focused on the mixed genre playlist he’d left playing on his tablet in the background.
It was silent when I faced the world again. Silent and dark. The only light around came from the half-open doorway into the suite’s small office area, and the only sound a low murmur broken by quiet. I knew the baritone growl to be Blaze’s and he obviously didn’t want to wake me.
Or maybe he just doesn’t want you to hear.
I was creeping closer to the office before I could rationalise with my snarky other self. So near to the conversation, I couldn’t not hear what was being said, even if I’d backtracked and denied my curiosity. Sneaking around was juvenile and I hated doing it on an uncontrollable whim.
But if I hadn’t, I never would have found out just how wrong I was to think our dispute had been passable like all the others. This one was so much worse.
“I don’t know, Dan.” I peered through the gap between the door and it’s frame, not wanting to be noticed. Why would my fiancé be talking to my best friend? “It looked like she was trying too hard, trying to make a point. I would have cut her off at the fifth serving, you know what I mean? It’s one extreme to the other.”
Mouthing a curse, I stepped back from the door and glared through the wood, hoping he felt it.
He didn’t.
“What do you think? If she’s not going to be able to keep it together in Chicago, I need to let my people know and get her a place in the unit. Nobody needs that tension. ... I know, Jonathan. But I just can’t work long hours and be on twenty-four hour watch to make sure she doesn’t do something reckless. This is the big break I’ve been waiting for and right now, Emmeline is a liability.”
“You bastard.” Ever the ninja, Blaze turned and ducked just in time to dodge the hefty 2012 volume of Encyclopaedia Britannica whizzing over his head. “You absolute fucking bastard.”
“Emmeline, I—”
“Save me the excuses. I heard enough to hate you.”
Blaze chewed his bottom lip and snapped a quick dismissal down the phone. “You don’t know what you heard.”
“So you weren’t conferring over my mental state to decide whether you’re going to dump me in a mental unit while you go to Chicago for three months?”
“I...” His face turned puce and his eyes met the floor. “Okay, yes. But it’s for your benefit, not mine. Filming schedules are erratic; I could be leaving you at five in the morning, not coming back until three the next morning, sleeping for a few hours then leaving right away. You need me to keep you level-headed and I’m just not sure you’d cope.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” My arms crossed defensively. “I survived twenty-two years without you, I’m sure I could last three months without being sent to a nut house. I’d do better in a barn. You’ve never been in one of those places.”
He’d never heard the screams of distress from the private rooms, holding fragile patients who were banging their heads off the walls in a bid to be free of their demons. He’d never been held down by four nurses and had drugs or tubes forced down his throat. He’d never watched empty vessels leave the therapy rooms, sucked dry of joy, pallid skin bleached out by florescent strip lighting.
H
is view of the Cardiff unit was that of a person who’d clearly only looked at the leaflets and never stepped foot inside. The reality was very different.
“I don’t know that you would last, Emmeline.” Blazed ushered me back across the lounge area and attempted to coax me into the master bedroom. “And I don’t know that I’m the best person to care for you. In fact, when my attention can’t be entirely focused on you, I might be the worst. Plus, you know. You need time to yourself sometimes.”
“You’re unbelievable.” After all the times he’d insisted that he was the only person to look after me. All the times he told me he couldn’t bear the idea of being apart... “Being with you is like playing hide and seek with a ventriloquist, Blaze. Just when I think I understand where you’re at and what you’re saying, it turns out you’re somewhere else entirely throwing your voice onto one of your doting entourage of screw ups.”
“My entourage?” Blaze gaped at me dumbly. “Emmeline; Daniel and Jonathan are your friends. This is all for you. I have no confidantes or back up.”
“And boy, are you ever going to spend a lifetime reminding me how you’ve been deprived of that for years.” One suffocating wife following another, all of us holding back his life and freedom... “Tell the next little tart in a bookshop about all the ways I impose a restriction on your life and have her shit on all her principles out of desperation to keep you, too.”
Blaze rolled his eyes at me and carried on through into the bedroom. Catlike, I prowled in behind him, hot on his heels. He knew sending me back to the cuckoo’s nest would annoy me. He’d obviously wanted to piss me off. Well, he succeeded. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him get away from me easily.
He made several stops around the room, coming to rest at the bed for a moment before moving on to the next place. Every time he centred at that mattress, he came back with armfuls of clothes and shoes.
“Packing me off already?” I started to follow him, close enough to stall him every time he turned. “You don’t seriously think I’d go without a fight?”
“I’m not packing you off, Emmeline.”
“Not yet. How long do I have? Are you going to commit to me and then commit me? I’m sure you could flash the right smile at someone to have you made my legal guardian. You’d probably get access to my bank accounts.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Touching a sore nerve, am I? Hitting a little too close to the truth, am I?”
“You’re acting like a punk kid.”
“That’d probably help in the case against me. Why keep me with the crazies, though? It’d be a lot easier if you slipped me a load of pills and made it look like I’d killed myself because that’s my style.”
“Fuck!” Growling, Blaze turned around and faced me head on. Noses only inches apart, I could see the emotion swarming in his eyes. He was angry—yes. He also looked offended, sickened and betrayed.
You’re forgetting ‘guilty’. You must be able to see the guilt in there, too.
“I’m not kidding, Emmeline.” Swiftly sidestepping around me, Blaze power-walked to the wardrobe and stuck a walnut door between us. I could see myself staring back at me in the mirrored front—all the red-faced, sweating zombie of me. The sight of the woman I’d become only stirred my temper more. “Cut this shit out. Now.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like for me to be the quiet, obedient type.”
“Frankly, yes I would. You’re not exactly pleading your case of sanity very well, are you?”
I stammered, affronted and shamed. After a beat, I slammed the wardrobe door on his fingers and cocked an eyebrow. “I hope that fucking hurt.”
“Who are you?!” Triumphant, I watched Blaze shake the pain from his hand and glare at me with watering eyes. “Where the hell did my Emmeline disappear to?”
“I dunno, maybe she’s sat in Hell sipping tea with your ex-wife swapping notes on wedding dresses.”
“Jesus, this again?” He shoved his hands into his hair and tugged at the roots quickly before releasing the tendrils and shaking them back into order. I hated that he looked so hot when he was frustrated.
Hated that I’d pissed him off.
Hated it more that he was pissed off rather than grovelling.
Hated it most that I wanted him to pick me up and pacify me with a good screwing like he normally would.
“It’s just a fucking dress, Emmeline.”
“Yes, it is. It’s just a fucking dress I wanted to get from a nifty Chinese tailor online but you were adamant that I had to go to Caroline. Should I have just walked in and asked for the usual? The Valentine special? Were the dresses you picked out for me the same as hers? Maybe the same dresses? Just kept aside for the next doomed bride.”
“I told you; there were no other dresses for Natasha. You’re talking crazy.”
“I am crazy!” Without forethought, I threw my arm out and smashed my fist into the mirrored door. It didn’t so much as crack. Ever dissatisfied, I launched an assault, punching and kicking the glass until one last remaining fragment clung onto the framed wooden panel.
I have no idea what happened next. Looking down at the fractured shards at my feet and feeling an almost sickening sense of glee was the last thing I remembered. One splinter had wedged into my toe and crimson spilled out across the cream carpet, spreading out like a cancer. Whenever blood was involved, I rarely came away with any real recollection of what had come of it. This time was definitely no exception.
“So I said, ‘Mate, you’ve got it wrong. It’s spelt the same but said with an accent.’ He gives me the weirdest look, clears his throat and says, ‘Don’t be so blaze.’ But he just says ‘blaze’ in a full blown French accent. Antonio laughed so hard he pee’d.”
Awareness poured back into my body like cold water, awakening me from a black out to end all black outs with a harsh kick up the backside.
“What happened?” I’d lost conscious control barely dressed, standing and bleeding. Now I was swaddled in a terry-towel robe, my head in Blaze’s lap, very comfortable and feeling a little fuzzy around the edges. Had he bathed me? I felt... clean.
“Well, we had to get an interpreter in and the poor woman had to spend half an hour explaining that we wanted him to say ‘blasé’. Got there eventually, like. Thank fuck it was only a read-through.”
“No, I mean—” I rolled to my back and looked up at him. The blooming bruise on his left cheekbone crushed me inside. Part of me prayed I hadn’t caused it. The other part knew I probably had. I was such a monster. “What happened?”
“You’re back with me?” Sighing, Blaze lifted me up to sit upright and rested his head against my shoulder. “Nothing of any consequence. I knew it wasn’t you acting out. My Emmeline isn’t volatile.”
“You shouldn’t have to take this from me.” Nobody in their right mind should ever have to put up with coming to blows with their partner because they have a ‘condition’. My behaviour had, I assume, been despicable and beyond the pale. It was a wonder he didn’t hate me. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of... Well, however long we have... I don’t want you to have another life where you’re held back and always waiting for me to crack.”
“I’m entering into a legally binding contract that ensures I’ll accept you for better and for worse. This is as bad as it gets. Isn’t it? I can handle this.”
Blaze stared at me, a note of pleading ringing out through his words. I really wanted to say that yes, it was the worst. But I’d never been so bad before, so I couldn’t have possibly foreseen it. I’d never be able to warn him in advance, I’d never know what I’d do, and worse, I might not remember any of it, just like I couldn’t now.
“What if it’s not? What if I have no idea just how crazy I could get? I can’t promise you that I’ll never do this again or that it won’t escalate further.”
Neither of us had any words of reassurance. Blaze couldn’t convince me that he’d be happy but wouldn’t tell me that he
had to leave, and I had no argument to make him stay. We were at a dead end in our relationship and we could either take several steps backwards, out of each other’s lives, or we could stay there and die with it.
I worried that it would be the latter. We’d both cling on until it killed us—or we killed each other. We were both too stubborn and proud to give up. Our obtrusive determination was as much a curse as a blessing, and it was almost too late to turn back.
“I think I should go away for a few days.”
Blaze lifted his head and forced a plaintive smile. “Lucky we’ve got a honeymoon in a couple of weeks, then.”
“I meant on my own.”
His arm wound tightly around me, pulling me close. He was cold again, like he had been the last time we’d pretended we weren’t saying goodbye. “I know. But please don’t.”
“I want to walk into this marriage with a clear head and no regrets. For completely self-contained reasons, I can’t do that and I never will with gaping holes in my memory wherein I’m hurting you, as well as my friends disowning me, my mother acting crazy and the press hounding me. I need space. Distance. A few miles in the backseat.”
“What if you don’t come back? You promised not to leave.”
“Blaze.” I rolled to face him understanding the fear and apprehension of letting me go. And I loved him for that. I loved him for still being so desperate to keep me even after I’d completely lost my bloody marbles. While other men would have walked straight out of the door, he held on with an iron grip.
I valued what others may have called his neediness. I respected and treasured it. And I didn’t want to abuse it, intentionally or not. If he was going to need me, I wanted him to need the best of me, and for the purposes of enticing that, I had to leave.
“I’m coming back. I promise that, no matter what, I’ll be back in time to marry you. Don’t you have any idea how much I love you?”