by S. L. Scott
His eyes closed and he could see her, almost touch her. He lay down on the leather couch, closing his eyes again and turned the music up loud enough to drown out his sadness. Above him, beneath him, behind him, in front of him—Jude surrounded him. Her scent penetrated his deepest desires. The girl he barely knew was the same woman he knew wholly—inside and out. When he reached out for her, she disappeared and his hands came down on his chest, empty.
His eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling. The music played loudly while shadows crawled across the walls as the gray of the day changed to night. Eventually it was dark inside and out. No lights were on, but enough shone through the relentless snow just beyond the glass.
He wasn’t aware of the hour. He wasn’t aware of hunger or thirst. Taylor lay there, lost in the lyrics, in the pain, in the loss of the little brunette who had stolen his daylight.
Convinced he was asleep despite his eyes being wide open, he remained laying there, empty. He remained until the phone vibrated, crashing to the floor. He remained long past the knocking became pounding. He remained until the door was opened and his building supervisor and Katherine stood over him. She was talking, but he heard nothing. He heard nothing… until the music was abruptly cut off. “Mr. Barrett, are you okay?”
Taylor blinked. Twice. And their faces came into focus. “No. I’m not.”
“Would you like me to call an ambulance, Sir?”
“Will that bring her back?”
Katherine snapped. “He’s fine, Chuck. I’ll take it from here.”
Taylor slowly sat up, placed his feet on the ground. His back was sore from being in the same position for so long. He scrubbed his face and watched Katherine shut the door after escorting Chuck out. “Leave, Katherine.”
“I’m not leaving. What’s wrong?” She scanned the place, looking for the same person he was looking for. “Is it that girl?”
“Yes.” He stood up, annoyed. “Get out.”
“Stop being rude to me. I was worried. You weren’t answering your phone or your door,” she said.
“Next time, take the hint.”
She gasped, offended. “What has gotten into you, Taylor?”
“Jellybean muffins, blues, greens, purple, red boots, and lips that can make me forget myself, forget my disease, and forget you.”
“Okay, fine. You’re in a bad mood, but you don’t have to be an asshole.”
He stood in front of the large windows, his arms crossed over his chest, his feet apart, and his eyes focused on anything but here. Not sure how long he stood there, he rolled his neck and found he was stiff.
When he finally turned around, the apartment was empty. No one was here but him and he wondered if he had been arguing with ghosts. Walking into his bedroom, he stripped, and crawled under the covers. Tonight he closed the blinds before going to sleep.
JUDITH BOEHLER WAS always surrounded by the finest money could buy—houses, vacations, clothes, schooling… always the finest, only the best would do where her family was concerned. So as she stared at the bars traveling vertically up her window, she smiled.
The bars were rusted steel. The cream paint was chipping on the inside of the windowsill, and her gown was fraying along the ties. She released a long breath, relieved. The air she was breathing was stale and she wondered if the vent was blocked. It was too high for her to reach, so she remained flat on her back on the bare mattress with the springs poking into her. Jude had a knack for lying very still for hours on end. This was how she stayed sane. This was how she survived.
Don’t give them anything.
Don’t give into them.
Fight.
Fight.
Fight.
She rolled over and looked down the space between the metal bed anchored to the floor and the dirty wall. Chewed up, dried pills were piling up. She took what she needed. She took the white one. The pink ones—she didn’t like. The recovery after the pink pills was tougher. They made the details harder to decipher. They were only about the big picture, the moments lost under the influence.
One more day. Hold on. One more day.
Friday finally arrived. January seventeenth.
Jude entered the foyer and waited, too weak to conquer the journey upstairs alone. Like every other time, she was returned worse for wear. Roman took her arm and helped her up the large staircase. She could have taken the elevator, but he knew she liked to walk, to regain her strength, to regain herself as soon as possible.
The door to her bedroom was open, the bed perfectly made. The damn posies mocked her return, taunting her. Roman released her and set her bag on the dresser. It contained her meds and a toothbrush. She wasn’t allowed anything else.
She stood there.
They had found her pile of pills in her room the night before and had watched her, forced her to take the pink one that morning. She struggled inside her own body, scratching at the shell that restrained her sanity. She screamed as loud as she could, but her mouth refused to open.
Feeling came back slowly, entering her pinky first and she wiggled it. Her feet were shoed in lead, but she pushed against the tidal wave of stagnant air of superiority that engulfed her. On her bed, she rolled to the side, every limb thick with her transgressions. Her thoughts were heavy with hazel eyes and kisses down her neck and lower, lower, and lower until she was sweating and breathless.
He had thanked her for giving herself to him—the first person she had given herself to willingly—and she missed him. Jude knew she had been reckless with his emotions. She knew it would end in tragedy. He was her very own Romeo, a tragedy to match his impossible eyes.
She closed hers to the daylight that shone through the open, sheer pink curtains. She closed her mind to the crazy thoughts. She closed her heart to the dangerous emotions Hazel had made her feel. She tried to block out the twelve thousand, three hundred, eighty-six pink posies. Smothering herself with her pillow, she was finally able to scream, her voice loud despite the down feathers.
Tears pricked while she went hoarse. She threw the pillow, her capacities working again. The frame on her vanity went crashing to the ground and she stilled until she realized what made that sound. Scrambling to her feet, she ran, dropping down into the broken glass, blood from her knees spotting the carpet.
The paper was scratched, the photo ripped at the corner. Holding it to her chest, she rocked, apologizing. Her brother deserved better than this, better than to be a ripped picture in his lost cause of a sister’s room. If Ryan were still here, they wouldn’t be here any longer. They’d be long gone. He’d promised. He’d promised her California and sunshine. He’d promised her so much… and broken all of them.
Standing up, she took the photo and the frame to the vanity and sat. Carefully she placed the photo back into the frame, knocking out any remaining glass before she closed the back and set it down. Seeing his smiling face, she felt conned and almost knocked it over again.
Catching her reflection, she stared into the large mirror. Standard issue results from her “stay” at Bleekman’s Recovery Center: Dark circles with a side of heavy bags, dirty hair, and cream-colored paint under her nails.
She simply stared, her mind flitting between the things she loved. Her stepfather came. He went. Her mother visited, sitting on the end of her bed, talking to her. Jude heard nothing. Ghosts that came in and out, mere reflections in the mirror. When it was dark, Nadia came in, stood behind her, resting her hands on her shoulders.
Jude was put in the shower, stripped of her clothes. Her dignity had been stripped away long ago, stolen during her first “stay” at Bleekman’s. Nadia scrubbed her clean of the recovery center, but failed to scrub deep enough to take away the scars beneath the pretty façade. Those were permanent. She would live with those as instructed through hushed tones as she floated away to happier times.
She emerged at dinner, sat politely, dressed up, her hair styled by Nadia, her nails with a clear coat of polish, her lips a pale pink. No dark circles. No ba
gs. All as they liked her, loved her, in fact, reminding them of happier times. Their happier times.
Her appetite had been suppressed by the drugs running through her system. For her parents’ peace of mind, for show, she ate her soup and tried her best to stomach the roasted chicken. She was stuffed before finishing half. They didn’t complain. They knew the routine by now.
When she was excused from the table, she retreated back to her room. The shattered glass swept away before anyone would notice, much like her broken insides.
She took her pearl earrings off and set them on the jewelry tray. Sitting down at the vanity again, she took the makeup removal wipes, took two out, and dragged them slowly over her face, pulling her skin until she started to recognize more of herself, the distorted happy person she once was. Two days. She would feel better in two days. The countdown began…
JANUARY EIGHTEENTH.
The snow had turned to rain, ruining the carefully orchestrated arrangements Mrs. Stevens had planned. Dinner was moved from the conservatory to the formal dining room. The acoustics would suit polite dinner conversation better in the wood-paneled room.
The Barretts were the first to arrive. Betsy Barrett’s timeliness was better than Big Ben. Harold Barrett had just hung up the phone after telling his only son to hurry. Taylor Barrett reached the landing and shook Mr. Stevens’s hand and kissed Mrs. Stevens’s cheek, then her daughter, Clara, on the cheek, but Clara angled her head and his lips nearly landed on her mouth. They had known each other since they were four. They slept together at seventeen, on a drunken night in The Hamptons. And Clara had never forgotten the handsome Barrett boy.
The Barretts were ushered into the library and had drinks in their hands before their coats were taken away.
At twenty-five, Taylor didn’t feel like he fit in with the “adults” at the party. He smiled when he was supposed to, nodded whether he agreed or not. Except when his illness came up. He hated being discussed, dissected. He hated being their poster boy for charity, their platform for social climbing, the subject of idle chatter. Tonight he didn’t argue. He didn’t have the strength. The last week had worn him down. There were no Jude Boehlers in New York. He was angry: at himself, at her, at their perfect week. He hated the memories of her in his T-shirt. He hated the smell of smoke that lingered everywhere. He hated his kitchen where she cooked in the nude. He hated his bed where they fucked and made love, slept, and where he’d held her. He hated her. He wanted that week washed away so he never had to think of the frivolous girl again.
To Mr. Stevens and his father, Taylor nodded, trying his best to act the opposite of how he felt. He even managed to not let Clara’s sexual innuendoes bother him. He was a wall, unbreakable by anyone anymore. He would stand tall, stand firm behind his own emotional fortress. Jude had gotten to him and now the anger inside him raged for being duped. He wouldn’t fall for such novelties again.
No, he had been fooled into thinking life didn’t have to be this affected. For a short week in time, he believed in something other than a life built on a superficial foundation. But tonight he was back, serving the term he had been sentenced to. So when Clara’s hand wandered over his backside, he didn’t move away. He didn’t yelp when Mrs. Stevens grabbed his ass. He smiled and had another drink. He was finished with two by the time The Moeklers arrived. Three by the time the last guests showed up thirty fashionable minutes late.
But he and Clara were upstairs by then. Taylor fell back, his drink upright, and spilling onto the comforter, when she pushed him onto her bed. Crawling over him, she kissed him. She touched him through his pants. She whispered how much she had missed him and didn’t know where the years had gone.
He lay there—letting her.
He lay there until he sat up just enough to take another drink from the glass in his hand. She went down like the amber liquid, and said, “I’ll make you feel so good.” The sound of his zipper was the only noise he heard after that as he felt a loss in the pit of his stomach he knew Clara Stevens couldn’t fill. Closing his eyes, he could imagine another, so easily.
A loud knock interrupted them. “Clara, dinner is being served. Your mother has requested Mr. Barrett’s and your company.”
Clara huffed, but then smiled. “Don’t worry. We can pick up where we left off after dinner. Maybe you can spend the night.”
Taylor sat up. “Maybe,” he lied. When he stood, he adjusted his cock and pulled the zipper up. He set the empty glass on her dresser as they left the room. That would be all he would drink tonight. He was losing his senses, his better judgment. Almost drunk was not a feeling he liked.
They entered the dining room and greeted everyone already seated. Fourteen guests and two empty seats near the far corner, the kids’ end of the table. Taylor held Clara’s chair out for her and then took the empty seat next to her. He took his napkin from the table and spread it across his lap right as Clara’s hand joined it.
Conversation at the other end of the table picked back up and he finally looked up at the company that sat across from him. His breath collapsed in his chest as he looked into the blue-green eyes that had demolished him. Her ruby lips were parted just enough for him to hear a harsh breath escape. He leaned in and inhaled. When her eyes left his and looked at Clara, he felt sick.
Her gaze drifted back to him and Jude ran her finger subtly over her mouth, and he knew. Knocking Clara’s hand away, he grabbed his napkin and scrubbed at his mouth until fuchsia lipstick was smeared across the white cloth. The blonde to his right had marred him so deceitfully. She knew what she had done. She had staked claims where she had no right. And now he sat in front of the only person he would never want to hurt, hurting her.
Clara, bubbly, completely unaware, introduced them, “Taylor Barrett, this is Judith Boehler and her cousin Isla Boehler. Judith and Isla, this is Taylor.”
Isla spoke first. “It’s very nice to meet you, Taylor.”
He stood, reached across the table, and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” He remained standing, turned his full attention on Jude and reached his hand out for her, palm up. It was the only offering he could give, and he hoped she accepted. “It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Boehler.” His voice might have cracked, his nerves sneaking out, but he wasn’t sure.
She placed her hand in his and when their hands embraced, her lids dropped closed, the heat, the memories, the attraction almost too much. The long greeting was not awkward for them. It was needed. It was wanted. But Clara did not appreciate the extra attention shown to Jude.
Clara asked, “Have you met before?”
Taylor waited for Jude to answer, not sure why they were pretending.
“No,” she said, releasing him and leaning back in her chair. She raised her glass of water to her lips to hide the quiver of her bottom one.
A distraction was needed and one was provided in the nick of time for Jude. Bigger than life Rufus Stevens walked in, apologizing for his lateness. He’d been working. His grandiose entrance garnered smiles and happy chatter as a chair was added to the head of the table along with a place setting.
There was a time when Taylor liked Rufus, but many years had passed and dirty deeds had tainted the relationship. Rufus was a womanizer of the worst kind—he paid for sex with jewelry and expensive dinners and treated all women as if they were subservient. His expectations never exceeded a good blowjob and fuck. Taylor had spent more than a few nights comforting the women he’d abandoned at parties where they had been picked up, used, and dumped for the next conquest. There was something about a woman in tears that Taylor had trouble ignoring, even if she did know what she was getting into.
But more than any other woman, Rufus was the same “friend” that had slept with Katherine when Taylor was in the hospital. An engagement had been looming, the pressure from both families firmly planted on Taylor’s shoulders. When he told his friend, his “friend” did what any enemy would do: pursued Katherine, and when he got her, when he broke the happy couple up
, he dumped her.
Her tears were the only ones Taylor never consoled. Would never console.
His mind was occupied on other things. He had his illness to deal with. A broken heart was just another part of him that he hoped to find a cure for one day.
Rufus and Taylor greeted each other with faux-civility. The former friends had not been in contact since Taylor’s disease had been diagnosed, and since the betrayal had made the rounds of social gossip circles.
Their salads were promptly served and their glasses topped off. Taylor ordered a Whiskey on the rocks, knowing there was no way he could make it through this dinner without something to slow the bombarding thoughts bouncing around his head.
Not wanting to focus on his foe, he turned back to the brunette who sat directly across from him, suddenly his heart feeling exposed. When she dared to look up, she was met with a fury of emotions, all seen so clearly in his eyes, and she looked away.
He didn’t.
Her hair was pulled tight, up in the back. Her bangs hung down to her eyebrows then fell softly across. Her lashes were darker, her lids lined with a thin black line. Pink graced her cheeks, but this pink was unnatural to the blush she had given him. This pink was the opposite of when she was tired, worn out from making love, and sated with their love.
Her pearl necklace covered the divot in her neck that he loved to lick, to suck, to caress. Small, delicate pearls adorned her ears and matched her pale silk dress.
Taylor stared at the brunette across from him, not recognizing her at all. He watched her over the soup course, over the salad course, over the main course. Over dessert. He watched her all night hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl who had ransacked his world.
She ignored his eyes. She ignored the animated conversation going on around her. She ignored the nudges from her cousin. She ignored most of the food in front of her. But she couldn’t ignore him. He’d given her seven days of happiness. He’d given her seven days of acceptance, of love, of trust. She could avoid his eyes, but no, she couldn’t ignore the man that had consumed her days and nights. That consumed her memories.