by L. B. Dunbar
I was having a horrible daydream. I was trapped. Arms tied behind me. Legs strapped to a post. Looking down at my feet in the dream, I could see the pyramid of a future bonfire I stood upon. My head swiveled side to side, as I tried to take in my surroundings. I saw nothing but fog around me. My breathing began to increase, my chest rising in panic. I was calling out for someone, although I could not hear my own voice. I struggled and wrestled, but the ropes at my wrists only cut my skin deeper. I screamed a name again. I felt the heat rising from my feet. I was too warm. I wiggled my toes, trying to kick my legs, but my ankles could not move. At the approach of footsteps, I looked up to see Arturo. The fog was no longer what I thought. It was smoke and it was coming up from under me. I watched as Arturo lit a cigarette, noticing his hands as they cupped the stick in his mouth. He had both hands in my vision.
I questioned the motion, as he wasn’t a smoker. Instead of flipping the match in the way smoker’s do, flicking his wrist to extinguish the flame, he released the match, flipping it into the pyre below me, and the twigs began to crackle. The wood flamed quickly and the heat rose. My feet, my knees, my thighs; they burned. My lungs ached with pain and I cried out again. This time, I recognized the name. I was screaming for Lansing, while Arturo watched me burn.
I woke with a sharp intake of air, and the noise echoed through the plastic oxygen mask. I’d shifted enough that the sheets were tangled in my legs. I was very warm, and I recognized the signs of fever within me. Arturo sat next to me with his head on my arm. He had been sleeping and his head rose groggily as he looked at me. My panicked expression must have registered immediately with him, and he stood, staring down at me.
“What? What is it?” With dull senses, I raised my hand to remove the mask. The effort took great perseverance. I removed the covering.
“I…I had a dream,” I croaked. My IV pinned hand fumbled to find his on the edge of the bed. It wouldn’t be there. His right arm was closest to me. He twisted his body so he could sit gingerly on the side of the mattress. I attempted to move to give him more space.
We remained in silence for a few minutes. I didn’t know where to begin but I sensed there were things to be said.
“Arturo…” I began as he said, “Guinie.” I smiled weakly with great effort, but Arturo’s face remained stoic.
“You go first,” he said quietly. He had reached for my hand with his left, and was holding it in his lap. I realized he wasn’t really holding it as much as my hand simply rested in his.
“I’m so sorry,” I spoke hoarsely.
“Me, too,” he said on a whisper.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I crooned. I stared at Arturo, but he kept his face forward toward his room. His fingers were moving over mine, but I couldn’t feel his touch. I sensed it happening, but didn’t notice the connection on my skin.
“I do,” he said to our hands that were limply linked. “I didn’t have sex with her, but I did sleep with her.”
My eyes stung. Were we really doing this now?
“It was Boxing Day. I knew you were at the party. I saw you enter. You looked so beautiful.” His voice grew far off, as if he was seeing me on that night. Lansing and I were over. We never really began, but I’d been hanging on. Hanging onto what, I wasn’t certain. Ana had been the one to call me. She encouraged me to move forward. She told me Arturo wouldn’t be coming back.
If he isn’t home now, he’s not coming back to you. Her voice didn’t hiss. It had been soothing, sedating as she spoke on the phone to me. I had tried to contact Morte and Ana answered.
You’re young, Guinevere. Move on, she encouraged. She even hinted that she thought someone else in the band might be interested. I already had my hints. He’d kissed me in his apartment that night I stopped by to see him. It was an awkward transition later, when I left and Layne was entering. I learned he went from Layne to Lila. I didn’t care if I was one of many. I didn’t care about anything.
“I saw Lila leave the party. She spoke to me, although I wasn’t certain she knew who I was.” His voice broke into my remembrance of Ana’s phone conversation. My thoughts shifted. So this was what Lila meant when she said she saw him on Boxing night.
“I didn’t see Lansing leave. I hadn’t seen you leave. The night grew late,” his voice took on a more sinister tone. His left hand squeezed mine and for the first time I felt the connection, but like our first kiss on the night of his return, something was off.
“I waited and waited. Finally, Perkins came out. I was wasted. It was a miracle I still functioned. We talked, but I don’t remember all I said.” His tone changed, growing far away again. He squinted as if he was trying to remember, or as if he did, but didn’t wish to share.
“I knew that night. I knew that it was over,” he said softly. “I called Ana. She picked me up and took me back to the hotel. By then I had moved out of rehab and into The Peninsula.”
He paused and looked down at our hands. His fingers began to stroke my ring finger, empty of my engagement ring. His eyebrows pinched, but he didn’t ask. I actually carried it with me, but didn’t wear it. It was in my cello case.
“She took me home that night, and I let her kiss me. She helped me undress and before I knew it she was touching me. I let it happen. I did nothing to stop it. I don’t think I was even returning the kisses; I was so out of it. When she hit my tight skin, I couldn’t stop her.”
I was trying to pull my hand away. I didn’t need to hear the details. Without further explanation, I could envision her holding him, stroking him. I told him I slept with Lansing. I didn’t feel the need to tell him positions, or anything said during that encounter. Those things would go to the grave with me. I had confessed my sin, enough.
He wasn’t releasing my hand, forcing it to remain in his. I didn’t want to think of him touching her or her touching him in such an intimate manner.
“She begged me to pretend she was you. She told me I could use her to forget you.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “That’s when I pushed her away. I felt sick. Think I got sick actually. I woke in the morning wrapped around her and I thought the worst had happened, as I didn’t remember anything after her touching me. We’d been laying on the bed…”
At mention of this, I did yank my hand out of his. He stared at its retreat and finally met my eyes. Tears were spilling down my face, but I made no attempt to wipe them away. He stared at me, his eyes full of regret.
“Ana let me believe we’d been together. For days, I was a wreck. I had been tortured enough. Eventually, I broke down. She gave in and told me we hadn’t done anything. I confronted her as to why she would lie.” He paused again and we both knew the answer. Ana loved Arturo. She always had. Whether it was because he got away, or he took her youth with the birth of a child, her motives ran deep. She was jealous of him and admired him at the same time. In my head, it was wrong on so many levels.
“We came to an agreement on that night. We talked about how much I loved you and missed you. I think she could see that it was never going to happen with her. We were never going to be together again, like we had that one night. We were never going to have a life together.
From that night on, she was different. She still didn’t take my shit, but she softened. She didn’t press so much, and it was refreshing. She was gentler, and when she came to me another night, I let her crawl into bed with me. It was a comfort to hold her as she held me.”
I shivered, despite the heat on my skin. I was clammy and ached with the pain of a developing fever. I was also sick from his tale: Ana pretending to be me. Ana trying to trick him into bed. Ana seducing him. I hated her, and I hated him. What Lansing and I had was intense. Wrong, hurtful, desperate and intense, but it was over when it was over. There was no additional comfort. We fought any attraction with guilt. Then Lansing had Lila. She was a distraction until he realized what he thought he wanted from me, he had found in her. It left me alone again.
“How long did it go on?” I asked,
my voice a shaky combination of croaking. I didn’t really want to know, and yet I had to know the truth.
“Too long,” Arturo said. “I let it go too long because when I decided to return, Ana and I argued. I could see then that I’d led her to believe in something that wasn’t true. We agreed to be friends, and I hoped it would be possible, especially for Morte. He caught us together. That was the end of it. It was so hard to explain to Morte that we would never be together as parents. It wasn’t possible. So many things were no longer possible.” His tone dropped like his head.
“You asked me what it said about us, if you were with Lansing and I was with Ana,” he said. “I’d say it means we should never be apart again.”
I stared at him. We would have to be apart. He was a rock star.
“You’re going to go on world tours. We couldn’t be together all the time.”
He was thoughtful for a moment. His mouth opened to possibly argue in response, but I cut him off.
“It’s really over, isn’t it?” my voice cracked. I didn’t have to clarify. I meant us. There was no going back. He would never get images of Lansing and me out of his head, anymore than I’d be able to let go of visions of him with Ana. No matter how innocent he claimed it was with Ana, it was over for us. We were done. I could not get past the point that while he held Ana for comfort, I had still been alone. No one was holding me.
“Is it?” His voice was sad, but I was the one crying.
“It is,” I said. He nodded once, took my hand to kiss my callused palm, and left me alone. Again.
During the night, I had another visitor. Mure Linn stood over my bed. His two-toned eyes twinkled down at me, and my heart raced with fear. I didn’t trust him. He’d taken Arturo without explanation. He’d kept him away without justification. There was nothing he could tell me that would excuse his actions.
“How are you feeling, my dear?” he spoke down to me. My head rolled toward Arturo’s door. It was closed. I could try to scream, but I had no voice. My throat was sore and I assumed any attempt at noise would only come out a hoarse bark.
“I’ve been better,” I croaked.
He continued to stare at me, his fingers stroking the trim white beard along his jaw. Mure was an interesting looking man. White hair gave away his older age, but just how old was undetermined. Tattoos covered his arms peeking out from his t-shirt sleeves.
“I am relieved the child didn’t hurt you. I don’t think that was his intention.”
I didn’t respond.
“I suppose you have questions for me,” he said, continuing to stare down at me.
“Many,” I muttered.
“I had my reasons.”
“Tell me them,” I barked roughly.
“He is destined for great things. His talent. His purpose. He cannot lose his focus. I warned him, he’d lose his way.”
I remained silent.
“He did see what was going to happen. It was destined to happen when the truth isn’t told.” At that his eyes narrowed, and the stormy darker eye thundered at me. The truth was I knew Lansing before. I had shared a kiss with him as a teenager, and I’d kept that from Arturo. I’d actually refused to acknowledge Lansing in Arturo’s presence. I didn’t want to admit that all those years ago, I was hurt that he hadn’t called like he promised. Lansing Lotte had disappeared like Arturo had. As Ana had said, I was young back then. I moved on. I would have to move on presently from Arturo.
“You were going to be the end of all I’d worked for,” he said.
I didn’t have to be the end. If Arturo hadn’t had the accident, if he hadn’t disappeared, I would not have turned to Lansing. Despite being my constant champion, I would have remained faithful if Arturo hadn’t left me alone. Mure Linn had encouraged the separation between us. He harbored it. If Mure hadn’t kept Arturo away to recover, unleashing Ana on him and allowing that relationship to fester, Arturo and I would have mended. Now, we were broken.
“It was going to be you. It’s always the woman. A man gives his heart to a woman, and she steals everything from him. Women bewitch, sucking the power out of men.”
I couldn’t reply. Mure’s other eye, the turquoise one, rolled like the waves of an ocean storm. His gaze was far away. He wasn’t talking about me; he couldn’t be. I never asked anything of Arturo.
“You were leading him on. When I found out you were pregnant, I had to do something.”
I stared at him, my eyes opening wider. How could he have known? The expression on my face gave away my question.
“I have my ways, my dear,” he responded. “The tour would have been the perfect break. A quest, of sorts, to seal his fate as the king of rock. I needed him to go forth, not stay at home simpering because of his heart. Separation makes the heart grow fonder,” he spit, the words dripping of sarcasm. “He’d have the chance to perfect his skill further. The road to musical greatness was his role.”
I didn’t understand how Arturo couldn’t continue on that journey without leaving me behind. I would have taken the adventure with him.
“He was going to give it up to be with you,” Mure answered my unasked question again. “He was going to stay behind to run Camelot Records.”
I didn’t know this. Arturo had wanted to settle into the industry, but after the tour. The plan was for him to fulfill the world tour commitment and return to me, to us. I was prepared to wait. The accident changed everything. My heart sank. I don’t know why I didn’t wait.
“The uncertainty of love is a powerful thing,” Mure continued like he read my thoughts again. “The waiting, the wanting, is a masterful weapon, and women know how to use it.” Mure’s tone turned hard. Again, I believed he wasn’t speaking of me. Mure’s accusation made no sense in reference to Arturo and my relationship. I had been the one waiting, the one wanting.
“He was ready to throw it all away for you, my dear, and I could not let that happen. He wouldn’t have recovered with you near. He would have given into you and stayed behind. Despite the danger he had been in during the chase, I needed him to survive and fulfill his purpose.”
Mure stroked the side of my face with a blunt nail. I trembled under his touch; eyes open wide with the uncertainty that accompanies fear. I was frightened of Mure. His wicked eyes focused on me, but I didn’t know which one to concentrate on. As if he hypnotized me, my eyes grew heavy and the lids drifted shut. The strangest images filled my head of Arturo with Ana.
I fought for rational thought. Mure was an unusual man. I questioned whether his intentions for Arturo’s future were for good or evil. It occurred to me that Mure believed Arturo’s destiny was to be something even greater than Arturo could foresee. Love got in the way.
I went home the next day. I didn’t take no for an answer. This time I would escape. Tristan and Ireland were my saviors. Tristan wanted to head back to the city. His guitar was one of the many lost in the fire and he wanted to start the claims necessary to financially replace the equipment. Some of the items had more sentimental value, and that was never going to be replicated.
We drove in silence for a portion of the way. Ireland looked back at me several times to check on me. I was weak from exhaustion. I’d cried myself to sleep the night before, after dozing restlessly through most of the night. My daydream of burning haunted me, as did the fever. I shivered with thoughts of Mure Linn and his ramblings. Ireland commented once that I looked a bit white, despite some days of sun. I ignored her comments and we drove on.
Eventually, the two of them made idle chatter. It was awkward to listen to them discuss their wedding plans. Tristan wanted to marry immediately. Ireland wanted to wait until after the baby. Either way, they had it all: a wedding and a child. I was reminded again of what I’d lost. I pretended to sleep as I fell over on the back seat and closed my eyes, willing the images of Arturo and Ana in my brain to melt away.
Upon arriving at my father’s home, Talia took one look at me and ushered me to my room. She had been my lifelong nurse and maid.
Leading me to my bed, I buried myself under the covers, wrapping myself up like a cocoon. I hoped the protective covering would allow me a metamorphosis into something other than the ugly person I felt inside. A doctor was called, but there was nothing wrong, other than a fever from the inhalation of too much smoke. I wheezed a bit, like I had bronchitis, but I didn’t. My symptoms were the result of being burned at the stake. I had withstood my trial; now I had to move on to live. After a few days of rest, I began to feel normal in body, but not in heart. I did not know where to go next.
It was Lila who came to see me first. We weren’t friends. I had tried to explain myself to her one time on the street, but I didn’t do a good job. Lila had been in my position. If she had visions of Lansing and I in her head, I could see where she would never forgive me either.
“How are you feeling?” she asked gingerly, as if her words might break me.
“I’m better, thank you,” I replied. I was still in my bed and Lila sat in a chair that Talia had placed next to it. She had been my guardian, a vigilant protectress over her depressed patient.
Looking around my room, I noticed what Lila would see. It still looked like a girl’s room, grown up, but not as luxurious as the room at Arturo’s. I didn’t want to think of a room that I would never be entering again. My cello case sat closed and propped against the stand. Buried inside it was my engagement ring. Another item not to think about, as it would never be worn again.
“How are you?” I asked awkwardly. I was uncertain what Lila intended with this visit.
“I’m fine. I…I’d like to talk to you.” She looked down at the ruby ring on her fourth finger. It was obvious it was her engagement ring, although a bit unconventional. She rotated the jewel back and forth.
“I need you to let him go,” she said softly.
“Arturo and I broke up,” I replied taking a deep sigh. Her dark eyes shot up to mine.