Pieces of Truth

by Angela Richardson

  I stiffened at that idea. “Fuck no! I can’t go back to living with Clint, and there is certainly no way I’m living with my Dad again.” I hadn’t thought about where I would go after this. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I didn’t know what my next move should be. Perhaps I should leave New York, take Tess up on that offer of Europe.

  “Stay with me.” Josh broke my train of thought.

  “What?” I said, shocked by his suggestion.

  “Stay with me until you figure out your living arrangements. C’mon Norah, I insist.”

  Stay with Josh? In his apartment, just the two of us?

  What were my options? I wasn’t going back to Clint’s place, or my Dad’s, and the ticket Tess had given me was somewhere in my apartment, and I couldn’t think of anything else.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “OK Josh.”

  Josh let out a relieved sigh. “Wow, that was easier than I thought.”

  We got up off the ground and I stared at Josh. “Well, I guess I should know a good thing when it’s staring me in the face.”

  Things got weirdly quiet between us. Did I mean to imply something else? It certainly sounded that way. I shuffled my feet as I waited for Josh to say something. Anything.

  “You should do what you came here to do first, Norah.”

  “Huh?” I wasn’t really sure what I had come to do. I looked at the Glock on the ground and remembered how I put it to my head. Surely Josh wasn’t referring to that.

  “Get it out of your system. The pain, the anger, the hurt.” Josh reached down and picked up my Glock and put it in my hand, aiming it at one of the windows along the roof. “It will help. It has always helped you,” he said, and stepped away from me.

  I understood now. It felt like the first time Josh had brought me to this warehouse and planted a gun in my hand. Firing the gun was the first time in a long while I got some kind of peace from the constant screaming in my head. Josh had found a way to help me vent, and I wasn’t hurting myself or anyone else.

  I started firing my gun, over and over, bullet after bullet, round after round, into all the corners and cracks of the warehouse. Josh just stood behind me and waited patiently for me to finish. By my final round I was breathing hard as the adrenaline from the shooting finally kicked in. Before I finished, I pulled out my cell phone and fired at least three shots into the small metal object, smashing it to pieces. “No calls from anyone and no traces!” I yelled at the pulverized metal. I had decided that my relationship with cell phones would never work out. We just didn’t see eye to eye, and they did nothing but complicate and make matters worse.

  After the final bullet was in the ground next to fragments that were once my cell, I stood staring in silence, waiting for the echoes of the bullet shots in my head to stop. I felt Josh take hold of my hand, pulling me gently towards him. “C’mon Norah, let’s go home.”

  Chapter 19

  Lick, Sip, Suck

  ~ ~ ~

  I cradled the bottle of tequila in my hand as I sat on the floor, swaying in time to the music. The room was moving with me. It was as if I was on a sailing ship, and the floor was the ocean. Even sitting on the ground, I was still getting that back and forth, up and down, seasickness effect. I knew that I had passed that moment when it was sensible to stop, but I needed to numb the pain of my lost relationship, so I just kept going.

  “Pick some music Josh,” I screeched, pouring another shot into my little shot glass I was holding unsteadily. I was sitting on the on the floor leaning up against his sofa, in the middle of Josh’s lounge room.

  “Blink 182 good enough?” he asked me as he stood scanning the music on his iPod, on a shelf on the far wall.

  “Yep, you choose the song.” I took another shot of tequila and slammed down my glass.

  “How about, What’s my age again?” Josh eyed me for approval.

  “I’m twenty-three, bitch!” I yelled back, and giggled as I held the bottle even closer to my chest.

  “Alright Norah, give me that bottle. Enough is enough. You’ve had your fun.” Josh sounded so serious as he tried to take the bottle from my claw-like grip. He failed to free it from my hands, and I laughed at his failure.

  “But Josh, it’s my birthday,” I said, pushing out my lips into an exaggerated pout.

  “It was your birthday yesterday Nor,” Josh pointed out in my inebriated state. He tried to paw again at the tequila bottle and I continued to push his hand away.

  “Yes...ter...day Joshua,” I stammered, “Does. Not. Count.” I glared at him for understanding. Any reference to yesterday did not exist in my mind right now. It was a closed-off memory for the evening. It would be in complete blackout until I was ready to shine some light on it.

  “OK, OK. Today is your birthday.” Josh grinned, knowing how much his acceptance would make me happy. I don’t think he wanted to see me get any more depressed so he tried keep me as pleased as he could in my stupor.

  “Yay!” I said. “Twenty-three and single. The world is my oppster!”

  “Don’t you mean oyster?” Josh corrected.

  “Quiet young ‘un.” I pointed my finger at Josh, scolding him like a naughty boy.

  Josh tried again to take the bottle away from me, but I rolled away from his attempt. Josh looked annoyed by what I said. “I’m only younger by a month. That doesn’t count Nor.”

  I got onto my knees to look at Josh, who looked down at me as I bit my lip. “Oh, it totally counts Joshua, and as your elder, I demand you play a drinking game with me.”

  His eyes expanded, almost considering saying yes, but then I saw sensibility kick some weird thought out of his head. “I don’t know Nor. I think you need to go to bed. Sleep this off. You’re not thinking straight right now.”

  I got up off my knees, and stood up, rather awkwardly and walked up really close to Josh, invading his personal space. “Quiet party pooper.” I poked at his chest. “Look Josh, you play one game with me and I will go to sleep. Sprout’s promise.” My hand was over my heart as I tried to convince Josh I was being honest.

  “I think you mean Scout’s Promise?” Josh corrected again, as he assisted my swaying body.

  “Don’t make me slap you! Now, lie down on the couch and take off your shirt.”

  Josh looked at me confused. I saw his hesitation once again so I moaned loudly as I led him onto the couch with my hands. “Look Josh, I don’t make the rules of the game, so take off your shirt.”

  Josh shook his head, trying not to laugh at me, but he removed his T-shirt and lay on his couch, his head resting near where I was knelt on the floor.

  “Alright Joshy. We are going to play lick, sip, suck, except I’m going to pour the tequila into your mouth and then I’ll be using my mouth to get the tequila from yours by licking, sipping and sucking.”

  Josh’s eyes bulged as I explained how to play. He bit his lip and looked sideways, like he was thinking, and then he tried to get up. “Norah, that is not how it is done. Now come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  My hand came charging down on his abs, which surprised him and forced him to lay back down again.

  I couldn’t help but run my hand all over his abs as he watched me take control. Josh with no shirt on. Rippling abs, broad shoulders, muscles. Fuck those muscles!

  Josh noticed my glazed stare on his body. I shook my head, and returned to the task at hand. “This is the game I want to play, and this is how I want to play it Josh. Alright?”

  His eyes darted to where my hand was now resting near the buttons of his jeans. “Norah,” he began, in a very concerned voice.

  My fingers started to play with the top button of his jeans. “You hear the song playing right now by Grinspoon?”

  Josh tried not to stare at my hand on his jeans as he responded. “Yes, it’s Lost Control.”

  I smiled crookedly. “That. I. Have. Now open up Joshy.”

  Before Josh had time to divert my actions, I held the bottle of tequila above his head. He looked into my eyes
, then back to me and slowly opened his mouth. I poured the tequila into his mouth, and then put down the bottle.

  I moved slowly, purposely making Josh watch me as my head moved nearer and nearer to his mouth. His lips were shut when I got close enough to touch them with my own. I then used my tongue to start licking his lips. In a matter of seconds, Josh’s mouth sprang open and my tongue dived into his mouth, our lips and tongues frantically consuming one another. In our frenzied and passionate, tequila-filled kiss, my hand started to undo Josh’s buttons on his jeans.

  Josh’s hands were in my hair as I continued to undress him. My mouth and my mind were moving a million miles an hour. Tequila, betrayal, lust and escape. My hand started to slide into Josh’s jeans, when my brain alerted me of a pounding, and not of the drunken head pounding variety.

  What is that?

  “NORAH! NORAH! Are you in there?”

  My hand tensed and I swung my whole body around to look at the vibrating door.

  Josh’s body bucked as he realized who it was. “Hide, quickly!” Josh managed to say as he got to his feet and buttoned up his jeans. I crawled, somewhat awkwardly, towards the curtains near Josh’s terrace to hide. They were floor to ceiling length, so the only thing I needed to do was to stand very still behind them.

  Easier said than done.

  From behind the blackness of the curtains, I heard the front door open, and thunderous footsteps come marching in.

  “Where is she Hollows? Where? I know she would have come straight to you. Tell me where she is!” Clint was in Josh’s apartment. Clint. The boy who wanted to marry me, yet had ripped my heart out, twice. Fucker. The booze in me started to call Clint every name imaginable in my head. I didn’t want to be thinking about this pain right now. It would lead to me getting physically violent, and I didn’t want to face him when I wasn’t in a state of mind to inflict the maximum amount of pain.

  “Hey calm down. She isn’t here,” Josh declared in a steady and convincing voice.

  “That’s bullshit. You’re hiding her aren’t you? NORAH! NORAH!” The footsteps were now pounding around the apartment. After a minute, they stopped near the front door. “She always comes back to you. Now tell me where she is Hollows!” His voice sounded so frightened and for a second, I debated about showing myself, but this time my head knew better. I was not confronting Clint right now; not like this.

  “Clint, I’ve told you, she isn’t here. She’s probably staying with her Dad. Why don’t you ask him?”

  There was a long pause before I heard them speak again.

  “Josh, you have to help me find her. I need to get her back. I made a terrible mistake. I think...I think I’ve lost her for good this time.” I knew he must have looked lost and broken, but I was still too angry to see him, and too worried about what I would do to him if I did.

  “I want to help you, but I can’t. You really hurt her. You are lucky I don’t drop you to the ground, right here, right now.” Josh’s voice had lifted in anger as he spoke about defending me. I felt comforted by hearing that.

  Suddenly, I heard a body slump to the ground.

  No one had been hit had they?

  “She was my future Josh. I don’t think you know how serious I was about her. What I would be willing to do to get her back. Maybe she’ll listen to you if you just tell her to forgive me.”

  Josh choked as Clint pleaded with him. He knew exactly how serious was about me. “Whoa! No! Not happening! No way!”

  There was another long pause before I heard shuffling again and feet walking around near the doorway. “I don’t know what to do. Please, if you see her, can you tell her I love her and that I’m sorry.” Clint’s anger at trying to find me had been replaced by despair.

  “Clint, I’m sure she already knows that, but maybe it’s time to let her go. I really don’t think she’ll get past this.”

  I heard a fist hit Josh’s door. “Maybe if she understood why I did what I did...”

  Josh cut him off. “Hey steady, that’s my door. Look, I don’t know Clint, but if I see her, I will tell her you came looking for her. OK.”

  I heard Clint sniffle before his footsteps led out from Josh’s loft.

  Did I feel bad for Clint? Could I forgive him? I had forgiven him once before, I gave him a second chance, and it led me back to the exact same place where I had been side-swiped and gutted. No, with me it was, two strikes and you’re out. There was no going back.

  The door closed and I sidled out from behind the curtains. Josh stared at me from across the room. There weren’t any words that could be said right now. Everything that I tried to avoid this evening had just walked through Josh’s door, causing the darkness that had tried to get drunk, be hit with a sobering punch of reality. I couldn’t focus on what I felt about Clint or what I had just been doing with Josh. I needed silence and sleep. I needed to get away from everything that was making me weak and emotional.

  I kept my head hung low, avoiding Josh’s eyes, and then slowly, and very quietly, walked past Josh and went to his spare bedroom to pass out.

  Chapter 20

  Deeper Waters

  ~ ~ ~

  I stared out into Josh’s bathroom as the shower ran hot along my back. Josh also had a large bathtub which I would love to soak in, but I needed the constant heat all over me, something to wash away all the painful memories that were trying to crack open in my head. I was still trying to contain my anger and hurt I was feeling about what I learned about Clint. Now that I was awake and sober, everything that happened with Clint was hitting me head-on. My heart sank even lower. How could the man I love, want to hurt me like that, or another person for that matter? Trying to get someone killed purely because they loved me and wanted me all for themselves was just wrong. I didn’t care how insecure Clint was, nothing should push someone to do that, especially out of retaliation or jealousy. I could not, nor did I want to get past that action.

  Now I was back in Josh’s apartment, again finding refuge in his arms. No matter what was happening in my life, I kept coming back to Josh. Yes, I had made out with him while I was drugged at the club, and drunk last night, but I didn’t let it go any further. Why did I continue to keep him at arm’s lengths? Why did I keep pushing away the only real and true feelings I had ever known?

  Why indeed?

  I wish I had a sign that told me that what I was doing was right. That being here with Josh was where I was meant to be. That I was contemplating jumping into something I probably wasn’t ready for, but inside I couldn’t wait a moment longer. Yes, I’d left Clint and I knew there would be an inevitable exchange of words which would be emotional and heartbreaking, but something about this felt right, like this was the moment I wasn’t supposed to ignore or push aside. Was there ever going to be a right time for me and Josh, the right circumstances? I don’t think we would ever find a normal or right time. I’m the one who keeps getting screwed over. Why should I give a damn about waiting, and why should I even care? I wanted this, today, now. I wanted Josh. I just wish I had some small sign that gave me just a little more confidence to believe the right time was now.

  I slammed the shower tap off and quickly wrapped myself up in a big white thick bathrobe and ran out of the bathroom. I raced through the apartment, my eyes darting from corner to corner, desperately trying to find Josh. He was standing out on the terrace, murmuring on his cell. I stopped to stare at him for a moment before slowly creeping out onto the terrace. He turned and saw me and quickly shut his cell.

  That’s weird.

  “Norah, what are you doing? Are you aware you haven’t dressed yourself?” His eyes made a quick sweep over my half-naked body before he was decent enough to stare over the terrace wall. After I stood there a minute, not moving, he turned to meet me again, his forehead crinkling in wonder as I continued to stare at him. I think he wanted to laugh at my abnormal behavior but instead just stared back.

  I started to fidget with my hands as I tried to tell Josh how I was feeling,
but I only managed to find a few words, which weren’t even close to what I wanted to say. “Josh I just wanted to say thank you for letting me stay here. For giving me a birthday celebration a day later, for just being...”

  Josh cut in, “Oh, that reminds me.” He raised his hand, “Stay right here for a minute.” He ran inside his apartment and came back with a thin rectangular object wrapped up in brown paper, with a white string bow.

  “What is this?” I said, staring at it.

  “It’s your real birthday present,” he stated, pushing it towards me. “Open it.”

  “Oh,” I said, slowly tearing at the brown paper, peeling it away until I saw what it was.

  “Oh Josh,” I breathed softly, barely able to say his name.

  Sometimes, the smallest moments in your life have the greatest impact. They soar straight into a place deep inside you, and resonate with the very core of your heart, sinking deep into your memory, to remind you later, that life and love can bring you magic you didn’t know existed.

  I could only hold the frame, trying not to cry, trying to understand how he could possibly have it. “How did you get this?” I wasn’t even sure I was breathing, but my feet felt light, my mind floating from the memory of this picture.

  Josh’s body shifted so he was standing right behind me. “Don’t be angry when I tell you this Nor, but the day before I left, when I was in your room and left you that good-bye letter, I kind of took this. I wanted something to remember you by. I wanted a piece of you, something as beautiful as you, something made by you. I’m sorry I took it, I just didn’t know if I’d ever see you again after I left.” My eyes lifted to Josh and then back down as he continued to explain his gift. “I just wanted to have a part of you wherever I was and wherever I went. You were always with me Norah, in my head, in my heart, everywhere. I took this with me so our souls would always be together, so they’d never forget.”

  And just like that, it was as if the heavens opened up and a big ray of light shone down on me and Josh. I had my sign. Josh had given me a sketch I had done back in high school. It was a charcoal drawing I had done of my mother’s face from a portrait my Dad kept in his bedroom. Her head was tilted to the side as she stared out at the Mediterranean Sea. My father had taken her on a cruise when they were first married. Her face looked so serene and happy as her long black hair swept around her face. It was my favorite picture my Dad had of her, and I often re-sketched the picture using different artistic techniques. The charcoal version I did of the picture was my favorite sketch, and I had shown Josh the picture a million times when we were young. When I lost it, it didn’t even occur to me it had been taken. I had a lot of other sketches of that photo, but the charcoal one I did, had always been my favorite and held the most sentimental value to me. At the time I assumed I just misplaced it.