Quiet Lies
A Novel by R.L. Griffin
Quiet Lies
Copyright © 2015 by R.L. Griffin
Cover by Michelle Carroll of Silver Plum Creations
Editorial services by Ellie McLove
Interior text design by Lisa DeSpain
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the Publisher.
This is dedicated to every person who has ever woken up one day and wondered how they got where they were. Whether it is in job you hate, a marriage you despise or a location you swore you’d never return, this book is for you. It’s never too late to change things. You’re never too lost to be found. Things are never so bad that one change doesn’t matter. Start with one step toward where you want to be…that’s all. Everything starts with one step.
Table of Contents
Part One
Chapter One Ghost Wearing My Face
Chapter Two Illusion of Choice
Chapter Three Open Your Eyes
Chapter Four Even Salt Looks Like Sugar
Chapter Five Rotten Family Tree
Chapter Six Perfect Mess
Chapter Seven Award Winning Performance
Chapter Eight Flawless Appearances
Chapter Nine Promises are the Sweetest Lies
Chapter Ten Rebellious Acts
Chapter Eleven Conscience Insubordination
Chapter Twelve Complacency is a Slow Death
Chapter Thirteen The Match
Chapter Fourteen Immune
Chapter Fifteen I Bleed Lies
Chapter Sixteen Drowning in My Reality
Chapter Seventeen Crawl
Chapter Eighteen Landfill
Chapter Nineteen Fucking Lies
Chapter Twenty I Used to Know You
Chapter Twenty-One Run to What
Chapter Twenty-Two Lessons
Chapter Twenty-Three Give and Take
Chapter Twenty-Four House of Cards
Chapter Twenty-Five Beauty in Failure
Chapter Twenty-Six Miss the Misery
Chapter Twenty-Seven Satin Blinders
Chapter Twenty-Eight Losing it
Chapter Twenty-Nine There’s No Waking From a Nightmare if You Aren’t Asleep
Chapter Thirty When a Whisper Turns to a Roar
Chapter Thirty-One The Soul is a Treacherous Place
Chapter Thirty-Two Fear Lies
Chapter Thirty-Three You’re Never Too Lost
Chapter Thirty-Four The Great Escape
Chapter Thirty-Five Silent Screaming
Chapter Thirty-Six Smoke and Mirrors
Chapter Thirty-Seven The Brink is Beautiful
Chapter Thirty-Eight Dreams Turn to Dust
Chapter Thirty-Nine Push Me Out to Sea
Chapter Forty The Truth is Suffocating
Chapter Forty-One Plunging Into Love
Chapter Forty-Two Delusions Are All I Have
Chapter Forty-Three Everything is Happening
Chapter Forty-Four More of Man
Chapter Forty-Five You Owe Me
Chapter Forty-Six Fall Back
Chapter Forty-Seven The Definition of Wrong
Part Two
Chapter Forty-Eight I Am The Fire
Chapter Forty-Nine Dizzy Lizzy
Chapter Fifty Love and Pain
Chapter Fifty-One If Wishes Were Horses
Chapter Fifty-Two Volition
Chapter Fifty-Three Controlling Me
Chapter Fifty-Four Ashes in My Mouth
Chapter Fifty-Five Such a Lovely Liar
Chapter Fifty-Six It Changes Nothing, But Everything
Chapter Fifty-Seven Day of the Dead
Part Three
Chapter Fifty-Eight Four Sides to Every Story
Chapter Fifty-Nine Window Pain
Chapter Sixty What is Left of Me
Chapter Sixty-One Delusions of Grandeur
Chapter Sixty-Two Puppet
Chapter Sixty-Three The Monster You Made Me
Chapter Sixty-Four Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Chapter Sixty-Five Beginnings...Endings
Chapter Sixty-Six I Carry Around my Mistakes
Chapter Sixty-Seven What We Deserve…
Chapter Sixty-Eight Home Isn’t A Place
Chapter Sixty-Nine Smoke
Chapter Seventy Controlled by What We Hide
Chapter Seventy-One When you Love Someone, You Lie
Chapter Seventy-Two I Gave the Wrong Person My Soul
Chapter Seventy-Three Surviving Isn’t Living
Chapter Seventy-Four When the Dam Breaks
Chapter Seventy-Five Letters to You
Epilogue
Prologue
The clicking of heels echo in the enormous sanctuary, bouncing off the stained glass windows and wood ceiling. Pain reverberates in my brain at the staccato sound of the shoes my mother had literally forced on my feet an hour ago. The somber chapel is eerily quiet, save some throats being cleared and my heels clicking. It makes me want to take my shoes off, so I do. I stop suddenly and pull my shoes off, leaving them where I am then continue walking. I clutch the paper in my left hand and Kleenex in my right. I climb the stairs up to the podium. Why did I agree to do this? I had haphazardly pulled on the Chanel black sheath dress that was in my old closet and modest black pumps paired with the pearls he’d given me. Now I’m so confused at what I am doing I could almost laugh or cry. Everyone would just attribute it to my grief, but it is so much more than that.
As I turned to face the packed church I’m grateful that I forgot my glasses in the chaos of my decision. I only see a blur of faces. I don’t see the secretary or lawyer or anyone else I don’t want to see. I don’t see the one person who would make me run from the podium. I can only see the front row. I see my mother sitting in the front row clutching tissues and my son’s hand.
I lean hesitantly toward the microphone at the podium. “I’m...” I start and then lean back from the microphone as its amplification of my voice was greater than I imagined and brings the tenuous nature of my circumstances back to the forefront, not my fear of speaking in public. My eyes go wide at the shock of the last three months, hell, thirteen years. I steel myself, hoping to keep my emotions in check if that is possible. I’d been trying for the last several months to check myself, my spiral, my joy and my desire for vengeance. The emotions I feel today mirror all of those that I’ve had over our entire marriage, loss, desire and utter anguish, just to name a few.
“I’m pretty sure this is a bad idea, that I will blubber through this entire eulogy, but it’s what he wanted, so I’m doing what he wanted as usual.” The truth to this statement is so acute that it feels like I’ve been shot as the realization explodes in my chest, leaking to my other organs.
Blink. There is a quiet murmur of polite laughter. There was nothing about my statement that brings a smile to my face. I will hide behind this mask. I’ve hidden everything, buried it deep in a hole and covered it with dirt, rocks and my lies.
My mind tricks me into thinking of his dimples when he’d told me his plan, I imagine him as the man I always wanted. I stand up straight, it’s five minutes of my life and I can do anything for five minutes. I’ve already endured the worst. I clear my throat. “So, if I begin to cry I’d like for someone to say or sing something funny, deal?” I declare and wait for a few of the longest seconds of my life
until I see a couple of blurs nod in agreement. Satisfied, I open the paper with my notes on it and smooth it on the podium meticulously. The paper resists my attempts and continues to wrinkle and pucker. It reminds me of my own life. A life that had once been immaculate and promising, which was ruined and nothing I can do will get me the life I once dreamed of, but I can move forward. I will move forward.
I draw in a long yoga inhale. “I’m devastated, not for me, but for our kid. I’ve been able to enjoy the love of my life for over thirteen years. We met my freshman year of college.” I smooth my sweaty palms down the sides of my dress in a nervous tick. “I’ve been able to laugh and travel and drink and love this man. I’m sad for Bash. I’m sad there will be no more coaching of sports teams and retelling stories of a great win or loss. I’m terrified for having to be both Mom and Dad. I’m unprepared to go on this journey without him holding my hand or making fun of me when we fuck up.” My hand flies to my mouth in horror. “I’m sorry...I.”
I close my eyes. This is not going as I planned. I comfort myself with the fact that nothing is supposed to be worse than my husband dying, even though I know many things worse. I close my eyes and a reel of horrific images flash one by one in my mind. Re-opening my red-rimmed eyes, I attempt to focus on the task at hand by looking at my notes. They blur then clear, I am on the verge of tears. This surprises me in a way, but I stopped trying to figure out what emotions I should feel next years ago. Tucking a stray ombre wave behind my ear, I continue.
“So, when I thought about what I would say today I laughed at how I would possibly do him justice. Then I just resigned myself I wouldn’t. One of my favorite traits of his was that he worked his ass off constantly. He has always been like that, you know? Even in college he was a worker. He was always the smartest in the room, he’d let you know it too.” There is a soft murmur of laughter in the crowd. “He was aggressive in his work life wanting to provide for his family. I do feel lucky to have found someone so…” My voice cracks in preparation for the lie. “Perfect for me,” I spit out. This fabrication was extremely hard for me to say, the one that had broken my spirit and had filled me with such agony at what could’ve been, my airway begins to close.
Tuck hair, clear throat.
“Not everyone gets that in this life. Most people don’t. He was my soul mate, my partner in crime, my everything... I hope that I can convey all that he was to you.” Now tears fall freely as the lies threaten to swallow me whole. I look into the first row, the only row I can actually see, and find those eyes that mirror my husband’s. They are honey dipped and lock on mine, a clear understanding passing between us.
Just when I wipe my tears away and look at my notes a voice breaks through the stillness of sanctuary. “’Cause your booty don’t need explaining,’” my son belts out interrupting the concoction of my life with his father that rushes into my mind and pours from my lips.
Part One
Some people are composed of layers upon layers of deceit. Certain lies are for others, but most of them are for ourselves. Typically there are three dimensions of all human beings—an aspect or person that we all want everyone to see, one that we only know ourselves and then the person we truly are, but refuse to acknowledge. Of course, these different dimensions are on a sliding scale. Our friends know more of our true selves than those we only know tangentially. Some of the lies we tell hurt, some soothe, some chip away at who we really are and some can break entire nations.
CHAPTER ONE
Ghost Wearing My Face
Six Months Earlier
A soft moan escaping my lips eases me from my drug induced slumber. I feel hands pressing firmly against my thighs widening me. A heat sears through me causing my back to involuntarily arch. I slip my hands through the too long hair that’s tickling my abdomen. Another lick and my head depresses my pillow. I stretch my hands out to the coolness of the sheets next to me and my hands clench the sheets. I finally open my eyes, my vision is filled with the inky black space around me. The room is heavy with the smell of arousal and sex. The quiet squeezes me. A finger enters me at the same time a suck takes me away from this world.
“Oh, God,” I murmur as a heady delirium fills my foggy brain.
Time stops as a feast is being had in between my legs and I squirm to ease some of the sensory assault. A hand reaches up and presses firmly on my stomach keeping me in place until he’s done with me.
My breathing is ragged. I squeeze my eyes shut.
Kisses trail down my right thigh and then my left. A tongue traces the scar on the left side of my hip.
“I’m sorry about last night.” His lips are at my ear now.
I’m silent. He kisses me slowly and parts my lips with his tongue.
He’s hovering above me. “I have to go in early.”
I nod, even though I know he can’t see me. His fingertips brush over my breasts, down my stomach, my thighs and then my knees as he moves away from me.
My eyes close as the bed creaks at his absence. I hear the shower. I wish for sleep that evades me mercilessly.
A few hours later I pull into the drop off line at Lincoln Preparatory Academy, I unconsciously smooth my blonde stick straight hair that falls in thick sheets past my shoulders. It’s the first day back from Christmas break and I’m happy for resuming my schedule. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I blink at the reflection that will never be me. Arranging my perfectly colored red lips into a smile, I make sure I don’t have anything in my teeth.
“Mom,” a voice urges with frustration from the back seat, “pull up.”
When I look away from my own blue-green eyes, which is the only part of me I actually recognize, I find the line has inched up a few feet. “Relax Bash,” I soothe. I take my foot off the brake for a few seconds before coming to another stop.
“I have a report to finish and need to get to school early. I told you that.” He glares at me.
“Baby, we’re early.”
“I need to get out though and we’re back in the line and I need to get out.”
This reeked of the start to what I call my son Bash’s “tantrums.” I wonder on a daily basis if all kids act this way when things aren’t perfect in their eyes, if they can’t control everything. “Take a breath and in ten seconds you’ll be able to get out. See there’s Coach Keller.”
“Mom,” Bash says through gritted teeth. His hands clench and unclench in his lap.
“Bash,” I respond calmly. His real name is Sebastian Pryor Jr. That’s not what I wanted to name him, but my wants and needs never seem to matter.
I’ve been told by numerous psychologists and specialists this is all normal. They said, “a typical kid… tween… teen.” I sort of wish I could fast forward through these years, the years that I’ll be shunned by the one thing that I’m proud of in my life. I would rather have the fun five-year old boy back. The one that would tell me he loved me and I was the best mom ever. The jubilant boy with wild brown curls that had infinite dreams and knew he’d be able to accomplish all of them. I want that boy back. I felt like I was doing something right then, I haven’t felt that way in a very long time.
Taking my foot off the pedal again I coast up the curb of my son’s school and before I can come to a full stop he swings the door open and falls out with his backpack. Slamming the door without a goodbye, he doesn’t look back as he stalks to the entrance of the school. His tousled hair is a tad too long, the curls long gone. I mentally put that on my to do list for today, to schedule a haircut. My mask is permanently in place and has been for so many years that I am now unfamiliar with how my real face would look in this situation. I smile and wave at the teachers huddling in the frigid January morning, as I slowly make my way through the drop off line. Taking a left out of the school, I drive the two miles full of carpool traffic while on autopilot, this is my routine.
I slide out of my champagne colored Range Rover and put my feet on the newly paved parking lot. A shiver runs through me as I pull my knee leng
th down coat closer around my body. I hurry into the studio.
“Hi Rebecca, I love that tunic. It’s so pretty, where did you get it?” Michelle, her daughter attends the same school as Bash, says as soon as I slide my coat off my shoulders.
“Hey Michelle, I’m not sure. Do you like it?” I know exactly where I bought this extremely overpriced turquoise tunic. I like to keep everyone guessing. She will probably show up next week with the same shirt. Everything I do serves a purpose, whether it’s to fit in with these fake women or to make my husband livid that I paid $200 for a yoga top. To either fit in or cause a stir, I don’t know which is which sometimes.
I take a few steps into the studio where all the ladies from the “right school” go to do yoga after dropping their kids off in the morning. Then I follow Michelle into the cubby area where I throw my keys in the bowl on the counter and slip off my Hunter boots. The warmth begins to thaw the chill in my bones.
“Hey ladies, you ready?” The instructor asks from behind the desk. She’s in a spaghetti strapped black tank top with black leggings. She’s very thin, with long lean muscles.
“Ugh, it’s Monday. I’d rather still be in my pajamas,” Michelle answered even though she is always in her yoga attire.
“Me too,” I agree. I’ve found in my ten years of perfecting this image that if you agree with people, for most things, they don’t ask about you. People are very interested in themselves and telling you all about what they like and what they have. All I really have to do is listen and nod, they all assume I’m just as shallow and vacuous as they are. Hell, maybe I am. I really don’t care anymore.
“Hey Stacey, Jamie.” I wave at the two other women already positioned in class as I walk over to my normal spot in the back corner.
“Ooo Rebecca, that top is amazing,” Stacey comments, beaming from her front spot in the class.
“I know, right?” Agrees Michelle.
I fight my desire to roll my eyes, it’s the same routine every fucking day. There are always comments on my shirt, leggings, jewelry or something else, whatever they can say to get me to engage with them. My features arrange themselves perfectly. “Thanks.” I don’t give them much to work with, the more people know, the easier it is to see any of the cracks I conceal.
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