Beautiful Inferno

by Abby Gale

  “It’s time you learn how to swim,” I told her.

  It was still the best weekend I’d ever had. I’d never laughed as much as I did that weekend. We both were young, carefree, and enjoying life in each other’s company. Our life caused us to be on the same wavelength, even with the eight-year age difference. With a fucked up life like ours, it was hard to be young. For me, it worked to my advantage since girls liked the troubled, brooding, mysterious type. They were ready to spread their legs for me, but no one was interested in really getting to know me. And after Maya, I used their weakness to make money. I wasn’t proud to admit that I madmoney for funding the club by fucking women for money, but it helped me to get money for my club and focus on something else instead of obsessing over someone I couldn’t have. When money wasn’t a concern anymore, the club was everything to me. After Maya, I had never spent a weekend off. My weekends were booked with the club, I was either working or fucking. And every day I was obsessing over Maya, my baby girl, creating my own hell of suffering.

  I was the Dante in my own Inferno and Maya was my sweetest hell. We’d both been burning alone in the same fire, but now I was determined to turn to ashes with her in my arms.

  CHAPTER 21

  ZEKE

  With determination in my steps, I opened Maya’s door. She didn’t notice me. She was sitting on the floor, facing the window. By the way, she leaned over something, I knew she was sketching. I saw the earbuds on her ear, attached to the iPhone I bought her. Her laptop was still sitting where I left it on her nightstand last night, unpacked. The note I left on it was creased. But at least she liked the phone, and she kept the sketchbook.

  Walking toward her, I looked at her sketch from above.

  I didn’t know if she saw my silhouette or if she sensed the fight between the right and wrong in my heart, but she looked up.

  I couldn’t take my eyes away from her sketch. In her drawing, I was standing, tall and big like I was a god. The lines of my figure were black and bold. And at my feet, there was Maya. Kneeling. Weak. Desperate as she tried to reach out to me, like a beggar with her head bowed, shoulders slouched. The lines of her body were almost invisible, just a ghostly caress of pencil on the paper. She was see-through, invisible.

  “Maya,” I breathed out.

  Like my voice broke the spell, she rushed to close the sketchbook but kneeling next to her. I pulled her into my arms. The only reaction from her was the gasp that escaped her lips.

  “Talk to me, Maya. Please. Talk to me. I’m going mad, baby girl. Just tell me how to make this better. Guide me to make us okay again,” I begged her desperately, hugging her tighter and tighter like I could bring her soul back from where I pushed it away when I left her.

  She didn’t try to push me away, she didn’t touch me. She was in my arms, but she was far away from me. Leaning back, I looked at her face. Her eyes were closed tightly, her teeth were worrying her bottom lip. She was trying to hold her pain and probably anger inside.

  “Do you hate me this much?” I whispered. “Do you hate me that much you won’t even let me see your pain or anger?”

  Seconds passed as I waited for a reaction from her. I was going to accept whatever she would be willing to give me. But she gave nothing. I looked at her as she kept hiding away from me. Just when I was about to give up, she opened her eyes.

  Those big dark eyes were shining with tears. Her chin trembled when she released her bottom lip from her teeth’s grasp, and she finally whispered,

  “I hate that I can’t hate you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  MAYA

  I didn’t know why, but after dinner, I didn’t go to my room. Instead, grabbing my sketchbook, I sat on the floor in front of the window where city lights played before my eyes.

  Zeke was in the kitchen, putting away the dinner mess probably. With the clinking noises coming from there, I let my pencil move on the paper freely. At this moment, it was only the blank page and pencil dancing on it. It was like a hypnotic process for me. Most of the time I didn’t even realize what I was drawing until it was done. Sketching was the spell I had never fought against. As my hand moved over the blank page, it was my heart that did the talking, not my fingers. I was lost in it, I didn’t even notice Zeke coming closer to me until he sat on the floor next to me. He leaned against the window, stretching his long legs in front of him. I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to look at his face.

  “I own a special club,” he said out of the blue. It caught me off guard, I stopped drawing for a moment before I could catch myself.

  “It’s where I spent most of my time, it’s where I could find some kind of peace. I created that place from scratch,” he added.

  I knew he was looking at me. His stare was like an X-ray, going through my skull. But I kept my head down and went over the same pencil line I did since I couldn’t focus on anything else but his words.

  “I earned so much money after… the last two years,” he corrected himself. I knew what he was going to say. After he left me.

  “I’m not proud of the way I earned money, but it worked in the end.”

  He sipped from the amber colored liquid before continuing, “I don’t really like this place. It’s not warm, and I know you feel the same. It feels soulless, but that’s why I bought it. Soulless, just like me.”

  He stopped talking then. My heart was doing something I couldn’t explain. It was beating fast one moment and stopping the next. I wanted to shake him both to make him continue and to shout at him that he wasn’t soulless, but instead, I kept pretending to be nonchalant, and the silence grew between us again.

  “I shouldn’t have left you,” he finally said. His voice wasn’t above a whisper as he added, “I thought I was doing the right thing. Not for me, but for you. I died when I left you, Maya. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But I didn’t want to shred your life apart.”

  I swallowed. I didn’t know how to react. His words were like a band-aid on my scars, but they were also hard to process. A part of me wanted to forgive him, but another part wasn’t sure if this was just his way of “fixing” me. I could sense the expectation in the air between us, but I didn’t react. I couldn’t. It felt like a risk, a gamble I wasn’t ready to take.

  So, I shut my sketchbook closed and went to my room.

  CHAPTER 23

  ZEKE

  I stayed in my place as I watched her leave. I knew she was listening to me, she must’ve been, but she didn’t give any reaction to prove me right or ask any questions.

  She’d definitely changed. A lot.

  When I saw her in that bathroom, I thought the life must’ve weakened her, must’ve broken her. But I was wrong, and I was so glad to be wrong.

  Maybe she was broken, who wasn’t, but she didn’t need someone else to glue her together. She held the pieces of herself together and dealt with everything by herself. She was much stronger than the time I left her.

  She wasn’t the girl who freely showed affection and love anymore. She was reserved, mysterious, behind her own walls. She didn’t try to please anyone. She wasn’t taking any shit from anyone. She wasn’t a little girl with a bright smile anymore, she was a woman who decided who was worthy of her time.

  And I desperately wanted to be worthy for her.

  This new Maya didn’t need me, didn’t need my affection like she used to, and this only made me need her more.

  Before I left her, she was a little girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, a girl who would’ve done anything to make me happy. That was the reason I left her. Because I knew what I wanted, and I knew she would’ve given it to me in a heartbeat, even if it would’ve hurt her, whether it was the right thing or not.

  But now, she would’ve never done anything to please me. If she did something, it would only be because she wanted it. She was strong to control her own fate, I didn’t need to decide for both of us anymore, and I wanted to put my destiny in her hands, too. I wanted her to decide if she’d burn me or bu
rn with me.

  I inhaled deeply. For the first time, the air I sucked in didn’t hurt me, instead, it was pregnant with hope.

  Standing on my feet, I walked toward her room and waited in front of her door. I smiled when I heard the noises from the television. I bought it for her today, and I was ecstatic she didn’t refuse to use it.

  I slowly opened her door. She tensed with my presence in the room but didn’t acknowledge me. There was a sitcom I passed a few times on TV but had never watched. Walking toward her, I sat on the floor next to her bed. I knew she was watching me from the corner of her eye.

  I pretended to watch the TV, and as the time passed, she relaxed into the bed. That was when I let myself watch her.

  She was sitting on the bed with her knees tucked under her. The duvet swallowed her small form. She hugged a pillow to her chest, resting her chin on it.

  I wanted to reach and tuck the strand of hair behind her ear, but instead, I kept watching her.

  I stopped breathing when a smile slowly appeared on her face. A bright glimpse found its way in her eyes for a moment.

  That was the moment the old and new Maya lived in the same body peacefully.

  That was when I fell in love with her all over again.

  I stood up and sat on the bed, facing her. She ignored me for a few seconds before finally looking at me with a sigh.

  “I was wrong when I thought that leaving you was the right thing to do,” I said, leaning toward her.

  I was expecting her to pull away, but she didn't. She let me place a kiss on her head. “Good night, Maya. Sleep peacefully. I'm here,” I said softly.

  I was moving to sit in my usual spot on the floor as she tried to sleep, but her soft touch on my wrist was enough of an invitation, I wouldn't dare to wish yet alone refuse.

  It was almost like old days. I was waiting for her to fall asleep again. Though this time, none of us slept.

  CHAPTER 24

  MAYA

  I was listening to music from the new shiny phone Zeke bought me when he stood at my door, leaning against the frame.

  “I want to take you somewhere,” he said.

  I quirked my eyebrow at him. He smirked when he saw I didn’t ask him what I wanted to ask.

  “Since you’re not curious about where we’re going, you can get ready in 15 minutes, right?” he asked. His eyes shone with an excited glimpse.

  I glared at him, and he must’ve enjoyed pulling out some reaction from me, because he chuckled and left my room, whistling.

  Even though I tried to stay unaffected by him, I couldn’t ignore the excitement inside me. It was almost like the old times when he did everything in his power to make me smile.

  With a sigh, I decided not to change my outfit. Since I didn’t know where he was taking me, the t-shirt and sweatpants I was wearing would be fine. At least I had matching bras and panties, it was a luxury I didn’t have before Zeke brought me here.

  His eyes roamed over me when I met him in the kitchen. He was preparing a basket. I frowned but didn’t ask. After what happened in my room the other day and what he told me last night, the claws on my chest didn’t suffocate me as much as they used to. I think his desperation, his need, and his own pain subdued mine in a way, reassuring me that I wasn’t the only one who’d been hurting.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I was expecting him to head for the elevator, but he chose the stairs. With a frown, I followed him. He climbed the stairs with an excited sprint in his steps. When I came to a stop next to him, he smiled down at me and opened the door to let us on the roof.

  After a few steps into the space, I stopped. It was… beautiful. Tentatively, I took a few more steps, all the while feeling his gaze on me. I knew he was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what to tell him. Something inside me bloomed, almost like the old times when he did things to surprise me.

  I took in the view before my eyes. We were above the city. The sunset colored the sky like a daring artist. The wind was so soft, it was like a caress on my arms. And in front of me was a pool that shone with the reflection of sunlight.

  “Do you like it?” he asked. He sounded much younger with the uncertainty and expectation.

  I nodded. There was no reason to deny it.

  “You must be hungry. Let’s eat before we swim,” he said, and I swallowed the nerves. Swim? Just like we did that weekend, he taught her how?

  I knew I should’ve gone back to the loft. I knew I should’ve stopped whatever he was doing before my heart had gotten the wrong memo again, but I couldn’t. Instead, I walked to the table he’d already started to prepare for our dinner.

  I wondered if this nostalgia and longing for the past would ever go away if I would ever be able to watch him without feeling like my heart was being sliced open. But no matter how much it hurt, I loved watching him do the same things he used to do. I think there was a word for someone like me… masochist.

  For dinner, we had burgers, fries, and waffles. The burgers didn’t look like anything I’d ever eaten. These were high class burgers from high class restaurants that thought the food as an expression of art rather than a need. But the real thing that made my mouth water was the waffle. We never had enough money to spend on waffles, and when Zeke could save enough for us to finally eat waffles, the store was closed. After that, I didn’t have enough enthusiasm. But now, on the roof of a million-dollar place, I was going to eat a waffle.

  “Thank you,” I murmured when he placed my burger on a plastic plate.

  We ate in silence, sneaking glances at each other. I felt like my guard was slipping a little. A ghost of a smile teased my lips whenever I caught him looking at me with mischief in his eyes like we were flirting.

  When we were done eating, he stood up.

  “Let’s swim,” he said, unbuckling his belt to take off his jeans.

  My mouth went dry when he unbuttoned his shirt. I couldn’t not be affected as he stood in front of me with only his black boxers that hugged his hips like a second skin.

  “Come on,” he said, totally oblivious of the fight going on in me. The need I felt for him was much more than sexual, much bigger than just getting off. He was like the air my soul needed, the oxygen my cells screamed to have.

  “I don’t have anything to swim in,” I threw the ridiculous excuse, and seeing the way he looked at me he didn’t buy it either.

  I knew I could’ve declined his offer and gone back to the loft, but a part of me didn’t want to do that. A part of me that couldn’t get enough of being hurt wanted to enjoy this stolen moment. With a defeated sigh of knowing that I was going to regret this decision, I pulled down my sweatpants and sneakers. I didn’t have enough courage to take off my t-shirt, so I walked to the pool, pulling the hem of my t-shirt down insecurely.

  When I stepped inside the pool, he held me by my waist. I was too shocked by his touch to do anything but let him pull me toward the deeper side. I tried to ignore his strong arms around me, tried to ignore his hard body against me, and the way he slowly touched my skin as my t-shirt rode up, but I wasn’t successful. I felt every little thing about this moment, and I didn’t protest when he hugged me closer, putting my head on his shoulder.

  “Tell me how to make you happy again?”

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  How could I tell him that I couldn’t stop thinking about him? How could I explain that I was crying because there was something wrong with me? How could I describe the way my heart beat faster, my body got warmer, and my stomach flutters when I was close to him?

  Instead of answering him, I just shook my head.

  He held my cheek in his palm, slowly caressing my skin. “Tell me, Maya.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch. The heat radiating from his touch warming me.

  “What’s wrong, baby girl?” he whispered. His face was closer, his breath fanned my skin.

  My heart was thumping in my rib cage, my mouth was dry. I just want
ed to feel his lips on mine, only once. I had to be sure of my attraction to him. Opening my eyes, I met his dark ones, they were looking at me intensely. I felt his eyes caressing my skin and searching deep into my soul. Leaning closer to him I let my lips touch his. The first contact was electric, exciting in that stolen moment and it was full of the fear of reality. I expected him to pull back, but even though I felt his shock, he kept our connection and with a deep growl coming out of his throat, he kissed me back. It was our first kiss, the first taste of the drug we both knew we’d devour again and again.

  He was my first kiss. I could still remember his taste on my tongue, still feel the power radiating from him as he moved his lips on mine. The first hesitant stroke of his tongue on my bottom lip still made my heart beat faster and when his kiss turned aggressive and hungry it still made me wet. But I couldn’t have these thoughts around him, they were forbidden, wrong even though they felt like the only thing I was sure of in my life.

  “Please, Maya. Say something,” he whispered and leaned back to look at me, bringing me out of my reverie. The desperation and pain on his face made my guard slip further. “Tell me, what should I do to make you happy?”

  Without giving myself a chance to stop, I let the emotions from the memory and this moment decide my answer:

  “Love me,” I whispered.

  He inhaled sharply. I didn’t blame him. I was as shocked as he was with my answer. Closing his eyes, he pulled me even closer to his body. I felt his erection on my thigh, his panting breath in my ear. I couldn’t help but close my eyes. He was too good to look at at that moment.

  His hands moved on my thighs, slowly reaching my hips. I shivered under his almost hesitant and painfully slow touch. We both didn’t dare to say anything like we were both afraid of acknowledging the wrongness of the situation.