by MJ Masucci
He pressed the start button and revved the engine of the Infiniti. He was upset with her, and she chose to ignore him during the drive back to the city. They couldn’t even spend half a day together without fighting over something trivial.
“I don’t want to fight,” she said quietly.
When he didn’t respond, she stroked his arm.
“Don’t. You can’t make everything better with sex.”
“That’s what you think I’m doing?”
“Can we just not talk?”
Ava crossed her arms and continued to look out the window. He drove to the River Garage to park the car, not bothering to open the door for her as he usually did. She got out and watched as he walked away. The anxiety she felt began to grip her, and her breath became shallow. She leaned against the car, and when he didn’t hear her behind him, he turned to see why. She was using the trunk for support, and he ran to her.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” she choked out.
He opened the car and moved her to the passenger side seat.
“Calm down. I’m sorry,” he said as he kneeled down next to her, stroking her back.
Her breathing became easier, and within a couple of minutes, the tightness in her chest started to dissipate. She dug in her purse looking for a tissue to wipe the tears from her eyes. When she didn’t find one, he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped them for her.
“Do you need me to drive you to your apartment?”
“We aren’t staying together tonight?”
“I’m not going to leave you alone. Do you want to go to my place?”
She nodded, and he helped her up, taking her hand. They said nothing as they walked along and she thought about how ridiculous their disagreement was. When they got to his apartment, she put her purse down and went to sit on the terrace. She noticed the broken glass and the whiskey bottle. She began to put the shards of glass in her hand.
“Stop! You’ll tear your hand up.”
It was too late. She could already see a couple of small dots of blood blooming on her hand.
“Oh, sweetheart, what have you done to yourself?”
He dumped the glass from her hand back onto the terrace floor and took her to the bathroom. He gently cleansed her hand with disinfectant spray, which caused her to wince.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he offered.
“Hurt me how?”
“Everything, today, yesterday, last week. What the fuck are we doing to each other?”
“I don’t know.”
“On Monday, I want us to make an appointment with a therapist. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t want to fight.”
She smiled weakly at him. He led her back to the terrace and then went inside to get a dustpan and broom. After he had cleaned up, he sat down next to her.
“How did that happen? When did you break the glass?”
“I did it before I came over with the picture. I was feeling sorry for myself and decided to have a drink. I had a box of pictures from when I was a child and was looking through them to see how much Lex and I looked alike. I found that picture of you sitting on my lap and the memory came of me calling you pretty girl. I tripped over the table, and the glass broke, but I only wanted to get to you.”
“Xander, what happens if Lex is yours?”
“Nothing changes between us. If he is my son, then I will take care of him. I won’t allow Katerina to interfere in our relationship. I didn’t want to bring this up now but did you call your doctor about seeing if you can have children again?”
“Not yet. I’m afraid what she’s going to say.”
“But you will never know if you don’t talk to her.”
“I promise to call her on Monday.”
“Ava, whether it’s good or bad we will make it through.”
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her face. When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her and smiling.
“Why are you looking at me that way?”
“I could watch you sleep forever. You’re so beautiful.”
“Why can’t we get along like this all the time?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. We need help figuring out why.”
He held her hand, and they looked out onto the city. That evening as they lay in bed, he was wrapped around her. They had forgone sex since she was still a bit sore even though she said she was fine. Xander didn’t want to hurt her. Instead, they made out like teenagers. She loved his mouth. They decided to listen to some music, and the U2 song “With or Without You” came over the speakers.
“Can you change it to something else?” She didn’t want to think about the choice they sang about.
He pressed the button, and Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” began playing. He held her close and hummed along in her ear, his warm breath on her neck. She dozed in his arms. His hand tucked under her breast, and his thumb gently stroked her nipple. This is the way she wished it could always be. Not the ugliness of the past few days.
She must have fallen asleep because when she woke, the room was dark except for the blue light coming from the iPod and the bedside clock that read 2:24 AM. Xander was not in bed, and the cold sheets next to her told her that he hadn’t been for some time.
She got out of bed to look for him. The light over the sink in the kitchen was on, and she could feel a gentle breeze coming in through the open terrace door. She saw Xander sitting in the chair with his head bent back. A glass of something sat on the small table next to him.
Ava quietly went through the door and touched his shoulder. He didn’t move, and she could hear a soft snore coming from him. She picked up the glass on the table and sniffed whiskey. When did he come out here?
“Baby?” She said as she gently shook him.
He snorted and sat up. “Are you checking up on me?”
“No, not at all. I woke up, and the bed was cold without you. Why are you out here at this hour?”
“I had a nightmare about an hour ago. I couldn’t get back to sleep and decided to come out and enjoy the warm night air.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“You were sleeping so peacefully that I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Do you want to tell me about the nightmare?”
“I don’t remember much.” He lied. He remembered the entire nightmare.
It was the day that the accident occurred. She was dead on the hill, and no matter what he did she wouldn’t come back to him. She just stared at him with cold dead eyes. The nightmare was so vivid that when he woke and tried to go back to sleep, all he saw were her eyes. He didn’t want to disturb her so he went out on the terrace with a glass of whiskey hoping it would help.
Ava knew he was lying; she could see it written all over his face. This was one of the problems between them. They chose not to tell each other things that could help improve their relationship. They both held back to protect the other.
“Can you come back to bed? I miss you.”
He rose from the chair and picked up the whiskey glass, draining the last of the remaining liquid, which made her frown. She turned away before he saw her face. The last thing she wanted was an argument at this hour. He deposited the glass in the sink and followed her.
She slipped into bed and turned on her side, but he forced her to her back. He began kissing her passionately, letting his hands roam over her body until he found her sex. He slipped his hand into her panties and started to pet her, causing her to immediately respond to his touch, and within minutes she was slick.
He tugged at her panties, and she raised her hips so he could pull them off. He got on his knees between her legs and pushed his boxers down to his thighs, releasing himself. He rubbed through her wet folds and then thrust hard into her.
They were totally disconnected emotionally, and she wasn’t sure if she should push him off her or let him finish. In the end, she let him find his release. He sharply
pulled out making her wince, pulled up his boxers and curled up on his side of the bed, leaving her sad and wanting.
Ava turned on her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. He started to snore, and she got out of bed to clean herself. After slipping on her panties, she went to the kitchen and picked his glass out of the sink and poured her own generous amount of whiskey. She took a long sip, savoring the burning liquid as it slipped down her throat. As she sat on the couch downing the whiskey, she realized that their life as a couple was in peril.
The next morning, Xander turned away from the sunlight that was streaming through the open drapes. Ava was not in bed. Normally, she woke up after him on the weekends and almost every other day they slept together. His head hurt, and a realization started to dawn on him. He treated her horribly again last night.
He got out of bed and went to look for her. She was curled up on the couch in the fetal position. An empty tumbler that had contained his whiskey from the night before was on the glass coffee table next to her. Had she slept here all night? The way he treated her, he wouldn’t blame her. He decided to leave her alone and went back to his bedroom to take a shower.
As the hot water streamed down his body, he felt the urge to punch the wall. He promised not to hurt her and what he did last night surely did. She didn’t even want to sleep in the same bed with him.
He stepped out and wrapped a towel around his waist then slathered his face with shaving cream and began to shave. She came into the bathroom, and without saying a word to him, she turned on the shower then discarded her t-shirt and panties on the floor. He watched her as she stepped into the stall. Her sadness permeated the room. He felt like a piece of garbage.
While she washed her hair, he removed his towel and slipped into the stall behind her. He touched her, and she flinched as if he had burned her pulling out of his reach.
“Ava, I…”
“I don’t want to hear it. I just want to go home.”
“You are home. We need to stop running from each other when we have a disagreement.”
She threw the shampoo bottle at him, and it bounced off his shoulder.
“You think that was a disagreement? You fucked me for your pleasure. Do you know how you made me feel?”
“I know, and I feel horrible about it.”
“I told you to stop treating me like one of your college conquests. I think we need to wait on wedding plans until we go to therapy. I need to know what is going on in your head before I become your wife.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
He slipped out of the stall and grabbed his towel from the floor. She was so right. He had no idea what was going on in his head either. He was thirty-two and had only three lasting relationships, and one was when he was sixteen. Maybe he was a commitment-phobe, sabotaging his relationships. He knew he didn’t sabotage his relationship with Abby; she was just a bitch. But he was doing it with Ava. He was pushing her away, and he didn’t know why.
Chapter 14
Xander stayed out of Ava’s way while she got her things together to go back to her apartment. He wanted to talk to her, but she wouldn’t listen to him. She left a half hour later, leaving him alone and feeling empty. He checked and at least she didn’t leave the keycard. If that happened again, he would start to worry.
Though he wanted Lex to be his son, in the back of his mind, he realized that it would complicate his relationship with Ava further. Having Katerina around would cause Ava’s insecurities from her younger years to rear their ugly head. He just wanted the test results to come through so he could decide how to handle everything.
Both of them spent a miserable Sunday alone. Ava tried to keep busy by cleaning her apartment even though it didn’t need it. Xander spent his day sitting on the terrace in the sunshine reading the New York Times and drowning his sorrows in vodka on the rocks. By mid-afternoon, he was well beyond drunk. He dozed off in his chair and when he awoke his face hurt from sunburn.
The next morning their greetings to each other at the office were guarded. Ava just wanted to get the projects together and get out of his office. She didn’t want to look at him and barely talked to him. Before she left, he asked her if she wanted him to call the therapist and make an appointment. She nodded and walked out.
She squirreled herself in the research room for most of the day only emerging to get a granola bar from the break room. She hadn’t eaten very well the past few days and based on the room in the waist of her skirt; she figured she had lost weight again. Her phone chirped towards the end of the day with an incoming text.
My test results were just emailed to me, earlier than the five days. Do you want to open the attachment with me or should I just tell you the results?
Personally, she didn’t want to see them. She knew Xander was the boy’s father and she didn’t need the confirmation thrown in her face. But she wanted to be supportive.
I’ll be there in a minute, just let me clean up my research materials.
She took her time and made sure to make him wait. She didn’t want to hear the inevitable. It was so obvious that Lex was his son. Why they needed a test to prove it was beyond her. She would just have to prepare herself for Katerina to be in their lives if they even were going to be together.
She walked into his office, and she saw that Xander’s face was pale. He must be agonizing over opening the attachment.
“Could you close the door, please?”
She got up and closed the door and sat down again.
“Do you want to watch me open it or should I tell you the results.”
She sighed deeply, “Just open it already.”
He clicked on the attachment and waited for it to open, holding his breath. He stared at the information incredulously. His mouth dropped.
“Xander, what is it?”
When he didn’t answer her, she went around his desk to look for herself. She couldn’t believe the results either. The document read ninety-nine point nine percent that Xander was not the father. He reached for the phone and called the doctor. He shook his knee while he waited. After a brief conversation, he hung up.
“It’s accurate. Lex is not my son. I was so sure he was.”
Next, he picked up the phone to call Katerina. Ava heard the conversation as the woman raised her voice. She had just checked the results emailed to her by the doctor’s office. She wanted another test because she felt this one had been inaccurate. Xander told her he refused another test and she would just have to pick another man to harass. A few curses could be heard on the other end of the line and then a click.
Xander slumped in his chair, “I can’t believe he’s not mine. He looks like me.”
“Looks can be deceiving although the eyes were a dead ringer for yours. She was so sure she even named him after you, did you know that?”
“Yes, she had told me she named him Alexander Robert. I’m sure his birth father is not going to be very happy that she named him after another man. That is if she can locate his birth father. Katerina fucked a lot of guys when we were in law school. She used them like tissues. It doesn’t say a lot about our society when people take looks over substance.”
“No, it doesn’t. Did you find a therapist?” Ava said wanting to change the subject.
“Yes, we have an appointment tomorrow at 5:30. The doctor’s name is Val Hornung. She has an office in this building on the seventh floor.”
Ava recalled seeing the name on the office board in the main lobby. At least they wouldn’t have to travel far. She glanced at her watch and realized that most of the office had cleared out since it was past five. She rose from the chair to go.
“Ava, do you want to have dinner with me?”
She did, but she didn’t.
“I think it’s better we stay apart at least until we talk to the therapist.”
She turned to him and saw the pain on his face. She felt the same pain, but she knew it was best that they remain separated.
&nbs
p; “But I don’t want that, and I think neither do you.”
She returned and sat back in the chair in front of him.
“Xander, we have been like oil and water lately. The less time we spend together, the less hurt we will inflict on each other.”
“I know. I miss you, everything about you,” he said quietly.
She felt tears beginning to threaten, so she nodded and got up to leave.
“Sweetheart, don’t give up on us.”
Ava walked down the hall sniffling and wiping at her eyes. She got her purse and took a cab home. It was hot out, and she wasn’t in the mood to be squeezed into a subway car like cattle for the rush hour.
At home, she stood at the refrigerator deciding what to eat. She chose a cup of greek yogurt then thought better of it and put it back. She didn’t feel like eating even though she had only had a granola bar the entire day. Her stomach was in knots. Instead, she got a bottle of water and went up to the building’s rooftop deck.
She rarely came up here even though it was a lovely space. Management kept it blooming with flowers during the summer. They had several lounge chairs and conversation areas. The roof was busy with residents enjoying the early summer evening. She found a chair in the corner near one of the large square flower planters that held roses in all shades.
It made her think back to when Xander had gone to Bobby’s bachelor party. Each day they were apart, he had sent her a different colored bouquet of roses finally coming home with burgundy colored ones meaning desire. It wasn’t that long ago.
The next day they again spent it apart, again. She picked up her research and left his office, not re-entering until the end of the day. She sat on his couch with her legs crossed at her ankles while he finished his work before they went down to see the therapist. His head was bent, and she stared at him. He looked horrible. He had dark circles under his eyes, and it seemed that wrinkles bloomed on his face overnight. She wondered what his night had been like.
Hers had been restless, with two hours of decent sleep, but even that was pushing it. She had awakened several times with her heart pounding. If it was a nightmare, she couldn’t remember. In the morning, she dragged herself out of bed and spent longer than usual under the hot spray of the shower. It woke her then, but now she just felt exhausted.