by Shae Black
Returning to the man I used to be is not an option. Imani loves the Marcus that I am now and she is my reason to live, period. The risk of leaving it in place, letting it grow and continue to affect my personality is risky as well. Who knows what kind of person I could turn into, so far it hasn’t made my semi-amnesia any worse or any better, I am just coasting along, tempting fate. I lead Imani to believe that I was ignoring my tumor, just hoping it would go away, but that could not have been further from the truth. Specialists from all over the world have been puzzling over my case, trying to come up with a way to remove it without killing me or giving me further brain damage. So far no one has a solution, inoperable is stamped in red all over my medical records, but I refuse to believe that there is not a single doctor out there who can fix me.
But on the small chance that no one can, I have made arrangements, changed my will, and Imani will be taken care of forever. I have left her nearly everything, aside from what I always promised my sister Elena. There is more than enough for both of them to be comfortable for multiple lifetimes. Moving as quietly as it is possible with these damn crutches, I leave my beauty sleeping in our bedroom and go to my office to call Imani’s parents. I know they are her safety net, good people, not like my parents; thank God nothing like my parents. They nursed her back to life for years after her attack; there is no doubt in my mind that she will go to them when she realizes she is leaving. I want to speak to them, introduce myself, tell them how much she means to me, alert them she is coming and convince them my plan is the best thing for Imani.
Turns out convincing Imani’s mother is simple, I immediately have her charmed; I have a special way with women. Her father though is a tougher nut to crack; I have to do some quick talking to earn his approval. As usual if it is important to me I get what I want. He agrees to allow me to keep security on her twenty four seven. He also agrees to secretly let me in his house every night so I can put my eyes on her while she sleeps… so I can keep my sanity. I ask them to encourage her to stick with our plans for a dinner party this weekend so that I can meet her family and friends in person and most importantly I convince them to not allow her go home to her apartment. I am working on selling that place as fast as I can, she is not safe alone and if I can’t have her here with me, I want her with her parents and my security guards. She needs my eyes on her every minute of the day and night; whether it be my actual eyes or one of my staff she can’t be alone. I will not leave her unprotected in that apartment above a dozen shops and a bakery, where customers are in and out all day long, too many opportunities for a psycho to slip in, too risky. And really, what father could argue with that? He wants her safe just as bad as I do. Mr. Jackson does not know me, but I have a way of persuading people to follow my instructions. One thing I have learned about myself through videos and Elijah is that I am naturally dominant and apparently it’s served me well. Add that to how well I conveyed my love for Imani and it was not much of a coup. When I finished my call to her parents I dial Elijah, the only person left, along with Mr. Black that I can trust. I arrange for him to follow her when she bolts and I give him her parents’ address.
Elijah is a jack-of-all-trades, he is my assistant in my personal life, business life and he has years of security experience and military training. The three of us will take turns guarding her; I will be on the night shift so I can be close to her, smell her, maybe even touch her hair or her smooth skin while she sleeps, I am a man addicted and I can not survive without her. She will be taking her sleeping pills so I will be able to watch her with no risk of her waking. She can have her space when she is awake, but no way am I staying away at night. I will give her time, but not too much, I need her like I need oxygen and I can only hold my breath for so long, coming up occasionally for a gasp of air while she sleeps. If she won’t come back on her own in a reasonable amount of time I have a plan B. But she’s not going to like plan B.
Chapter 35 (Part 2)
Imani
For now work is giving me a purpose; somewhere I can focus on others, because I sure as hell can’t help myself. I’m pathetic and if I had the capacity to give a shit, I’d be embarrassed of myself. After three weeks, Mom and Dad would have committed me to a psychiatric unit if I hadn’t been going to work. It’s the only “normal” thing I can seem to accomplish.
“Imani, why don’t you go out with your friends, they miss you…or maybe the glass blowing studio, just get out and do something fun, something you enjoy,” she is pleading, begging really. I know how much I am disappointing her, both of them, but I just can’t. I’m in the darkest place I’ve ever been in my life, strangely even darker than after my attack. This is a struggle that has no light at the end of the tunnel, no hope, Marcus is a danger that I have to stay away from, as much as I’m hurting, at least I know where I stand when I’m alone. Loving him is the single most beautiful, fulfilling and yet destructive experience I have ever been through. I may have been able to get past having a stalker in his house; hell she could have been caught for all I know. But since I’ve had some distance from him I’ve realized how truly scared I was of losing him. There are so many bizarre ways he could be snatched away from me in an instant. A personality change, coma, someone from his past that wants to cause him harm or God forbid death. Above all else though the time bomb in his brain has the most potential for disaster. It’s going to take him from me one way or another, and I’d rather end things on my own terms. It will still destroy me when it happens but at least this way I won’t have to mourn in his house surrounded by all of the beautiful memories we made together.
There are times when I actually dress to go to him; I sit in my car with my head resting on the steering wheel. Once I even started driving toward his house another time I went all the way to Dominus and sat in the parking lot. My heart aches for him so badly but I always turn around and go home. I climb back into my cold empty bed, alone and miserable. He returned my things a few days after I left, a sign that he was being reasonable about our separation. My iPad lights up with a notification on my bedside table in the dark. I haven’t touched it since I left his house, there’s no room for music in my life now, so the iPad, once one of my favorite belongings, sits unused. I pick it up to turn it off, but before I can think, I tap the iTunes button and open an unfamiliar playlist. I click it open, it’s from him; he is trying to communicate through music with me. I press play on the first song, the one he assigned as my ring tone when I left him. I lay there listening to song after song about loss, about coming home and love. With no more tears to shed I curl into a ball to let the music torture my heart. I may be an empty shell, but at least I know now that he still wants me. I’m not sure why this is a good thing, we absolutely cannot be together. He refused to acknowledge his brain tumor and people are out to hurt or even kill him. The knowledge that he still loves me melted a drop of my frozen heart though and helped me hold on to my sanity. A few nights ago I opened my eyes and I swore he was there, across the room, beautiful in a dark grey suit, he sat with one ankle across his knee, elbows on the arms of the chair his fingers steep in front of him, touching his lips deep in thought. He stared at me with tormented green eyes. I closed mine thinking, this shit isn’t real, and when I woke again closer to morning he was gone.
I’m finally fucking cracking, hallucinating, what’s next? Maybe I should go see a therapist, I can’t work at the hospital if I’m losing my mind; it’s not safe for my patients. I could care less about myself but the patients, that’s different. Mom was thrilled to say the least when I told her I’m ready to see someone; I didn’t tell her why and she really didn’t care, as long as I went to get help.
“I’ll make an appointment for you honey, you don’t have to worry about it at all, I know your work schedule. I also have something I should tell you, please, please don’t be upset with me, but I invited Laney and the girls over tonight for a girl’s night in. This seclusion can’t go on any longer and frankly Laney is driving me up a wall calling all the
time, you need to see them.”
I groan; I don’t want to see any fucking body, I just want to be left alone, God, I get up and go to work three nights a week, isn’t that enough? Mom is relentless though, it’s kind of ironic that Laney annoys her; they’re very much alike. I’m too weak and empty to fight though so I agree.
“Ok.”
“Really?” Mom bounces up and down on the balls of her feet clasping her hands in front of her like a kid who just found out they were going to Disney World. Her enthusiasm is instantly exhausting. “Yea.” And the girls coming over…?
“You already did it so…. when are they coming?”
“Tonight, six o’clock, they’re bringing movies and wine, I’m making my famous chicken tacos.” Fuuucckk me, tonight?
She’s trying to kill me I swear, maybe I should be grateful; I’d rather be dead than faking my way through a night with my friends eating my mother’s chicken tacos, drinking wine and watching movies. It’s melodramatic, but it’s the truth…I really don’t care about a social life…at all. I leave her alone in the kitchen and return to my room without eating. I haven’t had an appetite for nearly a month and I’ve lost a lot of weight. There’s no ignoring it, my clothes are uncomfortably baggy, borderline sloppy-looking, but I don’t give a shit. It’s one in the afternoon, and I’m back in bed, I don’t sleep I’m too scared of the nightmares that plague me when I don’t take my sleeping pills. I stare at the ceiling, or the wall when I have enough energy to turn onto my side. Life is one big beige canvas, the walls, the ceiling all conveying my mood, emotionless beige, blah.
Catatonic I barely hear the doorbell ring, but a light rap on my bedroom door tells me it’s time.
“Imani?” Laney says softly, opening the door a crack. “You’re lying in the dark, woman.” Typical Laney style, she flicks on the switch by the door and gasps when she sees me. “Oh shit Imani…God you’re so fucking skinny, and the bags under your eyes… lord we came just in time!” Well fucking thank you! Ok so I know I’ve lost weight but really? This is Laney, she’s dramatic and over the top, surely I don’t look that bad…. do I?
Maybe I should get on the scale later…oh why bother, who cares anyway? I sure as hell don’t. Laney doesn’t waste time pulling me from bed and dragging me downstairs into the living room, where all the girls wait along with one guest I wasn’t expecting, Latoya. My sister looks at me with such deep sorrow in her eyes.
“Don’t.” I don’t want her pity, but she comes at me, hugging me close, saying quietly in my ear so the others can’t hear, “It’s going to be ok, I’ll be right here when you wake up.” My entire body locks up; every wasting muscle that has been lax for weeks suddenly becomes alert and tense. I jerk away, eyes wide and I step back from her.
“What did you just say? You’ve talked to him….” She nods in confirmation. Oh God, that’s what I said to him when he was unconscious in my ICU on the brink of death. The first words I said, and the words he is now trying to use to bring me back from my self-inflicted brink of death…. using my sister as a messenger. He isn’t playing fair, using my own words on me. I thought I was empty of tears, of feelings but a tsunami of pain rushes through me, a million times worse than before.
All of my hard work at numbing myself explodes and the shards of my pain and grief scatter everywhere. I’m right back to that first morning weeks ago here at my parent’s house, the morning I ran. My body unable to support my weight any longer collapses, I drop to my knees at my sister’s feet.
“Oh shit Imani, I didn’t mean to freak you out, he made me say it! He said you would get it, you would know how much he loves you if I just said it!” She’s on the ground holding me, with my mother behind me trying to help me off the floor. I’m sure my friends are shocked but I can do nothing but sob, my body wracked with actual physical pain, my soul shattered. I need him, this can’t go on any longer, something has to change.
Movie night is officially over before it begins, and I’m back in bed where I prefer to be, my sister is sick with guilt. “I shouldn’t of listened to him, I…I thought it was gonna help…she’s so out there…it ain’t natural to be like that Momma and my God Mom did you see how skinny she it? God it’s horrible.”
They are outside my door whispering to each other, they must think I’ve gone to sleep but I hear every word. “Latoya she hasn’t exactly lived a normal life, this is the first man she ever let in, her first love. Just think of how devastating it must be for her to finally let someone in and then to have it fall apart so badly.”
“Yea…. but mom there ain’t much left of her I can’t believe she can still work at the hospital, does she ever eat?”
“Not much, I have to beg her and she stays in that bed all the time, just lying there staring at the wall, it’s like her life switch has been turned off.” That’s exactly what’s happened, my fucking life switch is off, so just leave me alone and let me die.
“This is way worse than after her attack Mom, least then she wanted to get better. Let me stay with her, I feel bad for saying that shit and making her cry. I just wanted to help, shit all her friends were here and everything.”
“Don’t curse and it’s ok honey, nobody’s blaming you for anything, go be with her.” Mom creeps quietly downstairs to clean up the non-party and Latoya slips in the bed, spooning me the way we did when we were little.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok.” Those are the only words we exchange she stays there with her arms around me all night, I don’t sleep for a long time, but finally I reach out for my medication on the table next to the bed. Holding the bottles, the thought of just downing them all crosses my mind, but as miserable as I am I can’t do that to my family, my sister; she’d blame herself forever so I take my prescribed dose, and finally I’m temporarily released from the pain and I sleep.
Laying in bed, eyes closed I’m aware of someone in the room with me and then I remember Latoya stayed with me. When I open my eyes it’s Marcus I sense though, not Latoya. More hallucinations great. He’s standing in my door with his hands in the pockets of my favorite soft jeans. His head is bowed looking defeated. I wish so, so much that he were real, I want to touch him, breathe his familiar scent, feel his arms around me, have his hands tangled in my hair…the medication pulls me away from the dream, and when I wake hours later my room is empty. Latoya is gone, hallucinated Marcus is gone, and I’m alone again with my crippled heart. Breathe in, breathe out, that’s become my mantra and it’s all I can handle.
Chapter 36
Marcus
She looks terrible, just skin and bones, a mere shadow of herself. Her parents say she is not functioning, I can see with my own eyes how lost she is, and I should know, I feel the same way. We need each other it’s as simple as that; I have given her enough space, no more. Time for plan B.
Imani
I feel like shit, my stomach rolls like ocean waves and I’m burning up. Mom’s thrilled to have an excuse to get me in front of a professional who will undoubtedly tell me how bad I look, how depressed I am, how terribly I’m coping…great. It’s not enough for my spirit to be broken; my body has to add insult to injury by allowing a bug to invade and drag me one step further into the bowels of my personal hell. I haul myself into the shower and put Marcus’s playlist on, I’ve taken to playing it all the time now as a sort of self-inflicted punishment. The songs that he compiled all include lyrics about love and commitment, coming home and a few that have meaning for both of us. It’s a long list of songs, all of them torturing me about love and abandonment. At least when I hear the music I feel something other than endless numbness. I feel faint in the heat of the shower, even after a handful of Ibuprofen; my temperature is 101 F- I ignore my hair it needs to be dried. Winter in Seattle now is no joke, it’s cold as hell outside, but I just don’t have the strength to hold the hair dryer. I braid it to the side I’ll just tuck it into my coat. I throw on a pair of sweat pants and a sweatshirt, socks and a pair of Nike lightweight run
ning shoes that Marcus bought for me. He sent them back with everything, and I mean everything of mine that was at his house, the teddy bear, the clothes and shoes he bought for me and the cuff bracelet that, incidentally, I found out had cost a quarter of a million dollars. Yea I’d never be wearing that again. I had my dad put it in his safe…ridiculous really…. When I make my way downstairs mom helps me with my coat.
“Imani your hair is all wet, you’re already sick,” she complains.
“Mom…I just couldn’t.” She looks at me narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to the side before she silently continues to wrap me up in a hat, scarf and gloves, ugh now I’m sweating my head off. In her car I start stripping off the winter gear, my hat is already soaked with sweat.
“Oh Imani…you're so flushed, we need to hurry up and get you to the doctor,” she says, more to herself than to me as she puts the car into reverse, checks her mirrors and backs into the street like a stunt driver in an action movie. I just look at her profile and sigh…that’s my mom. The clinic is a quick jaunt from the house and surprisingly we’re seen immediately, usually an appointment made on the same day is a squeeze in and requires some patient waiting, but not today.
The admitting nurse takes my temperature and has me step on a scale, 95 pounds, fuck! I’ve never weighed less than 100 pounds, no wonder Lanay freaked out when she saw me, and my temperature is already up to 103 F I think I’m dying, bout damn time. Dr. Grey follows us from the tiny triage area to the exam room, there’s no waiting. She gets right to business looking me over thoroughly.
“How long have you been sick Imani?” she asks, as she checks my pulse and listens to my lungs.
“Just a day, I mean the fever and headache just started today anyway.”
“How about the weight loss, you’ve lost a significant amount since your last physical.” “About a month I guess.”