by Melody Eve
She’s right, I can’t just walk out on him, but I do need some time apart from him. “Will you tell him we spoke? I need to go home and deal with some things there and think all of this through. If I call or text, I’ll end up caving into him, and I really need time to think. Tell him I’m not angry anymore, I just need some space, and I’ll call him in a few days.”
“Of course. Are you going to leave from here or are you going back to the hotel?”
“I can’t go back. I have my passport and my credit cards. I’ll book a flight and wait at the airport to go home.”
“Can I give you a ride?”
“Sure, thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Let me pay the bartender, and we can get out of here.” She stands and disappears into the dark pub.
That’s what I want to do right now—disappear into the dark. This month has been one big, giant mess, and I want to be where I am surrounded by things and people who are familiar to me. I need to go home.
Chapter 16
My trip home was nothing like flying in Roman’s jet. I was wedged in between a man who reminded me of Hurley from the show Lost, which was unnerving in and of itself, and a mother holding her infant daughter.
So much for napping in a bed and watching Game of Thrones while I make my way back over the pond. Can a person get spoiled that fast? I think so.
I slept for three hours until 3:00 a.m. when the little pink bundle of joy next to me started wailing. That was the end of sleep for everyone in coach. I felt sorry for the woman, she was traveling alone, and the baby was inconsolable even after a bottle and a clean diaper. I smiled a small, sympathetic smile and tried to look the other way past the Hurley look alike out the window.
I thought of Roman and his unborn child and deceased wife, and my irritation with the crying baby curbed into sadness. How horrible to have your entire life altered because of a simple fall. He probably kissed his wife goodbye in a rush never even considering it might be the last time he would see her alive.
You never know what might happen. Suddenly, I wish I had told Roman goodbye, kissed him, and explained that I needed a few days to sort things out. I take out my phone and remember that I can’t text him until we land, and that won’t be for another seven long hours. I rest my head back and close my eyes wishing I kept a pair of headphones in my purse.
When we land, it’s 5:00 a.m. Chicago time, and I’m beyond exhausted. I take an Uber to my apartment and thank Roman in my mind for fixing the elevator a year ago. I could never have made it up six flights of stairs without it.
I slide the key in the lock and push the door open. When I look up, I’m speechless. I have to look around to make sure I’m in the right place. It doesn’t look like my apartment at all except for the occasional familiar knick-knack or book.
I glance back into the hallway and check the number on the door. Yes, this is it. This is my apartment.
I was worried that David might have kept my things at his apartment in order to see me again, and I’m still not sure that’s not the case. The furniture in my living room is all brand new, the exposed brick on one wall has been whitewashed making the apartment look much more upscale. New kitchen cabinets hang in the kitchen, new curtains are on the new windows, and new light fixtures hang from the ceiling.
There’s so much new that it doesn’t feel like home, and that is exactly what I was craving—home. I step inside and close the door waiting for a stranger to come walking out of my old bedroom and ask what the hell I’m doing here. When I have stood for a good five minutes in the silent apartment, I begin to move around. My candles are on the end tables that flank the plush cream-colored couch. A row of my favorite books are lined up on the bottom shelf of a wrought iron and marble-topped coffee table. I slip one out to see if it’s actually my book or a replica. The author’s signature is on the title page, definitely mine.
In the kitchen, the appliances are all new and stainless steel, large and small. I now have a dishwasher, something I’ve been wanting forever but never had the guts to ask for. I’ve been known to be late with the rent several times, so I try not to complain about or ask for anything. The more invisible I am to the landlord, the better.
In the bedroom, I’ve been gifted a queen-size four-poster bed, furniture to match, and like in the other rooms, new light fixtures, windows, and curtains. Everything is cream colored with deep red accents.
Roman. He must have done this when we were in Mexico. I can’t get over how perfect everything looks. They must have worked around the clock to have it done in time… Unless that’s why he wanted to take me to London. They weren’t done here, and he needed to stall for time.
This is too much. I came home to sort through my feelings and emotions about him and his ways, and instead of being able to do that in the neutral environment of my home, he’s given me more emotions and feelings to deal with.
I sit on the bed and notice a photograph in a frame on the dresser. I stand and go to it, picking it up to look closer. It’s Roman and me on the beach sunning ourselves on wide, comfortable loungers. He must have had someone take the picture, but then again, he is a stalker so he’s probably always got someone taking my picture.
That brings to mind another thought. If he had this place redecorated, he could have installed a security system or cameras. Would he? Could he watch me without me knowing?
My natural reaction is, of course, not, he wouldn’t do that, but why not? Who knows what lengths he’s gone to over the last six years to keep me in his sights?
I look around nonchalantly for small cameras or anything out of the ordinary, but there is nothing. Just a beautiful new apartment.
I should text him but what do I say? Hey, stalker, thanks for the new apartment or Hey, I made it home safe. You should call and catch me up on the past six years.
Six years. It’s such a long time to hang back and wait for someone who is unavailable. Why didn’t he give up? Why didn’t he find somebody else? I’m not that special. Surely, there is another woman out there he could have been happy with instead of wasting all that time.
I put the picture down and sit down on the bed laying back with my feet dangling over the edge. What am I going to do? I love him, he loves me, but his love worries me now. Is he mentally ill? Obsessed?
I groan and take ahold of my head. It hurts from the gash in the side and from thinking too much. I push myself up with my elbows and take my cross-body purse off over my head to search for a pain pill. When I have it, I make my way through my apartment and open the refrigerator for a bottled water. I’m shocked to find it fully stocked with all my favorite foods, drinks, and brands. There is a bottle of wine on the top shelf with a red ribbon tied into a bow and a note that reads Welcome Home! Enjoy!
I take a big breath and blow it out shaking my head. He’s too much. I grab a water bottle and a prepackaged container of fruit and go back to bed.
I’m afraid to look in the closet to see if any of my clothes are still there. Instead, I decide to strip down to my bra and panties, take my pill, climb under the heavy comforter, and eat some fruit before burrowing down into the cloud-soft bed to sleep.
Later, I’ll think about all of it later. Now I need rest.
I wake to the sound of someone pounding on my apartment door. It’s dark, and I am disoriented. I sit up and try to think about where I am, what time it is, and where the hell my phone might be.
I reach out and pat around until I find it on a table next to the bed. Using the phone’s flashlight, I find the lamp on the same table and switch it on.
More pounding accompanied by yelling. It’s a man’s voice, but he’s so angry I can’t make out whose it is. Flinging off the comforter, I get out of bed and forgetting my worries about my clothes, I open the closet. It’s a lot bigger now, a walk-in where it used to be a slider. Inside I see that my things have been color coordinated on hangers or folded neatly and placed on shelves. But that’s only on one side, the other side holds an entire new w
ardrobe of things that I would not only wear but that I love.
I roll my eyes and grab my old terrycloth robe off of a hook on the back of the door and pull it tight around me while I make my way to the door.
The apartment may have been remodeled, but the building is still old, and the wall shakes when the man outside starts to bang again. I stand away from the door and peer through the peek hole and see a blue shirt. Whoever is out there is tall and standing very close to the door.
“Who’s there?” I shout and the pounding stops.
“Aria? Is that you? Thank God you’re home. Open up, please. I need to talk to you.” It’s David. I look at my phone, it’s 9:00 p.m. I slept for fifteen hours!
“I have nothing to say to you, David. Go away.”
“No way. I’m staying right here until you open this door and talk to me.” I look through the hole again and see him take a step back and cross his arms over his chest stubbornly.
“I don’t want to talk to you, it’s over. Go cheat on someone else, David. Your days of making a fool out of me are over.”
“I want to talk to you about Roman Forrest.”
Roman? How does he even know his name? My first instinct is to fling open the door and ask what he knows, but I hold off. This is David, after all. He’s the liar who’s been cheating on me for years, and he still swears that wasn’t him in those photographs.
“Come on, Aria, it’s important. He’s not who you think he is. I have proof. You need to open the door and talk to me.”
Proof. That one word triggers me to open the door. “You have five minutes.” I step aside and allow him to come inside. He stops short and stares at the apartment. It’s like visiting a dilapidated building and opening the door to a five-star hotel room. The difference is shocking.
“What the hell happened in here? Is he here with you? Please tell me you left him, and he’s not here.”
“He’s not here, and I’m not sure what happened. My guess is he redecorated while I was in Mexico.”
“Fucking asshole thinks he can just throw his money around and steal my fiancé.”
I slam the door shut and place my hands on my hips. “Nobody stole me from you, David. I left of my own free will when I found out what a slimy, cheating bastard you’ve been for years,” I spit the word years out like venom.
His face softens as well as his tone. “That’s not true, baby, you gotta believe me. I never slept with anyone else, it was always you. I don’t know how he did it, but he made that picture look very realistic. I wish you would have come to me with it instead of showing it to every single person we know and love on our wedding day. We should be married now, coming home from our honeymoon together all tanned and sexed out. But instead, you’re shacking up with some billionaire psycho fuck who’s got your mind so twisted, you don’t know up from down.”
“Shut up, David. You don’t get to talk to me that way!” I shout. After six years of being quiet and timid, it feels so good to show him who I really am. “I don’t care what you say, that was you in those pictures, you and Lynn! God! How could you? Of all the people you could shove your dick into, you had to choose my best friend?” I throw up my hands and let them drop slapping against the sides of my thighs. “I guess I should thank you for showing me what kind of a friend she really was, so there’s that.”
“Wait, can we stop and start over? Maybe we could sit down and just talk?” he asks suddenly calm and level-headed.
I’m suspicious, but I agree waving my arm toward the new dining room table. “Sit, I’ll make coffee.”
“It’s almost 10:00p.m. You never drink coffee this late.”
“Yeah well, I’ve been sleeping for fifteen hours. I had jetlag, and now I need coffee. Do you want some or not?”
“No.” He was never a diehard coffee drinker anyway. I go into the kitchen and rummage around until I find a K-cup and the Keurig machine. When my coffee is done, I join him crossing my arms on the shiny glass surface of the table.
“So, what’s this proof you were talking about?”
“Okay, so when you left, I started calling and asking people at the resort who you were spending time with. They told me there was a banker from Chicago down there buying the place and that you’d been hanging around with him a lot.”
“Wait,” I say holding up my hand. “You’re telling me you just called up a resort in Mexico and asked who I was hanging out with? And they told you?”
“Yeah, you’d be surprised what people will do for an Amazon gift card or a prepaid Visa. Anyway, I did some research on your guy. Did you know he was committed into a mental hospital for two years when he was twenty-four years old? And he didn’t go willingly either, his family had him committed there. He’s insane, Aria, totally bonkers. He’s been messing with your head all this time, you could be in danger.”
His eyes are wide when he reaches across the table for my hand believing he’s just delivered terminally damaging information to me. I snatch my hand off the table and put it in my lap.
“So? People have problems, and sometimes they need help.”
“So? You’re kidding me, right? You’re gonna sit there and say so when the guy you’ve been fucking was locked up for two years for being nuts?”
I nosh my teeth together when he refers to Roman as nuts. I hate it when uninformed, uneducated people go shooting their mouths making derogatory comments about the mentally ill.
“That’s not all. He was married, and his wife is dead. Here, look at this picture, Aria, take a good long look at what his wife looked like.” He slides an envelope across the table, and I have a flashback of the last time I opened an envelope like this one. It wasn’t good news then, and I suspect it isn’t going to be good news now.
I don’t reach for it, and he pushes it harder under my hand. I open it slowly and slide out an eight by ten glossy photograph of Roman and a woman on their wedding day. He’s younger but still devastatingly handsome, although my eyes don’t linger on him for long when I see his wife. Millie Forrest. She doesn’t just resemble me, she looks exactly like me.
Chapter 17
I stare and stare, my mouth hanging open while the steam from my coffee rises to tickle my nose. She could be my twin sister. She has the same long, blonde wavy hair, the same figure, the same big ocean-.
I brush my fingertips over her face. “She looks like me,” I whisper.
“Aria, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought that was you, and I’ve known you for years. You didn’t have a twin sister or something, did you? Like, lost, or stolen at birth? Because, damn, she looks so much like you, it’s eerie.”
It is eerie, unsettling even. I shove the photograph back into the envelope and push it across the table at David. “I don’t know what you’re trying to convince me of. So, he has a type, lots of people do. He likes blondes with an ass.”
“I’m trying to tell you he’s crazy and dangerous, and he’s trying to replace his dead wife with you!”
Is he? That would certainly answer some questions. Like, why he waited so long for me, why he’s so obsessed with keeping me safe, why he was able to tell me he loved me so quickly. Could it be true? Why didn’t Leeza say I could be Millie’s twin? I mean, she said we looked alike but this photograph is uncanny.
I need to see him, talk to him face to face, and give him the opportunity to explain himself if that’s even possible.
“David, thank you for bringing this to my attention, but I need you to go. I’ve already broken things off with Roman. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
It’s easier to tell him a lie so he will leave with a glimmer of hope. Otherwise, knowing him, I’ll be calling the police to have him removed from my apartment and my life.
“You broke it off with him?”
“I did, now go, please.”
“You’ll call me when you’re ready to talk?”
“Yes, I’ll call.” I won’t. I’m done talking to him, but I need him to leave so I can talk
to someone else, the only person who can answer my questions and put all of these worries to rest. Roman.
“Okay, thanks for letting me in. You look great by the way, a little burned, and I think you’re peeling, but great.”
I scrunch up my face in disgust. Even his compliments are lame and passive- aggressive. How did I never see that before? I answer that question for myself. I wasn’t looking. I didn’t know any better.
He walks out the door and starts to turn back to either say something or try to kiss me, but I slam the door in his face and lock all four locks. I hadn’t noticed the ridiculous amount of locks earlier, but I’m grateful for them now.
I walk back to the dining room table and grab my coffee before returning to my bed. I take out my phone and begin with a simple text.
Me: When you get home, we need to talk.
I expect to wait a long time for him to respond. It’s almost 4:00 a.m. there after all, but my phone buzzes almost immediately.
Roman: I am home. I can come over now.
He’s home? Back in Chicago? He must have left the same time I did or soon after.
Me: Can we meet somewhere?
Roman: Imagine is a bar not far from your apartment, do you know it?
Me: Yes.
Roman: Meet me in half an hour.
Me: Ok.
I’m not crazy about meeting here in my apartment after David’s visit. I’m also not crazy about walking around Chicago at night, but it’s the lesser of two evils right now.
I put on a floral maxi dress and a pair of sandals, comfy, cute and the material won’t irritate my peeling skin that David was so kind to point out. When my hair is pulled back in a loose braid, and I’m ready to go, I exit the building and walk to Imagine.
It’s only one block away. If it were any further, I don’t think he would have suggested meeting here. The possibility of being mugged goes up the further away from my neighborhood you get.