Love Is Overdue

by Natalie Myrie

  He hesitated, still watching me closely, but I had no words. I just took everything he said in and tried my best to process it, while his hand kept stroking and rubbing and teasing me, making me lose all my focus. And eventually he just bit his lip, his eyes narrowing slightly, his expression growing more and more serious.

  “Shit, Gabriela...” He let his breath out slowly and within seconds we were just kissing all over again...

  Ω

  Time really did seem to stand still with Ben. His stamina, but even more than that – his unwavering focus on bringing me to heights of ecstasy again and again, like a man possessed – is what really put me over the edge. We made love another two times – well, he did anyway – for me, I had completely lost count. He did things to me that no man had ever done – and he did it like it was the simplest, most natural thing in the world. His words from our phone conversation the week before kept ringing in my subconscious. He really would do anything to please me. And in turn, I gave him absolutely everything I had.

  My mind was slipping and my body was fading. I felt him there next to me, his body, his arms, and his hands pulling me in so close. I felt so safe – too safe – and I felt myself drifting. Falling. And it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

  Ω

  “Gabriela...” I heard him calling my name from somewhere far away. I felt his hand on the side of my face, stroking my hair. “Baby, wake up...”

  My eyes flew open in a flash. “What happened?”

  He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. I could tell he was just as out of it as I was. “We fell asleep,” he said simply.

  “Oh shit.” I sat up suddenly, panic setting in faster than I knew possible. “What time is it?”

  He leaned over the edge of the bed and reached for his jeans, pulling out his blackberry. “Shit...” I heard him mutter under his breath.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “It’s three am.”

  “Oh fuck. Shit!” I was really panicking now, and for good reason. “Where’s my phone?”

  Ben sat up and reached for his boxers. “I don’t know – where you leave it?” He slid them on quickly and stood up.

  I racked my brain for a quick moment. “Shit. In my purse. In the kitchen.”

  I slid off the edge of the bed and started gathering my clothes.

  “I got it,” Ben said and took off downstairs.

  By the time he came back to the room I was fully dressed and I grabbed my purse from him quickly, making a mad dash for my phone. It was still on silent. I had shut it off during the video shoot and I had all but forgotten about it since then. That was nearly ten hours ago.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck...” I was losing it.

  Ben didn’t say anything. He picked his jeans up off the floor and started to get dressed.

  I stared at the screen. Eight missed calls. I bit my lip, checking for the caller ID. Two calls from my home number. The other six from my aunt. Oh fuck. The panic and the fear and everything else just took over my whole body.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Ben was looking at me, pulling a t-shirt up over his head.

  I was still scouring my phone. No voice mail. What did that mean?

  “No, no, no...okay, I need to call a cab. Can you call me a cab?” I couldn’t focus. I was in such a daze from sleep and sex and sheer terror.

  “Baby, you don’t need a cab – grab your stuff and let’s go. I’ll drive you.” Ben tried to snap me out of it.

  “Wait. Hold on a sec...” I pressed callback and dialled my home number. It just rang and rang and rang. Shit. I dialled my aunt. Nothing again. “Oh fuck!”

  Ben grabbed his keys from the table in foyer. “You coming or what?” He snapped me back to reality and I followed him out the front door to the car park and his waiting Escalade.

  “So what’s going on?” Ben wanted to know as soon as we got onto the road. “Your mom? I thought you said your aunt was stayin’ with her...”

  I shook my head furiously, feeling the tears start to well up in my eyes. I just shook my head, not able to get any words out, my voice just catching in my throat.

  Ben looked over at me, his expression quickly turning from concern to genuine worry as he saw the look of horror plastered all over my face.

  “Hey.” We were stopped at a red light and Ben reached over and touched my hand.

  “I...” I tried to compose myself. “My mom...she’s being doing so much better this past week and she told me she’d be fine tonight, I should just go...I went out last night with Tony and it was no problem, I kept calling and checking in on her and I got home and everything was fine...she said to just go...she just feels so guilty all the time, I know this...and my aunt, she’s just being a bitch lately, telling me how selfish I’m being, that she’s my mother and she can’t be on beck and call for this shit like she’s some kinda nursemaid and I...” My voice trailed off. “I’m sorry...I should have never done this two nights in a row...what the fuck is wrong with me? I just shut my phone off – I didn’t even think about her once, instead I just… Fuck...” I wiped at my tears, trying desperately to pull myself together.

  I could tell Ben was still watching me out of the corner of my eye. “Gabriela...” His voice was so slow and steady. “It’s gonna be okay...”

  I shook my head, though, not saying anything. Because something deep inside me told me that things were far from okay...

  Ben slowed down in front of my house, pulling me out of my thoughts. We had driven the rest of the way in silence, but now that he had stopped the car I forced myself to look back over at him.

  “I’m sorry,” I just said again, not really able to think of anything else. “Thanks for...the ride.”

  But Ben just shook his head at that. “Am not leaving,” he said simply. “Am waiting here until you come back out and tell me everything is okay.”

  I didn’t have time to argue with him so I just opened the door and bolted over the sidewalk, threw open the gate and ran up the steps of the porch, all the while madly digging through my purse for my keys.

  I flung the front door open and stopped dead in my tracks, as I looked over and saw my cousin Diego passed out on the living room sofa. I ran over to him and tried to shake him awake, and when that didn’t work, I kicked his leg...hard.

  It took him a moment or two until he finally focused in on me and then sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes. “Hey...shit...sorry, Gabby...”

  “What happened?” I demanded. I didn’t have time to play any guessing games.

  “Where the fuck have you been? Mom’s been blowin’ up your phone for hours already...”

  “What happened?” I nearly shouted.

  “They took her to the hospital,” he said then, his tone softening a bit. “She fell...Mom said she was trying to take a bath...she’s there with her now.”

  My head started spinning faster and faster. “Where?” I found my voice.

  “VGH,” he said, getting up slowly. “I got the car, I’ll drive you.”

  I nodded slowly, trying to figure out what the fuck I was going to do. Just the thought of it was starting to make me sick.

  “I’ll be right there,” I told him, as he headed to the back door, and I raced back out the front.

  Ben’s Escalade was still waiting on the street in front of the house. I headed over to him and then opened the passenger door. Ben looked over at me, the concern still written all over his face.

  I composed myself as best I could. “It’s okay,” I told him, keeping my voice as steady as possible. “She was just...she was just having trouble running a bath so she called my aunt and...now my aunt is just super pissed off and she needed to make me know how put out she was. I’m sorry for freaking out like that on you.”

  It surprised me, how easily the lie slipped from my tongue.

  Ben just eyed me closely. I could see that he still thought something wasn’t right with me. He was not a stupid man – obviously – but right now I just need
ed him to leave so I could go deal with the giant mess I had made. My mother was all I had. And I was all she had. And I had left her to go be with a man. I had most likely been fucking him when she fell – thinking of only my own, selfish needs – instead of being there for her. Where I belonged. In the end, it didn’t matter how lonely I got really. I imagined her and the prison she lived in and I knew where I needed to be. Nothing else mattered. Least of all my raging libido...if that’s all it really was... But I wasn’t convinced of that, though. At least not anymore.

  “Where is she now?” He was testing me. I knew it. And I hated it.

  “Sleeping,” I lied again.

  “And your aunt?”

  “She’s just getting ready to go. So I need to get back.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry, Ben. It just shook me up really bad, that’s all.” I just needed him to let me go...

  “Come here.” He looked at me with so much tenderness and such genuine concern that I couldn’t help but slide into the seat next to him.

  He reached out and pulled me close to him, kissing my forehead softly. “I’ll call you later,” he said then. “I’m sorry I let you fall asleep.”

  The tears just started free-falling from my eyes then. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I just needed to get to my mom. And yet sitting here with Ben, trying my best to lie my way out of everything, he still managed to affect me so deeply.

  I knew he had no idea what really happened, or why I was sobbing uncontrollably in his car, in the middle of the night, when apparently everything was fine...or so I’d told him. And considering I had lied to him so masterfully and convinced him it was all one big false alarm, I would have thought my tears would have just confused him to the point of excusing himself awkwardly and driving the fuck away from me as quickly as possible. But that wasn’t Ben. And I should have known that by now.

  He stroked my face gently, wiping back my tears. “What is it? You can tell me...”

  “It’s okay.” I lied through my teeth again. I planted a quick little peck on his cheek, wiped my eyes, and reached for the door. “I’ll be fine...I’ll call you, Ben.”

  I shut the door behind me and ran straight back to my house, refusing to look back.

  Chapter Eight

  Ben called that afternoon. Just past noon. I didn’t pick up my phone. After Diego had dropped me at the hospital I found my aunt, who explained to me that my mom had fallen and broken her hip. Her stay in the hospital was indefinite.

  “What is wrong with you, Gabriela?” She nearly shouted, and the contempt on her face stung so deep. “How do you think she even made it to the hospital? By miracle?”

  I swallowed. “She called,” I whispered. “She had to have.”

  I knew my mother always took the cordless phone with her wherever she went – or so she always promised me.

  “She didn’t call me!” my aunt spit back at me. “I happened to check in on her – she mentioned you were going out when we spoke earlier. I found her, Gabriela.”

  I collapsed down on a chair in the stark, cold waiting room outside the ICU. I was shaking.

  And then the doctor appeared. His words were a fog but I heard what I needed to hear. After closer examination, they had found that the cause of her fall was not her illness. It had been the quadruple dose of sleeping pills that had been found in her system. They managed to pump her stomach, but now the higher concern for her mental state, considering women with MS were at an increased risk of suicide, prompted them to assign a psychiatrist to conduct a thorough mental evaluation.

  Suicide. I was numb. I felt nothing anymore.

  Ω

  “Mama.” I reached out and grasped her hand. She was finally awake.

  “Gabriela.” She blinked at me, recognizing me instantly. “Why are you looking at me like that?” She spoke to me in Portuguese.

  “You’re...you’re in the hospital, Mama. What happened?” I needed to know.

  “I...” her voice trailed off but I could see it in her eyes. She knew exactly what I was asking. I could tell she was having a hard time speaking. The painkillers they had her one were affecting her speech.

  “Mama, why?” I demanded. The tears were streaming down my face.

  She squeezed my hand. “Stop, Gabriela.”

  “They said you took too many pills! Why? Why would you do that?” I was desperate to know.

  “This is not the life I wanted for you...and this is not the life I wanted for myself.” She was struggling with her speech but there was nothing strained in her words. She meant every word. “Your brother has let go. Now it’s your turn. Let go, Gabriela...”

  I had never heard her speak this way. “Mama, why are you saying this?” I was struggling hard to keep my composure. This was not my mother. Whatever medication they had her on, I would make sure they took her off them. I would make sure they fixed this – all of it.

  “You remember when you were a little girl, and you used to ask me why men were never nice to me...?”

  I shook my head slowly, covering my trembling mouth with my free hand.

  “Well, I know why,” she told me softly. “Because I was trying to live my life too fast. Maybe I knew I didn’t have much time, or maybe I was just impatient, or maybe I didn’t know any better...but I was a stupid woman.” She took a breath, her eyes piercing mine in that way they always did when she needed me to listen to her. That look had been there since I was a child. “But you are far from stupid. You’re strong. You have the biggest heart. You make me so proud. You’ve given me much more than I have ever given you. But there is still one last thing I can give you. Yourself.”

  “Stop it.” I shook my head over and over again. My rational brain was trying to take over and I almost felt like telling her to stop her fucking pity party and snap the hell out of it already. But I couldn’t. She looked so fragile...so calm...so resigned. It was scaring the hell out of me.

  “You can’t leave me,” I whispered, the fear ripping through me all over again.

  My mother just looked at me, squeezing my hand so gently. “Gabriela...I left you a long time ago...now you need to let me go.”

  Ω

  I sat in the waiting room fuming, as I dialled my brother’s number. It was a three hour time difference. For him, it would have been around dinnertime. He, his wife, and his whole stupid family would have been sitting down to eat.

  “Hey Gabby – what’s up?” The lighthearted tone in Laz’s voice made me want to punch him in the face.

  “Mom tried to kill herself.” It was straight and to the point.

  Slight pause. “What?”

  “Yeah. She downed four times the amount of sleeping pills the doctor prescribed her and she passed out on the bathroom floor. So she has a broken hip and she’s been placed on suicide watch.” There. That was easy enough, I realized bitterly, feeling lighter already.

  It took him a moment to digest my words. “What?” he just said again. Fucking coward...

  “I just figured I would let you know.”

  “Shit...” I heard him let his breath out, taking everything in. “What can I do?” he asked then. “Do you need anything?”

  I shut my eyes, swallowing, feeling the tears well up. “No. I don’t need anything. I just thought you should know because she’s your mother.” And I just clicked off my phone, the tears beginning to spill out again. I just buried my face in my hands and let myself cry.

  Ω

  Ben texted me that same night. I opened the message as I sat in the hospital cafeteria waiting for Tony to come back with our coffees.

 

  I closed my phone and held my head in my hands.

  “Double-double!” Tony knocked me out of my thoughts. He slid my coffee across to me and stared me down for a good moment. “Gabby, you need to go home and sleep.”<
br />
  “I can’t.”

  “Yes you can. The doctors told you everything under control – there’s nothing you can do here. Your mom’s in good hands. Plus...no offence, but you look like shit.”

  Of course. I could expect no less from Tony...

  “Thanks, but...” I picked up my coffee and took a sip. “This is good enough for me.”

  “Well, why the fuck you call me over here if you not willing to listen to my advice?” And Tony was back. In all his glory...

  “You’re just supposed to support me, you idiot,” I said, spelling it out for him. “And not tell me what the fuck I’m supposed to do.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Whatever...but anyway...I’ll come stay with you. Tasha is ridin’ my ass too much lately anyway...”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay.” I sighed deeply and ran my fingers through my hair. “He texted me.”

  Tony just rolled his eyes at me again, shaking his head in exasperation. I had already given him the whole run-down on the previous night’s events, leading up to my mother’s “accident”.

  “Why don’t you just text him back?”

  “Because I don’t know what to say! I already lied to him about too much shit and I can’t keep it up anymore. I fucked up so bad...”

  “Yeah, but fuck it – from what you told me about the guy, I think he would understand. Why you always runnin’ away from whatever good shit comes your way? You owe yourself. Especially now. Remember one thing, Gabby.” He looked at me seriously. “Your mom is safe now...they gonna help her...it’s time for you to help yourself.”

  Ω

  As much as it ate at me, I just couldn’t take Tony’s advice on calling Ben back. He did, however, finally convince me to go home and once my head hit the pillow I slept deeper and sounder than I had in years.