Unlike Any Other (Unexpected #1)

by Claudia Burgoa

  The shame of being in an abusive relationship, becoming one of those women who did everything their man ordered. No, it wasn’t shame any longer, it had been when I realized what I had done. I worked through that part with Dr. Langley, my therapist, at the beginning of my treatment. I have read books and then I learned to stand up for myself, not to depend on men.

  That became counterproductive as I pushed away anyone who tried to get close to me. I became the ice queen who only wanted the physical part of a relationship. There’s a long road to walk, and I should start soon if I want to arrive to point B before I lose my entire life to the past.

  “Maybe someday I’ll be normal again,” I tell Mason.

  “No, that’s impossible,” he blurts out. “If I reckon, you’re Nine, so damn special. Normal has never touched you.”

  A snort escapes me. The nickname will never fade.

  “I’m just another number to you, Mason,” I banter.

  “You’re Nine, that’s three times the special prime number, three,” he makes a point. “Earth is the third planet and you’re part of a ternary.”

  That scientific-geeky-dorky part of him makes me smile, my heart flutters.

  Wait, my heart fluttered?

  It’s alive!

  Hold the presses and send a news release to the entire universe: it is back and with any luck someday will run the way it used to.

  My heart beats and reacts.

  I sneak another glance at Mason. His eyes smile at me. If there is a guy I would like to fall in love with, it is him.

  A wishful thought as I won’t ruin our friendship like I did with Porter.

  A life without Mason Bradley wouldn’t be as fun. No texts with puppies trying to open doors, kitties playing with yarn, or frogs with sarcastic remarks.

  “Where are you spending Thanksgiving?”

  My brain changes gears, earlier it had been my body wanting to explore Mr. Mason-Hottie-Bradley. Now it’s my heart who’d like to conquest his.

  Not a believer of true love, remember? Falling for a nonbeliever was almost as bad as falling for someone who took advantage of your own beliefs. Another heartache I have to avoid.

  “It’s Dad’s turn, but Mom is working her guilt to convince me to join her and her side of the family,” Mason snickers. “If I have a child, I would never do that to him. I’ll work hard to make things work with his mother. He’ll have one home.”

  Instead of saying a word, I link my arms around him. His parents were the scorn of his existence when they fought about his whereabouts. I wish for him to find peace. A girl who wouldn’t have an entire closet of dirty laundry like me, and a family of his own.

  “Your children will be lucky to have a dad like you.” I angle my head. He looks down, his arms around my shoulders and his mouth only a couple of inches from mine. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Mase.”

  His soft eyes hold my gaze, and I wish he would say something but he doesn’t.

  “If I move to Seattle, would you visit me?”

  “I’ll pack your shit and drive it, Nine.” His eyes turn toward the horizon.

  Mason closes the distance, his lips touching mine with a light stroke that sends an electrical pulse through my body.

  It is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, a current that charges my heart with a different kind of energy.

  2015

  The last ounce of oxygen disappears. I lie inside a dark narrow space. I push the walls, bang them, scream to be let out, but no one comes to my aid. Not Christian nor my children.

  “You’re dead,” a voice whispers in my ear. “No one can hear you.”

  I jolt, gasp for air, touch my throat fearing there won’t be enough air for me to fill my lungs and my eyes finally see the light.

  I reach toward my right and his body is there. My left hand reaches for the remote, opening the blinds slightly to let some light slip through.

  “Fuck, almost thirty years living together and you can’t understand that I am not a fucking morning person,” Christian’s raspy voice protests. “Close those darn curtains, or I’ll ask one of the Bradley’s to kill you and bury your body.”

  I place the remote on top of the nightstand ignoring him and rotate to his side. I prop my arm and rest my head on my palm. Chris’s head buries under the blankets. My lips stretch north. For the first time in three months, the ache of waking up only lasts seconds.

  He’s here.

  The need to clutch my stomach or curl into myself to ride the waves of pain is gone. Three months thinking I had made the right choice for my future. Not caring about the consequences of what my heart underwent wasn’t worth the trouble. I haven’t done anything in three months. My mind is off, unable to make decisions about my future projects. Now I know it is because I’ve caused a mess with the part of my life that really mattered.

  “We should start working out again,” I suggest.

  I stopped a few years ago because… I don’t know.

  “I workout, you stopped, Gabe.” Chris pulls me towards him, his body covers mine and his arm now stretches to my nightstand. “I like my room dark until it’s time to wake up, Gabriel. At ten. My children are not tiny anymore, I can wake up late and cuss as much as I want. That’s not the way your new woman likes it?”

  Fantastic, his anger is returning. Once the darkness returns, he goes back to his side.

  “I didn’t sleep with her,” I protest. Fuck, she’s gone. Why is he bringing that subject back up? “Or anyone else for that matter. I left because…”

  “You’re a coward, Gabe,” he finishes my sentence. “Or maybe you’re in the middle of a crisis. Remember the time I went through one of those mid-life things. I dyed my hair, tried to let it grow, and added extensions imitating my hideous eighties look. We are all different. You, you decided to fuck up your marriage.”

  “Yes, middle life crisis could be a possibility.” It was both of us, I don’t add. Not today.

  Like any regular couple, we disagreed on little things. We discussed the children, their education, our careers, our schedules and whatever shit life threw us. However, for the past two years we fought on a daily basis about the little things we haven’t in years. The toothpaste—it should be squeezed from the end, not the middle. Pick up your socks, your feet are cold, stop snoring. But then he stopped it. Chris stopped talking to me, he became indifferent.

  “What is it?” I asked. “The toothpaste? You hate me because my feet are cold? Should I sleep in the next room? Would you give a shit?”

  It wasn’t the toothpaste that upset him.

  It was the trip to Monaco or any other location, with a new twenty-some-year-old girl to promote a movie and fake an affair.

  “You have a new girlfriend,” he said. “Another trip to some crazy location to be photographed with. I’m fucking done with this. You have a family. Three grown children… I’m tired of the stupid fights, tired of the lies we’re living. Don’t you think it’s time for you to stop it?”

  “We agreed on this,” I reminded him. “Years ago. The only way to keep the media out of our lives. To protect the children.”

  “The children?” his gruff voice filled the entire room. “According to the media, Matthew and Jacob are my children, everyone knows about them. Ainse wants to be recognized. Remember that girl who you kicked out of the house because she couldn’t have whatever she wanted—including the thug. They are all adults.”

  His eyes hardened. After three years, he still hadn’t forgiven me for kicking Ainsley out of the house when she behaved like a brat. I thought she was throwing a tantrum because Porter wasn’t available anymore.

  “I could live an eternity with your sloppiness,” his lips drew a flat line, “but I can’t live with the fake marriage any longer.”

  I trace his jaw with my finger.

  �
�You know, our relationship wasn’t fake, Chris.”

  “I know,” he places a pillow on top of his face muffling his words, “but we never lived it fully, afraid of what the world would think about us or the children.”

  I take the pillow from his face and lean on my side as I watch him speak.

  “We never thought about the long run.” His green eyes lock with mine as his words make sense of what’s inside him. “Our original plan had been to live in a three bedroom apartment in the middle of Seattle and never to come out as a couple. Then we decided to have a baby… we ended hiding the babies.”

  I gulp because hiding the babies hurt them—Ainsley for the most part.

  “We never thought what’d happen after they grew up, or…”

  “My priorities?” Chris’s eyes shut as he gives a firm nod. “I stopped thinking about us and focused on my career and everything I could do as they left the nest. The moment the children departed, we should’ve retired, to stay at home and fuck each other’s brains out as you once suggested.”

  His contagious laugh drags a chuckle out of me. That was his idea after the first six months of dealing with late nights, dirty diapers, and no sex. Well, some sex. However, for him a quickie once or twice a day was nothing.

  “Obsolete, old, and useless, those were the best words to describe me when the three left. You transcended Chris. From rock star to music scout, music producer, teacher, therapist…”

  “You have done lots of shit too. You own a film studio, and you made a shit load of money investing.” Chris rolls me over my back. “Raised three crazy kids and survived to tell the tale—they were not easy. There’s nothing you can’t do, babe. I admire you for being you, for all the shit you’ve done since the moment you stepped in New York looking to become a hot shot.”

  I run my hands through his hair, making him shiver.

  “From the moment I met you, you make me want to be better every day. Why do you think I went to college? At the age of thirty-two.”

  I stare at him not answering the ridiculous question.

  “Because I wanted to be smart, like you.” He lowers his head resting it on the crook of my neck. “That was then. Today, I grasp the concept that everyone has different goals. Each person achieves what they work for, and their happiness is relative. Maybe at the beginning, I wanted to have a degree so you wouldn’t look down at me. But once I realized that I liked to learn… well, I dedicated part of my life to do what I love. Study. That doesn’t make you old, or stupid, or… my school addiction is all about me. Not you.”

  He does love to learn. Chris enjoys reading and absorbing every word that comes out of a book, documentaries, or anyone who will share something new with him.

  “Shall I remind you that I have a Ph.D.?” His body quivers as it brushes against mine, awakening it.

  He’s an idiot sometimes. The moment he finished his degree, he said that not only he acquired a Ph. D., he also had a Pretty Huge Dick—and it was mine alone.

  “Babe, if we’re not going to have sex, you have to stop rubbing yourself against me.” I recall his no sex until he gets the shit straightened up clause. “Or remind me how impressive your appendage is. Will you be able to keep the no sex policy?”

  “Shoot me now. It’s been three months without sex, Gabriel.” He doesn’t move. “I’m all about the sex, but not now. Soon.”

  “About Thanksgiving?” I transition my thoughts and the conversation.

  “Like you need to ask, Gabe.” He sucks my earlobe shooting a new wave of lust through my body. “We’re spending it here, as a family, babe. Now wake up and let’s take a walk on the beach. As soon as I drag your ass home, we’re hiring you a trainer.”

  Home. I love the sound of it.

  Chris leaves the bed as he lets the sunlight slip through.

  “Hmm.” He tilts his head and crosses his arms. “Mason… should we shoot him now and bury his body?”

  Before I agree, I join Chris. Mason and Ainse sit on the beach next to each other, her head leans on his shoulder, and they both stare at the ocean.

  “No, not yet,” I hug his waist, and he leans against me, “maybe when she’s not around.”

  Chris nods, delighted by the idea.

  “I’m joking.” I kiss his neck. “What are we going to do about her?”

  “Follow her lead. I invited Arthur to spend Thanksgiving with us. I guess he—Mason will join us too.”

  “Now you’re going to call Mason: he?”

  “Hell yes, if he wants to date my baby. The least I should do is make his life miserable until he runs away.”

  “Are we good?”

  “Not yet, babe.” He kisses my cheek and taps his head. “I’m working it out right here. I’ll get back to you when… when I have questions.”

  2015

  Ainse and I lounge in the library as Chris and the boys clean the kitchen. She cooked the entire dinner—with Mason’s help and my direction. The quiet evening shared with a few friends turn out differently from what I thought today would be.

  “When are you giving him the ring?” She puts her book down.

  Yesterday, while she went shopping for a few items she needed, and Thanksgiving dinner with Chris, Mason flew me home. I fetched our wedding bands. We bought them for the blessing ceremony my parents organized for us almost twenty-seven years ago.

  “We support your union, Gabe,” Mom said over the phone when I called her about our decision. We’d live in Seattle and pretend that we were best friends and housemates for the rest of our lives. “Can you humor me and have the blessing in our backyard?”

  We humored Mom and Dad and had the blessing here at our house in Santa Barbara. My brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, and my uncle—the priest—attended. By then, my entire family supported our union and treated Chris like their own.

  Under the moonlight of a chilly October night, we promised to love, cherish, support, and protect each other for the rest of our lives. My uncle blessed our rings and from there, we put them in the safe because we couldn’t wear them in public—more like we didn’t want to —afraid to get caught or… that was back then.

  Now, I wanted things to be as they were supposed to be, no more hiding.

  “Maybe I’ll give it to him tonight,” I pause, watching her excited face, “after I send my children to bed. What’s going on with you and Mason?”

  Her shoulders slump lightly as she snickers. “Eww, if you need to send us to bed I don’t want to know more, Daddy… so are you two officially back together?”

  The Mason subject ignored and shoved to the side was a smooth move that I’ll overlook for now. She’s talked out, but soon I’ll press for some answers. For the past two days, they’ve been inseparable.

  “We are… working on it. Your father is still upset about me bailing on him, and I don’t blame him.”

  Angry and not wanting to talk about it anymore until after the end of the year. That’s a long time, I hate that he hurts, and he’s not allowing me to fix it now.

  AJ places her book to the side and skips to the piano. A concert grand piano that, per my instructions, MJ and JC bought yesterday. The one I gifted Chris years ago is at home. His old piano was passed to JC when he turned ten—he asked specifically for Chris’s piano. While MJ preferred a set of drums with the works, AJ chose a baby grand piano that looked just like her father’s.

  “That’s supposed to be a surprise, if you play it, he’s going to know about it.”

  She scrunches her nose.

  “AJ.”

  “It’s unfair, JC tuned it for him with the help of MJ. I need to play it.” I cock my head and give her the typical stern glare. “Ugh. You’re such a parent, do you know that?”

  She wants this to happen now, in front of her.

  “I’ve heard that before, which reminds me, have you m
ade any decisions?”

  Ainse sat and talked to us a few times during the past couple of days. She discussed her past and her plans for the future. Chris recommended a few places for her to visit. That includes a retreat that starts this upcoming weekend. It’s a grievance retreat for those who have suffered loss—divorces, deaths, and other kinds of separations. Our child suffered a few of those, and he thinks it is a good way to start the healing process.

  “I haven’t gone too far…” She touches her temple. That kid shares too many ticks from her father. “Two things are definite. This weekend I’m leaving for San Diego. Papi’s arranging everything for the retreat.”

  AJ looks out at the blue sea and smiles before she keeps going on with her plan.

  “Your husband is babying me a lot.” The bright smile is drawn from ear to ear. She’s loving it.

  Chris is smothering her as much as she’ll allow it. He warned me to either join him or shut my pie hole while he spoils our little girl. I chose to join forces.

  “Second, I don’t want to go back to Texas,” she says letting a long exhalation out. “I moved there because of him—Porter. The music program they have there is great, but… not as great as the others. However, moving to New York, Philadelphia, Ohio, Massachusetts, or any other northern-cold state was out of the question. He wanted to be in a warm area—he hates the cold.”

  I remain neutral.

  When AJ was ready for college, Chris had suggested several conservatories and prestigious music schools back in the East Coast including Juilliard. AJ’s talent surpassed her father’s.

  She said no. She chose Austin because they had all the programs she wanted to study; not only music, but her teacher’s degree. Bullshit, she went there for him.

  Fucking Porter.

  I’m working on trying to understand what went on with those two and why Porter behaved the way he did. Christian explained to me that children who grow up in an abusive environment sometimes follow those traits. Porter didn’t escape them and our child suffered from it. We don’t know how much Ainse has worked with her therapist or how far she’s come, but we both agree that she needs us.