by A. E. Murphy
His grunting in my ear.
The smell of fresh linen.
The pain.
The grunting.
The breathing.
The slapping of skin against skin.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Cerise?” Lockhart clicks his fingers in front of my eyes and laughs. “I lost you for a moment there.”
He looks at me so happily, so lovingly. Has he always looked at me like that? Does he really love me?
Would he understand if I told him?
Would he believe me?
“Are you hungry? We’re going somewhere new tonight to celebrate.”
“I’m starving.” I lie. In reality I’m ready to vomit again.
I just want to let him have his happiness tonight.
We arrive at the low-key Italian restaurant and he leads me inside, his hand on the small of my back. I keep my lips frozen in a slight smile that creases my eyes. It’s just one dinner. I can do this.
“You’re looking a lot better than earlier.” He reaches over the table to tuck my hair behind my ear. “You’ve lost weight.”
“I’ve been ill.”
“I know; I understand. I’m just commenting on how nice it is to see you looking better.”
I hold his hand over the table, enjoying the relaxed smile on his face. He’s happy, so happy. He doesn’t have a clue. I can’t tell him. He’ll never look at me like this again. It’ll ruin everything.
“Are we still going to your parents’ house this Saturday?”
He nods. “Of course. We have things to celebrate.” When I only smile he raises a brow questioningly. “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
His smile wavers. “You were adamant before that I had to tell you. Now I’m trying and you’re not interested?”
“Sorry, I just didn’t want to push you,” I bite out, forcing another smile and downing the wine the server just poured.
“Steady on, you haven’t eaten in days.”
And I don’t know how my body will react with the medication mixed in either. “Better tell that waiter to hurry up then.”
He rolls his eyes with a smile and slides his glass of wine away from me when I reach for it. “Wait until after you’ve eaten.”
“Yes, Dad.” I mentally do a dance of strength. “Okay, I’m ready to hear. What did you to him that was so bad?”
I wonder if it can be as bad as what he’s done to me as an act of vengeance?
Doesn’t feel like it.
Part of me wants to know that what Lockhart did to him was so awful.
“Later.” He grips my hand and looks around. “Too many people.”
“No,” I plead. “I need to know. I have no patience. You can’t just dangle that in front of me and rip it away.”
“It’s not a joke, Cerise. What I did… what my father did to him...”
I wait for him to volunteer the information but instead his thoughts drift elsewhere.
Onto me.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” His fingers circle my wrist as his head tilts to get a better look at the lump under my sleeve.
“It’s nothing.” I try to pull away but he rips my sleeve up revealing the cotton wool ball taped to my arm.
“That looks suspiciously like a lot more than nothing. Did you go to the doctor?”
My body floods with relief when I remember that he thinks I’ve been ill. “Yeah, just to check that all’s good. You know?”
“I’d have come with you.”
“It was just a quick last-minute trip on the way to get cake.” I pull my sleeve back down. “Like I said, no big deal.”
“How long until you get any results?”
“Couple of days. I’m sure it’s just a bug. She said there’s something going around that sounds like what I have.”
I’m so good at lying.
Did that vile piece of shit pass on his manipulative abilities and lies when he fucked me against my will?
“Today is a good day. My love is getting better; she’s smiling again. My enemy is no longer my enemy.”
“Ha,” I snort before I can stop myself.
Fuck, fuck, FUCK.
“What now?” I can see I’ve irritated him again and I’m instantly regretting it. “What now, Cerise?” He leans in, his aqua eyes flashing dangerously. “I’m trying here. I’m trying so hard to…” When he sees the table next to us looking our way he leans back, relaxes his face and wets his lips. “You’re making life so difficult.”
“So leave,” I say to my plate, and if I thought the tension between us was harsh before, it’s even worse now. I see him wipe his forehead with the tips of his fingers, then his chin. He flexes his neck with closed eyes and then counts down from ten under his breath.
“Okay, we’re going to get through this meal,” he whispers, gulping his own wine down and I wonder if he’s forgotten that he’s driving, “because you need to eat.”
I don’t say anything; nothing good will come from between my parted lips of poison. So, I sit back and motion for the waiter to pour more wine. I don’t even like wine but I need it.
“Leave the bottle,” Lockhart barks at him and he nods, startled, and places it on the table between us.
A different server returns with our food. I’d have found that funny a week ago.
“Eat,” Lockhart urges.
I spear a piece of pasta with my fork and place it on my tongue.
“You’re not a child, Cerise. I shouldn’t have to force you to eat.”
Keep eating. Don’t talk.
It’s fine.
Just stay quiet and keep eating.
I chew slowly as he devours his food. In between each bite I push the pasta around to make it look like I’m doing something with it.
The silence is awkward but I can’t talk. I’m scared I’ll just create more drama. I’m too tired for the drama.
He’s too tired for my drama.
I’m too tired for his drama.
“Eat your bloody food,” he hisses, sitting back and staring me down now that he’s finished his own.
“I am,” I lie. I’ve had only a few bites but I feel sick. I always feel sick. I can’t eat when I feel sick. “I’m full.”
We all jump when his fist comes down hard on the table, making the silverware and the glasses rattle.
“Forget it,” he mumbles, tossing notes onto the wooden surface. He stands and waves his hand at me. “Let’s go.”
When I hesitate, he grips me under the bicep, yanks me up to standing and half drags me out of the restaurant.
“Should you be driving?” I comment when he guides my petulant looking self to his car.
“I’m under the limit. I’ve eaten a full meal and I’ve only had one glass of wine.” I can hear in his tone that he’s struggling to keep his voice level.
“Okay.”
When we’re both in the car he doesn’t look at me and he doesn’t speak to me until we are almost home when he suddenly blurts, “Do you want me to be cruel?”
“Sorry?”
“When I was cruel, calculating, when I bent you over the couch, uncaring of your needs above my own, speaking to you like you were nothing more than an object for my desires, you were happy.” He states plainly, twisting his hand around the steering wheel. “You were wild and unique. You didn’t take my shit and there was a fire in you that I found so sexy.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’re indifferent. You have been since I let you down on Halloween. Are you punishing me?”
“No.”
Maybe.
Possibly. It is all his fault. It has to be his fault. It can’t be my fault.
Wait…
Through the fog in my mind I recall something else that was said. Maybe I did repress some of the events of that night.
“He killed my wife.” He said that before he left. Thatcher did. He said that Lock
hart deserved to be hurt the way he hurt him.
It has to be his fault. This happened to me because of him.
“It feels like it.”
I roll my eyes, trying to act as though I have feelings other than hatred right now. “I’ve been poorly. You know this.”
“You were poorly a couple of weeks ago with a high temperature. You still looked at me like you lov…” He laughs and we pull up in our usual parking space outside my apartment. “What do you want from me? I thought I was giving you everything you wanted?”
I try to open the door but he presses the lock, trapping me inside.
Shit.
“Speak to me. Tell me what’s wrong. What did I do? What the fuck can I do to make you feel better?”
“Nothing,” I say. “So just let me go.”
“Let you go?” He reaches forward and presses the unlock button on the dash. “Fine, go. But when you get out of this car in this mood, without talking to me first, I won’t come back and I won’t come after you.”
Even though the majority of me doesn’t care, of course I hesitate.
I remember the depth of my feelings for him last week. Though that was ruined in one night because of one person.
“I don’t want you to,” I say and yank on the handle. The door opens, numbing my nose with the cold almost immediately.
“You don’t want me to?” I hear him following me and stop to face him, just as a random flutter of snowfall begins to drop from the sky. I used to love snow. “Just like that? You’re what… breaking up with me? Again? Despite my efforts and everything we’ve been through?”
“I thought you wouldn’t come after me?” I laugh humourlessly. Is it wrong that I’m getting some twisted satisfaction out of the fact he has indeed come after me? “I’ve just made this so easy for you.”
He comes towards me, his dominating presence towering over mine. “Easy? You think this is easy? You think I don’t love you and I can just let you walk away?”
I shrug and try to turn away from him but he grabs my biceps. He’s doing that a lot at the moment.
“Speak to me!” He bellows and it rattles me through to my bones. “Fucking speak to me, damn it!”
I hear the sound of a camera clicking and as soon as Lockhart realises we’re being watched, again, he curses and releases me immediately. Without wasting another second, I turn away from him, reminding myself that this is for the best.
“Fuck you, Cerise,” He says quietly.
“Fuck you too,” I hiss and tears fill my eyes, burning the seams of my eyelids. “I wish I’d never met you.”
He still follows me, pushing me into a wall out of sight of the entrance by the elevators.
“You wish you’d never met me?” He keeps moving his head to find my eyes, shaking my shoulders slightly to fully get my attention. “Cerise, what did I do?”
YOU DIDN’T PROTECT ME! I scream at him in my head.
“Cerise…”
“Stop saying my name!” I push his hands away. “Just leave me alone.”
“I hate this,” he admits, pushing his hands through his perfect hair, messing it up in a way that once upon a time I’d have found so sexy. “I hate feeling this way.”
“I don’t want to argue.”
“You think I do?”
I shake my head. “I know you don’t, so just go back to your perfect little life without me in it and move on.”
“You really mean this, don’t you? You really are pissed off about Halloween. I knew it. I just didn’t imagine you to be the type to hold back your feelings.” He steps back and I don’t protest against anything he just said because it’s easier for him to believe that. “Fine...” He blows out a breath. “Fine. I’m not wasting my time fighting for somebody who so clearly doesn’t want me.” Then his chest swells. “Do you have any idea how many women would love to be you right now? The person I love?”
“Exactly.” I clap my hands and point to the door. “So go fucking replace me. Okay?”
With that, I turn and move to the stairs. There’s no point in this bullshit anymore. I’ll be better off without him if I’m ever going to recover.
To say that news of mine and Lockhart’s very public break up has spread would be an understatement. This is good, though, because the lads aren’t bothering me about why I’m so depressed.
His parents haven’t called to ask me why I wasn’t there for lunch this afternoon, which means he showed and they know, or he called. The past two times Lockhart has said we’d go but we’ve been late, they’ve called me first because I’m more likely to answer.
They didn’t call. I don’t know how I feel about that. His family made me feel so welcome and I haven’t just thrown him out, I’ve gotten rid of them too. As is right. It had to be this way.
Nobody is bothering me as I get ready to go on stage, which means they also know.
Everybody knows.
This is how quickly the news will spread if anyone finds out about what happened. I’m at such a war with myself. I want to speak up, I really do, but the people knowing part just feels like the end. If I wasn’t so popular right now I might’ve even considered it, but like he said, nobody would believe me. They’d probably think it was some kind of ploy to get him to sell his company to Lockhart.
What the media and people do to women in this situation is disgusting.
I don’t think I can handle that.
No.
I know for a fact I can’t handle that.
I meditate before exiting my room, something I haven’t done for years. It helps clear my mind before our set. We’ll be performing to hundreds of people.
Hundreds.
Yet I don’t feel nervous, or unhappy. I feel safe yet numb.
I’ve already had a third of a bottle of vodka, but I ask for more before I go on stage, forcing a fake smile as the crowd cheers our names. Whistles, claps, screams, echoing shouts and song demands sound all around me as I tweak my keyboard and play a few notes to test its efficiency. We didn’t do soundcheck. We had somebody else do it for us. We always do soundcheck.
Have we become so famous that we don’t do our own chores anymore?
As soon as we begin, I relax. I had forgotten just how soothing I found the music. I had forgotten just how easy it is to attach your anger and sorrow to every word.
For the first time since before that night, as I belt out near impossible notes, keeping my eyes closed, I feel free.
Free.
Free of pain, anger, sadness. Free of everything Thatcher gave to me and full of everything he took from me.
My mind is clear. I have to only focus on the music and how I present it. How I rip it from my body and show it to the world, like ripping away my soul and polishing it on a display for them to see.
The crowd goes wild, wilder than they’ve ever gone before.
I drink my vodka, I cheer, I smile, and I laugh. I’m me.
I feel like me.
Though unfortunately, feeling like myself again just brings a new complication.
It’s when the static of my sorrow disappears that I start asking the real questions.
How did he know about the knickers? How did he get the remote? Did Rebecca know what she was leading me to?
Why me?
Who was his alibi? Did they also know?
How many people know about what happened to me or about what was going to happen to me?
What if they come forward, but what if they don’t?
Where the fuck was Lockhart?
Was he really with Esca?
Do I care? Does any of this matter? Will any of the answers to these questions change anything?
“Holy fuck, Cerise… that was incredible!” Kai swings me around in a circle, his body sweaty like my own. It gets warm up there with all the lights directed towards you as you prance around stage like a musical prize pony.
“It felt good,” I admit, still buzzing and tingling from the high. I want to go back out there but
I need to rest my throat. I pushed myself too hard.
“It was like you’d hulked out,” Dane laughs. “You were hitting notes not in our songs by the way. Normally I’d be pissed that you deviated, but shit it sounded great.”
“Vodka,” I demand and a few of the people around who are praising us rush to get me my beverage of choice. Three people return with drinks for us all. I neck one glass of vodka lemonade, neck the second after a quick breath and just hold the third, sipping it softly so my hands are busy.
They’re impressed with that display too. At this point I don’t think any of them will be unimpressed by anything I do.
We’re forced to the backstage area to do meet and greets and take pictures. It’s the usual but I just want to go and drown my sorrows in our trailer. I used to love this, but now… now I need space. The random hands grabbing me and tugging me in for pictures and such is stifling.
Then somehow Kai and Dane rope me into following them and these guys they met to a party with an outdoor pool that lights up a variety of colours from the bottom. It’s freezing outside but the pool is heated. I only know this because my drunken arse clambered up onto the roof of a shed, screamed a battle cry and dived straight in.
They loved this too.
Shit, they love everything about me. They have to. I’m almost famous. They’d hate me if I wasn’t.
“You are ALL OVER THE INTERNET!” Sammy screams with glee so loudly I have to hold the phone away from my ear. My fuzzy head hurts a lot. “In the best way!” She laughs so loud I almost hang up. “Mum is livid. She watched a video of you jumping off a shed into a pool. What happened to you and Lockhart? The pictures are blurry but who are you making out with? The articles say that it’s Josh Lipson from that band Ashes to Rust or something. It looks like him. I’ve been checking out their music; it’s decent.”
“One question at a time, jeez.” I say around a yawn and put my phone on loudspeaker, balancing it on my bent knee, so I can rub my temples. “I need coffee and painkillers. Did you say I made out with someone?”
“Well yeah, in the hot tub. There are pictures of that too but they’re blurry and you can mostly just see like you from an angle and a little bit of him.”
“Of course there are pictures,” I mumble, unable to recall the moment in particular. “I feel like shit.” My hand roams down to my nether regions and I prod around until I’m satisfied that I didn’t have sex last night. I must have just been drunkenly kissing someone. It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened.