Revenge

by Anne L. Parks

  And I doubt it will ever be like that again.

  * * *

  * * *

  Alex and I stroll along the sidewalk to the Italian restaurant where we are meeting Paul and Ryan for lunch. The sun is shining, but there is a bite in the air as the Indian summer makes way for the cooler fall temperatures. Alex grabs my hand, his fingers knit with mine. I glance at him. There is a hint of a smile on his face. I wish I could see if it reaches his eyes, but they’re covered by sunglasses.

  I'm awash with nostalgia once again. The simplicity we share in just being together. We don't have to speak, just be in each other's presence. That is our escape—has always been our refuge from the world around us. Safe from the outside forces trying to come between us.

  My heart swells in my chest. It still exists between us. It hasn't died—just been buried. But now that we've found it, even if it's barely visible under the crap, I plan on placing a death grip on it.

  Paul and Ryan already have a table outside when Alex and I walk up. There is also a bottle of wine open, half empty. Paul takes me in his arms, giving me his patented bear hug.

  "How's my favorite neanderthal?" I giggle when he lifts me off my feet, squeezes me harder, and then puts me back down. I tip my head back and look into this face I know so well. A few more wrinkles around the eyes, and maybe even a bit of graying at his temples, although it's difficult to tell with his blond hair.

  "I'm great. How's the head?" He raps his knuckles against my forehead.

  "The doctors assure me I will be normal soon. I'm somewhat of a modern medical miracle, you know?"

  "Well, you’d have to be ‘cause you haven't been normal since I met you."

  I punched him in the arm. "Funny."

  Ryan steps beside me, wraps his arm around my waist and gives me a kiss on the cheek. "Hey, darlin'."

  I return the kiss while Alex shakes hands with Paul, and then we all sit down. Paul starts in immediately with the dirty jokes, and that starts us all laughing. I gaze across the table at my two best friends and the man I love. The atmosphere is so carefree. It seems impossible to think that it's been months since we have all joked and laughed like this. So many dark days stretched between then and now. All because of John and his inability to let me go. His unquenchable thirst to control me. His screwed-up vision of love through torture and rape.

  The zip ties cutting into my skin as I hung from the metal rod in the shower. The snap of the leather straps, the sting as they tore through my flesh.

  I shake my head, force the visions back into the darkness. Not today. I will not let the memories of a madman ruin this perfect day.

  John is gone. I can't change my past, or the part he played in it. But I will be damned if he has any part of my future.

  * * *

  * * *

  Paul unlocks the door to the apartment where he and Ryan live together, and we all shuffle to the living room. I drop onto the sofa and groan.

  "Oh, dear God, that was so good, but I ate entirely too much."

  Ryan groans in agreement.

  Paul chuckles. "Lightweights." It never ceases to amaze me the amount of food the man can put away. He's like a dog who takes care of the leftovers after dinner. There was not a speck of food left behind, all thanks to Paul, the human vacuum.

  Ryan leans his head back against the sofa, gazing up at Paul. "Are you ready?"

  Paul nods, and takes a seat next to Ryan. "Let's do this."

  My heart pounds in my chest. Oh, God, please don't let this be bad news. I look back and forth between them, searching for some clue of their mood. I know I will never be able to handle bad news.

  "What's going on?" I ask. I find Alex's hand and lace my fingers with his. "You guys are making me nervous."

  Ryan peers over at me and clears his throat. "We need to ask you a favor, K."

  "It's big," Paul adds.

  "What? You know you can ask me anything." My heart is racing, and my hands are clammy. I wish I could wipe them off, but I'm not letting go of Alex. No way in hell. He has a way of giving me strength, and right now, I need every ounce I can get.

  "Paul and I have decided to start a family."

  "And we’re hoping you will handle the legal side of the adoption for us." Paul raises his puppy dog eyes.

  I sit, stunned, mulling over what they’ve just laid out. I release Alex's hand and rub my palms on my jeans. A million questions run through my mind, but I settle on the most important one. "You're sort of doing it out of order, don't you think? You guys aren't even married yet."

  Silence. I glance at Ryan and Paul with their blank stares. Paul throws his head back and howls. Ryan is shaking his head, a wide grin ear-to-ear.

  "What's so funny?" I glance over at Alex, who just shrugs at me.

  Paul places his hand on his chest and takes a few breaths. "Married? We're not exactly a conventional couple having kids, K."

  "Why? Because you're gay?"

  "Yeah, that sort of takes us out of the mainstream traditional family, don't you think?"

  "Why should it? New York allows gay marriage. Don't you think you should commit to each other before you commit to a child?"

  "What the hell—"

  Ryan places his hand on Paul's arm. "That's something we will definitely discuss, darlin'. What we need to know is if you can help with the adoption."

  "Of course. I've retained my license here in New York, so that's no problem. Are you working with an adoption agency?"

  "Yes, they came highly recommended by friends of ours that have used them a couple of times. I checked out their references, and we're comfortable with them."

  "Okay, just send me the name and phone number of the agency, and who you've been working with there. I'll get started on the legal side of it. Have you signed a contract with them?"

  Ryan picks up a manila folder from the side table and hands it to me. "No, we were hoping you would take a look at it before we signed anything."

  "Okay, I'll go through it and let you know."

  Paul rubs Ryan's shoulder, a cocky grin on his face. "See, nothing to worry about. It's all good."

  Ryan shakes his head and glances at me and then Alex. "You okay, Alex?"

  "Me? Yeah, I'm good. I thought you were asking Kylie to be a surrogate."

  Ryan and Paul shift their gazes and stare at me.

  Shit, shit, shit! Have we not had this discussion?

  Paul slaps his hand against his leg and stands. "The specs on the investment property are in my study, if you want to take a look at them, Alex?"

  Alex nods. "Sure." He takes my hand and kisses my fingers. "That okay with you, baby?"

  "If I say 'no' you will discuss it anyway and bore the hell out of Ryan and me." I chuckle and give him a little nudge. "Go talk business. Ryan and I are going to talk babies."

  The door to Paul's study clicks shut. Ryan quickly moves over and sits next to me on the sofa.

  "What the hell, Kylie? You haven't had the baby talk with Alex yet?"

  "I guess not." I drop my head into my hands and close my eyes. "Things have just been so crazy the last few months. It must have slipped my mind."

  "Slipped your mind? Darlin', you have got to tell him. This is something he needs to know."

  "I know." I rub my eyes and lift my head. Ryan's eyes are drilling laser beams into me. "I know! I will, I promise."

  "Soon. He deserves to know."

  "I never meant to keep it from him, Ryan. It just hasn't come up. We've had other issues to deal with, and having kids seemed the least of our worries."

  Ryan opens his mouth, but I put up my hand. "I will tell him, okay? I'm just not looking forward to it. We’ve been getting along so well since we got here—it's been almost like it used to be between us. I just don't want it to end."

  "What else is going on?"

  "Nothing. And by nothing, I really mean nothing. It's like we walk around pretending everything is peachy, that we are happy, and things are back to the way they were."
/>
  "Still no sex?"

  I stand and walk to the window. "Nope."

  "Have you talked to him about it?"

  "Not really. He pre-empts me every time. 'I have an early meeting,' or 'I didn't want to wake you, so I slept in the study.' He plays it off like everything is fine. He assures me he loves me but avoids having sex with me at every turn." I shuffle back to the sofa and slump into the cushions. "I don't know what to do. Something is definitely off, and until he wants to admit it, I don't see how we can move forward, or get past it."

  Ryan slides next to me and takes my hand in his. "You need to talk to him. You have to make it clear you have questions, and he needs to answer them. You know him, darlin', it's never easy for him to open up. You have to make sure he knows he's safe, that whatever he says, you will accept."

  That's what scares me the most—that I will have to accept whatever he tells me. Even if it means I have to tell him goodbye. I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears stream down my face. My chest aches from the sob I hold in. "What if he's only with me out of some sense of loyalty he thinks he owes me?"

  "Oh, darlin', come here." Ryan gathers me against his chest, his arms tight around me, and kisses the top of my head. "Alex loves you. I saw it months ago. Before you believed it. Before he realized it. But it was as obvious as if it had been written on a billboard."

  "That was a long time ago—before John shot me. Back when Alex thought I was strong. Now, he sees how weak I really am."

  "What are you talking about?" He lifts my head and brushes the hair from my face. "You are one of the strongest people I know, Kylie."

  "I don't feel strong, Ryan. I feel like I can't handle anything. I fall apart so easily these days. I'm afraid to fall asleep because I can't bear John shooting Alex in my nightmares. I need Alex to sleep with me, and hold me, and tell me everything will be okay, but I don't know how to ask him." I bury my face in his chest, cries nearly choking me.

  "Leaning on people when you need them doesn't make you weak, Kylie. It makes you human. Do you think Alex is always strong?"

  My head bobs up and down against his chest.

  "Then let me enlighten you. We expected you would come out of the coma within a couple of days after your surgery. When days turned into weeks, well, you know Alex. He didn't accept the doctors telling him we would just have to wait and see. He wanted answers, demanded they fly in the best neurosurgeons to consult on your case. They said everything looked fine, and we had to wait it out.

  "Alex stormed out of the room—we followed him all the way to the parking garage. He was yelling at the top of his lungs and beating the hell out of a cement wall. By the time Paul got to him and pulled him away, his knuckles were torn up and bleeding. He dropped to his knees and cried. Kept telling Paul he couldn't live without you, that you were the reason he was able to face his past. You brought the love he had hidden in the darkness back into the light.

  "Whatever he is going through, Kylie, I think it's safe to assume it's because he's still scared."

  "Of what? I'm here. I came back to him."

  "That's a great question—and an excellent place to start the conversation."

  He's right. Ryan is always right. If I’m going to have any chance of having a relationship with Alex which consists of more than just being roommates, I’m going to have to make him open up about his fears. But Ryan is right. This is one area Alex keeps closely guarded, even from me.

  I wipe the tears from my face and embrace Ryan. "I'm wiped out. I think I'll head back to Alex's place and take a nap."

  "You sure? You can take a nap here, you know."

  "Nah, I want some time alone. I need to think some things through before Alex gets back."

  Ryan rides the elevator down to the first floor and hails me a cab, giving the driver Alex's address and slipping him a twenty-dollar bill. He kisses me on the cheek, his hand caressing my face. "Let me know when you get back to the apartment."

  "Okay. Will you let Alex know I left, but tell him in a way that won't worry him?"

  Ryan nods and closes the door.

  The ride back to Alex's is short, and the driver made off with a very nice tip. The doorman escorts me through the lobby, summons an elevator, and keys in the code to the penthouse.

  So much has happened today. I catch a glimpse of the bathtub on my way into the bedroom. Oh, how lovely would that be? A nice, hot bubble bath. I text Ryan that I made it back, lay my head on the pillow, and stare at the ceiling. What will it take to get Alex to be straight with me about our lack of sexual contact?

  And how am I going to tell him I will never have a child?

  6

  Talking to Ryan wore me out, and I'm not sure if it's from the length of the conversation, the topic, or the stress they induce. Whatever it is, fatigue has a firm grip on me, and I drift off to sleep not long after my head hits the pillow. My dream is bright and vivid, a stark contrast from the gray and gloomy nightmares of late. I'm in a field of tulips, the sun providing a golden glow across my skin, my hair flowing in the breeze. I gaze out over the fields, enormous bulbs in bright reds, yellows and pinks. A hand is rubbing my belly, and my attention is drawn to the man who sits before me, his hand gently caressing the large roundness that protrudes out so far my feet are hidden from my view. Alex gazes up at me, his eyes full of love and hope, and the widest grin I have ever seen.

  His lips are moving, but I can't hear what he's saying. It's not until the breeze circles around my head that I can hear his whispers. You are giving me the most precious gift I could ever wish for. A child. Our child. Now our love is complete.

  My hand goes to my stomach as I’m drawn from the dream. Smooth, flat, no trace of any baby bump, and I'm not sure if it's relief I'm feeling or regret. What if Alex wants a family, and I can't give him one? Not only that, but I have no desire to be a mom. I know I should feel some sort of guilt over that—I know many women I've met certainly like to make me feel as if there’s something evil about me not wanting to raise a child—but I'm happy with my life. I don't find it selfish not wanting to have children, just the opposite. What's selfish is bringing a child into your life you cannot commit to one hundred and fifty percent.

  Alex's hand is on my hip, I quickly wipe the tears from my eyes, and I roll onto my back so I can see his face.

  "Hey, baby, I didn't mean to wake you." He leans over and gives me a chaste kiss on the lips.

  "You didn't. I was starting to wake up, anyway, just hadn't fully gotten there."

  He runs his fingers through my hair, his eyes looking deep into my soul, as if searching for an answer to a question he hasn't yet uttered. "I feel like I stumbled onto something I wasn't supposed to know today."

  I narrow my eyes, my mind trying to discern what he means.

  "When I mentioned I thought Ryan was asking you to be a surrogate," he says.

  "Oh." Fuck. We need to have this discussion, but on the heels of my dream, I'm feeling more than a bit trepidatious about it. I pull myself up to sit and lean my back against the headboard. "I should have talked to you about this from the very beginning—when I knew we were getting serious—but so much was happening, and it honestly slipped my mind. I need you to know upfront that I never meant to keep this from you."

  Alex sits next to me, his eyebrows tightly knit together. "Jesus, Kylie, you're making me nervous. What the hell is it?"

  I take a deep breath that does absolutely nothing to calm my nerves. I'm petrified this will devastate him. We've never talked about having kids, so I have no idea what his thoughts are on the subject. I take his hand in mine, running my thumb over the back of it.

  "I can't have kids." Internally, I cringe, and wait for his response. The few times I have had a serious enough relationship which warranted this discussion, well, let’s just say there are a lot more men out there who claim not to want kids but actually do. Maybe not right at that moment, but faced with the scenario of never being able to spread their seeds, they run away. Fast. Head-spinning
fast.

  And I was always left to feel as if I was less than a woman. At first, anyway. Now, it is who I am, but it doesn’t define me as a woman.

  Alex’s expression is blank, and his eyes aren't giving anything away, either. He takes a breath in through his nose. "What do you mean, you can't?"

  "I lack any of the necessary equipment to make a baby."

  "And by that, you mean, you—what? Had a tubal ligation?"

  Oh, if only it had been that easy, but nothing has ever been easy for me, and my reproductive organs have been no less complicated.

  "Full hysterectomy."

  "But you take birth control."

  What? I shake my head. "Um, no, I don't."

  "Well, what's the pill you take every day?"

  "Hormone replacement—to prevent me from going through menopause."

  He continues to stare at me, emotionless, not giving anything away and it's about to kill me. I need to know what he's thinking—what he's feeling. I need to know if I have just put the final nail in the coffin of this relationship.

  "So, maybe you should start from the beginning and explain?"

  God, where is the beginning of this story? Certainly not when I had the procedure done. It goes farther back than that. Way back. A flood of emotions rushes through me as I recall my youth. It's not the most pleasant of memories, and ones I don't often revisit, if I can help it.

  "Okay, well, you know I grew up poor. It was just my dad and me, after my mother took off. Dad didn't handle the break-up well, and his life pretty much spiraled out of control, and he took me along for the ride. Long story short, he was a drunk who couldn't keep a job. No job—no health insurance and no doctor's visits. I was embarrassed to talk about it with the scant number of friends I had, so I never knew there was Planned Parenthood which offered exams for free."