by L. D. Davis
He withdrew and looked down at me with dark, serious eyes.
“I’m not asking you to be a mother. I just want you to be yourself, to be Mayson.”
“Those are very pretty words, but the fact remains that you have two children and I don’t want to be a mom.”
“Again,” he said more sternly. “I’m not asking you to be a mother.”
I looked at him doubtfully but moved on from that.
“I’m a recovering drug addict, Grant. You left because of my addiction.”
“You are a recovering drug addict, Mayson, and I didn’t leave because of your addiction.”
“Right. You left because you didn’t want to watch me die,” I said dryly.
He nodded slowly. “That is part of it, but we don’t have time to get into the rest of it. You don’t have to tell me what you are, Mayson. I see what you are. I see you better than you see yourself.”
I snorted. “I don’t know about that because I’m very honest about the person I am.”
“I believe that, but you're honest about the person you think you are.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I said, “We can debate that all night and never come to an agreement.”
“We can, but we don’t have time for that, either. What’s next on your list?”
“There is so much you don’t know about me. To be perfectly honest, there is so much I don’t know about me. I can’t remember everything. Some things are really cloudy and other things are completely dark.”
“We’ll learn together along the way,” he said, bringing a hand up to my face.
“But…” I raised my hands helplessly and let them fall back on his chest. “I’m not exactly what you would call a stable person.”
He shrugged. “Who’s stable these days? Do you think I’m stable being a single, working father?”
I eyed him cautiously. “Well, I would hope that you are stable since you do handle deadly weapons fairly often.”
He smiled and wrapped his arms around me. I stretched my arms to wrap around his neck, not by choice, but by reflex.
“You’re a deadly weapon,” he said in a low voice that made me shudder slightly. “You fucking slay me.”
With that, the conversation concluded when his mouth again devoured mine.
The taxi arrived a moment later. Grant opened my door for me and leaned in to kiss me once more before closing the door. He handed the driver some money and gave him my address. Scowling, I put my window down.
“I don’t need you to pay my cab fare,” I snapped. “I can pay for my own cab fare. This is not going to be one of those relationships where you walk around with your big fat wallet throwing money around and making me feel like a damn moocher, Grant Alexander.”
He leaned on the door and peered down at me with a big grin.
“Of course not,” he said and meant it. He wasn’t just trying to pacify me. “I am just making up for starving you and nearly catching you on fire this afternoon.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Why are you still grinning like that?”
His grin grew wider, which worried me a whole lot.
“You acknowledged that we are now in a relationship.”
He laughed when my mouth fell open in realization.
I had no time to argue with him, slap him, or kick him or anything because he stepped away from the car and then we took off down the street.
“It was just supposed to be lunch,” I muttered agitatedly under my breath.
I zoned out a little bit during the drive, as I thought about how quickly things had progressed—or deteriorated, depending on one’s point of view. I had gone to Grant’s with expectations of lunch and the determination to push him back out of my life, but in one afternoon, I folded like a cheap suit. I didn’t get any lunch. I didn’t push him out of my life. Instead, I left his home late at night with kiss-swollen lips and wearing his clothes.
I pulled the neck of the shirt up over my mouth and to my nose. It smelled like him, like Grant. The shirt had been clean when he had given it to me, but after having his body pressed against mine and being so close to him for hours, the shirt smelled like his body.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. When I opened my eyes, we were stopped in traffic, waiting for a light to change in front of a coffee shop I used to frequent in the evenings after work. Ice spilled down my spine as my eyes met the eyes of the man standing outside the shop, smoking a cigarette.
He was so average looking that in most cases I probably would have overlooked him a dozen times before I noticed him. He had dull brown hair, a plain face, and below average height and weight for a man. There was not one thing extraordinary about him, but something about him felt so menacing, that I refused to walk anywhere near that shop after three p.m. when he was usually there working.
The first time I’d encountered him, he’d been sweeping the floors inside as I stood at the counter ordering my drink. I had felt his eyes on me, but I’d ignored him. It was the city; very often some weird people stared or said strange things. I learned to ignore it long ago, but that guy’s eyes on me were hard to disregard. So, I’d looked up, hoping that if I met his eyes directly, he would have felt forced to look away as many people who stared tended to do. When I’d met his eyes, however, I was jarred by both the familiarity of the man, and the nausea the site of him induced. I didn’t know where I knew him from, but I was sure I had seen his face before.
He’d smiled at me and said hello. His voice had been polite, but the sound of it made my skin crawl.
Fear and disgust had simultaneously swarmed over me, and I became so frazzled by the man that I’d dropped my coffee. When he’d rushed over to clean it up, I’d bolted. I’d run into him a couple times more close to the shop, with the same sickening result. He had always been nice, always said hello, and always scared the hell out of me.
Sitting in the cab, out of his reach, I should have felt safe, but I didn’t. I should have looked away from him immediately, but I didn’t do that, either. He nodded his head once in acknowledgment, gave me a short wave and a beatific smile.
I gagged and my stomach twisted violently as my dinner threatened to make a reappearance.
After the cab dropped me off, I searched my surroundings anxiously, as if I expected to find the man standing nearby. Once I was inside my apartment, behind a locked door with Dusky jumping happily up to greet me, I felt a little better.
Then I remembered that the dog needed to go out and cursed aloud.
“Why couldn’t you be a vicious guard dog?” I asked Dusky accusingly.
If someone attacked me, the dumb dog would more likely just bark at them rather than tear off a limb.
I went to my bedroom closet, glanced at the poster of Hans Solo, and quickly put on a pair of sneakers in case I had to run. I tucked a small can of pepper spray into my back pocket. As an afterthought, I stowed a switchblade in my front pocket. The blade and pepper spray were gifts from Lily after I moved into the city. She took her personal defense very seriously after she had been attacked by the same guy twice.
I was pretty sure I could spray pepper spray in some perp’s face, but I wasn’t sure if I could stab anyone—even in defense of my life. There was a higher probability of someone stabbing me with my own knife, but I felt better with it in my pocket anyway.
By the time we set off on our usual route, my nausea had passed, but not my paranoia. I was hyper-aware of every sound, every movement, and anyone near me. Maybe I was irrational, but one could never be too safe. There is danger in the places we sometimes least expect it, whether it be in your own neighborhood, at a coffee shop, or in the home of a friend…
When we were on our way back to the apartment, my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and narrowed my eyes when Grant’s name flashed across the screen. Despite myself, I smiled and answered.
We only talked for a few minutes, but by the time we hung up, I had forgotten about my heebie-jeebies. My mind was back on Grant a
nd the “how the hell did we get here” question on repeat in my head. I was so distracted by my thoughts surrounding my old flame that I almost missed him as I neared my building.
As I crossed the street, only steps away from my apartment building, I shifted out of a daydream and looked directly into the face of the man crossing from the other direction. He smiled and winked.
I don’t know how I made it inside and back up to my apartment, but once inside with the door locked again, I dashed for the bathroom and vomited.
I woke in the early morning hours shaking violently and drenched in perspiration. Disoriented in the dark, my hands pushed at air, frantically trying to push someone away from me that wasn’t actually there. My breathing was quick and frantic.
Even though the nightmare had begun to fade and reality started to set in, I still sat up in my bed and looked around my room with a pounding heart. I was petrified of finding someone besides my dog occupying the room with me. There was no one, but I scrambled out of bed. I swiped the pepper spray and knife off of the bedside table as I went and cautiously stepped out of my bedroom and into the main room. My apartment was an open space, with no walls between the kitchen, dining room, and living room. No one could hide out there. I turned to the bathroom and found that empty as well.
Before going back into my bedroom, I double-checked the lock on the door. Inside my room, I went to the window and swept the curtains aside to peer down into the street. The light outside was gray in the moments between darkness and sunrise. A couple cars went by, but no one moved on the sidewalks.
After a couple minutes of making sure that no one lurked outside, I closed the curtains and went back to my bed. I swiped away the origami I had made late into the night onto the floor. Dusky lifted his head from his paws and looked at me with worried eyes, but he didn’t move from his position at the foot of the bed. I turned my head away from him, curled into a ball, and cried.
Chapter Eleven
Monday morning, I found Grant waiting for me at the usual spot. He was dressed in a black T-shirt, black cargo pants, and black boots. At another time, I would have probably taken a moment to appreciate how sexy he looked, but the thought was fleeting. I was still reeling from my encounter with the creepy man, and nausea had been my constant companion ever since. Along with my nausea and anxiety, I felt unheralded anger. I hated having the lapses in my memory that prevented me from knowing who the hell he was. I hated how the site of him made me feel weak and powerless. As I marched down the street toward Grant, I irrationally hated just about everything and everyone.
“Good morning,” he said with a tired smile and leaned in to kiss my forehead. It was meant to be one of those lingering, sweet kisses, but I turned my head sharply and quickly disengaged him.
He looked at me wearily and sighed. Judging by the tension in his jaw and the crease between his eyes, he wasn’t in the best of moods, either, but I didn’t care.
When he tried to hand me my breakfast, I eyed the items with disgust. My voice was so cold, it was hard to believe that I had been all soft and warm in his hands two nights ago.
“I don’t want it.”
“What do you mean you don’t want it? It’s the same thing you get every day.”
“Yes, I get it every day. So, maybe I’m tired of it.”
He paused and studied my face intently for a few seconds. Then without a word he walked over to a trashcan and tossed the food and drink inside.
“I didn’t need you to buy it for me anyway,” I snapped as he came back to me. “I told you I can afford my own damn coffee. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“I know you can take care of yourself,” he snapped back as he loomed over me. “You’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t fucking need anyone, ever. Maybe if you could stop being selfish for two whole minutes, you would realize that I’m the one who needs you this morning.”
“Oh, I am quite selfish,” I readily agreed. “Add that to your list of reasons why you don’t need me in your life.”
“The only one of us with a list here is you.”
“Oh, I have a list all right. Right at the top of my list of men that disgust me are men who are sensitive and needy. I don’t have anything to give you, Grant. So, whatever it is you ‘need’ you should go find it somewhere else.”
For a moment, he looked like he was about to lose it. He expanded with anger. He stood to his full height and straightened his shoulders. He glared at me like he wanted to throttle me, but he took a couple deep, quelling breaths and took a step back.
As if he had a stress headache, he closed his eyes and caressed his forehead with his fingers. I realized that he looked exhausted like he hadn’t slept at all.
In a voice that held great patience, he said, “I had a long damn night working. I haven’t slept for over twenty-four hours. I apprehended three different guys last night and one of them decided he wanted to take a few shots at me.”
I was really, truly, without a doubt the biggest bitch that I knew, because even though I was inwardly startled to hear that Grant was shot at by some criminal, I still said what I said next with cold calculation.
“They missed.”
Grant froze for several seconds before dropping his hand and opening his eyes. He gazed at me blankly for a moment.
“What did you say?” he asked, his voice quiet.
I could have kept my mouth closed, but I couldn’t help it. I said the cruel words again as I hated myself for saying them, yet reveled in the pain I knew it would cause him.
“I said…they missed.”
His eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he took a bewildered step backward. Maybe he didn’t think that his little butterfly could be so mean, but sometimes that is the case with beautiful things in nature. Sometimes they cause pain. Sometimes they’re deadly.
“Well,” he said with finality. “I’m sure at least my kids will be glad to know that.”
To my astonishment, he kissed my forehead again before leaving, but all of the sweetness was gone.
“These were just sent up for you,” my secretary Angela said excitedly as she breezed into my office later in the afternoon. She carried a large vase of roses in various colors. There must have been three dozen or more.
I stared stupidly at the arrangement as she set it down on my desk.
“There must be some mistake.” I sighed. “They’re probably for Jen. Her husband sends her flowers all the time. Can you take them to her, please?”
“Oh, no.” Angela grinned as she plucked a white envelope from the midst of the flowers. “This has your name on it, and Jen’s husband never sent her flowers like these.”
I gawked at the envelope that did have my name written on it, believing that it had to be some kind of mistake.
“Oh! Look!” Angela squealed and clapped her hands with delight. “There are little butterflies all over!”
My eyes widened as I looked at the flowers again. Angela was right, there were butterflies. Not real butterflies, but little decorative things, put here and there throughout the bouquet.
I knew who the flowers were from without having to open the card. Only one person would have thought to send me flowers decked out with butterflies.
“Are you going to open the card?” Angela seemed more eager than I was.
I put my boss face back on and gave her a firm look. “Not with you here.”
She stood there for a moment longer before sighing despondently and then leaving me alone.
I hesitated before opening the card, thinking maybe I should send the flowers back without reading it. I didn’t deserve them.
The nightmare in combination with the man from the coffee shop had set me on edge. All day yesterday sick, blurry, and broken memories tried to knit themselves together in my head. I came to the one conclusion I always came to without fail: I was a damaged person.
I hadn’t dated anyone seriously in many years. I knew that once they’d realized how messed up I was, they w
ould have been gone, or I would have damaged them as I had damaged Grant long ago. I wasn’t just a messed up person, but I had done messed up things throughout my life. How could I drag anyone else into my pile-of-manure life?
I hadn’t meant to go off on Grant like that, but seeing him in front of the coffee shop made me think of the man, which made me think of my reaction to the man, and then the nightmare that followed. I only meant to decline the food and drink, but since he wasn’t in the best of moods himself, things just escalated. However, when it was over, and he was gone, I knew it was for the best. I wasn’t good for him thirteen years ago, and I wasn’t good for him and his kids thirteen years later.
I stared at the unopened envelope for a moment longer before deciding to open it. I thought I’d, at least, see what he had to say before I sent the flowers back—if that was something I could actually do.
Mayson,
Nice try, my little butterfly,
but I’m not going anywhere.
Grant
I walked to the door, poised my finger over the button for the buzzer, and then changed my mind and turned away. I made it a few feet before grumbling to myself and turning back around and letting my finger hover over the button again. I had gone back and forth for a good five minutes. Stubborn, with a strong distaste for humble pie, I toggled between pushing the button and going home without pushing the button.
“Make up your mind. Push the damn button or go home. Go home, and be a pussy. You're already a pussy because you can’t push the damn button,” I muttered to myself.
A few people walking by glanced at me briefly, but they were used to seeing crazy people on the streets, and that’s all I was. Another crazy woman talking to herself.
After a little more muttering, and walking away and returning once more, I pushed the button.
Ten seconds dripped by without any response. I knew because I counted. I decided that if there were no response by fifteen seconds, I would call it a good try and go home, but I didn’t make it to fifteen.