AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ve given you everything you’ve wanted. Now we’re done.” She felt the bed dip and then the cold air as it swirled around her in his rush to the bedroom door. “Goodbye, Martina.”
Just like the orgasms he wrung from her body, he managed to wring tears from her eyes. She sobbed into her pillow as she heard the front door click behind him as he left her condo and her life forever.
Chapter 15
Martina chased after her sister who disappeared into a white canvas tent. When Martina tore open the flap, instead of walking into a vast empty space, she walked into the living room of the Taylor home. The same room that reminded her of what she’d left behind.
She saw herself standing there on the carpeted pedestal. Alone. Until Rob walked in. He approached her immediately, barely allowing her time to breathe as he took her in his arms. She watched as he fondled and splayed his hands along her body. She shivered. A month ago she would have said it was because she was barely clothed, but now she knew it was because of his touch.
“You don’t need to run anymore.” The soft voice sounded from right beside her.
Mac. As beautiful and vibrant as ever. Her short blond hair cut in a pixie-like fashion, her lips pink, her cheeks flushed. She looked like she did before the cancer took her life.
“I’m not running. I’ve finally settled. I’m happy here.” Or so she kept telling herself.
“Your body may be settled in one place, but your heart is still on the run.” Mac sidled in front of her, blocking out the vision of her and Rob locked in an embrace. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You put up a wall. The minute I passed you refused to let anyone in. Until I saw you with those girls. And then with Rob.” She looked behind her, watching with a smile curling one side of her lips.
“Why would I let anyone in? Mom and Dad left us, you left me, who’s to say that they won’t leave me too. And it may not be because of death, maybe he’ll stop loving me. He could leave because of that.”
“He could.” Mac slid her arm around Martina and rested her head on her shoulder. The world was right again with one simple touch of her sister’s skin. “You’ll never know unless you give it a chance.”
“It’s too late. He told me he loved me, and I left him. I used him for sex, and he walked out the door.”
“He wanted to give you everything you needed. He isn’t mad.”
“Right.”
“You’ll see, Martina. Soon enough. You may think you can cheat life and avoid death and dying but you can’t.”
“I sure as hell am going to try.”
“One day the light will break through and you will see that everything you need is where you left it. You just have to have enough guts to go after it.” Mac stood in front of her again. “Don’t waste the rest of your life. My life was too short. Live the life you were meant to live. Live the life that I never got a chance to enjoy.”
Martina watched over Mac’s shoulder as Rob pulled away from their embrace and walked toward the entryway. Without even looking back he left the room.
“Where did he go?”
“A man can only give so much, Martina.” Mac’s voice was getting softer, farther in the distance. “It’s your turn to give.”
“Mac, wait. Don’t leave yet. It’s been two years. I haven’t been able to talk to you for two years.”
She faded into the distance, her figure becoming more transparent the farther away she got. Mac’s body stood right beside the half-naked Martina crying on the pedestal.
Martina watched as Mac embraced her dream-self. She felt it, the warmth, the essence that was her sister. The figure vanished, leaving dream-Martina alone sobbing into her hands.
Martina woke with a gasp. After two long years she’d finally gotten to speak to Mac. From the very first night in California she dreamed of her but these dreams were disturbing. Scary. There were nights when she actually woke up sweating and short of breath.
Martina drifted back to sleep with an eerie sense of peace. She finally knew the reason she’d been running all this time. An imaginary weight lifted itself off her shoulders. Mac was wrong. It wasn’t her heart that was running. She was in a good place, a stable place. She had a good job, a few acquaintances and clients who depended on her. And the love she had for Rob made it even more evident that she should stay away. She would never forgive herself if he fell ill, or if a freak accident took him away, or if he stopped loving her. That would be a fate worse than death.
No. She liked her life. She was happy. And for the first time in the last month, she slept the rest of the night, not a dream in sight.
Chapter 16
One month later...
