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My hand curls the blankets higher, legs tucking up as tight as they’ll go, and my finger starts tapping for a rhythm I can’t find. Where is my rhythm now? It’s gone. And the woman from the water, the one who rose and evolved and felt in control of everything, as she paced towards this man behind me, is gone, too. I need her back, because I’m lost again.
Torn and broken.
Chapter 18
Gray
Glaring at the heather in the middle of the table, I stiffen my shoulders to substitute the need to go and curl up next to her. I should sleep elsewhere, create more room between us so she understands fully the intent here and remembers the words I’ve tried to drum into her the entire time.
It isn’t real.
I’m not.
This all around us is not, irrespective of the time we’ve shared and the feelings clawing up my throat. Actually - I turn to look at her body under the sheets - I should force her to eat more food rather than accept the scraps she barely consumed.
I lean back in the chair instead and stare out at the moon sitting low in the sky, finally finding some element of rationality in what time of day it is at least. How many days we’ve been here now I’m not sure, but night is drawing in. Late evening I would assume by Canadian standards, and this is the first time she’s slept of her own volition. Nothing in her to stimulate anymore and nothing to knock her out. No pills to make the world seem less clear, or clearer, depending on her standpoint. She’ll hurt like hell when she wakes, and not only because of the feel of me on her.
She’ll hurt because it’ll all come rushing back. All the actualities of life that she’s been avoiding and all the memories associated with that. I know the feeling well. And now, because of her, it’s harder than ever to not just sleep, wake, take more pills and carry on living this lie for as long as I breathe.
The sound of her grumbling to herself makes me look back at her again and smile, relaxing now she’s not able to see anything other than terse dismissal on my face. My chin rests in my hand after a while, eyes unable to stop looking at her as she sleeps. It’s been a long time since I was able to watch a woman sleep in rest, a long time since I’ve even wanted to. But her? She’s too attractive for me to deny looking at, and too embedded in my thoughts for me to turn away from.
Music starts somewhere in the distance, the notes well known and not fucking welcome, no matter the fact that I asked him to play it before I came back in this room. I watch her for a while as it carries on, wondering about things I shouldn’t think about, and then turn my gaze back to the heather I should be looking at. Pinks and purples, sprigs of it found somehow in this barren landscape. He probably has it here all the time, ready to help me or taunt me when enough is enough. I don’t know which version of that he’s amusing himself with now, but either way he’s done as I asked and is helping me find my way out of the situation I’ve put myself in with her.
“Gray?”
I turn back to her at her quiet call, and find nothing but her rolling and stretching until she’s facing me. Eyes still closed, breath even and gentle in her slumber. I watch again, as captivated with her now as I was on that concourse while she waited for me to take her somewhere different. More probably. Inexplicably more for irrational and illogical reasons
Either way, I’ve done that now, given her something she’s never had before. It’s not all of it, but she’s enjoyed what she got – found clarity in it, or denial. Maybe Malachi will let her come back here on her own sometime now he’s met her, give her things that I can’t and show her the rest of this hedonism when she’s had some time away from it to regroup.
Her leg creeps out of the cover, my hand print still visible on her ankle to tempt me into those sheets with her, and then the damned chain drapes listlessly in front of my eyes. I huff and turn away, irritated with my own fucking response to someone I’m supposed to have kept far away from me physically, let alone mentally. I didn’t, and now I’m conflicted and agitated and as lost as she probably feels because of my actions since we got back to this room.
Fuck, this music is pissing me off.
I stand and walk to my clothes, pulling on some jeans and a casual shirt quietly so I don’t wake her. And then I strap my watch into place to give me a gage on when time is done. There’s nothing else for it. I’ll roam the place, drink maybe. Find a quiet corner and fall asleep on my own so I can stop this constant longing. We’ve had our time. Used each other and given our all. Whatever else it is that is in my head needs to stop.
The music keeps playing, as I walk out of the door and softly close it behind me. All the same song, over and over again just as I requested. He won’t mind that. He’s happy to play it. Happy to linger in the sound of him and his wife for as long as he can. I smile at that and amble the stairs absentmindedly, part of me not caring where my feet take me, as the melody carries on.
They end up leading me to him, my shoulder resting on the door as I watch him play.
“It worked then,” he mutters.
“Almost.”
“Well, you’re not still fucking her so something must have.”
I walk into the room and push some old sheets of music out of the chair, legs giving way at the thought of fucking her again – staying and living. “Doesn’t mean I’m still not thinking about it.” The music changes suddenly, dark and sombre against the lightness of the waltz.Phantom of the Opera. I snort, he couldn’t have picked a better song if he tried. “That’s not helping, Malachi.”
He laughs. “It wasn’t meant to. I’m not all helpful hands.”
The music peters out as evenly as it began, and he closes the fallboard and leans on the top of the grand, head on the back of his hands. “My bitch of a wife said your little thing is well striped.”
“She’s not my little thing. But yes, used is an accurate description.”
“And that’s all it was?”
“That’s all it can be.”
He turns at that and looks me over, some emotion on his face regardless of the fallboard down. Time ticks by, as we stare at each other. I don’t know what he’s thinking, barely ever do with him. Doesn’t really matter anyway. It is what it is, and will not be anything other than that.
