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Chapter 23
Jodie
For the third time that day, the knocking then banging on the front door awoke me. There was nobody but me to answer it. I sighed and dragged myself from bed.
Clothes, needed some. Naked, I rummaged through my cupboard and drawers. The denim shorts went on only to be pulled off when I spied the bruises on my legs. Jeans. Had to be jeans. A T-shirt would do, though.
I combed my hair with my fingers and found my way to my front door.
Adrianna was on the other side. Bright white-and-blue strappy dress and her expression seemed to bubble over with enthusiasm.
“Hi! Jodie where have you been? It’s been a whole month! You said you’d be away, but a month with no phone, email, nothing?” She hugged me then brushed past in mini-tornado mode. “Klaus texted me this morning. Said you’d broken up, again. When will you two learn? Isn’t this the second time in a few years? He said you needed someone to lean on.”
As she talked she marched toward the kitchen pulling me in her wake like a giant spaceship with one of those tractor beams glued to my ass. “But, hey girl, least he cares. My exes just vanished over the fucking horizon!”
Bemused and tired, I followed.
“You got coffee? I neeed coffee. I’ll make and you…” She yanked open the fridge door. “Can pile the Tim Tams on a plate. You can do that can’t you?” She eyed me. I must have looked bedraggled. “Hmm. Maybe not. Still chocolate biscuits fix everything!”
Now that was probably going to be engraved on Adrianna’s gravestone. Though blonde, tattooed, and skinny as any surfer chick, she ate chocolate by the truckload.
Jug boiled, coffee made, biscuits piled, we sat down at the dining room table.
“Tell me all.” Her instant sad face resonated within me. “Tell Auntie Adrianna and I’ll make it all better.”
We’d stopped moving, stopped talking. The activity had made the immensity of my feelings go away for a while.
I was alone in my house. How could that be? The table, the floor near the chair he used to sit in, even the sound of the surf outside reminded me of our month together when he’d made me his slave. Not fantasy slave. Not pretend. Real. Now he’d gone. Was it me?
I searched through memories. Was it the party? I remembered very little toward the end but I had a feeling something jarring had happened. What, though? I must have done something wrong and yet somehow Klaus thought it was his fault. The weight of all this seemed to drag at my body, at my face. All I wanted to do was to crumple to the floor and cry. Maybe I could go beg him to take me back. But the note had been so final.
How could he do that? Cutting us apart so easily, like it had been nothing. I wanted it back. I wanted to be his again.
Was I mad?
Yes, probably.
“Jodie?” She gently touched my hand where I rested it on my coffee mug. “That bad? Things get better, ya know? It won’t last. Never does. You’ll get over him.”
I eyed her. She didn’t know a thing. I couldn’t tell her anything that wasn’t a lie. So I smiled a lifeless smile, the best I could summon. “Thanks. I know. Thank you for coming.”
I was thankful. People who were friends like this counted. But not enough. So I tried not to show how alien she seemed to me, and we chatted about nothing for a while. Then I shooed her away with promises that we’d get together and do something soon – dance club, girls night out, invasion of Cuba, whatever.
I went back to bed, but at least this time I read all of his note. I didn’t cry, I was too disconnected to cry. None of this was real.
But I put the sim card back in my cellphone like he suggested. I checked out what subdrop was on the net. Huh. Yeah, I sure had all those symptoms.
I was cold, lonely, dead inside, but I didn’t need any of the suggested treatments. All I needed was him. So I speed dialed his number and got nothing. No answer. Texting was the same.
Baxter meowed at me and I shot him a sour look. Had I been left this menace purely to get me to live? I wouldn’t have been surprised. But I trudged into the kitchen, opened a sachet of food and poured it out. The cat food reminded me of eating. Baxter liked the stuff. I sniffed it.
As some sort of weird revenge against Klaus for abandoning me, I put a spoonful in my mouth. Uck.
I spit it out in the sink then leaned over with the water running, rinsing my mouth and spitting for the next minute.
“Fuck you, Klaus,” I muttered, arms propped either side of the sink. “Fuck you to hell and back.”
Damn. If he was here, I would’ve been caned for that.
