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A pathetic dream, ruined an hour later with a message from Lance.
Five little words that left me tucking her beneath her blankets, my face numb as I collected my things and erased myself from her room, leaving only the lyrics I created with her, because they were hers now, too.
A message that, when I was back in my own dorm an hour later, seared into my mind until I no longer had to look at my phone to see the hideous words waver at me.
Having fun fucking my wife?
***
“Talk to me, man,” Lancewhined in my ear at some ungodly hour once the sun had risen on a new day I refused to see.
His wife. Not his ex, like I let myself believe. His fuckingwife.
I had no intention of seeing him, the sun or any-fucking-one this morning. “Fuck you,” I murmured gently, and hung up.
My phone rang and rang and rang.
Eventually I walked into the hallway of the Kingsman frat house where I lived part time when I was on campus, passed it to the nearest pledge, and smiled. “Can you bin this junk please.”
Then I closed my door with a gentle click, locked it, and lay on my bed.
Silence didn’t help.
All that ran about my mind like a tornado that gathered energy under its own steam was the song I started to sing for her the night before. Indi. My peace. My silence.
My fucking shattered soul.
I swallowed hard, but even as a kid when my mother walked out on my goddam cheating father, I couldn’t summon them. It was as though no emotion ran through me at all.
A few hours into my melancholy the media arrived, camping out on the front lawn of the house. It would be Lance who pinged them, tipping them off. The usual line, I was certain: I was at home, and had some drama or other. Either to satisfy his revenge or to get into my good graces, I had no idea. Nor did I care. I could hear the paps’ chatter from my room that roused me enough to rise from my bed and shut the window.
Another mistake, as a rock came flying at the glass and shattered it. I collected one shard that hit my carpet, studying its jagged edges.
“Man, you got a way out of this building if you need it.” Nick Jessop, fellow Kingsman, leaned on my door frame.
“I locked that,” I said without looking up, studying him from the corner of my eye.
“Yeah, Beau said. I unlocked it for you.” He swung a twisted piece of metal between his fingers.
“Thanks for that,” I said dryly. Heat washed up my cheeks in a return to a human-ish state and I shuddered. “Appreciate it and all.”Now kindly fuck off.
It was the reason I hated living in the frat house my father assured me would be a career and connection maker – all the goddam noise. It wasn't like I hadn’t learned not to listen to his bullshit in highschool, but even as a first year college kid I still bought into his lies. He was the sort of man who would promise anything if it would bring his own reputation up.
Not any more.
Part of me wanted to grab Indi and run halfway across the world with her, let her do her art wherever she wanted, back her always.
The other half of me never wanted to watch her lying mouth say another single word.
To be fair, I hadn't asked if she was single. I hadn’t asked if she was married.
I never did. It was easier that way. Or at least, it used to be.
No lies, until now.
Omission is still a partial truth.
Which made it a partial lie.
