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“Just for you to know that I know all about you fucking my sister,” she sneers, “she didn’t tell me, but she didn’t have to. I’ve had a friend of mine keeping tabs on your house, and as soon as you got a new little nanny I knew. It took me just a few more days to get the details. But I’m going to use this in the next custody battle.”
The sound of a drink being poured and as my scowl contorts on my face.
“Stop playing stupid with me, Helena. I’m not in the mood. I know you sent Stevie to fuck with me.”
The sound of liquid being guzzled, then, “Fuck you Clayton. Why am I not surprised you’re pinning this on me? You fucking bastard! I just wanted you to know that I’m not having my son stay in the house with a fucking bastard and a whore!”
She tops it all off by hanging up.
I hold the phone for another minute or so, staring into the wall dully. My midnight mind can’t seem to make sense of things. Was Helena actually saying what I think she was? My dear psycho ex is a lot of things, but an adept drunken liar is not one of them. During our call, she’d been drinking, that much was obvious. But it sounded like she was actually pissed about me being with Stevie, not gloating with victory. Could I have totally misinterpreted the situation with Stevie?
I sink back into my bed, my mind helpfully supplying me with a reel of past moments with her. The tender distraught way she could barely look at me in the limo when she’d admitted the truth. The love that had just radiated off her in waves whenever she was in Winston’s presence. If it hadn’t seemed like she was putting on an act, maybe it was because she hadn’t. Maybe she really had just wanted to meet her nephew and hadn’t meant for any of this attraction stuff with me to happen.
That left the question, the only thing that matters now. What am I going to do about it?
Right now, it feels like there’s a web of thoughts, wants, and experience so thick that I can’t find the end of it. What I should do is obvious. Take this as the opportunity to end things like I should’ve done in the first place. Let things be. Maybe message Stevie in a few days apologizing for everything, but not inviting her back. Or, if I can’t do that, just let things be.
I nod to myself. Yes, I should just let things be.
The next second my hand is dialing out the already now-familiar number. But instead of any ringing, I’m met with an efficient female electronic voice, “This number is no longer in service.”
Ripping the phone away from my ear, I check the number I just dialed. It’s Stevie’s.
Jamming off the call with my thumb, I dial the number again. Once again, before any sort of ring, I’m met with the efficient female electronic bitch telling me, “This number is no longer in service.”
Shit, shit, shit.
And yet, there’s relief in my panic too. This makes the choice easy for me. That consideration has a lifetime of 5 seconds before I’m dialing my mom’s number.
Minutes later, she shows up at my door, wearing a head full of curlers and an irritated suspicious glare behind thick purple glasses.
“Clayton, what’s this about?”
“I don’t have time, mom. I’m sorry. I’ll be back in a few hours. Everything’s fine, I’ll explain later.”
I throw myself out of the house before she can ask me anything more. Because right now, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I’m just heedlessly racing down the highway based on some sense, some instinct that I’m losing something. I don’t have enough time to waste thinking it over when Stevie is inching further and further out of reach.
All I know is: Why would she turn off her phone unless she was going somewhere? Somewhere like… Australia?
“I almost ran off to Australia it got so bad,” her nonchalant voice had said with a little giggle that first time she’d come over.
“I almost ran off to Australia…” “Australia.” “Australia.”
A groan riddles through me. She wouldn’t be so impulsive as to just run off and do… That. Would she?
It seems that my hands think she has, because they hang a left at the exit to the airport.
Inside, the place isn’t exactly brimming with people. Only those who have no other choice or are big suckers for cheap flights would be here at – I check the time – 2 am. My head roves around, to see if there’s any sleepy looking twenty-something-year-olds who might be her. But my tired eyes come up with a big fat nothing. Wherever she is, it’s not here.
