“Is everything all right?” she asks, and I don’t even try to prevaricate when I answer her.
“No, Mom. It’s all a mess.”
• • •
Several hours earlier
This morning, I woke up, again, expecting to be in someone’s arms, when I knew better. I was all alone. After my disastrous date with Bobby last night, and then coming home to an angry King who drew me a bath and then made love to me, my head was pounding and my heart hurt.
I can’t rationalize that a man I grew up with, that I have known almost my entire life, would speak to me so callously. I had thought that he could be the one. Not necessarily the love of my life, but the one who could give me a good, honest life.
And the man who I can’t seem to stay away from, the one who makes my body sing late at night in a way no one ever has, the one who takes care of me and protects me, is the one who will also never love me.
It’s quite a dilemma.
But maybe the solution is simpler than I thought. Maybe the lesson is that, in the end, I’ll have no one. Maybe there is no one who could love me. It feels selfish to have everything in the world that I could possibly want and be desperate for love, for passion, for companionship. I crave the one thing I don’t have—a partner.
So I got up and brushed my hair and teeth. I washed my face. I pulled on soft cotton panties, the kind no woman wants a man to see, and a matching bra. Maybe the ugly utilitarian underwear will keep me from getting naked for King. But there’s also a voice in the back of my head shoutingMaury says that’s a lie!I slid buttery soft leggings up my legs and layered baby blue and lavender ribbed tank tops. I slid my feet into a pair of worn Chucks and pulled my long hair up into a ponytail on top of my head.
I walked down the stairs, unsure of what I was going to find. If the status quo held, King would be rude and surly by the time I found him, and that made me feel irrevocably sad. He was nowhere to be found, and it made me hope that maybe I could get out the door before he found me. I needed out. I needed away from him, away from Bobby, the track. I needed to be in my car on the road with the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.
I feel at peace when I’m behind the wheel. Before the death threats, I would often go for a drive when I felt the pressure weighing down my shoulders. Now, I can’t even remember the last time I was able to drive myself.
I walked through the first floor, and he was nowhere around. Could he have left me? Usually Manny or Eric were nearby when King needed to be away from me. The thought of him finding me so unbearable that he had to physically leave my presence burned. It hurt. But like everything else in my life, I choked it down. I pushed it so deep and locked it in a box and hoped that it’d never open.
Now, I make my way into the kitchen. King’s not there either, but my purse and my cell phone are on the kitchen island. I sling my leather hobo bag over my shoulder and decide that if he’s not here, I’ll make my way to my mom’s on my own. I pick up my phone from the counter, and it lights up. The screen shows one notification after the next: texts, missed phone calls, emails, and Google alerts. What in the world could have happened? I slide my finger across the glass screen to unlock it and… scream.
“What happened?” King roars from the entrance to the kitchen, but I’m lost, scrolling through the Google alerts on my phone.
“No,” I mutter under my breath. “No, no, no.”
“Adrienne!” he shouts, and my head snaps up. “What happened?”
I force out a heavy breath. “Nothing.”
“That scream wasn’t nothing.”
“Well, it was. It’s a PR problem, but not anything deadly,” I admit. “Besides, I didn’t know you were here.”
“Where else would I be?”
“I have no idea,” I reply. And it’s true. I’m not his keeper.
“Where are you going?” he asks, changing the subject quickly, and I have just enough time to feel the tingle up my spine, the warning that I’ve wandered onto dangerous ground, but there’s no turning back now.
“I have a lunch date with my mom,” I answer honestly and do my best to keep my face open so he can see the truth behind my words.
“And were you going to tell me that you were leaving?” he asks softly. “Or were you just going to sneak out?”
“I wouldn’t be sneaking out of my own house,” I answer, rolling my eyes.
“That’s hardly an answer.”
“I didn’t know where you were, so I figured you had left,” I tell him. “Manny or Eric weren’t here, and you know I doubt the seriousness of the threats. I’ve had angry letters before, and this won’t be the last time either.”
“Did the last angry letters say they wanted to fuck you with a hunting knife?” he growls.
“Who— What?” I stammer.
