Ridge
It had been one week.
Seven agonizing days since I fucked up my life.
If I was being honest with myself, it had been one year and seven days since I made the mistake that would cost me everything. I should have fired Fiona on the spot when she made the suggestion that she could be my birthday present the year before. I didn’t want to have to replace another assistant. Instead, my wife - the only woman I’d ever loved - would end up replacing me in her life. It wasn’t fathomable to me that she could ever go there, or that we were separated.
Violet wouldn’t speak directly to me. I heard through family that she was okay. My calls and texts remained unanswered and unread. I went over to her family’s home, and they even invited me inside so that I could see their daughter wasn’t hiding out there. That was the thing that killed me the most. I had no clue where my wife was. I didn’t remember our conversation from the last time she’d spoken to me thanks to the drugs that were in my system.
I sat on my sofa and stared at the sad, formerly heart-shaped balloons that coasted along my floor in front of the fireplace. A week ago, they would have danced along the ceiling if it wasn’t for the weights keeping them from floating away. Everything was the same way Violet had left it, despite the fact that my mother tried to clean it up the day after everything went down. I refused to let her do more than throw the food out before it rotted and stunk up the place. Those fucking balloons degrading and losing altitude were a sick sort of reminder of how I’d ruined my own life. They were going to stay until Violet came back or until they were nothing more than debris littering the floor of my house.
My mind wandered to all the places where I might find my wife hiding out when I heard the first knock on my door. Violet wouldn’t knock, so whoever it was could go away. They weren’t important.
Another knock, louder that time, made me glare toward the front door with annoyance. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, see them, or allow them to see me. The last time I remembered taking a shower was when I left my office after what Fiona did. I only knew that because it had been on the video I watched and rewatched. I didn’t enjoy seeing what happened to me but I kept looking for something I might have missed before. I kept wanting the video to change, for me to realize that my assistant was a predator, for me to walk away and go home to see my wife. Nothing ever changed.
Another sharp knock was followed by the sound of a key sliding home in the lock. I jumped to my feet and ran for the front door in time to see my parents walk in with concerned looks on their faces.
“We knocked,” my mom muttered as she took in the state of me. “Oh, Ridge!” she took a step toward me and then hesitated as her nose wrinkled up. I probably stunk. There was no probably about it. The state of my being was more testament to the fact that I didn’t think my wife would come back than anything else. She wouldn’t want to see me this way. I wouldn’t want her to see or smell me like this. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind was the knowledge that it wouldn’t be a concern.
“Mom,” I turned to the other person who entered my house, “Dad.”
“Son,” my father returned as his eyes traversed the whole mess of me from top-to-toe. He shook his head and then stepped aside to close the door behind him.
“What are you doing here?”
“We came to…” my father shook his head and it effectively cut off whatever my mom had been about to say. That most likely didn’t bode well. “Check on you,” Mom finally finished.
“How are you holding up, Ridge?” Dad asked.
“I’m not,” I answered honestly as I turned to go back to the spot on the couch where I’d sat vigil on the end of my marriage for the past seven days.
“Oh, darling,” Mom cried as she stepped into my living room and noticed the sad balloons barely scraping by along the floor. Soon, they would give up and die there. It felt like a legitimate response to losing everything. As each of them dwindled and lost their battle to stay afloat, I lost a little more of my hope that Violet would ever speak to me again.
I slumped back down on my couch and buried my face in my hands. “This feels like a nightmare that I can’t wake up from,” I admitted. “I wish she would talk to me. I don’t even know what Violet and I said to one another the last time we spoke. It’s all mush because of the fucking drugs Fiona laced the bourbon with.”
“Son, it doesn’t really matter what happened with Fiona. You know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything,” I argued. My father’s face fell in a piteous frown that made me want to hide in the fucking couch cushions like I used to do as a child. He made his way to the seat beside me on the couch and patted his hand down on my thigh twice before he leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. The deep breath he dragged in and then pushed out felt heavier than anything he should carry. I knew that feeling because each moment I spent without Violet in my life felt harder to bear.
“She understands that you weren’t able to consent. I was able to enhance the audio from the security footage, and we could hear that Fiona was telling you what to say that day, as well. It helps that even as out of it as you were, you refused to repeat some of the things Fiona asked you to. Be glad you did.”
I didn’t even want to know what else Fiona had cooked up for me to say so that my wife could overhear the damning words. The only thing that mattered was that my parents had contact with my wife. “You’ve spoken with her?” I asked as my head snapped around. “When? How is she?”
“She’s devastated, Ridge. Her life has fallen apart.”
“It doesn’t have to. This is something we should be able to work through. What happened that night, what I said, it wasn’t me. It was because of…”
“Like I said,” Dad cut me off, “Violet knows that. The thing is that your wife would have forgiven you for what happened on your birthday. She doesn’t even think there’s much to forgive about that day except for your complete lack of faith in her. That is something she’s pissed about.”
“It’s the bullshit about Fiona coming on to me last year,” I mumbled.
My dad nodded and I leaned my own back against the couch and stared up at the ceiling as if it held the answers to all my questions.
“Ridge, why?” my mom asked. I closed my eyes and shook my head as if that would make the question go away. It was vague. She could have meant anything by it, but I knew what she wanted to know. It was the same question I’d asked myself over and over again since my birthday. After a few minutes I opened my eyes again and turned them on my mom.
“I wish I could give you, Violet, or hell, even myself a good reason why I didn’t fire her on the spot last year. The way she said it left room to sound like a joke. She’d been working for me for six months at that point. If nothing else, Fiona was damn good at her job. Before her, I went through four damn assistants in as many months. I was tired, Mom. It’s frustrating as fuck not having a competent assistant. I gave her a warning that day and told her that she was lucky I knew she was joking, or she would have been fired on the spot.”
Mom nodded and Dad heaved out a sigh of frustration. It was obvious that he was biting his tongue to keep from saying, “I told you so.” It would have been deserved. He did warn me, but I thought I knew better. His “I told you so” wouldn’t matter. Losing a bit of his respect didn’t matter either. The only thing that meant a damn thing was the fact that I lost my wife and she didn’t seem willing to even speak to me again, let alone work things out.
