That I’ve lost all the pieces that used to be me anyway, so even if I could make the puzzle whole, it wouldn’t even begin to resemble me.
That night changed my life forever. It shaped and formed me. It made me who I am. It defined me to the point where I’ve always wondered if destiny is just really another term for the past. Like all the things that came before, predict all the things that are to come, like a curse or trap you can’t stop yourself from falling into.
That word. That one word.
It’s bled into me over the years. Leached from my skin into my bloodstream. Worked its way into the heart and soul of me until I believed it. Until it’s become my existence. There was a point where it was all I was. I’ve spent the past nine years trying to prove that it wasn’t true. To everyone else, but I know that I’ll never be able to fully prove it to myself. That word is stamped on me like a brand. It’s scarred into my skin.
A knock at my door jars me out of my toxic train of thought.
I shake my head, hard. I realize that I’d made myself a sandwich and that I’d taken one bite of it and gotten lost insidemy head again. I barely even remember assembling anything, so it’s amazing that there’s food there at all.
I blink hard, willing away the scent of fear and loathing in the air. I wonder if only I can smell it, or if someone else entered the apartment, if they’d comment on it. Ask me what died in there. What the terrible, pungent odor coating the air belonged to.
There are only a few people who ever knock on my door. No one can get into the building without buzzing first, so not any of my friends. Never my sisters, as I’ve never asked them to visit me here and I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t want them to. Never any of my brothers or my father, because to them, I probably barely even exist any longer. Never my mother, because she was always too involved in her own life to be truly involved in mine.
People in the building stop by now and then. Asking for change, borrowing things, making small talk. One neighbor is a little too eager to invite me over, but I always turn him down. Another, an older woman, asks for baking supplies often enough that I keep them stocked just in case.
I don’t mind helping. If anything, it makes the place feel less empty. Still, seeing her family come to visit sometimes leaves a bittersweet ache—the kind that reminds me no one’s coming for me.
The knock sounds again. A gentle rap of broad knuckles against the solid door.
A man’s knock.
Definitely Peter from upstairs.
I let out a raspy, exhausted sigh that sounds terrible, even to me, as I skirt across the kitchen, to the entrance. My mind whirls, trying to come up with a way to politely decline whatever invitation I’m about to receive. I’m still trying to formulate something firm, but sympathetic, when I slide the deadbolt out of place and twist the handle, tugging open the door.
“How?” I breathe, but even as I do, I know how stupid it sounds. I already know how. I already know how he got inside.
It’s Steel’s name on the lease for this place. Of course he’d have the code to the front door. Of course he would have given it to Gage. Of. Fucking. Course.
I try to slam the door on him, but he’s too fast. His big, strong, capable hand shoots out, holding the door open a foot. He doesn’t wrench it from me or send it flinging backwards, even though he could, with all the brute strength coiled latently in his massive build and those sleek, striated muscles.
His fingers curl around the edge of the door and when I’m brave enough to sweep my eyes up to his face, I find his jaw clenched so tightly that it’s a miracle he has any teeth left.
“Steel,” he grinds out between his clenched teeth, even though I’ve already figured it out.
I want to blurt that he had no right. That this is my home, but it’s not like Steel actually forced me to open the door. He just gave Gage the code to get inside.
Gage slowly slides his hand away, leaving the door open. That foot of space yawns between us, an aching chasm that I know neither of us will ever be able to bridge.
Silence. The silence is so heavy that it’s deafening. It pounds through my eardrums and fills up my head like a flood,until I want to slap my hands over my ears, just so I don’t have to hear the sound of it anymore.
Gage clears his throat and when my eyes sweep to his, half in relief that the sound, as rough and sandpapery as it is, broke the silence, half because I can’t help myself, I’m surprised to find them soft. Those liquid depths shimmer like I lake I want to dive into, a serene lake with a shimmering moon overhead and nothing and no one but me to witness it and break the serenity.
“I wanted to say…” his words are even rougher, scraping over a throat that sounds completely raw, like he’s just downed hot coals. His eyes never leave mine, though, and I can’t tear mine away. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. For what I said. I was angry. Just a fucking mess. You’ve rejected me over and over. Humiliated me. This was just one more fucking time and I couldn’t stand it. I’m sorry I said what I did. Called you a whore. You’re not a whore. You’re not. I just… thought about another man having you, having you all these years, and I lost my fucking mind. You might be my wife, but we know that’s never been our reality. I went to Wraith and Leena’s to apologize and tell you I’ll sign the papers, but they said you left. I had to come. I had to give us closure that we both should have given each other a long time ago. I’ll sign the papers. Right now. Then you can be rid of me, and we can move on with our lives.”
The fog of his words reaches my ears and seeps slowly through the rest of me. It infiltrates my bloodstream, which reaches my slamming heart. It knocks against my ribs so violently I’m astounded that they hold. My pulse hammers at my neck, nearly choking me with its furious beats. When I clench my hands, curling my fingers into the palms, I’m not surprised to find them soaked.
This is what I wanted.
Those stupid papers signed.
It’s what I dreamt about for the last year. Had nightmares about. Stressed and fretted and spent countless nights rolling and tossing and turning because I couldn’t sleep thinking about it.
Freedom.
Freedom to live my life. On my terms. My past is like a monster holding me back with arms reaching from the grave. I want to sever yet another one of those web-like strands.
