Holding Her in Madness (16 page)

Shit. I doubled my damn dose again.

“Leo?” Annalise yells out, dropping the dish she was holding onto the counter before running to the table and putting out the candles I knocked over. She picks up the big pieces of the broken plates, tossing them in the trash. Then she grabs the broom and dustpan to clean up my mess. “How long do you plan on living this way, Leo?” Her voice cracks at the end of her barely audible question.

“This what this’s all ‘bout?” My tongue is fat and my speech is slurred even to my fucking high-as-shit self. “‘Cause I can really do without this.” My hand motions at the table and her, and I fucking knock over more goddamn candles. “Move all these! The fuck you need all these for?”

I grab the only candle standing and throw it at her.

I’m fucking pissed. Seething rage is bubbling beneath my surface. She better fucking watch her goddamn mouth. She doesn’t know who the fuck she is, asking me that dumb shit.

“You think I wanna be here? I didn’t ask for this shit, ‘Lise. I’m so fucking sick and tired of this shit!”

She has most of the mess cleaned up before she walks towards me with a paper plate of food in her hand. “I know. I know you didn’t. Will you please try and eat something for me, Leo? Please, baby.” Her worried eyes are scanning my face. I know what she’s looking for. She’s trying to gauge how much I’ve taken.

I refuse to make eye contact with her. Who the fuck does she think she is? My ma?

“Don’t call me baby. I’m not your fuckin’ kid.” I snatch the plate from her and throw it on the table before picking up the pieces of carved chicken and tossing them in my mouth.

“No, you’re not. As a matter of fact, that was one of the reasons I asked that you come over tonight. I… Well, we really need to talk. We both have secrets that run fairly deep. We’ve kept them to ourselves and I’ve been fine with that. But… I love you, Leo. And I’m ready to share my secrets with you…if you’ll listen.”

“I’m fucking here, ain’t I?” I toss some potatoes in my mouth and chew them up, glaring at her.

“Sort of…” she whispers, looking down at her hands.

I’m a split second away from telling her never mind and to just fuck off before she looks back up at me. Her tears are on the verge of spilling over her bottom lashes.

“I have a son, Leo. He’s two. He just turned two last month. I haven’t seen him in almost a year. He lives with his father and stepmother. My ex, Shelton, was ten years older than me. And I… Well, I didn’t know he was married. Not until I found out that I was pregnant with Adam. I was only eighteen. I was supposed to start the nursing program at St. Francis College that coming fall, which was only a month away when I found out I was pregnant.”

She grabs the glass of water sitting in front of her and brings it to her mouth with her trembling hand. She takes a sip before quickly setting it back on the table.

“Why are you telling me this, ‘Lise?” I’m confused. I forgot where we started this conversation. Or why we started this conversation. I can’t remember shit besides the fact that she has a kid.

I look around, confused. I’m fucking stoned out of my mind. I don’t remember how I got here. And when I look down at the plate in front of me and see that half the food is gone, I get even more confused.

“‘Lise?” I try to keep my eyes focused on her but it’s too fucking hard.

“You want to go lie down, Leo? You’ve had a hard day, baby. I think you may have taken too much again.” She walks over to me and cups my cheeks in her warm, soft hands. I lean into them, closing my eyes as she holds my head against her abdomen.

I feel so safe.

I’m home.

I’m finally fucking home.

“I love you, Lil. Love you so fucking much, baby,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around her waist and holding her tight. Then I feel rain falling on my head. A chuckle reverberates through my chest. “It’s raining, Lil.”

Sighing, I softly rub my face against her.

“It rains a lot when I’m around you,” I hear Annalise whisper, and it confuses me again. I’m not with Annalise. She isn’t my home. I’m with Lil.

“Shhh, just be quiet. Okay, baby? When you talk, you confuse me, Lil. Shhh.”

She pulls me up and leads me somewhere. I keep my head buried in her long, long hair. Then I’m falling back and she’s tugging my boots off. Then the rest of my clothes are pulled from my body. I roll over onto my side and tuck my head into a soft pillow. A few minutes later, I feel Lil’s soft, warm, naked body curl around my back and her head rest against my shoulder.

Just before I doze off into oblivion, I feel her body shaking and the rain starts falling down on my back again.

I want to comfort her. I fight the thick unconsciousness, but it’s too slippery, and before I can stop it, I’m under.

Under the darkness.

Under the rain.

Under the clouds of dreams about home.

Dreams of being wrapped up in nothing but Lil.

It’s Sunday morning and I’m in the kitchen looking for some fucking milk to go with the bowl of Apple Jacks I just made myself for breakfast when the phone rings. I grab it up and cradle it between my cheek and my shoulder. “Sup?”

“Hey, Leo, it’s Jason. How’s it going?” His voice is hesitant, and immediately it has my hackles rising.

“Same ol’, same ol’, dude. Why, what’s up?” I find a jug of milk, but the expiration date is questionable. I sniff it.

Ehh, it’s still good.

I pour it in my cereal bowl and sit at the table, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder.

“Nothing really. Well, maybe something. We’ll get to that in a sec though. How’s it going with you and Annalise?”

“Great. She’s fucking awesome. Now what the fuck’s up, Jason?” After only a few bites of cereal, I push the bowl away feeling nauseated. I lean back in the chair as dread settles in the pit of my stomach like a ball of lead.

“Look, Leo. Before I tell you this shit, I need you to promise me you’re gonna keep your shit together. I’m serious, dude.”

“Spit it out. Now.” Red takes over my vision and blurs it for a second. I stand up, dropping the phone to the floor, and quickly make my way to my room. I grab both packs of cigarettes and pop six pills before lighting my cigarette and hurrying to make it back to the phone.

I yank it back to my ear and hear Jason frantically asking, “Leo? Are you there? Leo!”

“Yeah. I’m fucking here, Jason. Now spit it the fuck out!” I growl through the phone, cigarette smoke pouring out with my words.

“You didn’t hear what I just said?”

“Nope. Say it again.” I pull a deep drag off my smoke.

“Lil’s pregnant. That dude, Nick. He’s the father. They’re getting married in a couple weeks.”

The phone hits the floor and I’ve grabbed the keys to my Harley, my wallet, and both packs of cigarettes and shoved my feet into my boots before I slam the front door behind me and hop on my bike.

I take the fuck off. I don’t know where I’m going, but it isn’t fucking here.

Hours later, I’m exactly where you expect me to be—a few houses down from Lil’s. There’s a black Vette sitting in the driveway when I pull up. An hour later, the motherfucker who stole my life comes walking out of Lil’s house with a cocky fucking smirk across his face.

I shove my kickstand down and hop off my bike, running towards this rich prick to beat his fucking face in, but the son of a bitch is in his car and pulling off before I can get to him.

So I just stand in the middle of the road with both my middle fingers in the air, yelling, “FUCK YOU!”

His brake lights light up and he stops. I feel adrenaline pulsing through my veins and rage consuming my mind. Then I start running towards him. “Get outta the car you fucking prick!” I’m almost at his back bumper when he guns it, taking off. “You fucking PUSSY!”

The adrenaline coursing throughout my system has my hands flexing into fists and my teeth gritting hard enough to shatter them. I stalk back to my bike and hop on. I’m just about to rev the engine when I see Lil come out heading towards her car.

She has on a sweet little sundress and her long, loose curls hang down her back.

She’s gained her weight back.

Goddamn it, she looks so fucking beautiful. She looks just like my firecracker.

Excruciating pain works it’s way in like a knife, twisting, slicing around my heart. Why does she cause me so much fucking pain? I just want to let her go. WHY can’t I let her go?

I watch as she gets into her a car and puts her seatbelt on before backing out of the driveway and pulling off.

I follow her. Like a lost fucking puppy, I follow her.

We drive for about twenty minutes until she pulls into a parking lot.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I mutter as I roll my bike back behind a bush and read the sign ‘Dr. Majors—OBGYN Women’s Clinic.’

As soon as I hear Lil’s car door shut, my eyes shoot towards her. She keeps her face down. She’s not looking where she’s going. Her shoulders are slumped like they’re carrying the weight of the world.

And that’s when it hits me. Even stoned out of my mind, having taken so many pills I can’t keep count, it still fucking hits me.

Lil and I both are fucking miserable. We’ve both been trying like hell to move on, but it doesn’t matter how hard we try or how long we lie to ourselves, we’ll never be happy without each other.

It sucks. It sucks hard because both of us have moved on. Shit, I moved six fucking hours away. I can’t come back to this town. There’s nothing here for me, except Lil. And she’s not mine anymore. She moved on, and in doing so, she got her ass stuck in a life she doesn’t want to live.

This is an agonizing epiphany. It doesn’t slam into me…but slowly creeps through my mind and emerges itself into my soul.

You remember that moment in your life, and we’ve all had that moment, when it slowly dawns on you that your life sucks. And there isn’t a goddamn thing you can do about it.

Too many people are involved. Too many lives will be altered or shattered if you try to jump off the runaway train. Cause and effect has occurred over and over so many times when you weren’t paying attention and it’s far too late to go back and change anything.

Lil and I weren’t meant to live our lives together. All I was ever destined to have with her was that one sweet summer.

Lil was somehow nothing more than a blip in the grand scheme of my life, wholly consuming me, all of me, and for only three short months… Out of all the months in my life.

That’s fucking insane, isn’t it?

But it is what it is. Even if she’d only been a part of my life for a week, I still would always love her. When your soul meets its mate, it knows it immediately and it remembers its other half—always.

I watch as she comes out of the doctor’s office building. She has tears streaming down her face, and I know with everything in me that she’s hurting just as much as I am and she’ll hurt for just as long as I will—for the rest of our lives. Because we aren’t living the lives we want. We’re living our lives with just the pieces of ourselves we could find after our all-consuming love splintered entirely too soon for both of us.

“I’ll always love you, firecracker. Until the day I die… I’ll always watch over you from afar, but you can’t ever know, baby. I’m sorry our lives turned out like this. But most of all, I’m so fucking sorry I ever let you get out of my car that early Saturday morning. I should’ve never let you get out of my car, baby.”

She pulls away and I watch her go. I stay in the parking lot for over an hour, working through everything in my mind. Trying to figure out what to do next.

I’m almost twenty-two fucking years old. It’s time to start my own life. But first of all, most of all, I need to talk to ‘Lise. I don’t love her like she loves me…but I will. You give anyone enough time and you learn to love them. Right?

I start my bike and head back to Lake Charles, knowing I’ll be back to check on Lil sooner rather than later. I can’t let her get married and not be there. If I don’t force myself to watch it, I’ll never be able to let her go.

I sigh as I pull onto I-220 headed south, remembering the moment I realized my life fucking sucks and reminding myself that there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do to change it.

Fuck, it hurts.