Holding Her in Madness (17 page)

That night when I park my bike, I head straight to ‘Lise’s. I don’t knock. I walk straight in, but I’m immediately stopped in my tracks, frozen in place when I see her curled up on the couch, the entire pillow that’s tucked under her face soaked in the tears sliding from her red, swollen eyes.

“‘Lise? What happened?”

“Whe-whe-where’ve you been?” She sits up and her hair is all over the place. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she wraps her arms around them then continues on while still crying. “I-I-I’ve been sssso worried. I-I-I didn’t know i-if you’d wrecked your bike b-because you were too h-high to drive. I drove up and down the highways for over th-three hours thinking I-I was going to s-see you on th-th-the side of the h-highway or i-in the median d-d-dead.”

A hiccup jerks her chest inward and I rush over to her and wrap her up in my arms, pulling her into my lap, tucking her head under my chin, and rocking her back and forth, from side to side. I kiss the top of her head, whispering against it, “Shhhh, come on, ‘Lise. I’m here. I’m here now… I’m fine.”

“Whe-where’d you go?” Her shoulders are shaking as her sobs start to rack her small frame.

“Don’t worry about it, okay? I’m here now and I’m okay.” I cradle her face in my hands, bringing it up to mine. “Hey, baby. I’m here, see? Everything’s fine.” I smile at her, trying to ease her worry, hoping to stop her tears.

Her bloodshot eyes make my chest hurt. But nowhere near as much as when she asks, “You went to go see her again. Something h-happened. I can tell. You’re different from when you usually come back from seeing her.” A cry escapes her throat before she can smother it. “Did you sleep with her?”

I shake my head., “No, ‘Lise, I didn’t even speak to her. She never even knew I was there.” I brush my lips against her swollen ones and close my eyes, trying to gather strength for what I’m about to do. I open my mouth to just do it, just get it over with and sever my life from Lil’s, but ‘Lise cuts me off.

“You didn’t even speak to her? Why? Why didn’t she know you were there?”

“Annalise, she’s never known I was there because I never let myself be seen, and I haven’t spoken to her since… Shit, for years. But none of that matters anymore, okay?”

“But why? If you love her so fucking much, why haven’t you tried to fix it or even tried to talk to her? I don’t understand, Leo.”

“I doesn’t matter. None of it. It’s over. It’s been over, and it will never be again. Today, I realized that. I also realized that it’s time I moved forward. I’m hoping I can do that with you.” I kiss her lightly before leaning back to look into her eyes. “If you’ll have me. I’m broken, ‘Lise. I’ve always been broken and I’ll probably always be broken. Even as a broken man, ‘Lise… Do you love me? Can you love me?”

She wipes her tears away before sliding her arms around my neck and moving her body so she’s straddling my waist. She leans up and kisses me hard and passionately. Then it ends it all too quickly before she sits back onto my lap, looking up at me.

“I’ve loved you since the night I cleaned the blood from your face and bandaged your broken nose and skin, Leo. I knew you were broken then. I knew I would never have all of you, that all I’d ever get in return was the broken pieces she left behind. I told you then that I’d be anything and everything you’d let me be.”

“So are we gonna talk? We have a lot of shit to settle. Neither one of us has been honest with each other or fessed up to our secrets. The one time you tried, I’d eaten too many fucking pills and all I remember is you telling me you have a son.”

Her brow furrows, and I run my thumb over it. “You remember that from Friday? You remember me telling you that?”

I rest my forehead against hers and breathe deeply. Fuck, I’m such a piece of shit. I don’t fucking deserve this woman at all. “Yeah, baby. I remember that part. Not much else though.”

So we talk. For fucking hours, until the sun comes up the next morning, Annalise and I talk. She tells me that she grew up in New York, in a city outside NYC. She went to college until she delivered her son. Her ex, Shelton, set her up in an apartment by her school, paid all the hospital bills, and made sure she was okay and didn’t go without. He also took Adam, told ‘Lise that his wife couldn’t have children and all she’d ever wanted was a child. So she handed Adam over to them, went through the closed adoption proceedings, and finished out four semesters of nursing school.

She isn’t supposed to see Adam. That is a part of Shelton and his wife’s agreement to keep his wife from leaving him over the affair.

Pamela, Shelton’s wife, made it very clear that neither he nor Adam were to ever see Annalise again. Ten months ago, Pamela found out that not only was Shelton paying for Annalise’s school and living costs, but he was also taking Adam to meet Annalise every Saturday at the park. And even though Annalise and Shelton’s relationship had stayed platonic, Pamela filed for divorce and was taking Shelton to the cleaners, leaving him with practically nothing, which was something because Shelton had always lived a very easy life.

Shelton cut Annalise off from both Adam and her living expenses. She only had two more semesters left before graduating.

She tried to go back home and beg for her father’s forgiveness, but he turned her away. She cleaned out the last two grand in her savings account, rented a moving truck, and had to pack everything in her three-thousand-square-foot apartment into the truck by herself within forty-eight hours or her land lord was going to put her belongings on the curb. Shelton had had her evicted. Even going so far as to pay the extra five thousand dollars to get out of the lease early.

“Did it keep Pamela from divorcing him? Did taking every-fucking-thing away from you get him back in his wife’s good graces?”

Her eyes won’t meet mine. I use my fingertips to lift her chin so I can see her eyes. “I don’t know, Leo. I finished packing, hooked my car up to the back of the moving truck, and drove until I felt far enough away. Until I couldn’t feel the ache in my chest from leaving the son I’ll never get to raise or see grow up. I drove until the guilt of leaving him with the family I’d ruined couldn’t be felt anymore.”

Tears start pouring down her face again. “I thought enough distance would help. I actually believed that it would, lied to myself and said I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. But as soon as I filled out the tax information for Pandora’s, a fucking strip club, the only fucking place I could find in this shitty town hiring used-up, piece-of-shit, child-abandoning, family-wrecking whores like me, every fucking bit of the pain crashed back into me. I could have only driven five minutes. Distance doesn’t matter when the pain and guilt is that heavy.”

She sighs and looks up at me under her lashes. “I’m sorry, Leo. But I’m just as broken as you. Can you ever love me, even this broken, this fucked up?”

I wrap my arms around the top of her shoulders and pull her against my chest. “Baby, fucked up is kinda what I do. This actually makes it a little easier. Hopefully since you’re already fucked up, I can’t do much more damage, right?” I kiss her forehead and cup her cheeks in my hands before bringing her mouth to mine and softly kissing her warm, plump lips. “You want me to tell you about her?”

She immediately shakes her head no. “No, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think about whose shoes I’ll always being trying to fill. I just want to think about where I stand in my own shoes and know that it’s always next to you.”

“Okay, baby. Okay.” I kiss her pouty lips again before whispering against them, “Is there anything you want to know, ‘Lise? Anything at all?”

A smile, finally. ‘Lise’s navy blue eyes light up and my girl smiles. “Yes, I want to know about your parents, where you’re from. And I want to know where we’re going. I really want to know where we’re going, Leo.”

I chuckle with my lips against hers before whispering, “Okay, this is where I’m from, this is where I’ve been, and this is where me and you are going…”

And I tell her. I tell her every single thing about me. I tell her about my ma and my pops. I tell her about their divorce. I tell her about the year I spent on the streets—and the years afterwards. I tell her about my Grands. I tell her every single fucking thing in my life except the most important thing. But that’s only because she doesn’t want to know.

I never tell Annalise about Lil. Which, looking back on it, it can truly be considered tragically ironic. Because I never tell Lil about ‘Lise.

It’s been two weeks since Annalise and I had our talk. Last night after we were both spent, physically exhausted, and as the sweat began to dry from our skin, she rolled over and laid her head on my chest, looking up into my eyes and drawing her name across the skin of my shoulder. She asked, “Leo, why don’t you just move in? Do you like living with Josh?”

Laughter shakes my shoulders before it escapes my mouth. “No, ‘Lise, I don’t like living with that crazy motherfucker. Do you know yesterday when I went in to grab some clothes to stay the night here I fucking heard
two
women screaming and moaning in his room? Two, babe.” I shake my head. “Yeah, I need to get outta there. Soon, but…” I stop myself. I can’t bring myself to tell her, for several reasons. One, she doesn’t want to know. Two, I really don’t want her to know. And three, I’m not even sure if I’ll be strong enough to make myself do it.

“Leo? But…but what? You can tell me.” Her grin is sneaky. She looks like the cat that ate the canary. She thinks she’s won.

I settle my eyes on hers with a serious look on my face—dead serious. It wipes her cat-that-ate-the-canary grin straight off her face. “Got shit I need to do, ‘Lise. Tie up some ends that need to be tied up. I’m leaving after work tomorrow evening. I won’t be back until Sunday night.” I narrow my eyes on hers when I see them flood with tears. “Annalise, do you want to know where I’m going?”

She nods her head and I’m stunned. I’m scared to fucking death. I swear, if I ever thought she’d say yes, I’d never have asked her. “I mean, no. I already know. But I don’t know why so soon or why you’re staying so long.” Her dark blue eyes stare into mine until I feel her peeking inside my soul. I look away, breaking eye contact. “You said it was done, Leo. You said none of it mattered anymore.”

“I know.” I have to cough to clear my throat. “I know what I said, Annalise, and I should’ve been more clear with you. This…this thing that I have to do… It’s the last thing. I’m not going back there again. I’m never going back again after this trip.” I’m lying through my fucking teeth, and thank God she doesn’t know me well enough to see it.

“Okay. And you’ll be home Sunday?” She lays her head on my chest and closes her eyes.

“I’ll be here Sunday, Annalise.” I grab both her hands with mine and link all twenty of our fingers together. “Right here. This is where I’m coming home. You understand me?”

Her eyes fly up to mine, and I watch her tears leak out the sides of her pools of dark blue. “You’re coming here, home? So you’ll move in with me?” Her smile lights up her face.

Shit, she really is beautiful.

And fuck, how long is it going to take me to love her?

“I’m coming here, home. Annalise.” My fucking throat gets thick, constricting and cutting off the words.

I can’t even lie. I can’t even say the damn lying words,
“You are my home.”

I cough and clear my throat again. “Sunday, I’ll move in with you.” I close my eyes to block out all this fucking bullshit. Thankfully my Vicodin finally kicks in and I’m out within five minutes.

Today is officially the fucking worst day of my goddamn life. And yes, I fucking wrote it down… On a thingy the lady at the front doors handed me when I walked into the church.

April 15
th
1995
—
The worst fucking day of my life. The day my firecracker marries the rich fucking prick that knocked her up. The last day I’ll ever believe in love.

Yesterday, once I’d gotten into town and bribed Jason with a hundred bucks to cough up the address for the house that Lil and Nick were going to put down a deposit on, I raced like the hounds of Hell were on my ass to make in time. I pulled into the driveway next door and sat outside in my Camaro while the rain fell in sheets from the sky. I watched as the realtor stepped out, holding the door open for the happy couple.