Impulses (74 page)

He shrugs his skeletal shoulders, his dark eyes widening in his pale, gaunt face.
Maybe she wanted to end things but couldn’t find a way out of your hold. I bet they chanced a tryst at the next alleyway they passed.
The berating, scrawny man smoothes over his dark, greasy hair, while Samantha’s words from months ago uncoil and haunt me,
‘I would have freely lead him down that back alleyway, and allowed him to take me in whatever way he wanted’.

Dammit! I prop my elbows onto the edge of the desk, fisting my hands through my hair in a feeble attempt to halt my impulsive need to hurl the glass at the door.

I want to defeat the fear, I want to abandon his husky, condescending little voice, but I can’t, I lack the strength to pick myself up and fight. I lack the will to be happy. Maybe he is right, maybe it is better that Rose never unearths the truth about me…that I am a fucking nutcase who argues with himself on a regular fucking basis, because I let my fear take the stand and verbally abuse me with my own insecurities.

He pushes himself back into the chair opposite, waves his hand in triumph and jeers,
I am just doing my job. Can’t you see, boy? I am showing you how worthless you are, for your own benefit. People like you, who have a dark, dark mind, Hayden, are no good in relationships. Regardless of whom it is with. I’m saving you the pain of heartbreak. And don’t worry about growing old alone…
he shimmies to the edge of the seat; his spine-chilling, hollow eyes sucking me in like an ominous black hole.
I will always be here.

Yeah, well, you have made yourself perfectly clear––I renounce, surrender, I’m despairing, call it whatever you will, either way it all comes back to the same thing. I toss the liquid back again, and lick my lips.

I’m done.

He fucking wins.

“HAYDEN!”

I’m jerked awake by a husky voice bellowing at me, followed by my office door being slammed shut. I lift my head from the surface of my desk. Ugh, the pressure is enough to make it feel like it’s going to explode.

I reluctantly glance up at a very angry looking Victor waltzing his way over to my desk.

“What time is it?” I mutter, rubbing my hands down my face.

“It’s nine in the morning. What the hell is going on here?” He grasps the half-empty bottle of amber liquid and regards it with distaste, before setting it back on the surface.

“Don’t ask, Victor. Don’t even ask.” Loosening my tie, I pull it over my head.

“Samantha’s friend, Jessie just called in, said that Samantha isn’t coming in today.” He perches himself at the corner of the desk, crossing his arms expectantly over his chest. “So what has happened? And tell me the truth, son.”

I inhale gravely, and for some reason that I can’t quite fathom, everything feels more…real. My heart aches and constricts under my ribs. My vision is distorted, shimmering like the distant heat waves in a desert.

“She left me, Victor,” I glance up at the wise old man resting against the mahogany, his legs crossed at the ankles. I blink, and the shimmering of my sight ceases, when warm tears route their way down my cheeks. “She left me.” And as I concede, granting my body its release of uncontrollable sobbing, Victor inches his way towards me, and hugs me.

When he releases his grip, I explain from beginning to end.

“I give up, Victor,” I shake my head resignedly, and dry my falling tears. “I just give up.”

“Hayden, I am not going to lie to you, everybody experiences these trying moments in a relationship, even in marriage. But when you feel like giving up, you have to remember why you held on for so long, in the first place.”

I glance down at my hands resting in my lap, and watch blankly as I pick at the corner of my thumbnail. “I think we had disaster hanging in neon lights above us from the beginning, Victor. What was I thinking?” I gasp.

“Son,” he places a protective hand onto my shoulder and squeezes gently. I peer up at him and he pins me with his bold gaze. “The lengths you go to, to avoid suffering––in your case, ending the relationship, only causes more suffering. You need to think long and hard, and decide once and for all, if what you are feeling now is worth it. Or can you accept the things that she did before you, and overcome the fear of any possible future hurt, to be happy. Life is based on choices, Hayden, we all entitled to happiness, but you have to walk through the door, and trust that one person who holds your heart, not to hurt you.”

Overcome the fear? Didn’t I give up on that last night? Is it even possible for someone so damaged to surmount something so…involuntary? I don’t sit and ask to have my wayward thoughts escalate into such a manner. It is not as though I invite the malicious considerations to have a fucking gathering in my head; a fucking AA meeting for my emotions.

“I don’t have to be in court until eleven, you need to go home, Hayden. Go and sleep this off”––he gestures his hand down the length of my body. “Have a good rumination and decide. Because I will tell you something, son,” he fishes a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, slips his thick tortoiseshell glasses off and makes circular motions over the lenses with the material. “Samantha is a bright, attractive, caring woman, who––by what you have told me––has changed considerably for you. There aren’t many of those around. The question is: how long are you willing to wait?” he slips his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, his brow arched as he observes me quizzically.

I push myself up from my chair. My back is stiff, and cracks as I bend to recover my briefcase. I place the half-empty, glass bottle into the case and reclose it.

“There is no way you are driving back home. Your car can stay in the lot for now. I will give you a lift.”

The sound of the door shutting resonates through the apartment. I search around my surroundings: the large, overstuffed, leather and cord sofa against the left back wall, the oak veneer table in the center, a distinct, weighty adornment rested on the mantle of my fireplace in the heart of the wall opposite the couch, and the panoramic vista of San Francisco Bay offered in front of me, stretching out, kissing the cloudy sky of the horizon. It all looks big, too big. And even though it is fully furnished, it has never felt so…empty.

The hollow sound of the soles of my shoes connecting with the dark, hardwood flooring reverberates around me. Vexed by the irritating noise, I press my right toe, to my left heel, and slip off first one shoe, then the other. I listlessly amble to the sound system on my media center, dropping my briefcase onto the couch cushion as I pass.

While waiting for the system to hiss to life, I turn over one of the crystal tumblers, setting it on the wooden surface and pour a stiff drink. Finally, the soft and husky voice of Al Green is emitted through the speakers, trailed by the plucked cords of an acoustic guitar.

Thirty-eight floors above the ground, I stare blankly out of the window and into the distance. The clouds darken to the west as he croons about there not being any sunshine when she’s gone.

I sip at the spiced liquid while contemplating what Samantha is currently doing,
who she is currently doing you mean, Hayden,
the contemptuous voice returns with a vengeance.

I have let the two best things in my life walk away from me, and all because the devil on my shoulder told me to. I shake my head, I am such a fool. Even Al agrees with me as he continuously repeats ‘
I know’
over the speaker.

I tip my head back and bleed the glass of the liquor, and repeat the process. Pour, swirl, and tip back. Pour, swirl, and tip back. I halt, when I feel the gradual burn slowly begin to rise up and I concentrate profusely on pushing it back.

I pour another, filling the tumbler halfway. The soft words of Al Green begin to fade, and soon the beat of the drums and bass guitar takes his place.

Hayden…Some stranger is probably making her come right now, while you stand here all pathetic and brooding…You were never the right one for her. You were never going to save her from herself, and she definitely wasn’t going to be the one to save you, there is no way to save someone from disillusionment.

I feel rage and fury slowly surging up through my body as I bleed a further glass dry of my whiskey.

‘I wonder what you’re doing, imagine where you are’,
the concern is palpable in the male singer’s voice, but my breaths soon become laborious, my adrenaline spiking, my heart accelerating. Beginning at my legs and then my chest, I surrender to my body’s incessant trembling, whilst my pulse feels like it is going to puncher through the side of my neck. Centring my concentrating on the swift emotional change in his voice, the concern that the lead singer oozes, morphs into a copious amount of anger and devastation.

I become suddenly aware of my grip tightening around the glass, and almost immediately, I am consumed––frenzied by his annihilation as he screams, ‘can you take it all away’? At this point, that’s all I want, I want this pain to be taken away, the memories, the last twenty-four hours. I just want them gone.

In a trance-like state, I pull my arm back and hurl the empty tumbler towards the wall, causing it to shatter into a hundred pieces. I am annexed by wrath, by ferocity. Seeing red, I smash the decanter on the media unit, the glasses on their allotted unit shelves before grasping the leather footrest that rests in front of the lounger at the window, hurling it through the air and across the area. Stepping free from the platform, I kick over the coffee table, and swiftly stumble over to the fireplace opposite the couch. I pull the rectangular mirror from the wall and toss it towards the apartment door. Brimming with strength, intensity and savagery, I grasp the hefty, bronze lion ornament on the center of the hearth, and cast it at the forty-two inch plasma television in the corner. The television is instantly knocked back, crashing to the floor.

Besieged by shattered possessions and a shattered ego, I sink to the floor and scream as loud as I can, before yielding to my woeful cries. Not soft sobbing, but loud, cathartic yowls as I grieve for the one who I pushed away with my inability to move forward from the past. And plead that somehow, I will be shown the way––guided, and in some way, overcome this overwrought, guilt-ridden, desolateness that I am ousted by.

A heavy pounding in my head wakes me from my alcohol-induced slumber. Groaning, I straighten my legs on the sofa, and with great uncertainty, flutter my eyelids. Alas, the light is too bright and aggravates my self-inflicted headache as it beams through the window beyond my feet.

With squinted eyes, I start my perusal of the area around me.

Oh, fuck.

Raising my hands to my face, I sigh cripplingly as bite-sized pieces of my meltdown rearrange themselves into a timeline and begin to meld themselves together. My entire front room is sheer chaos. People would assume there was a burglary; only nothing was taken, just destroyed.

I grumble and groan as the mere, unwelcomed forethought of cleaning up the anarchy––of which is the result of my destruction––bobs along on my alcohol-submerged thought-train.

What time is it? I set my feet on the cold, hardwood flooring after reluctantly pushing myself up from my position. My head is pulsating and hazy, my mouth parched and tasting disgusting. I risk a glimpse down at my watch, and instantly regret the sudden movement, as my head and vision swims and waves like the incoming tide, crashing against the rocks of the shore.

7:30 a.m., Oh my God, I’m late for work. I push myself up briskly from the couch, and momentarily freeze allowing my internal organs to catch up.
It is Saturday, Hayden. There is no work today;
my subconscious doesn’t even attempt to conceal the wry amusement in his voice, and shakes his head at me.

Fuck, where the hell are all my days packing up and disappearing to? Oh, well, I’m already up now. Today, I am going to compose myself and establish a plan. But before my head decides to be cooperative, I have to have a shower and a strong mug of coffee.

Taking long strides toward the hallway, I hear something crack beneath my weight, and a sudden sharpness digs into my foot.

“Fuck!” I shout, hopping up and down on my right leg. Inspecting the heel of my bare, left foot, I tweak the shard of glass speared in my flesh and pull it free. Hobbling down the hallway, I make a mental note to clean up the disarray after my shower.

I stand under the hot torrent, allowing it to cleanse me. Well, externally at least. Tipping my face up to the stream, I push my hands through my sodden hair, slicking it back. Reaching for the shampoo, I pour some in my palm and massage it into my hair, my nails scrapping along my scalp as it starts to lather. The sensation gives way to pleasant memories of how Samantha would graze her nails over my body. Making an effort to wash my idle thought aside, I concentrate on rinsing and repeating, before reaching for the shower gel.

Working down to my torso from my neck and chest, I rub the foam over my body. I close my eyes and remember the many times Samantha would step inside and wash me from behind, her hand encircling my waist, her touch gliding over my body, wiping away the droplets, and purifying me both physically, and emotionally.

I wistfully dwell on Thursday’s morning feat, watching her silhouette through the settling condensation on the glass surround. How her back arched with poise as she tipped her head back in welcome. The way I stepped in with her, trailing my tongue from the small of her back up the length of her spine, drinking her in before sinking into her depths. The way my hands ranged around her waist as I held her steady, and slipped over the bump of our daughter’s presence.

My throat feels tight as the mass increases deep down low in my gullet. An overwhelming sense of loss and longing interrupts my reverie. My intake of breaths become strenuous, and is overshadowed by the bitter taste rising and smearing across the back of my tongue. I want to escape from my memories, abscond from the surroundings which hold so many happy times for the both of us––happy times that dating back five months ago, I never believed I could have reveled in.