Obsession (28 page)

“I’d like to think it flicks your bean, but mostly it just seems to make everything more bearable.”

“That’s true.” She gave him a teasing smile. “Your life is just a cluster of weird. Makes me realise how normal mine usually is.”

“Don’t knock it. Whatever works and all that...” Smiling, he let her go and she carried on with her mini welcome home tour.

He stayed until she had the fire lit, carting in several loads of coal and logs from the snowy garden to save her a trip later. When the house was warm and she’d put fresh sheets on the bed, he gave her a hug and left her to it. She had to get used to being on her own. She went into the kitchen, intending to make herself some dinner, but after staring at the pots for a solid five minutes without moving, she burst into tears and just went to bed. The hollowness inside her just ached too much to be borne.

On Thursday she spent some time cleaning, but the silence in the house was grinding her down. She tried to listen to the radio, but every song reminded
her of Gabriel in some way. It was the worst kind of cliché, but it didn’t make it any less real.

She forced herself to stay in until after lunch and then headed out in search of comfort. She couldn’t bear to call Jax. He’d done too much for her already and he had his own life to be getting on with. It wasn’t up to him to pay for Gabriel’s sins, whatever he seemed to think. She needed to find some way of dealing with it that was more independent.

She wandered aimlessly, until she realised her feet had automatically guided her towards the cafe where she had first met Gabriel.  She stared up at the familiar sign above the door, fighting every instinct she had that was screaming at her to run. She didn’t want to go in there. She didn’t want to face the memory of that day. He’d stamped heartache over all the best parts of her life and it hurt too much to reclaim them. She was about to leave when the bell over the door sounded.

“Noelle?” She dropped her gaze to find her favourite barista staring at her with concern. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

“Hi Sean.” Her voice was gravelly with grief and she had to clear her throat. “I’m sorry...I was just...I...”

“Don’t let him win.” He said softly. “Come in and have a coffee with me.” Without giving her a chance to refuse, he took her arm and pulled her into the warmth of the shop. People watched curiously as he made up two hot chocolates and tossed his apron to one of the other staff. “I’m taking ten.” He announced and led Noelle to a small table in the back corner, where they were away from the
curious onlookers.

“You
heard?” It wasn’t really a question, but Sean was the first person she’d met outside of the Darkness Falls bubble of craziness and she was just starting to realise how woefully ill-prepared she was to deal with questions.

“Yeah I
heard.” He sighed. “Anyone with eyes and ears for the last week has heard. Are you really trying to work it out with him? With Darkness Falls?”

“No.” She wanted to tell him that it was over, but her throat closed and she looked away, fighting tears.

“Hey, it’s okay.” He patted her arm and the floodgates opened at his kindness.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry.” She wept, blotting her face with a handful of napkins. “It’s still all so new and raw.”

“It’s okay.” He repeated. “You just let it out.” He sipped his chocolate. “So I’m guessing the coffee of love should no longer be my preferred dating technique for snagging a woman?” He said, perfectly straight-faced, and she laughed, despite her tears.

“It’s not a bad technique. You just need to improve on the follow up.” She rested her forehead on the cool surface of the table until her tears had eased off and then she straightened. “I’m sorry. I seem to have spent most of
the last week apologising to people.” She confessed ruefully, giving her face a careful once over with the napkin. “I didn’t know it was possible to leak so much salt water.”

“Well I was going to say that you look like a withered and desiccated husk of your former self, but I thought it might be a little rude...” He joked and this time she really did laugh.

“Thanks Sean. I can always rely on you to put me in my place.”

“You’re welcome.” They sipped their chocolate in companionable silence for a while and then Sean sighed, glancing up at the clock. “My break’s over. Will you stay? I think
, after all you’ve been through, I can slip you some coffee on the house.”

“Thank you.” She had a book in her bag and right then she could think of nothing better than to sit in the warm bustle of the cafe and lose herself in another world for a couple of hours
, under the watchful eye of a near stranger that cared more for her than the man who had professed to love her. It was easier than facing whatever was waiting at home. “I’ll stay.” She caught his hand as he passed and squeezed it with gratitude. “Really, thank you.”

“It’s okay.” He squeezed back comfortingly. “You take your time.”

She stayed until the cafe closed just after five and waved goodbye to the staff
, feeling much happier than when she’d gone in. She walked absently through the snowy streets, still lost in her thoughts and the world of the book she’d been reading. It was bitterly cold and her breath was misting about her, glowing in the pools of light beneath the street lamps as she stepped from pavement to pavement in the wintery night. It was eerily beautiful once she was in the back streets and away from the rush hour traffic.

She was so away with the fairies that she didn’t notice the still figure on her doorstep until she was halfway up the path and it was too late to turn away. “Gabriel.” The name poured out of her in a whispery rush of silver
ed breath and she couldn’t stop it. Her whole world condensed down to the metre between them, like everything else had just fallen away. Silence was ringing loudly in her ears and she swayed as panic tried to swarm her.

“You weren’t answering your phone.” He said softly. “I had to know you were okay.”

Some dreadful, nameless emotion clawed its way up her throat, but she forced it down, surprised to find rage welling beneath it. “I’m fine.” She lifted her chin and tried to breathe normally. It faltered slightly when he stepped towards her into the light. He looked awful. Dark circles smudged his eyes and his face looked haggard, as though he hadn’t slept for days.

“Jax said you dropped.” His hands made helpless shapes in the air between them, wanting to reach out and knowing he no longer had the right.

“Yeah, on Saturday.”
And every day since
, she added silently, remembering the panic attacks and the tears. When he continued to absorb her presence like a starving man, without movement, she sighed. “Look, it’s cold out here. Do you want a coffee?”

“Please.” He stepped aside as she moved to unlock the door, but she didn’t miss the way he leaned in to inhale the fragrance of her hair as she passed. It made her throat ache with a longing so sharp it felt like her lungs were paralysed. Forcing
herself to keep moving, she pushed through the door and hung her coat up, woodenly going through the motions of lighting the fire as he came in behind her.

After a few moments of silence, he retreated to the kitchen and she heard him filling the kettle. For a long moment she contemplated making a run for the door and going back to Jax, but she knew they had to have this out sooner or later.

“I’m sorry.” He said eventually as they sat by the fire with their mugs. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know you are.” She replied evenly. “That doesn’t make what you did any less damaging.”

“I know. I’ve never...lost it like that before.”

“Is this where you tell me you’ll never do it again and I have to come back?” Hurt shredded her chest cavity as she tried to swallow down the bitterness.

For a few moments his mouth opened and closed, like a fish gasping for breath, and then he panicked. “You
are
coming back, aren’t you?”

“No Gabriel. I’m not.” And, like that, it was as though a burden had been lifted from her.

“But I’m sorry! It was an accident! I love you, you know I love you!” He almost fell out of his chair in his mad scramble to get to her side. “I love you Noelle. You have to come back.” He flung his arms around her waist and she stroked his hair as he wept into her side.

“Gabriel, I know you love me. God knows I love you back. It’s just that sometimes love isn’t enough.”
She sighed. “Love isn’t enough to fix this. I can’t fix this. The only person that can fix it is you, and I don’t think you’re ready to accept the things you need to learn.”

“Tell me what I need to learn.” He begged. “I’ll do whatever I need to if it makes you come back.”

“We can’t have this conversation with you wrapped around me.” She said helplessly, pulling her hands away.

“Then don’t talk.
Feel
. If you love me, come back to me.”

“Gabriel
stop!” She struggled against his arms until he released her and she fled to stand by the mantel piece. “I’m not coming back. I can’t. I can’t trust you, because you don’t even know why you are the way you are.”

“Of course I know.” Confusion bloomed on his face as he slowly rose to his feet.

“No, you don’t. You’re lying to yourself and everyone around you.” Unable to bear the guilt of that gaze, she began pacing. “Gabriel, it’s not about control. It’s
never
been about control. If that’s what you think, you’ve missed the whole point of what dominating a submissive is all about. Through all of those times in the playroom, you
never
had control of me.
I
had the safe word.
I
had the power. It was
me
that was in control all along.” She started to cry. “Whatever you did to me, it was because I
let
you do those things to me. I wanted them...and I have to live with that.”

“I don’t understand. What are you saying?” He hovered helplessly, less than a metre away.

“I’m saying that this has been about trying to fix yourself. All this time you haven’t been looking for someone to control, you’ve been looking for someone you couldn’t break. You’re still looking for that lost, scared, hurt, damaged little boy. You keep thinking that someone, some day is going to be stronger than you, someone that won’t let you down. But you’ll never find them Gabriel. Everyone breaks eventually. Even me. I can’t be trusted not to let you kill me, and until you can accept that, I’m only going to hurt you.”

“That’s...no...
that’s not true.” He backed away slowly, shaking his head and wide-eyed.

“It is Gabriel. You need help. What happened to you was wrong, so wrong, but you’re doing it to other people and that doesn’t make it right.”

“No.” Turning abruptly on his heel, he fled the house and vanished into the night.

Noelle stood on the doorstep and called his name until her voice was hoarse, but he didn’t return.

***

The days that followed were a washed out watercolour of her former life. She haunted her home like a ghost, silent and wan as she moved from space to space, with no purpose other than to re-enact the anguish of her past. She meant what she had said to Gabriel, every word of it, but the finality of it was starting to sink in and the future seemed to yawn before her like a bottomless abyss.
She didn’t understand how people say your world ‘crashes down around you’.  Hers didn’t.  It fell away in echoing silence, sucking the air out of her life.  There was no raging maelstrom swirling about her – instead it was as though everything was muted, like she existed in a soundless vacuum.

She knew she was right. The more she thought about it, the more she
realised he was trying to find some version of himself in the women he used. Underneath her hurt and sorrow swelled a tidal wave of pity for that beautiful, damaged man up on the hill. All this time he’d been hurting shadows of himself and it broke her heart.

She missed him desperately. When the silence got too much, she listened to music.
Where before it had been too painful to hear, now it was a comfort. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine him there...the way his hands absently moved as though he was unable to help himself conducting an invisible orchestra.

The nights were the worst. Climbing into a cold bed alone was chilling to the soul, as well as to the feet, but it was that moment where she drifted in between sleeping and waking and realised that his arms would never curl around her again that hurt the most. She’d become used to exchanging the tales of the day under the cover of darkness, gazing out across the city as their quiet words wove home and family in a blanket around them. It wasn’t until she’d walked away from him that she realised how much they
’d talked about the things that mattered. The silence threatened to swallow her whole.

She missed his voice.
His clean, fresh fragrance. The way he laughed. The feel of his arms as they curled around her and chased away the winter. If she’d had any doubt that she loved him, the sheer, raw force of her heartache confirmed it. There are some kinds of damage that can be shored up, but never truly repaired.  It’s much like the breaking of an ornament – you can glue it together so tightly that the cracks are all but invisible, but the flaws are still there, like fault lines beneath the surface - moments of weakness that could fracture at the slightest pressure. Her heart felt like that ornament - smashed and pieced back together, with fault lines spiderwebbing the facade.