The Bitter End (13 page)

“This is just one more thing that proves that my father has no idea what I want.”

He took my hand and held it as he studied my face.

“I know this is going to sound so fucked up Beth, but I am happy he paid me.”

“Oh, awesome. Did you happen to buy my car with it?”

“No…no, fuck. Beth, I meant I am glad I met you. I mean I am really glad that I met you.”

“Oh,
” I said, as I knew what he meant. I mean I had already buried myself with the love word and he had yet to say it but he was working his way up to it. I knew it. I could feel it in him…just under the surface of his Blackwood heart.

“Rides,” h
e said as he pulled me up and I shook my head ‘no’.

“Yes…yes.” He insisted and I crossed my arms and shook my head no. He grabbed me up and flipped me over his shoulder, smacking my ass as I screamed at him but he did not care. He walked us all the way to
the Ferris wheel and then set me down as I hit him in the chest and he laughed at me.

“Let’s do this shit,” h
e said and I looked up and sighed.

“I am not so good with heights,
” I said quietly.

“What?”

“Heights, I have vertigo. We didn’t know until I had a panic attack on this fucking ride when I was five. My father took me on it and I was so excited until we stopped at the top and he rocked the fucking seat back and forth. I freaked out, I had a panic attack. I scratched his face up and he still has a small scar under his eye where I cut him with my nails. I screamed until my throat burned.”

“Well holy fucking shit,
” Ryan said as he stared at me.

“I just, if I go up there I will shit my pants.”

“I will buy you new ones,” he whispered and I laughed.

“I mean really shit my pants.”

“Will you try, for me, Beth?” he asked and I sighed and shook my leg as the ride was waiting and the door was open to the seat.

“Fuck,
” I said as he pulled me along with him and we got on. I could feel my heart beat speeding up as the attendant shut the door and locked it with a bang.

“I don’t think this is so good,
” I said as I tried to stand up and it started to move. Ryan grabbed me by my waist and pulled me down, placing his arm around me and I began to shake and closed my eyes tightly.

“Beth…look,” h
e said as I barely peeked at first and then I stared out across the countryside and saw the sun splintering the sky into pinks and blues. It truly was beautiful and then I had to look down and I tightened my grip on him as he sighed and held me closer to him.

“Sometimes the scariest things are the most beautiful things you have ever seen. You just have to believe that it won’t hurt you.”

I looked up at him as he watched my expression change from fear to hope and he touched my cheek.

“I love you
, Beth,” he said to me and with that the first real kiss occurred between us since we had met. No fingering, no dirty talk. Just me and Ryan, understanding we scared the shit out of each other and just could not walk away.

I leaned up and rotated my hips against his as the car rocked slightly in the amusement park’s parking lot. No one was left except security and we didn’t care anyway. We had been fucking for an hour with no signs of letting up and the windows had fogged over from heavy breathing and body temperatures rising. I kissed his mouth harder as my lips felt as if they may be swelling and his were too. I could swear it felt as if we were actually making love. He had taken his time with me, kissing my neck and unbuttoning my shirt a bit to expose my black lace bra. I had not allowed him to take it off due to my cut on my arm but he suddenly grabbed it and I hissed at his lips as he stopped moving and pushed my sleeve up to see the gauze and a bit of blood seeping through it.

“Beth, what happened?”

“It’s nothing, I cut myself.”

“It is deep.” He said as his thumb gently ran across it.

“Four stiches.”

“Oh my God when?” he asked me as I moved off of him and settled in the seat next to him.

“This morning.”

“Wait, this morning?”

“I did it,” I said to him and he sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair.

“You cut yourself?”

I sighed and then looked at him.

“Yes. Then I stitched it up.”

“Well fuck, Beth,” he said as he zipped his pants up and turned to face me.

“I am fine.”

“Listen to me, that is not fine, cutting yourself and stitching the fucking thing up is not fine…I mean how do you even know how to do that shit?”

“Father,
” I said as I looked down and then he touched my arm and I looked at him.

“He taught you how to stitch yourself up?”

“Kind of, I mean. I fell a lot when I was little and sometimes a doctor was too far away. I mean we ended up having one on staff after like the tenth time I tried to die and shit, but before that he…”

“He what?”

“He would have Mother hold me and I bit on leather while he stitched me up.”

“What the fuck?” he said as he hit the dashboard and I jumped slightly.

“Do you have any idea how fucked up that is, Beth?”

“He just wanted to make me better.”

“Sure…sure he did. While he tortured you and shit.”

I touched his face and he looked at me, I don’t think I had ever seen him so angry about anything before.

“He told me to be strong, that we always needed to be strong and no matter what, family would always be there if needed.”

I sat back and thought about that and how fucked up I truly am. I then turned and placed my finger to the window and drew a heart on it. The water ran down and it looked broken in half as I blew my hot breath onto it. He then grabbed my hand and I looked back to him.

“I need, I have to fix something with you Beth. Right now, before the cut gets any deeper and it needs stitches.”

I narrowed my eyes as he suddenly turned to me and held my hand and it made me nervous.

“I fucked up,” he said quietly and I took a deep breath and then looked at his hand as it shook slightly on top of mine.

“In what way?” I asked him and he looked down and then back up at me.

“The worst way,” he added and I pulled my hand from his.

“Who?” I asked him and he turned and leaned back on the seat.

“No one, just a girl. In a bar, about 3 weeks ago.”

I sat there and then turned to see the heart being broken up even more by the running water streaks through it and
felt the same, as if I was watching my own heart. I tried to calm down and looked back towards him as he watched me closely.

“Did you get paid?”

He nodded to me.

“I felt…I mean we were running low on money and you need things Beth, so do I.”

“I just needed you, Ryan,” I said to him and he reached out to me and I moved away as he adjusted in the seat and pressed the button on the car to start it up.

“I want to go home now,
” I said to him and we drove away, no better than we had arrived.

****

It is so funny how lights flicker on and off in the city. For example, a huge sign can have a million of them that make up a picture and if one goes out you can barely notice it unless you get up real close and study it. Small fractures making it imperfect as all things are when you linger long enough. People with OCD suffer so badly from this as they see cracks in everything, nothing is ever good enough, straight enough…pure enough. I had returned home that night and thrown my clothing away and immediately went shopping and replaced it all with white things. White shirts, white shoes, white pants, belts…hats. My whole closet looked like a fucking mental institution when I was done with it but for some reason all color had to go, everything in the penthouse too as I changed it all to white, all pure with no smudges of any kind on anything and if it did get scuffed as in shoes, plate…anything, it was then discarded and replaced with more white. I know Ryan thought I lost my fucking mind and perhaps I had. Who knows and why the fuck should he care really? I had stripped it all in one week along with Ryan’s dignity as best that I could.

I stepped out of the bedroom and he stood there looking as miserable
as I had made him with no expression on my face.

“Ready?” I asked him and he nodded as we left and the driver was waiting downstairs by the curb. Ryan had tried to touch me in the elevator and I slapped him several times and he just let me until I stopped and straightened my shirt and jacket, letting my hand calmly rub the front of my white skirt and he adjusted his hair. I don’t let him touch me unless I say so and that is not often.

I stepped out the car as Ryan held my hand and stared at all of the people in graveyard. I fucking hate this place. It stinks of failure in my opinion and reminds me of what could have been and not what is. We walked up the concrete steps that led to the black casket lined in gold and I watched as the priest started his ritual of bullshit, talking about the hereafter and all that. I never believed. It is not something my family handed down to me. In fact, I had been taught to believe in one thing and one thing only, me and my lineage, of which I was not having a hard time focusing on now. My father stood there all cold and hard as well as Miko beside him and two nannies holding my brothers who were growing quicker than I expected. Miko eyed us and then leaned over to my father who also looked and I did not care at this point. I mean Ryan was what to me exactly? I guess I could leave him to rot with me or I could set him free but what fun would that be exactly? My father walked up to us and stared Ryan down.

“Why are you here?” he asked him and I spoke.

“I asked him to come with me, Father.”

Father looked at me and shook his head.

“We had one stipulation, only one,” he said and I watched him without saying a word.

“Dinner at 8,” h
e said to me as he glanced at Ryan and I nodded to him and then walked up to the casket and stared at it. I turned as Miko was dabbing the corner of her eye with her tissue and I smirked at her without even trying. I hate her too, always have, and what is the use of fucking hiding shit now? Holland is gone, as is Mother…Ryan might as well be dead too. I have nothing to fear of losing anymore and that makes me dangerous, as dangerous as my Father is and always has been. I am starting to understand what true power is.

The priest started to talk about redemption and how
graceful Holland was in life and I laughed under my breath and walked away, leaving my one true friend behind me forever. If she was truly graceful then what was I exactly? And redemption is just a way for people to control others, promising some bullshit happy ending. You make your own endings just as Holland has. She wasn’t thinking about me when she took whatever the fuck she was on. She was as selfish as the rest of them and for that she could rot for all I care. I only came for one reason, to wear white to a funeral and show my father that I do exactly as I want to, when I want, and with whom. I am positive he is only having me to dinner to berate me on Ryan and he will find out that Ryan can come or go but I am having fun as long as I can with him before he is stripped away with threats of poverty.

I sat at the table as the help brought in our plates and I stared at the octopus on my plate with disgust. Fucking Miko loves to have this shit torment me. I swear to God she is a succubus from hell. I looked up and she grinned at me as she slipped some of the slimy shit into her mouth and chewed. I took a drink of my wine as Ryan sat next to me not eating. He was a wreck. I knew it and I cannot lie and say that I cared much. I mean
, I had given to him what no one had managed to take yet, and that was loving someone completely, more than I did anything else in the world and I had no idea how much I did until he told me what had happened. I didn’t even ask for details, I didn’t need any. I knew and it played in my head constantly as I could imagine him stroking his cock and then slipping it into that bitch’s cunt, all wet and wanting. She probably hissed at first at the size of him as I had. He is larger than most but too bad his fucking brain did not match the size of his dick. She probably tried to kiss him and he held her hair tightly, wound in his hand, making her stick her tongue out to meet his as he fucked her harder and harder in some bathroom stall. I blinked as I heard the clinking on a glass and came back to my senses. Father rose up and stared at the table and then at Miko.

“
To the mother of my sons,” he said as he swayed on his feet a bit. He had been drinking long before we arrived and it was no surprise to me. His drinking had become constant since mother died and I could even smell it on him at Holland’s funeral. Miko toasted him back and looked at me. I grinned and drank without toasting, she can fuck herself.

“It is a shame,” s
he said and I looked across the table at her as she placed her glass down and played with the rim of it with her golden fingernails.