The Girl On The Half Shell (36 page)

I laugh. I don’t feel like laughing. I don’t want him to go. How long will he stay?

Shit. It’s 6 a.m. and this hideous night feels like a slow moving century. It feels like it’s never going to end, time isn’t making me feel better, and the phone won’t shut up. I miss Alan and I don’t want to.

I stare into my cup of tea. Only a stupid girl would miss Alan after what he did to me. I grab another tissue.

Jesse is staring at me. “It’s going to be OK.”

“Don’t you have somewhere you have to be? How long do you think this will last?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. It will blow over. It always does.” He’s trying to be calming, nonchalant. “I can stay as long as you want me to.”

I wipe my cheeks and blow my nose. “There is food in the kitchen. I’d cook you breakfast except I don’t know how.”

He laughs. He puts a pillow on his lap and instructs me to lie down. I curl into a ball and he tugs the blanket around me. His fingers start to gently stroke my hair.

“You look exhausted, Chrissie. Go to sleep. I’ll stay right here.”

He takes the receiver and lifts it off the rest. My eyes round. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere, just giving us both a break. If you want, I can stay until it’s time for your plane and I can take you to the airport.”

I nod, too overwhelmed by his kindness to answer him. I close my eyes. I need to try to sleep. I will never make it from New York to California if I don’t sleep.

I hear the elevator and then the door open. Jesse tenses and nudges me. “Didn’t you tell the doorman not to let anyone up?”

My eyes round as I stare up at him. “No, because they don’t. Not ever. Not without permission.”

“Oh shit,” he says, staring at the entry.

I look toward the foyer.

Alan.

* * *

Alan stares and I remain curled on the couch next to Jesse. I focus on wrapping my fingers around my lukewarm teacup, though internally, even as hurt as I am, I am pathetically thrilled that he came after me, even if it took him three hours to go six blocks.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it. And then please go,” I snap and every line of his face hardens.

“May I sit down?”

I point at a chair a good distance from me.

“I did not expect you to leave,” he says in a rough desperate sort of way.

“You told me to go.”

“It was bullshit at a party, Chrissie,” he says, his voice ragged and low. “I didn’t want you to go. I was angry. I never thought you would leave.”

I still haven’t looked at him. I stare hard into space in a part of the room away from him. In my peripheral vision, I see Alan fix his burning stare on Jesse.

“Would you mind leaving us alone,” he demands tersely.

“I’m not leaving unless she asks me to,” Jesse replies firmly. He tilts up my chin to look at him. “Do you want me to leave, Chrissie?”

I shake my head, biting my lower lip because I can feel myself weakening. If Jesse leaves, I will fall to pieces and Alan will mold me any way he wishes.

“Are you going to make me do this in front of the press, Chrissie,” Alan says.

“Whose fault is that?” I snap, in spite of my resolve to stay emotionless. I look around. “Did you bring my things, Alan? Can you have someone bring them over today? I’m catching a plane to Santa Barbara this afternoon.”

“No,” he breathes, his eyes wide with panic. “You are not going anywhere, Chrissie. Not like this. Not over this, please.”

“This? You call it
this
?” I look at him directly then. I can’t stop myself. “You humiliated me, dragged me out of a party, and then told me to get out. And while I was packing my things I was trapped in a bathroom being humiliated all over again by your friends. Do not call it
this
.”

“You’re the only person in my life who matters to me,” Alan says quietly.

“Well, you’ve got a strange way of showing it,” I scream and my voice cracks.

“I don’t know what you heard, but whatever it is, I apologize for it. It won’t happen again, Chrissie. I swear.”

“Please go.”

“NO. And I am not going to tiptoe around what I want to say any longer.” Alan is on his feet, angry and full of restless energy. “I am tired of this, Chrissie. Send him on his way so we can really talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” I say, and I hate that my tone sounds pouty and little girlish.

His penetrating black eyes burn into me. “If we don’t talk this through today, we will never speak to each other again.”

I blink at him. What does that mean? That easily he can send my chaotic emotions into full free-fall. I am angry. I am hurt. And I am the injured party here, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to never see him again, and I don’t know for certain that that isn’t what he is warning.

It is probably stupid, but right now it feels like if he walks out the door I won’t make it through the day.

I wipe my nose with another tissue and sit back a little away from Jesse. “Can you go, please?”

Those kind hazel eyes search my face. “Are you sure?”

I nod.

Jesse pulls something from his wallet and scribbles on the back of it. He holds out a business card. “I’ve put Sandy’s number on the back,” he explains. I don’t take the card. He puts it on the table. “If you need me, if you need anything, call me.”

I feel on the verge of tears again and I don’t trust my voice. I can’t push out my words. I nod.

I will call to thank him, when Alan is gone. He was such a nice guy to me and I hate that I can’t be gracious because right now it feels like a machete is hacking at my insides.

Once the elevator doors close, Alan sinks back into his chair. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. You, I owe nothing.”

That hurt him. I can see it in his eyes. He moves toward me until he is sitting on his knees in front of the couch beneath me. “I love you, baby,” he breathes. “It was a bad night. I had a lot going on and I could have really used you being there for me.”

I shake my head. I feel my heart accelerate. I feel my limbs go weak, and I just want to bury myself against him and cry.

“You were horrible to me. There are times I don’t feel like I know you at all.” I don’t know why this is the place I want to start. I rally my strength. “Did you screw Rene?”

His eyes flare and widen. “I’m repulsed by her. Why would you ask me that?”

“Someone told me you did. She’s my best friend, Alan. How could you do that and think it wouldn’t matter later to me?”

He sits back and runs a hand through his hair, confused and angry. “Is that what that bitch told you? No. Never. I did not fuck Rene.”

“It wasn’t Rene who told me. Apparently everyone knows you did it in the bathroom at The Blue Light. It’s funny how everyone always seems to know everything you do.”

“Well then it’s news to me because it didn’t happen,” he growls, his gaze so intense, his expression so open I nearly believe him.

“Are you saying that you didn’t take her into the bathroom for a fast screw?”

“I’m saying I didn’t fuck her in the bathroom at the club,” he grounds out. “You were loaded and she was too absorbed in herself to give a damn if something happened to you. I took her to a bathroom and I got in her face and made her take you home. And that’s the end of what happened, and if she tells you otherwise she’s a liar.”

I can barely breathe because I know he’s telling me the truth. I can also feel the power he wields over me, how my traitorous emotions pitch and chase after him.

He starts to pace the room, and I can feel his body pulsing with anger. “The bullshit always fucks everything up, Chrissie. I can’t stop the bullshit and you’re going to have to learn not to listen to it. I have always told you the truth. I will always tell you the truth.”

“How many girls have you been with?”

God, why did I bring that up again?

“I don’t know. Does it matter?” He takes a sharp breath, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck, give me a notepad. I’ll write down names, whatever I can remember. Do you want positions, too? Christ, Chrissie, why does any of this matter?”

I look around the room.

“Don’t bother,” I whisper. “Better question. Why did you screw me in a bedroom and dump me last night? You wanted to humiliate me last night. Why did you want to hurt me?”

His eyes widen with pain and almost tortured reluctance. “I didn’t like that you wanted to be with him instead of with me,” he admits after a long while.

“I didn’t want to be with him. I just didn’t want to be at the party. Your reaction was completely irrational. I didn’t do anything to deserve any of that. What did I do that was so awful that you would want to deliberately hurt me?”

He’s frustrated again. I can tell he doesn’t want to answer, and he doesn’t like the direction I’m taking this.

“Lillian was a very popular actress in her day and the biggest whore in London, Chrissie,” he says through gritted teeth. “I didn’t even know who my father was until I was eighteen and he died. Lillian gifted me with the truth and a trust fund, as if everything would be fine. I knew him my entire life and never once did he acknowledge me. I didn’t have a clue he was my dad.”

He turns away from me and I can see something powerful coursing through him. “My father was Vittorio Manzone.”

My eyes round in surprise. “The Italian tenor?”

He nods.

He stares down at me. “You hit a nerve, Chrissie, not wanting to be seen with me, and I fucked up. I’m still working through some things. You have to be patient with me. I’m doing my best here.”

“I don’t think your best works for me, Alan,” I whisper with more injury in my voice than I want to show.

“I’m doing my best,” he repeats, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m being honest with you, I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone, and if you were anyone else I wouldn’t be here or trust being honest.”

I change course. “I’m not staying in New York any longer. I have to go home.”

He takes a deep breath and doesn’t move.

“You are not leaving, Chrissie.”

He leans in to kiss me and I inch back instinctively. If he touches me I will crumble. I pull farther back.

“You need to go.” I’m proud of how my voice sounds this time. Calm. In control. Firm.

“What? No.” He eases back from me, blinking. “No, I’m not leaving until we’ve worked this out.”

“There is nothing to work out.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You’re not good for me.”

“How can you say that? We are good for each other,” he says in desperation. “I am completely lost in you and that’s a good place to be, Chrissie. A very good place to be.”

I look away from him again.
I am lost in you too, Alan, and I’m not sure if that is a good place to be.
I feel the tears. I grab a tissue. I hate that I’m crying, that I couldn’t hold it back until he was gone.

I stare about the room. I’m so tired. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want Alan to leave. I want to curl up in bed, cry, and then fall asleep next to him. But I can’t forgive him. Not after last night. I need to send him away.

“When will you send my things over?”

“Never. You’re not going.”

He sinks down on the sofa beside me. I can suddenly see how tired he is. It feels so very right to have him close to me. “I love you. I don’t want to fight. Please, don’t leave.”

“You hurt me.”

He swallows. “I love you.”

He inhales sharply, lies his head back against the cushion and closes his eyes. He looks so despondent, so weary, and so young. It’s so unfair that he can shift effortlessly into someone who melts my heart. It makes me want to curl into him, hold him, even after the horrible things he’s done.

“I’m so tired, Chrissie. Tired of the bullshit. Tired of everything. I just want one thing in my life not drowning in shit. I just want to be with you and be happy, be with you and let all the other fucking shit go.”

His lids lift just enough so he can look at me. Gently, he tugs my hand from beneath me, where I’d buried it so he couldn’t take it. He places a feather-light kiss in my palm.

“Can we just go to sleep and finish this later, Chrissie?” He sets my teacup on the table. “Never argue when you’re tired. It’s not good. And I won’t be able to sleep unless you are next to me.”

I hesitate. Alan picks me up and carries me to my bedroom.

* * *

Reluctantly, I open my eyes. I don’t want to wake. I don’t want round two of the fighting. I don’t want to end us. And I don’t think I should go any farther with Alan. I’m at a point where I can exit. Only I don’t want to exit, though I know deep down I should.

I check the clock. It is 10 p.m. We’ve slept fifteen hours straight, and I have not moved from the tight ball on the edge of the bed where I deposited myself after Alan released me. I didn’t argue with him about postponing our fight or lying down with him to sleep, but I wasn’t about to lay down with him as if everything were normal. I don’t know where we are, but we are not in normal. Not that we are ever in normal, not really, not in the way I used to think normal would be. Alan and I together are a lot of things. Normal just isn’t one of them.

I carefully turn to look at him. I want to get up, but I don’t want to wake him. He is wrapped around me in that warm, surrounding way that feels as though he is holding onto me, even in sleep. His flesh is warm. His breathing is quiet.

How do I get out of here without waking him? I need a little distance so I can think through what I should do.

Suddenly, my panties are gone and I am pressed into Alan in a perfect, side-by-side fit, and he is in me without foreplay or stirring touch or kisses. He’s just in me and this is different. It feels dark and angry as he slams into me, filling me, even more so than it did being pounded against the bedroom door.

His groans are different. His touch is different. His fingers on my breasts are different, the way those callused tips roll my nipples, tugging and pinching. He is something beyond angry, I can feel it, and I close my eyes, absorbing him, part afraid, a greater part hungrily savoring. The sensations through my flesh push me higher, too quickly, so right.