Chapter 6

For the next few weeks, I went through the motions with Walter. I believed he was officially my boyfriend but I grew more and more paranoid as the days went on. I knew there was something more to this man than I knew. He had no friends or family that I had met. No parents I had seen. I had only seen his huge apartment once before. I knew he had tons of money, though he never told me exactly what he did for a living. He looked about twenty-five years of age, but what 25 year old is that rich? Unless he had inherited money from someone…

I kept coming back to my dream and what I saw when Walter touched me. I wanted to know what they meant. I wanted to know why I—Calliope?—was in my visions. I needed to know who Walter really was.

So on a Wednesday afternoon, when I was done with my shift at Littlehales', I went home and powered up my laptop. I decided maybe looking up this Calliope would help me a bit. Maybe there was a dedication page to her or something.

Google displayed pages about an instrument, a restaurant in Manhattan, a musical society, and many other odd sites. But the main result was a Wikipedia page about the Greek muse. I cocked my head, rereading the words. A Greek…muse. Greek. I thought back a few weeks to Lydia's prediction. Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love was on one the tarot cards. Huh. Interesting.

The next morning, I came to work with Lydia in mind. And after an hour or so, she finally waltzed in. I went alert. "Lydia, good morning."

She glided over to the counter. "Hello, darling, how are you this fine evening?"

I ignored the pleasantries. "Lydia, I need to speak with you. It's important."

She grinned and fondled with some of the candies on display like nothing was wrong. "I'd like my regular first, and then we'll talk, dear."

I untied my apron, pulled it off, and without looking behind me, said, "Gran, Lydia needs her regular." She hummed her assent.

I walked ahead of Lydia, over to where she usually sat. I sat down cross legged with my hands on my lap across from her. She was slower to get there as if shocked by my temerity. I didn't have patience to care though. I needed help.

She smiled at me in that cool, amused way. I just gazed back, waiting. She finally sat and merely gazed at me. I decided to go first. "I met the man you warned me about."

She chuckled. "Of course." She lazily gestured me on as if this was to be expected.

"I don't know who he is, Lydia. I know his name, obviously, but there's something he's hiding."

"What's his name?"

"Walter," I replied.

For the first time in my life, Lydia looked serious. Her smile dropped and something like recognition and shock flickered in her eyes. She looked at something past me, as if in deep thought. I looked on in confusion. "What's wrong?"

She blinked, snapping out of it, and smiling up at me. "Nothing." I raised an eyebrow, disbelieving. She rolled her eyes, waving a dismissive hand. "I know a man named Walter, no big deal. Just continue, please."

I did. "When I…met him, he touched my face and I…saw something. It was me, but not me at the same time. I had longer hair and I was cradling a baby and I just looked a bit different overall; I can't explain it very well. But the thing is that Walter said a name when he saw me. It was 'Calliope'. He said it like a question, like he thought I was her." I decided not to tell her about my emotional reaction when seeing Walter for the first time.

"Later that day, I fell asleep and dreamt of that same woman. Except I was an onlooker and she and Walter were kissing. But he stabbed her and she died…. A week later I was speaking to him and he spoke of a woman. A woman he had once loved. Calliope."

She just looked at me. "And?"

I sighed. "I don't know…do you think that I just look like her? It cannot be a coincidence that the woman he once loved looks exactly like me. Since I have no idea who my mother is, what if I have a long-lost sister? And Walter conveniently falls in love with her then me? It's insane, Lydia. My head has been running in circles for weeks, trying to find the answers to my questions. Something's happening that I don't know about." My voice gradually grew angry and panicked. I sighed and looked up at her brown eyes. "I'm so scared, Lydia." My voice grew thick with emotion. Good, I needed a good cry. "I don't who I am or what I'm supposed to do because I'm so confused and lost." I was just about to start the waterworks when Gran set Lydia's latte in front of her. Luckily, she was too busy with morning customers to realize my eyes were watering. As she walked away, I turned back to Lydia, who was sliding out of the booth to sit next to me. She pulled me into a one arm hug, like when I was little and I would tell her about the kids at the home. She rubbed my shoulder and let me cry on her nice clothes.

When my face was dry and I was just sobbing every once and a while, I admitted, "I think the only thing keeping me from telling him I love him, is that I don't know who he is. How can I love someone who keeps secrets?" She sighed. "Honey, I don't know. I really don't." Lydia looked like she wanted to say something throughout my entire monologue, but when this was all she said…I figured she didn't want to help me. Just like with Walter, these elusive secrets were more important than my sanity.

I looked down hopelessly. "I should get back to work. Thank you, Lydia." I hugged her one more time and got up. She sat and continued to sip her latte, reading a classic novel. I returned behind the counter. After about five minutes of work, I heard the door open. I didn't look up because I was too wrapped up in my thoughts, but I felt that change in the air, like everything was okay again. My hands stopped moving. "What's a pretty little girl like you doing here, eh?" I heard him say in a mock smoke-infested voice. I smiled reluctantly and turned around. There he was in all his glory. He was in a suit today, a dark blue one that made his eyes shine and glitter. I fidgeted but stood my ground. "What's a sexy, charismatic gentleman like yourself doing here?" I looked up at him under my lashes and pursed my lips just slightly. I knew the reaction it got out of him…and there it was. That hot, loaded look he gave me when he wanted me. I so wanted to bed this man, but something was clearly holding me back. I don't know if it was my conscience or what he was keeping from me. Or maybe they're the same thing.

He smiled at me and, tired of waiting for me to go to him, walked around to the back of the counter and lifted me up so I was sitting on the counter, my legs around him. I giggled as he nibbled on my neck. He smiled lovingly up at me and kissed me sweetly on the lips. I put my hands on his big shoulder blades and pulled him into me. There weren't many customers other than Lydia and a couple others. But only Lydia was in eyesight of us. Just as I thought this, though, I opened my eyes to the sound of a feminine gasp behind us. It was Lydia, standing near her booth as if she had stood to get a better look but stopped when she saw what she was looking for. Her mouth was hanging open and she looked positively horrified to see us. I pushed Walter off me when he didn't see her. He looked at me, confused, following my eyes to where Lydia was standing. He looked surprised for half a moment, but it quickly shifted to anger. Anger directed at Lydia? Did Lydia know him? She made it sound as though she did when I told her his name, but she had brushed it off as a coincidence.

Walter pulled away from me and walked determinedly toward Lydia. I reached out for him in panic, "Walter, what are you doing?" He wouldn't hurt her…?

He grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the back door. "I need to speak to her for a moment. Stay here, Azalea." I followed him but he slammed the door shut before I could reach it. I didn't try to open it. I knew he would just get angrier and tell me to go back inside. So I stood in the corner of the little mud room, waiting, afraid. I listened hard, wondering if I could hear what they were saying, I heard his deep voice speaking loudly and assertively but not shouting. Thank god. I heard Lydia's voice speaking just as loudly. I must have waited a minute for them but it felt like hours. Lydia came in first, slowing when she saw me. Her eyes were fiery and excited from their argument but when they saw me, they turned sad, like she felt pity for me. She didn't say anything, just walked back into the shop. I waited and heard the front door close with her exit. I knew without question, I wouldn't see her for a long time.

I waited for Walter to enter but he didn't. I crept outside to see if he was there and I saw he had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves, he was pacing up and down the alley, fuming. I walked down the steps toward him tentatively. "Walter?" I said tentatively. I was terrified. I had only seen him mad that first night in his car. But this was worse. "Walter, what's going on?" My voice was thick with coming tears and he noticed. He stopped in his tracks, looking up at me, and seemed to force himself to relax. I ran over to him and wrapped my arms around his mid-section like a child and held on tightly. I should have been running from this man but I just couldn't. He wrapped his arms around me tightly, and breathed deeply into my hair. "Nothing, my love. It's all okay." Tears came to my eyes because I was well aware that he was lying. It absolutely tore me down to see the man I loved direct such anger at a woman I looked up to since I was six. I was too rattled to press him any further, so I didn't ask any more questions. I laid my head down on his chest and didn't say a word more.

Lydia didn't come back to Littlehales'.

I still didn't know what happened and wasn't sure I wanted to anymore. I felt like maybe this was one of those things better left unsaid.

Walter did not offer any more information, but he treated me differently, at least for a little while. Like I was a kitten, soft and vulnerable, that he needed to be careful with. I didn't like it. But I couldn't blame him. I was acting much more vacant. I wasn't eating very much anymore and it was starting to show. I didn't go for walks with Ky anymore. I spent more time in bed, telling Gran that my nightmares came back, though it wasn't necessarily a lie. I was having nightmares, just not ones as bad as before I met Walter. I was miserable. I couldn't stop thinking about all the secrets Walter was probably keeping and what he told Lydia. I never kissed him as passionately as I used to. I could tell it made him sad but he didn't complain. I was surprise he stayed with me through all this. I was practically a zombie by now.

One day, a week or two after the incident with Lydia, in December, Walter was making me breakfast in bed. I had just woken up from another horrible nightmare, in which I was stabbing someone, a girl, repeatedly in the stomach. It was awful. So, naturally, I was in an awful mood and Walter was just trying to make me feel better. He brought me breakfast, with Ky right on his heels, and sat next to me. He had music playing through the speakers in my room. "Wait" by M83. He offered me the plate and laid down next to me when I wordlessly took it. He leaned his head back on his hands and closed his eyes. Ky jumped up on the bed and cuddled up with him. I sat for a few moments, staring at them, realized I wasn't hungry, and got up. I mumbled that I was going to take a bath. I left the door open behind me and started the bath. I didn't mind if either of them came in. Walter and I hadn't slept together yet but he also wasn't a stranger to my body. They both wandered in after me. Walter stood leaned up against the doorway, watching me strip out of my clothes. Once I was naked, the bath was half-way full and I got in. It was warm and I shivered in pleasure. Walter, barefoot and in worn jeans and a band tee, padded over to me, kneeling down on the floor behind me. I closed my eyes as he began to l massage my tiny shoulders. When he was done he played with my hair, kissing my shoulders lovingly every once and a while. I didn't smile. I barely moved. But when he asked me why I wouldn't eat, I opened my eyes. He had his head on my shoulder, in the crook of my neck, so he stared into my eyes unwaveringly. I swallowed and didn't make eye contact and said, "I don't know."

"Bullshit," he said heatedly, lifting his head. I sat up and turned to look at him in shock. He stared back defiantly in all his stunning beauty. "What is that supposed to mean?" I asked shocked.

"You know. You just don't want to tell me because something's holding you back."

"And what would that be exactly?" We were getting louder and angrier with every word.

"I don't know, Az, you won't tell me. I mean, look at yourself. You're like a skeleton. I don't know what I'm doing or not doing to make you feel this way." I glanced behind me at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. He was right. My skin was creamy but paler than usual, like I was sick. My ribs were being to show and I saw my brown eyes, huge on my newly hallowed face, peek at themselves through a curtain of wavy white-blonde hair. "I'm scared, love; I don't want to hurt you."

I looked away in disgust, stood, and got out of the bath, wrapping a towel around myself. I turned and walked back into the bedroom. He followed. Ky sat on the bed with his ears pinned in fear, sensing the mood.

"Azalea, please, speak to me," he said imploringly.

"About what?" I turned to face him and spoke in a pained voice. I had had enough. "About all the secrets you're keeping from me? About how little I know about you? What do you even do when you're not with me? How about the fact that I don't know any of your family or friends? How I don't even know what you do for a living, let alone your fucking birthday? I don't even know how old you are for gods' sake, Walter." He looked at me with a brooding expression, but nothing more. I was breathing heavily now.

"How about we talk about what the hell happened with Lydia? How about you tell me about your ex, Calliope, who for some fucked up reason, plagues my dreams?" At this point I was viciously spitting my words at him, but I stopped, took a few breaths, and whispered, "Tell me who you really are."

For the remainder of December, everything stayed the way it was. That was, Walter told me nothing more and I learned nothing more. But on the last day, moments before everything changed, I got a call from Luce. She talked about Phillip, about how she hasn't seen him in so long and that she missed him. I sighed. I loved Luce, but I had so many more things to think about than her boyfriend.

I had lost 15 pounds since I met Walter and I think I was falling into a depression. I didn't know what to do. Leaving Walter wouldn't bring me any satisfaction because everything here would remind me of him and make me miss him more. The only thing I could think of that would help me would be to leave Chicago completely. I was tempted to do so many times, but each time I thought about Gran and how alone she would be. I couldn't do it.

So I stayed, but as of today, it wouldn't matter either way.

It was the Sunday before Christmas and I realized I had left my dancing shoes at his house, so I drove to Walter's on the { } to get them before my lesson. He lived in an apartment on the thirtieth-something floor of the {

} He had given me a key to his front door so I let myself in, not even sure he was home. The door led to the romantically-lit, narrow entrance hall which, on the right, led to the living room and in turn, the kitchen. On the left, it led to the master and spare bedroom, of which I did not frequent very often. But since I usually found Walter lounging on the leather couches, reading, I moved toward the right out of habit, but slowed when I heard voices. From the left, not the right. I couldn't make them out very well, but I could hear an occasional laugh. Some instinct of mine lead me to quiet my breathing and take lighter steps, creeping slowly down the dramatically-lit hallway like in a dream. I felt detached from my body, like I was a mere onlooker, unfeeling, invincible, numb. A slow, creeping sense of dread swept over my body and gripped tightly on my heart. I took the entrance on the left which led to a sub-hall, with a closed doorway closest to me and one at the end of the hall. The one at the end let to the master bedroom and was cracked open slightly letting out a stream of bright light into the dark hall. As I got closer to the door, not making any sound, I heard the voices more clearly. There were only two and it was a male and female voice, speaking in hushed tones to each other. I recognized one of them as Walter, but the other I didn't.

When I reached the door, I put my eye up the crevice and looked inside the bright room. Walter was not alone, this much was obvious. My eyes tried to find the canopy bed I had only seen a few times before, on the wall directly across from the doorway. And there he was, in a tangle of limbs and sheets that took me a moment to process. He was with a woman.

A month ago, Azalea would have run from the building crying, but I quickly reminded myself of what I had wanted for so long: answers. So, ignoring the pain in my chest, I listened and watched.

Walter was on top of the woman, whom I could tell was absolutely beautiful. She had long auburn hair that must reach her hips. I couldn't tell, though, considering it was spread across my boyfriend's pillow. Despite that she was laying down I could also tell she had insane curves. Curves the Walter's hands were busy groping.

He whispered something in her ear I didn't catch. She giggled happily. I couldn't see his face because his back was to me but he breathed that laugh that I loved so much. My lips trembled. I wanted so badly to cry and yell at him but I couldn't. Not yet.

His whisperings were replaced by disgusting sounds of pleasure from both of them. I watched as the man I thought I loved rutted against another woman. The tears finally broke free of my defenses and a heart-broken sob left my throat. I threw a hand over my mouth and gasped, panicked. The woman gasped, "What was that?" But Walter had already turned around and looked at the door in surprise. I didn't wait to see if he saw me, I turned and ran down the hall, tears running down my face. Running back the way I came, it was very difficult to see behind the tears. I think I ran into a vase because I heard something fall and shatter, violently breaking the silence. But I didn't stop. It was hard to breathe while crying and running, so when I reached the elevator I stood and gasped for my breath waiting for the doors to open.

Hearing footsteps running toward me, fear choked my already sobbing body. I turned to see Walter's lean body turn the corner, eyes searching. He was in only his underwear, and much to my dismay, it crossed my mind how beautiful sculptured he was. But that only made me sob harder. He wasn't mine anymore, so it didn't matter if he was beautiful or not.

The elevator doors opened and when I moved towards them quickly, he made a grab for me. I was halfway in when he wrapped his arms around my mid-section, pulling me out. I kicked and screamed profanity at him, beyond rational. I fell to the ground, hoping to go under his vise-like grip but he just fell with me; we both lay on the ground now, him kneel over me. When his grip on me didn't loosen and the elevator doors closed with a gentle clink, I sagged in defeat, my face cringing in almost physical pain. I finally gave up with a glass-shattering scream, completely exposed and torn apart. His arms around me were like metal, unmoving. I was almost numb to his frantic apologies. I just had to get away. I needed to run far away. I needed leave this empty life behind me and never look back. But he would not let me go.

His useless words finally reach my ears, "My love, please, stop. Listen to me." My love? I was not his love anymore; how dare he say those selfish words. His own voice was thick with emotion; I looked up at his surprisingly pain-filled face. My sobs came softer now but the tears kept falling hot. "Walter, let me go," I moaned quietly. All of a sudden all the mystery of this man didn't matter anymore; the only mystery I cared about know was that he kept that disgusting woman from me.

I felt him shake his head against my back. "No, you can't leave me," he practically yelled. I didn't look at him when I said in a broken voice, "I'm not, you're the one that left me." Catching him by surprise, I stood and ran from his grip before he could even react. I ran toward the stairwell down the hall, my hair flowing behind me like a wind-blown mane. When I reached the door, I swung my head back to look at him, to see him one last time.

He was on his hands and knees, where I left him. He looked at me in devastating sadness. His face when I saw him for the first time flashed into my head. He looked as he does now. The parallels were horrifying. It occurred to me in that split second, that maybe he only stayed with me at the end because I reminded him of his dear Calliope. And now here he was, losing her again. Despite all those secrets and questions left unanswered, I loved him. I hadn't gotten to tell him, but it didn't matter now. I would never see him again. And yet, I felt my heart break as I ripped myself from his eternal blue eyes, pulled open the door to thirty-some flights of stairs, closed it with a definite thud behind me, and never looked back.