Warning some serious topics of abuse ahead in this chapter as well as other topics.
~Noeme
Liam smiled, he was in adoration of her and venerating Carla like a devote follower venerates a saint. He had come to New York with such a weight in his heart, with nothing to look forward to but a life wedding to a woman he could not love, and to nights that would be spent afterwards sleeping side by side like figures on a tomb. Carla was tangled in him, their hands clasped together like second nature; they were not figures on tombs at all.
The fact that she was here with him now truly made him appreciate the finality that exists with each and every moment, they would never be exactly as they were now. Carla stirs beside him, before settling down once more. He delicately moves his arm out from around her and kisses her forehead before getting up off the floor. Carla wraps the freed up sheet around her and continues dreaming.
Liam walks into his bedroom and going into the bathroom he turns the bath faucet, plugging the drain and watching as the water rises. He decided he better make himself decent before Albert and his secretary arrived, he still had some more business to do. He would wake Carla after and send for some food when she was in the bath. When the water has risen, Liam puts his leg over to climb in.
"You weren't going to invite me in?"
Liam turns around to see Carla grinning at him in the doorway. She is wrapped in the sheet once more, her raven hair flowing down to her shoulders. She looked like a goddess, he wanted her again, and he is addicted to her.
"I thought you were sleeping?"
"I was until you left me; that woke me up with a start. I can't bear for you to leave me anymore. I've been without you too long."
"Come here," he says he can feel his blood rushing again, "Close the door."
Carla closes the door immediately letting the sheet drop from her body she takes her time walking towards the tube, he is delirious with want he barely speak. She blushes under his gaze and slowly extends one leg over the base of the tube and then another. He was speechless; she looked like Botticelli's birth of Venus. She seats down opposite of him, letting the water engulf her and slowly he pulls her closer to him…there was that gasp again. Then she falls on top of him, kissing him and giggling as water splashes everywhere. He feels her fingers move through his hair, getting it wet. They make love again, the third time in one day.
She leans with her back against his afterwards. They are both speechless, just so far gone. Liam knows he never wants to come back from the depths of these feelings. She gave him the much-needed strength to face the day, filling him up to face what lay ahead. He strokes the top of her wet head, resting his chin upon it in a daze staring straight ahead as Carla talks to him. They aren't talking about anything in particular, just random things, things that only people who have known each other long enough would think to talk of. The familiarity that exists between them is so strong; it doesn't feel like they have been separated for five years anymore. It only feels like a day. He forgave her everything, all the pain and hurt. This made up for everything, they could finally be together, and it was no longer an impossible dream.
"Why did you choose the name Dacia Matheson?" Liam asks Carla. He has been wonder this since he first met her again.
"I don't know. I always liked the name Dacia, I liked the sound."
Liam looks down at her catching her beautiful green eyes and giving a quick smile, "And Matheson?"
"Oh, well that is the last name of the servant at Paradise Palace, Mary. She saved me you know, I owe her a great deal."
"Hmmm," Liam says going back to staring at the wall. Carla grabs his fingers, kissing them delicately. He can feel the unsteadiness of her grip, there was that trembling again.
Silence passes between them and then he can't take it anymore and he has to ask her because of it doesn't it will bother him all day.
"How long have you been trembling like that?"
Immediately Carla drops her hands from his view trying to shield them, "What trembling?"
"Carla I can see your hands. They're trembling profusely, what's wrong?"
"From childhood," she says quickly, "A habit from childhood."
"A habit," Liam replies raising his eyebrows, he swiftly grabs her hand bringing it up to his face for closer examination, "You call this a habit?"
"That is what father used to say. He told the nuns to smack it out of me, that is of course after he had them force me to stop writing with my left hand. Please don't look at it, I hate it when people look at it."
"What caused it?"
"Hysteria, or that's what the doctors say. I rather like to think it was the countless hours of being made to feel imperfect. With father at home and the nuns who tutored me breathing down my neck, I got nervous a lot."
"I could kill him for what he did to you," Liam says angrily, It makes him mad that the woman he loves has been made to suffer for so long, It angered him that her father and Antony took her for granted, they had caused this. When the time was right Liam felt he would kill Antony to.
"Can we not talk about it anymore," Carla pleads squirming against him almost like how a child would squirm from anything uncomfortable.
He didn't want to change the subject, but he was noticing that with Carla she often didn't want to elaborate on things or give him any reason for her various behaviors. If someone confronted her she ran away, or pleaded and tried to act tough. He remembers the first time they made love against the tree how she had tried to runaway from her feelings for him then. She glared at him and pushed him away, but he wasn't having any of it and he certainly wasn't having any of this at the moment either. He needed to know that his love was okay and would be okay.
"That's all it is, childhood?"
"Yes Liam, now please can we be done with it?"
"If it was something more you would tell me, right?"
Carla let out an exasperated sigh, "Yes."
"You never did tell me why they call you Carla instead of Caroline?"
"Yes I did," says Carla her voice showing signs of annoyance, "It was a habit from childhood."
"Whose habit?" Liam says deliberately. Another habit, he thought, could she blame him for wanting to know more about her?
"Someones," she says rather curtly. The anger surprises him and she shrivels up in an instance moving away from him, "What time is it? I better get ready."
"What? Have I upset you Carla? I just wanted to ask a question, and it was a simple one at that."
"Liam," she says grabbing for a towel, "You don't know when to stop. I don't want to talk about it anymore."
Liam wasn't going to back down and she should know this now, "What don't you want to talk about? The reason behind all your tremors, or why you're called Carla? I really don't understand the big deal?"
Carla has her back turned to him drying off, "Why do you have to ruin a good thing? Why can't you just leave it alone?"
Liam now throws his arms up into the air letting out a incredulous laugh, "But that's the thing? What am I leaving alone exactly? You always seem to be harboring secrets."
"What is this about Liam? I don't think it's about secrets from childhood. You must be mad about something else, and looking for a reason to push me away."
"Me push you away," says Liam now rising from the tub and reaching for a towel, "When have I ever pushed you away? Name one time Carla, or are you just trying to change the subject and run away like you always do." He was becoming infuriated and wrapping the towel around his waist he steps out of the tub. They had just gone from being so happy to fighting.
"I have good reason to run away," Carla says glaring at him and walking out into the bedroom. She starts rumbling his covers and looking around on the floor.
"What are you doing?" Liam says now very annoyed with her theatrics. She always had to switch back and forth between loving him and running away.
"I'm looking for my dress, I am leaving now."
"Like clockwork you are, so predictable Carla. Running away again?"
"Yes," she says icily, "You are smothering me, acting like I have some big secret to hide just because I didn't tell you about my bloody tremors. Well so what Liam? That it isn't the first thing I blurt out when I meet someone. So now you're going to get all mad like I am hiding things from you. I am leaving."
"No you're not," Liam says, "You're staying here." He wasn't going to back down as he shoves on his underwear and yesterdays shirts and pants. He rushes to the door blocking her exit.
"Get out of the way," Carla whispers, "Liam get out of the way."
"Stop being so dramatic."
"Get out of my way," her tone is deadly.
"Stop being dramatic."
Carla swings at his hands with such force it startles Liam, but he won't play her game. He won't let her just run because he asked her a question he didn't even know was a bad one.
"You say I'm just looking for a reason to push you away Carla? Well I think it's you who's looking for an escape route. To bad I wont be giving it to you this time,"
She keeps trying to push him out of the way in attempts that Liam finds truly pathetic because he is much stronger. He isn't going to lose her for another five years over something so stupid. But he felt in a sense that she owed him an explanation over something that was so little since she had never bothered to give him an explanation for the reason she broke his heart. Perhaps he was still a little angry just and hadn't know it.
"AHHHH," she screams like a child not getting her way, "Liam this isn't funny anymore. I want to go home."
"Stop keeping secrets then."
"I'm not keeping anything from you. You're overreacting over nothing."
"You have an option, answer me one of these two questions. Why did break up with me at the ball? What was the real reason, don't say Antony because I won't believe you."
He sees that her green eyes go wide and there is a fear that etches across her face. So he was right, she was hiding secrets. He kept her eyes locked to his and gripping her hands leads her backwards until she is sitting on the edge of the bed and then speaking concise and clearly says,
"The second question you can answer is why you like to be call Carla. It's your choice."
Her breathing is shallow and the look in her eyes that was tender no too long ago was full of anger.
"You really want to know why I'm called Carla?" she says her voice is low and struggling to maintain its composure.
Liam nods his head yes. He is glad he is getting something out of her that she has calmed down now.
"It's for much the same reason that I tremble."
"I don't understand—"
"I had an uncle, my auntie Barbara's husband. He used come into my room at night on visits-"
The blood drained from Liam's face. He feels guilty, like what he was about to hear was something he shouldn't. He immediately wanted to take back his incessant need to know, "Carla you don't have to tell me-"
"No, you wanted hear right? For there to be no secrets between us? So here it is Liam. He would come into my room and do unspeakable things to me and when he was done, he'd always call me Carla. He was the only one who was nice you see, the only one who didn't require me to be perfect. I liked him until he did what he did to me, but by then the name already caught on for the rest of the family. I finally realized the only reason he was nice was so that he could do those things to me. Caroline died along time ago Liam. It's been Carla since I was fourteen years old; Carla is the tremors, the hysteria, the girl who dropped out of the ballet academy. Why should I be known by anything else other than what I've been made, " she flings his hands from hers and gets up moving past him.
Liam gets up turning around, "Carla," he says his heart is breaking, "I didn't—"
"You didn't know, but now you do," her voice is icy still, " And you're right I have been keeping secrets."
Liam does not say anything he just moves towards her wanting to take back the past few moments, to make things alright again. But she puts her hand out to block him.
"I've been keeping secrets Liam. But that's not the biggest one."
"Carla what are you talking about?"
"Your son Liam."
Liam feels the blood drain from his face, did he hear correctly.
"What?"
"Your son," she says her voice is full of so much anger and so much pain. It's true intent he knows is to cause him pain for making her reveal the abuse by her uncle, "I had your son Liam and I gave him away."
"Wh-," he feels his legs collapsing beneath him. He looks up at her and sees she is still glaring the feeling is gone from her eyes, "You're joking."
"I'm not," she whispers.
"Why?" he hears himself saying pitifully, "I don't understand?"
"Five years ago I had your child and I gave it away. That is why I ran away, theirs your answer. That is why I broke your heart at the ball."
He collapses on the floor he can feel the tears coming. This had to be a sick joke. But the way she is looking at him he knows it is not. And then feels it rise within him an anger he has never felt before. It is an anger that only exists along side anguish. He feels completely betrayed, like he is staring at her all the times he had, but this time it was not in awe but instead like it truly was the first time he was actually seeing her, and he did not like what he saw.
"Get out," he whispers and this action seems to catch Carla off guard because he has never spoken to her with such a venomous tone, "Get out."
"Liam—"
"When were you going to tell me Carla? HUH? WHEN? How many times were you going to let me make love to you like a fool before you told me? What were you just going to wait until you got pregnant again, maybe give that baby away to?"
The anger is wiped from her face and Liam can see that she can now comprehend the fatality of what she has just revealed But it is too late to take any of it back. He can never look at her the same, and she knows this. She knows he is slipping away so she drops to her feet and tries to reach at him. This time it is him who backs away.
"Liam it wasn't like that you don't understand-"
"I don't understand a lot when it comes to you."
"You hurt me and I just said it because I wanted to hurt you," she tries to reason.
"No Carla, that was all the truth. You're just trying to backtrack"
"Liam just let me explain—"
"There is no explaining THIS."
"Liam-"
"All this time I have felt so bad for the way things ended up between us, for five years I have been wanting to see you, be with you. But now it's like I am staring at you and I don't know who you are. You're not the woman I was with last night, you're not the woman I saw five years ago for the first time painting in the summer sun. Maybe that was never who you truly were… who are you? Why would you say something like that, even if it was lie; I don't understand you." Liam feels his heart closing up because he is completely immune to the tears that are running down her face. He hates her and he will never forgive her this, the betrayal was too much he can't even speak of it.
"Liam I had to get away from Antony."
"You didn't have to give away my boy! You had no right! I just want you gone, please leave and don't ever come back."
"Liam we finally have a real chance to start over. I was just angry because you made me bring up things from the past."
He can barely hear her speak because his mind is going a million miles a second, "There is no we," he says without emotion, "You gave up my child. I had a son I didn't know existed. You gave me up the day you gave him away; you gave away a piece of me. Now get out, get out of my life. I don't ever want to see you again."
Carla struggles with the depths of his words, he can see that she is truly wounded. He does not care, never has he wanted to hurt someone as badly as he wanted to hurt her. Finally she realizes that the fight is up and slowly she rises from the floor. He is on the floor slumped against the bed, just staring past her shoes. He will not look at the full length of her; he just wants her to go. She stands for a moment more, before hastily turning on her heels and leaving the room. Liam watches her shoes go and all he thinks is how everything is not beautiful, it was never was not after all. The most beautiful things in life had ugly secrets; he would never trust her again. He wanted to erase her from his memory, he wanted to take back all of yesterday. He breaks down and gives way to the tears; until he is sobbing and howling violently. He gave his heart and she gave it away, she gave away his child and buried it like it was a childhood secret. He can't stand to be here anymore, anywhere where she also exists. More then anything he wants to be back home in England with his family.
I am kind of afraid that I will receive some backlash for this chapter. Please understand that this chapter was very hard for me to write. I adore Liarla so breaking them up again hurts my heart, but it had to be done. Have faith that they will find away back to each other again. Like any couple they will have their ups and downs. So please dear readers don't hate me.