Chapter 7- Obsessing
I ran around the block back to my house, tears streaming down my face. I had left the back door unlocked, and hadn't brought my keys with me, so I went around to the backyard and entered through my kitchen. The sobs that had been threatening to break through my chest ripped with great force though now. I had never had the disgrace of being shooed out not long after sleeping with a man, and normally didn't sleep with men at all unless I was in a committed relationship, but this was bitterly painful. It had felt like we'd gone beyond just committed earlier that afternoon. I was confused, and hurt, and completely enraged. Lucian had completely betrayed my trust and used me to get what he wanted. How easy. Take advantage of the neighbor girl who's hurting badly. He was just another sex junkie, using it to get over his long lost love. It was a story as common as the carnal knowledge we had shared. It had felt like something completely different than just lust, or even love. It felt like a deep bond beyond love for which there was no definition. How wrong I had been, though. How weak, how mislead, how blindsided.
I knew how quickly down into alcoholism I was spiraling, but in that moment I could have cared less. I grabbed a new bottle of bourbon from my liquor cabinet and chugged down as much of it as I could, as quickly as I could. I turned my body away from the kitchen window, wishing to see nothing of Lucian or his house. I wanted to forget him at all costs. It was more than a little inconvenient that he lived behind me. Despite wanting to forget him, however, I still handled pain the way he did now. I was still turning out to be so much like the man I wanted now to forget. For the first time in a week since I'd moved here, I ran through my house closing every blind there was. I ran upstairs furiously, forgetting that window, and flung myself onto my bed, cursing the existence of beds in genera for the pain they'd brought me. I knew I'd probably be sleeping on the couch again tonight eventually. It was my habit now. Out of jealous curiosity, I looked out of my window to try and get a glimpse of the woman who was surely joining Lucian shortly. Instead, I saw a sight I didn't expect. There was Lucian's form behind his shades in the kitchen, doubled over in pain; I could clearly see the outline of his body, and he appeared to be leaning over the sink. Surely he was crying about his dead lover. I turned away in irritation. Naturally he'd forget about her for a while when his next victim came over, I thought bitterly.
I lay in bed, weeping sorrowfully, and replaying the night of Emery's death over and over in my head. I felt so cruel to have stopped grieving him for even a moment, especially for some guy who would forget my name and who I was by tomorrow. A flood of lyrics he had been working on for a possible new album in the future flooded my memory, and I found myself humming the melodies that went with the words through my sobs. I curled into a ball and started rocking myself until I fell into yet another fitful sleep. A disturbing montage of images flickered through my mind as I slept; Lucian's body wrapping around mine, Emery's mangled body that I helped identify in horror and shock- it was mangled almost beyond recognition- at the coronary's office, the funeral, what the accident would have looked like in my mind, Lucian's immaculate naked body, and his kind eyes and smile…
"EMERY!"
I awoke with a start, gasping for air.
"Oh God… what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the FUCK??" I swiped at my forehead, where beads of sweat had begun to collect, and sat up to find that I had been lying in a pool of sweat all around me. I was in such a frantic and confused state that I ran to the window, ripping it open, and desperate for some fresh air. I breathed in the night until my breaths slowed and my face cooled off. I noticed that the light was on in Lucian's kitchen, and that he didn't seem to have moved from the sink, at least probably not besides to turn the light on. He was still doubled over, and I could faintly see his chest heaving. It was apparent that he truly was in quite some pain. I wondered if there ever had been a woman over at all. But a few hours had passed. Of course. By now they had surely done The Deed, she'd left after he'd given her the same song and dance he'd given me, and now he was over the sink again, trying to forget about the one he'd lost. It made me sick. The air that I had hoped would feel fresh now felt stale and reminiscent of all of my pain, and I found myself suffocating in its poisonous atmosphere.
I slammed the window shut and headed downstairs to get some more bourbon and fall asleep on the couch, as was my nightly ritual. I had decided to hell with dinner; I would skip it. My stomach would just be empty again by morning anyway, as would be my heart. As I drank straight out of the bottle, a little slower this time, I picked up my guitar that was sitting in the corner of the great room on a stand, and began to strum some familiar chords. My heart hurt more than ever as I thought not only about Emery, but about the divorce from Alex as well. Misha was becoming more and more distant from me as her mother every day, and had been even when I still lived in Michigan before I met Emery. Alex had begun brainwashing her early on to hate me, and it was effectively working. She still would call me here and there, but we found that we had less and less to talk about as she got older, and I sensed there was less and less that she wanted to tell me. She only called on Christmas and my birthday and every now and then these days. It was heartbreaking, but I'd learned to accept it. It was just hard to believe I'd been there every step of the way until she'd been about two years old, and now she wanted nothing to do with me- hence why I'd moved so far away without the slightest hesitation. What was left for me now?
Thinking about the divorce and my estranged daughter only made me feel more alone. I cried and drank until I felt hollow, setting the guitar aside again, and singing The Odd Men Out songs a cappella in agonized drunken slurs. Emery would have known exactly what to say to me to make me feel better about Misha. We would have talked the whole night long and held each other, and made each other laugh until our chests hurt. We probably would have made love at least once, too. A small voice inside my head was trying to tell me that Lucian would know what to do to help me with my pain, too, but I was too busy drowning that voice out with bourbon, even though it was screaming as loud as its tiny pleas would allow.
"I don't believe you!" I yelled, and slammed the bottle down onto the coffee table. I realized that due to my despicable consorting with my neighbor, I hadn't had lunch, either, and I was feeling poorly with the alcohol taking effect this quickly, so I stumbled to the kitchen to grab a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich. Whatever it was that compelled me to open my kitchen window I decided to go with that instinct, damning myself for being so insane. I was startled to see that Lucian's shades were up again. He was looking out of his kitchen window, too. He appeared startled and shocked to see my window open and looked over at me wistfully as I masticated my sandwich angrily. I glared at him, closed the blinds and turned on my heel, headed back to the great room. I grabbed a CD I had compiled of the saddest love songs I could find, and put it in the stereo, playing the music as loudly as I could stand without hurting my ears. I began to bawl full force now, unable to stifle the shuddering sobs that came forth, each one leaving me nearly breathless. I left my half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table and cried myself hoarse until I fell asleep with my afghan over my eyes, blocking out the sunlight that would come in the morning. There was no sunlight in my heart, and I was pretty sure I never wanted to see the sun ever again.
Despite my best efforts to block him out, all I could think about was Lucian. I dreamt about him all night in a fitful sleep. I fell off of the couch more times than I could count screaming his name, waking up from a nightmare I couldn't remember. I kept thinking about whoever he had slept with, and how she compared to me. I kept thinking about what was going through his mind. I wondered what he had been thinking when he met me, having a plan in place all along to sleep with me. I wondered what he had thought when I turned around to leave. I wondered what had crossed his mind when our eyes had met in the kitchen tonight when I got my sandwich. I wondered if he was sorry for messing around. I wondered if the sex with the other woman- or women- had been better than it had been with me.
Somewhere around four AM I awoke, my stomach growling, and finished off my sandwich. I was still thinking about Lucian, of course. The thought I had forbidden myself the most strictly to recall came back to me at once, catching me off guard. I began to remember when we'd made love. The moment had felt so intense, so real, that now, despite the hurt, I could not stop thinking about it. The moment had been so incredible that upon recalling it, I was fighting the urge to pleasure myself just to get rid of the hollow urge I had to be satisfied that way again. As I tried to force myself not to remember, my fingers crept lower and lower beneath my clothes, and I bit my lip, trying to just forget.
Just then I jumped at the sound of frantic knocking on my kitchen door. I screamed, startled, afraid that there was some lunatic out there. Heart thudding, I tiptoed over to the door, and cautiously peered through the blinds of the little window on the door, careful to be sure that I saw who was there, but that they didn't see me. I relaxed when I saw it was Lucian. I wasn't happy to see him, but I was relieved to see that it was someone I knew.
I scoffed; knew, indeed. I thought I'd known him. "What to do you want, Lucian?" I yelled through the door, aggravated.
"Maya, please let me in! I need to talk to you," he pleaded.
"Can't it at least wait until morning? Not after midnight morning, but actual, 'hey look, the freaking sun's up,' morning?"
"No. It cannot. I'm desperate to talk to you and I can't stop thinking about you." He hesitated a moment- waiting, expectant. "Please."
"Jesus," I whispered to myself. "You don't want to see me exclusively, I get it. Don't just apologize to me. Don't just let it go on my account. By all means, make it more painful by having 'The Talk' with me. Just draw this out as long as you possibly can…" I mumbled as I opened the door. When he came in, he was crying, and he pulled me close and kissed me with passion, pressing against my lips with force.
"Jesus Christ… WHAT THE HELL? Get off of me, God!"
"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," he pleaded. "I just love you so intensely, you must believe me…"
I sighed. This was so pathetic, and was going to be a long night of an endless circular argument, from what I could see. I braced myself for more pain as I was about to embark upon a useless, repetitive and frustrating conversation.
A/N: Angst, angst, angst. Sorry again, that's another thing I thrive off of in my stories, haha. I'd just like to point out again that even though Alex, Maya and Misha are based off of my husband, my daughter and I, we are not divorced. I just simply couldn't kill off my husband even in a story, so in order to be able to relate to Lucian on the loss of a lover in the story I invented a relationship that I could botch off that wouldn't bother me since I'm not really in that relationship. *exhale* Okay. Whew. I'm verbose.