Текст книги "Rock Bottom"
Автор книги: R. K. Lilley
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TRISTAN
I woke with a start. My head was killing me, bile rising in my throat before I’d even opened my eyes.
I kept those eyes closed for a moment longer, my hands reaching out to feel the naked body beside mine, and then, with something akin to horror, another one, on my other side.
I recoiled when my hand skimmed over one plump breast.
I stumbled out of bed, barely making it to the bathroom before I began to wretch.
I emptied the contents of my stomach in huge, racking heaves.
I had no idea who it was in my bed, but I knew who it wasn’t, and that was enough to scare me sober.
She can’t find out, she can’t find out, she can’t find out, ran like a mantra in my head. We’d broken up, and she’d stopped taking my calls over a month ago, had in fact divorced me without so much as a phone call, but still, I’d been faithful before this.
I knew that this was unforgivable. It felt unforgivable.
I was in the shower, washing away the night’s sins, when pieces of the evening started coming back to me.
I remembered the fucking speedballs, the shots, and a whole lot of fuzzy details in between. The fucking morbid tribute to my brother, remembered not caring what happened to me, maybe even hoping that something bad would. Maybe I’d wind up in the hospital, and she’d feel so bad for me she’d take me back, I remembered thinking.
She’d been at the apartment, I recalled, in horror. Said she’d needed to tell me something, but I couldn’t remember what it had been. Had she told me and I’d forgotten, or had she not told me at all?
Of all of the nights for her to come and see me…things couldn’t have turned out worse.
Had she come back to reconcile? I felt so sick with guilt that I couldn’t bring myself to call her with two sluts still in my bed, but I had to find out why she’d come.
When I was clean again, my body, if not my soul, I walked with dread back into my bedroom. The two naked women were awake now, one calling out my name as she sat up to lean on her elbows.
I barely saw her, barely saw either of them, my eyes fixed on the spot above my bed where a picture should have been.
My gut twisted with dread.
Had she just come to get it? If so, was that a good sign, or a bad one? Had I given it to her, or had she taken it? I needed answers, but first, I needed to empty my bed, and burn all of my sheets.
I told the girls to get dressed, visibly cringing every time they made mention of the night before. I didn’t recognize either of them, and doubted I could have picked them out of a lineup. One had dark hair, one had light brown, both had fake tits. That was about as much as I noticed.
The dark haired one approached me, trying to get close. My arm flew out, warding her off.
She smiled, unfazed. “You were amazing last night. Even with two of us, we couldn’t keep up with you. You were a fucking stud. Fucked us silly.”
I ran my hand over my face, wondering if I was going to throw up again. “Go, please. I was trashed last night, and I don’t particularly want any reminders about all of the fucked up shit I did.”
They didn’t move, just staring at me.
“Get the fuck out!” I roared at them. “Just get the fuck out of my room!”
Finally, thankfully, that got results.
I cleaned my room, top to bottom, disinfecting every surface. I gave my bathroom the same treatment, since I was fuzzy on all of the sordid details from the night before.
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or further horrified when I saw that my wastebasket contained several used rubbers, but least I’d used some form of protection.
I threw up again.
I threw out my sheets. I only had one other set, but I didn’t care. I took them out to the dumpster like the trash they were.
I showered again, brushed my teeth, then went to work some more with the disinfectant wipes.
It was three in the afternoon when I called her.
It went directly to voicemail.
I took another shower.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Would she ever forgive me? Was there any way I could keep it from her? I hadn’t been unfaithful. Not technically, since we’d been very clearly broken up, but a technicality did not alter the way I felt, and the way I felt was wretched. In my heart, I was still married to her.
Would I be able to forgive myself if she’d come here to reconcile, to give me another chance, and I’d trampled over it in my hell-bent path of self-destruction?
That answer was easy to find. No.
I called her, got her voicemail, and cleaned my room again.
This went on for days.
Five days later, I got a phone call from Dean’s mother with news that would change my life.
She threw the details at me too fast for me to understand, her tone almost blank.
“Dead?” I repeated back to her. I hadn’t seen him in days, but that was hardly unusual. I was shocked beyond all comprehension.
Even so, I was not prepared for what came next.
“He had a passenger in the car, too,” she continued, and I thought she must truly be in shock to be acting so calm when her son had just died. “Some girl that worked for your manager, Jerry.”
I was in my room, back to the wall, and I fell against it, sliding to the floor, nearly dropping the phone. “Wh-what did you say?” I asked her, my voice a terrified croak.
“There was a girl in the car with him. The car is totaled, by the way. He’d have had a serious drunk driving charge on his hands, if he’d survived.”
“What happened to the girl? Is she okay?”
“The girl? Oh…did you know her? I’m not sure what happened to her. I didn’t ask.”
I hung up, calling Jerry.
Thankfully, he answered on the third ring.
He answered with, “She’s okay, Tristan.”
Following panic came fury. “Why didn’t you tell me? This was days ago! How could you keep this from me?”
There was a long pause on the other end. “Listen…Tristan…she doesn’t want to see you.”
My free hand reached over to my arm and began to scratch mindlessly at the skin of my other forearm.
Gut roiling, heart twisting, I asked, “She said that?”
“I’m sorry, man. Have to respect her wishes. She seems very resolute.”
“What hospital, Jerry?”
He sighed audibly. “You don’t want to come here, Tristan. It’ll be better if you don’t.”
“Tell me!”
“St. Rose.”
“You said she’s okay, but, was she hurt?”
“She got banged up pretty bad.”
“Tell me.”
“She hit her head pretty hard, got a concussion. She’s still in the hospital, but she should be fine.”
I swallowed hard, still scratching away at my arm. “Anything else?”
“She got cut up on impact some by the debris, but she’ll heal.”
Scratch.
Gouge.
Claw.
“Anything else?”
“Her knee was crushed. She should be able to walk again, eventually, but she’ll have a substantial limp. She won’t be dancing anymore, Tristan.”
My hand moved to my chest, right over my heart.
Scratch.
Gouge.
Claw.
The phone dropped from my hand, but not before the sound of my own sobs bled through to Jerry’s end.
I didn’t last three hours.
I was in my car before I realized that my hand was bloody. I glanced down at my arm and chest, genuinely surprised that I’d scratched myself that badly. I hadn’t felt a thing.
I went back up to my apartment, showered, changed, and headed out again.
It was only on my second run that I saw Danika’s car parked at the curb. I hadn’t left the apartment in days, but it must have been there from the time of the accident.
DANIKA
The news came at me in twisted waves. They gave it to me all wrong, making it hard for me process or understand. It was only as I heard Bev chewing out the doctor that I put some of the pieces together in order.
“That is not how you tell that to someone. If a woman just lost her baby, you do not start by telling her she can’t have any more. I’m a lawyer, you ass, so watch what you say to her, or I’ll sue you for emotional distress.”
That got the doctor the hell out of the room, and Bev was at my ear, stroking my hair, a comfort in a moment where that should have been impossible.
“I can’t really sue him for that, sweetheart. I just lost my temper, and that’s my go-to scare tactic. I would in a heartbeat though, if I thought we could win. That bastard deserves worse.”
I tried to pay attention, but my mind was just circling back to what I’d learned. “I lost my baby,” I whispered.
“I’m so, so sorry, Danika. I didn’t know you were pregnant, but I know you, and I know that, since you were, you wanted that baby. I’m so sorry.”
“And I can’t have any more.”
“No, my dear. I’m so sorry, and I know this is hard to think of now, but someday, when you’ve met the right man, and you’re at the right point in your life, you can adopt. You can still be a mother, Danika, just not in the way that you’d hoped for.”
I barely heard her, only focused on my pain, only focused on my loss.
I laid there, and felt as though my very soul seeped out of me with that loss.
I’d thought I was numb. Head to toe, heart and soul, numb. But alas, no, there was something left, something awful that fired up in my chest as Tristan walked into my hospital room, his face ashen.
I’d seen him heartbroken. I’d seen him reeling from loss. I’d seen him strung out, high, drunk, devastated, and out of his mind enraged.
But never had I seen him like this. He looked like a man who had lost his whole world.
It took every ounce of willpower I had not to cave at the sight of him.
Outwardly, I was calm, but my insides had become a tempest, a great storm that I wouldn’t let Tristan close to. He couldn’t be allowed even a glimpse of it. I had to at least appear composed and resolved if I had any hope, any prayer, of making it through this.
“I just now heard about the accident,” he croaked out. “How are-er-are you doing okay?”
I shrugged, having the hardest time meeting his bright, shiny eyes set in his haggard face. I couldn’t meet them for more than milliseconds at a time, or I knew I’d be exposed. There was just no escaping his eyes for long. “I’ll live.”
“Are you in pain?”
I shrugged again. “I’ll live. I don’t really want to talk about it.” My tone brooked no refusal.
“That’s fine, that’s fine. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
I thought that okay was a pretty generous term, but I held my tongue.
“Jerry told me that you didn’t want to see me. Is that true?”
It was difficult to get the word out. “Yes.”
He staggered back, visibly upset. His hand shot to his arm and began to scratch at a spot under his T-shirt. It took him a very long time to find his voice again.
Finally, the waiting was too much, and I closed my eyes, turning my face away.
“Did something happen that night? You were coming to see me. Did we have a fight? I saw that our picture was missing from my wall, but I don’t remember what happened. What did you come there to say to me?”
My mouth hardened. “Nothing important.”
“Danika, please—“
“Please, Tristan, please just go. We aren’t good for each other. Can’t you see that? After all that’s happened, isn’t that finally clear? I need to move on from you, and the only way that’s going to happen is if we stay clear of each other.”
“You’re wrong, Danika.”
“Listen to me, Tristan. You are bad for me. I am done.”
Horrible noises were leaving his throat.
I finally looked up to see him staring at me, the most devastated look on his face. He was scratching at his chest now, those low, harsh groans still coming out of him, as though escaping from deep in his chest. “Done, Tristan. Please go.”
I had to look away again, closing my eyes. I’d break for sure, if he didn’t leave soon.
I felt him watching me for a while before he spoke, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “Can I please have the picture back?”
“It didn’t survive the crash.” Like so many things.
Finally, mercifully, he left.
TRISTAN
Bev came at me like a Tasmanian devil. I’d never seen anything like it. A skinny white woman in her forties trying to take on a huge motherfucker like me.
I just let her abuse me, holding still as she pounded on my chest and slapped my face. She was panting and crying by the time she finally got it out of her system, glaring at me, the wrath in her eyes daunting. This was a formidable woman, not in size, but in will. I had no doubt that if she wanted a thing done, it would happen just how she wanted it to. I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if she put a hit out on me.
She poked a finger in my chest, her voice very quiet, but shaking with fury. “You need to leave. She’s asked you to go, and so that’s what needs to happen. Before you go, though, I have a few things to say. Did you know that guy Dean was giving her a ride home? Did that happen with your knowledge?”
I grimaced. So much of the night was a blur to me, but I did recall screaming something along those lines to her. I was almost positive that had been my idea. “I did. I’m sure you know that Dean was my roommate.”
“Danika was dosed with Rohypnol. Do you know what that is?”
My entire body stilled.
He wouldn’t have, I thought, my mind racing.
He’d never dare, I told myself.
“She was dosed at your place. The only thing she drank was half a glass of orange juice that your buddy Dean served to her. You brought that into her life.” She was screaming by the end, her voice cracking.
Her mouth hardened as she regained her composure, and her hand shot up, slapping me again.
I took the abuse. I knew I deserved it. I didn’t think there was any way even Bev could have hated me more than I hated myself right then.
“You put her into a car with a rapist motherfucker who was high as a kite. You did this to her. You. Now get out of my sight. If I see your face again, I will make you pay.”
I left, my mind still reeling with the information she’d given me. I believed her that she’d find some way to make me pay if she saw me again, but that wasn’t why I left. If Danika had wanted me there, I would have stayed with her, not matter what. No one could have kept me away this side of death. But that was the problem. She didn’t want me there. She’d been very clear about that. I wasn’t good for her. She could do better, and she finally saw it that way.
I went to Dean’s funeral. I seethed through the entire thing. I’d lost people, close people, but never had I lost someone and realized that I loathed them. I should have felt bad, but I wasn’t even sorry he was dead. In fact, the only use I would have for an alive Dean after what I knew he’d done was to kill him with my own hands.
Even when he’d pissed me off, I’d still trusted him not to do something like that. It was a hard pill to swallow; how misplaced my trust had been.
If he was capable of drugging Danika and doing God knows whatever he’d been planning, what else had he done? It was downright devious, outright evil, what he’d done. If it had been anyone but an incensed Bev who had told me about it, I wouldn’t have believed them. She had no reason to make a thing like that up, and she was not a woman that dealt in misinformation.
I spent a week in pure hell, torturing myself with regrets, dosing myself liberally with any drug at hand.
Seven days after I saw Danika in the hospital, I checked myself into rehab.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
DANIKA
They gave me details. So many pointless details about loss of cartilage and muscle tissue. Painful details about irreparable damage to my uterus. Endless details about surgery and physical therapy. The gist of it was: I was now a cripple, and I could never have children. My response to that reality; I will not let this define me. So help me God, I won’t even let it slow me down. I wasn’t a dancer anymore, and I would never get to grow a child inside of me. Those were facts. I refused to cry about it, or if I did, to even so much as acknowledge those fucking useless tears. I would find something else to define me. I just had to figure out what.
Bev took time off work to take care of me. I was shocked, as I’d never known her to take more than a week of vacation from work before. But she took nearly a full month off for me.
She helped me around the house, kept me company, kept me sane.
“Why are you so good to me?” I asked her at one point. “Why have you always been so good to me? I’m such a burden to you, and you’ve done so much to help me. We both know I can never repay all of your kindness.”
Bev gave me the saddest smile, and one of her soft hands moved, as though in slow motion, to stroke over my hair. “Oh, you poor girl. Don’t you know?”
I blinked at her and shook my head, completely lost. “Know what?” I asked her.
“You were never a burden, Danika, and this isn’t kindness.”
I shook my head at her again, my brow furrowing in confusion. “If it’s not kindness, then what is it?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and the look on her face made my heart turn slowly in my chest. “My dear, this is what’s called family.”
I was completely undone by that. I began to sob, the sounds loud and harsh and broken. She just embraced me, murmuring soothing words into my ear, her soft voice filled with tears.
Family, I thought, absolutely floored by the thought. Family, I realized, my mind flashing back through the years of Bev and Jerry’s unfaltering generosity, their unfailing kindness. Family.
The thing I had yearned for had been mine without me ever having to ask. It was just there, through better or worse.
Family.
EPILOGUE
DANIKA
A few months after the accident, I got a call from my sister.
She was in labor.
I drove for five hours and made it to her just in time for the delivery.
We’d been talking on the phone and corresponding via email. I’d even gone out to see her a few times, before my first miscarriage.
But that birth is what made us sisters again.
It was a bittersweet joy to share that special moment with her.
I was the only family present, the only one there for her.
She named him Jack Markova, and I was one of the first to ever hold him. I cut his umbilical cord and fell in love with that darling boy.
I drove her home from the hospital, and helped her settle in with the new baby. I stayed with her for two weeks, staying up with the baby, letting her get some much needed rest while she recovered from her ordeal. I limped around her house and tried to help make it a home for that fatherless little boy.
I was tucking her in one night, the baby asleep in a bassinet beside her bed, when she looked at me and said, “I do know who the father is.”
I sat down at her hip, and she found my hand with her own. I stared at her face and waited.
I knew it was going to be something truly awful. Just knew it. The nature of that awful, however, eluded me. My head was in a dark place, and so the possibilities were endless.
The thing I feared the most, though, was not the worst thing that could have happened to her. I knew this because, the worst thing had happened.
She squeezed my hand tight and closed her eyes tighter. “I had no boyfriend. No lover. I didn’t know what had happened to me, until I realized I was pregnant. But I did remember a few nights that were…out of my recollection. And after those nights, I did know that something was off, things were askew. I woke up in ways and places that didn’t add up.”
“Oh no, Dahlia,” I whispered, stroking her cheek.
“It took me a while to piece it together, but…I had a few nights that made no sense, and as I began to uncover the facts, I realized that Dean had drugged me. A few times. I confronted him, and he wouldn’t admit it aloud, but I saw his guilt. And then, when I told him I was pregnant, it didn’t even faze him, and he straight up told me that he was the father.
“I hated him. Before any of that even happened, I couldn’t stand him. I didn’t have the stomach to get rid of the baby, or even to give it away, but I got the hell away from him. No way was I going to let him be in this baby’s life. He was a rapist and a lowlife. I wanted to press charges, but I didn’t see what good it would do. I was so stupid. By the time I realized what had happened to me, all of the evidence was gone.”
“You poor dear,” I told her, kissing her forehead, aching for her. “I’m so sorry you got mixed up in that.”
Her hand moved from her side to rest on Jack’s little head in the bassinet beside the bed. “I’ve made peace with it. I love this baby, Danika, with my whole heart I love him. The rest is in the past.”
I had so much bitter poison inside of me, so many regrets, and it didn’t slip my notice that Dean’s ugly proclivities had produced a beautiful baby boy, while my and Tristan’s love had only ever ended in tragedy.
Life was so very cruel, but there could be no doubt that I loved that baby.
We doted on him, my perfect little nephew.
SIX MONTHS LATER
I didn’t look at his face, but listened to his words, hearing more what he didn’t say, than what he did.
We were sitting in the small café where I’d agreed to meet him. He was here with two other people, a young man and woman. I’d told him I hadn’t wanted to meet him alone, and that had been his solution. I hadn’t wanted to do this, but when he’d explained the purpose of it, as part of his rehab program, I hadn’t been able to refuse.
We wouldn’t be a part of each other’s lives again, but that didn’t mean that I was willing to cripple his recovery.
I’d wanted to show up first, so he wouldn’t see how I was still struggling to get around. That instinct was part pity, part pride on my part. I wasn’t sure which was stronger.
I’d dressed painstakingly, my hair loose and straight and shiny, my makeup heavy but flattering, my skirt long, to hide my knee brace and my orthopedic shoes, my shirt tight to show off my figure.
I couldn’t delude myself for long. Pride was stronger.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t shown up early enough. Tristan and his two shiny new friends had already been at a table, drinking coffee and laughing at something when I walked in the door.
I was ridiculously grateful to the man that held the door open for me so I could hobble through. It was amazing how the little things could help, and struggling with the door while Tristan watched was a humiliation that I did not care to contemplate just yet.
My chest burned as I made my way, one small crutch assisted step at a time, to an empty table near the entrance. I wanted to sit before he saw me, but I wasn’t so lucky.
One look at his face and I knew I wouldn’t be meeting his gaze for this little meeting. The raw regret, the crippling pity in his eyes was nothing that I cared to see. I’d prefer anything from him before I’d take his pity.
I couldn’t look at his face, so instead stared at his collarbone. I couldn’t face his eyes, the promises we’d made and broken, the things we’d lost. They were all there, accusing me, yet filled with guilt, filled with pity, all at once.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea?”
A shudder ran through me. His first words to me were to offer to wait on me, because I was a cripple now? I couldn’t bear it. I almost bolted right then.
“Some tea, thank you,” I said through stiff lips, finally, after I’d debated in my head which would be more humiliating.
I didn’t so much as twitch while he went to the counter and got us both a cup of tea.
I stared down at mine, added one sugar, then stared some more.
“Milk?” he offered.
I shook my head, then added another packet of sugar.
I never took even one sip before he said his piece. I never touched that tea.
“I have many regrets, many bad things I must take credit for, but believe me when I say that the negative impact that all of my actions have had on your life is my biggest one.”
He stayed firmly on his side of the table, his eyes on his hands, and in their downcast depths, I saw his sincerity, but I hadn’t really been questioning it.
I quickly looked away.
Of course he was sorry.
So was I.
Neither of us had wanted things to turn out this way. But as I looked at him, whole and healthy, and when I’d seen him laughing, before he’d spotted me, happy. Perhaps things really had turned out for the best for him, in spite of this all. He’d been a mess of a man when he was with me, and look at him now, thriving.
It planted one tiny seed of bitterness inside of me, and over time, that bitter seed would grow. It would flourish.
“I do not deserve your forgiveness, after all that’s happened, but I am asking for it.” His words were stilted, as though he’d rehearsed them. “Know that I would take it all back if I could, and know that I hold myself responsible for all of the bad things that happened. I am so sorry that my hitting rock bottom the way I did impacted you. Any recompense you can imagine, anything you would ask of me, I would be happy to provide. I’m at your service. Always, Danika. And it is my most sincere wish that someday, perhaps over time, you might consider being my friend again.”
Friend? I recoiled from the notion. Of course I couldn’t be that. What a drawn out torture that would be. Friends? It felt like a slap in the face. Didn’t he know that if we tried that, if we stayed close in that platonic way, I’d never be able to move on?
“Tristan.” Just saying his name was a struggle. How on earth would I get through the rest? I took a few long, necessary moments to steady my voice. My words were very formal when I was able to continue. “Consider yourself forgiven. But please don’t think that I hold you responsible for everything that happened. Things didn’t turn out how I could have hoped.” What a joke of an understatement. “But no one person is to blame for any of it. So yes, I forgive you for any and all of it. That being said, I must decline your offer of friendship. Some things…What I mean is, some people, need to stay away from each other, and we are such a pair.” I wanted to say so much more, but chose to keep my composure instead.
His ragged breaths were his only response for the longest time. “If that is how you feel, I must respect your decision.” He seemed to me to nearly choke on the words.
“It is. But thank you for the apology, and I wish you all the best.” I swallowed hard, looking down. “I’m glad you got yourself help.”
After an eternal agony of waiting, he stood up and walked away.
We didn’t look directly at each other.
I refused to stand up before he and his friends left, and so I stared at my tea for a long time while I waited.
I never took one sip of that tea.
It had been torture. But every coffin needed its last nail, and that meeting was ours.
Heart in tatters, but will intact, I went on with my life.
BOOKS BY R.K. LILLEY
IN FLIGHT (UP IN THE AIR #1)
MILE HIGH (UP IN THE AIR #2)
GROUNDED (UP IN THE AIR #3)
LANA (AN UP IN THE AIR NOVELLA)
BREATHING FIRE (HERETIC DAUGHTERS #1)
BAD THINGS (TRISTAN & DANIKA #1)
ROCK BOTTOM (TRISTAN & DANIKA #2)
AND COMING SOON…
LOVELY TRIGGER (TRISTAN & DANIKA #3)
CROSSING FIRE (HERETIC DAUGHTERS #2)
MR. BEAUTIFUL (UP IN THE AIR #4)
THE OTHER MAN (A NOVEL)
