Ink and Lies

  With much effort, I peel open the steel doors of my eyelids and peer into the glaring morning sunlight. My retinas are on fire. I bite out a hoarse curse, and roll over, shielding my face from the evil streaming through my window blinds.

  “You’re awake,” a small, raspy voice says from the doorway of my bedroom. My bedroom. I’m home. And damn near naked.

  “How did I get here?”

  Fiona walks to the side of my bed, and holds out a steaming cup of coffee. She’s wearing a strapless, black mini dress that shows off every curve and a good amount of leg. I doubt she just got back from Sunday school. If I wasn’t feeling like 50 shades of shit, I’d be able to appreciate the get up.

  “I brought you home. Don’t you remember?”

  “No,” I grumble, taking the mug. I hate feeling helpless. I don’t want her to see me like this—hungover and, no doubt, looking like I’ve been the victim of a drive-by stoning. She already thinks I’m pathetic. No need to give her any more ammo.

  She sits down on the opposite end of the bed. “You were pretty messed up last night, August. I was really concerned for you. I can’t believe you would put yourself in that kind of danger.”

  If I could roll my eyes I would. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I am worried about it,” she insists. “I’m worried about you.”

  I frown. “Why?”

  “Because you were out of control last night, August. On top of copious amounts of alcohol that even Charlie Sheen would balk at, you took a pill some little tramp gave you, and you didn’t even know what it was. I had to get you home and put you in a cool bath. Then I sat up most of the night making sure you didn’t have a seizure. Hands down, the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and I witnessed your stint with frosted tips. Come on, August. You could’ve died.”

  “But I didn’t,” I shrug. “Why do you care anyway?”

  “Because you’re my…”

  She hesitates. She doesn’t know what I am to her. Friend? Lover? Stranger? I’m wondering the same thing.

  I shake my head sardonically and sip the black coffee in my cup. I’m grateful for her presence, I’ll admit. But I want her here because she wants to be. Not because she pities me or feels guilty. Not because she sees me as some fuck up charity case that can’t pull it together.

  “I’m fine, Fi,” I say, filling the emptiness of silence.

  “You were not fine last night, August.”

  “I said I’m fine.” My voice is as hard and unyielding as the two-ton boulder lodged in my skull.

  “You’re obviously going through something, and I think you should get help. You need to talk to someone. You’re not yourself. You’re so much better than what you’ve been displaying lately.” She’s really trying to put that psychology class from undergrad to good use. Bonus points for the soothing shrink voice.

  “How the fuck would you know?” I spit, irritated by her blatant condescension. She reels back as if my words have slapped her across the face.

  “Because I know you, August! I know when you’re hurting. You’re acting out, and it isn’t healthy. I’m afraid for you!”

  “Worry about your damn self,” I grumble, forcing myself out of bed. “Or better yet, worry about your fiancé.”

  “Why are you acting like this? Why are you purposely trying to hurt my feelings, when all I want to do is help you?”

  “No one asked you to be here, Fi. I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “I know that, but I just thought—”

  “You just thought what? That it’d make things better? That we could go back to how things were? That all would be forgiven and forgotten?”

  “I don’t know what I did to you!” she cries, dashing away frustrated tears. “I don’t know what I did to make you hate me!”

  I snicker darkly. “I don’t hate you, Fi. Anger…pain…they’re all useless emotions. I don’t feel anything for you.”

  That seems to do the trick. That seems to be the blow to her heart she needs to wake the fuck up. To leave here and never come back again. To leave me in my misery and self-destruction so I can get the fuck over her.

  I stare down at my cold cup of black coffee until I hear the front door slam. I did it. I finally lost her for good.

  With a frustrated growl, I launch the mug in my hand across the room and watch it shatter against the wall, causing shards of ceramic and plastic to fall to the floor in a brown pool of dejection. How can I ever expect Fi to forgive me, when I’ll never be able to forgive myself?

  From that point on, I’m a robot. I clean up. I eat. I hydrate. I dress. I stare blankly at the story I’d started writing about her.

  I delete.

  I don’t look up until I realize I’m late for Sunday football with the Colonel. I want to flake, but I can’t. I can’t let the only person I have left down, too.

  I hear my cell ring somewhere in the apartment just as I’m brushing my teeth, so I let it go to voicemail. It rings again as I’m trying to find my shoes, and again when I’m trying to find the damn thing.

  “8% battery life. Fucking awesome,” I grunt when I finally find it. It goes off in my hand. Make that 7%.

  I see it’s the senior village calling, and with an aggravated huff, I answer. I know I’m late, but damn. Truth be told, I could give two shits about football right now.

  “I’m on my way, Colonel,” I answer, grabbing my coat and keys before heading towards the door.

  “August? August Calloway?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Nurse Tabatha, sweetie,” she says with a trembling voice. “I…I’m sorry, August. I’m so sorry. The Colonel…he’s gone.”

  I FIND HIM CLOAKED IN sadness, wrapped tight in pain so thick that it smothers him. He’s on the couch. They’re talking. He’s listening, but he doesn’t hear them. They’re telling him where they’re taking the Colonel’s body, and what he should do now. He nods, but it’s reflexive. He’s too numb to understand. I go to his side once we’re alone, but I don’t get too close. I don’t even think he realizes I’m here. Of course, he didn’t call me—the staff did. He was willing to shoulder this alone, like he always has.

  “August?” My voice is just above a whisper. He’s staring at nothing, unblinking. I don’t think he hears me. Maybe he’s not ready to.

  “We had an argument,” he says after several minutes of heavy silence. “He told me to make things right with you. I refused.”

  I take the space beside him, but I don’t touch him. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know what he needs me to be.

  “I was so…angry. So upset. With him…with you.” He shakes his head. “It all seems so trivial. Selfish.”

  I should say something. I should lend some words of comfort. But what comfort do I have to give him when my own heart is shattered inside my chest? And while my pain must pale in comparison to August’s, it still hurts to lose one of the few constants in my life.

  “It’s not your fault,” is all I can offer him.

  “Oh, but it is. I should have known.” His hands are clasped between his knees and his shoulders are hunched in as if he’s trying to lose himself…within himself.

  “How could you? He didn’t tell anyone. And if he did, it’s rare for even young people to survive pancreatic cancer. There’s nothing anyone could do for him.”

  He shakes his head again. “There were signs. He was tired more often. He started cancelling on me. He never cancels… it’s me who flaked out on him. And he kept pushing me to patch things up with you, as if he knew the end was near. He didn’t want to leave me alone.”

  “Yeah, I know.” The Colonel had asked me to come see him last week. He was worried about August and had hoped we could make up. I tried…I really tried. When I saw him in the club last night, I saw an opportunity to make good on his request. Big mistake.

  “He wanted me to go to LA. I didn’t want to leave him. But he already knew he was leaving me.”

  “LA?”

 
“Yeah,” he nods. “The screen deal. Even after all the Hope shit came out, they still wanted to move forward…and fast.” For a fraction of a minute, he turns his head in my direction, but doesn’t look at me. “He knew it was a good opportunity for me. A fresh start.”

  I choke down the words in my throat, but they still echo loudly in my head. What about me? The thought of August leaving leaves an empty, sinking feeling in my stomach. But then again, I’m supposed to be moving to the coast with Joshua, but…

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” he whispers. His heart is in his voice—broken and barely beating.

  “I know. I can’t either.”

  I swallow my hesitation and wrap an arm around his shoulders. He instantly sags into my touch, releasing a lifetime’s worth of sadness. I feel the pain in the marrow of his bones. The devastation is just too much for him to bear—too much for me to bear for him. But I take it. I hold him tight and absorb every ounce of devastation he releases. He needs this. I need this. If I can’t do anything else for him, at least I can provide him with just a little bit of comfort.

  “He was all I had left.”

  I rest my cheek against the top of his head and stroke his back. “No, he wasn’t.”

  “I have nothing else. No one else.”

  “That’s not true. You have your parents. They’ll be here soon, right?”

  “My parents,” he snorts. “They think I’m some silly fool chasing a dream. They only speak to me to ask me when I’m getting a real job.”

  This rare show of vulnerability and honesty is not something I’m used to, and I know it’s a passing phase. He’s still raw, rightfully so. And I’m still yearning for his approval, dying for him to let me in again. As much as I want to hate him, I can’t. I won’t.

  “Well…you have me.”

  He stiffens at my side before sitting up to face me. “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Fi.”

  “I’m not. It was you who wanted things this way. I never wanted to lose you, Rhys.”

  He shakes his head, but otherwise doesn’t move. We’re touching, sharing the same air. Living in a space reserved for lovers. His brown eyes strip me naked and see my insides, painting them with the pretty caress of his soulful gaze. His tongue slides over his bottom lip. I should move, but I can’t reject him right now—not when he’s hurting. And honestly, I don’t want to. I need this too. I need him too.

  “Fiona? Fiona, where are you?”

  The blood drains from my face, and I reflexively jump from my seat and away from August. It doesn’t go without notice, but before I can apologize or explain or freak out, Joshua barges into the Colonel’s apartment.

  “There you are,” he says with more drama than necessary before wrapping me in his arms, and placing my head on his chest as if I’m a child. “I’m so sorry, darling. I know he meant a lot to you.”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” The words hit my back like daggers—sharp and deadly. I unravel myself from Joshua’s embrace in time to catch August stalk towards us with murder in his eyes.

  “Hey, man, I’m not here to cause any problems,” Joshua explains, palms up in defense. August isn’t hearing any of it. I know that look. I saw it junior year when some jerk tried to corner me at a party and shove his tongue down my throat despite my protests. I saw it two years after that when my mom’s loser boyfriend tried to hit on me at Thanksgiving, then lie and say I was the aggressor. I saw it three summers ago when my then-boyfriend gave me an ultimatum—boob job or break up. And I saw it just weeks ago after I told him I had agreed to marry Joshua.

  I stand between the two men that mean the most to me—the two men that I love. One is the perfect man in every way. The other is the perfect man for me. And with eyes wide and limbs paralyzed in shock, I brace for the very worst.

  “You didn’t answer my fucking question.”

  My vision is warped with red. My fists are two tight balls of unspent rage. My body is merely a tightly wound weapon of hatred and jealousy and angst. The Colonel was ours—mine and Fiona’s. Not Joshua’s. I won’t share him too. I won’t lose him…

  I bite back the anguish still strangling me and take a menacing step toward the blonde, baby-faced asshole and look him dead in the eye. He blanches, yet doesn’t back down.

  “Listen, August. I’m sorry for your loss, and even though we haven’t seen eye to eye in the past, as Fiona’s fiancé—”

  “Fiancé?” I snort incredulously. “You think I give a fuck what you proclaim to be? I don’t care if you are her messiah coming to save her soul, you don’t belong here. You don’t get to be in this apartment. You don’t get to pretend to feel sorry for our loss.”

  “Hey, hey,” Fiona says soothingly, a hand on each of our chests. “Let’s just calm down and talk about this. It’s been an emotional day.”

  “Yes, listen to Fi, August. She knows what she’s talking about.”

  I nearly choke on my next breath as if I’ve been punched in the gut. “What did you say?” I inquire, the menacing tone of my voice enough to make Fiona take a step back.

  Joshua is visibly startled, yet he soldiers on. “I said, she knows what she’s talking about.”

  “No. What did you call her?” My jaw is clenched so tight that it feels as if it’s been wired shut.

  Joshua frowns, then looks to Fi for confirmation of my crazy “Uh, Fi. You know, August, if you’re having a hard time dealing with—”

  There are no words. No thoughts. Just action. I lunge past the barrier of Fiona’s petite frame and charge Joshua, tackling him to the ground. I feel wood splinter under us and hear glass shatter close by, but all I can focus on is punching his face. All I can care about is hurting him the way he’s hurt me.

  Fiona’s screaming, begging me to stop. Her cries distract me for just a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for Joshua to land a hard punch against the side of my face, knocking me off kilter. Still, I’m punching, kicking, fighting, refusing to give him the upper hand. Refusing to let him take something else from me.

  “Stop it! Please, stop it!” Fiona is trying to pull us away from each other, but we’ve latched on like pit bulls. I taste blood. My body is sore and exhausted, but I don’t up. Not on this.

  Fiona’s shrieks and the commotion grab the attention of nearby attendants who rush in to help. Someone pulls me off of Joshua, giving him the opportunity to donkey kick me in the ribs just before he’s disarmed.

  “What the hell is your problem?” he shouts, spewing bloody saliva through split, swollen lips.

  “You! You’re my problem! Your existence is my problem!” I holler, struggling to get out of the tight grasp of what surely is an amateur body builder. “You want my life, my grandfather, my Fi! And while she may not see you for the lying, cheating snake you are, my vision is perfectly clear!”

  “August! Stop it!” Fiona screams, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “Your Fi?” Joshua retorts. “If she was yours, she wouldn’t be marrying me! She wouldn’t be at my apartment and in my bed every night. She wouldn’t be agreeing to spend her life with me in a matter of weeks. She wouldn’t be moving away and planning to start a family with me. She isn’t your Fi, you asshole. She never was! Why do you think you weren’t invited to the wedding? Because she didn’t want you there.”

  His words hit me harder than his fists ever could. He’s right, and it’s not fair. He doesn’t deserve a life and a marriage and a family with Fi. He hasn’t earned it. And that fact just makes me even angrier.

  “Let go of me,” I demand, jerking out of the attendant’s grasp. “I said let go. I’m fine. I’m done.”

  The man lets me loose but stays close. I wipe blood from my mouth with a single swipe of the back of my hand, and stalk toward the door. I can’t look at her. I can’t see the confirmation undoubtedly in her eyes.

  Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it’s me who doesn’t belong here.

  I walk through the main building of the senior center, my clothing rippe
d, my face cut and swollen, and my heart broken. I ignore the whispers and gasps from Helen and the cougar crew. I ignore the looks of sympathy and sadness from the staff. I even ignore April, who was here to see her grandmother, but had been hoping to lend me support during this time. The only thing I’m remotely aware of is the football game on the television. The Seahawks just won the game. And I feel like I’ve lost…everything.

  Before I reach my bike, I pull out my cell phone, which gratefully, wasn’t cracked in the scuffle. The voice on the other end is shocked to hear from me, especially on a Sunday.”

  “Kerrigan, make it happen.”

  “Make it… the deal? It’s a yes?”

  “Yeah. Whatever they want, I’ll do it. The sooner, the better.”

  “You got it, Calloway. You sound a little off. Everything ok?”

  “No,” I answer truthfully. “It’s not. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  I hang up before she can ask any more questions. Then I ride away from everything I’ve ever loved.

  I WISH THERE WAS A time limit of grief.

  I wish there was a biological stopwatch that would sound in our heads when it was time to snap out of it. It’d trigger something within us—resolve, strength, courage—and we’d pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get on with living. And even if you hadn’t gone through each of the five stages, once your time with grief was up, you were done. You didn’t have to feel pain anymore. You didn’t have to wake up feeling empty when you realize how alone you truly are. You wouldn’t pick up the phone to call or make plans with your lost loved one, because you’d already know. You would be desensitized to the notion that they were gone and never coming back. You wouldn’t feel like tearing your heart out of your chest when you realize that the Christmas before was your very last Christmas with them, and hate yourself, because instead of spending the entire day with them, you’d made a date with some chick in a skimpy Mrs. Claus outfit.

  I look out the window at the falling snow, and try to remember what it felt like not to grieve. Instead, I think about how the Colonel despised snow. The cold, the hassle driving in it, the way it looked muddy after a few days. He’d complain every time it snowed, and threaten to move to some place sunny. He never did. Then he wouldn’t get to gripe about the snow.