On the Wednesday after Courtney’s birthday party, my students were gathered around me on the large play rug, their legs crisscrossed, enchanted by the story I read them.
The door cracked open. Cici popped her head inside. “Hey… psst… Samantha,” she whispered as if she hadn’t already disturbed the class. An excited smile crossed her face. “We need you up front.”
I frowned and tucked a bookmark between the pages. “Everything okay?” Why I was whispering, too, I didn’t know.
“Um… yeah… I would say so. Go on… I’ll watch these little guys for a couple minutes.”
Disquiet rippled through me, and shakily, I stood. “Okay, thank you.”
“No problem.” Cici stepped inside and retrieved the book. Her words were magnified when she sat in my chair in front of the kids and opened to the page I’d marked. “Oh, this is my favorite story ever,” she said, winking at me as if to say I’ve got this.
She was one of the aides, her job one of the busiest in the school. She ran around doing everything from designing and printing parent flyers for the week to rushing toddlers who were about to wet their pants to the restroom.
I slipped out. My sandals echoed on the hard linoleum tiles as I plodded down the silent hall, everyone shut in their classrooms for afternoon activities. I clicked through the heavy door that led out into the front office, trying to quell the haunted feeling that slipped along the floor behind me. It followed me everywhere I went.
Since Saturday night, I’d barely slept. Exhaustion made my limbs feel heavy and weak, and my mind felt clouded by a constant fog.
It was really difficult finding sleep beside Ben after what’d happened with Christopher. Instead I lay there and listened to the deep, even breaths of his slumber, swimming in guilt while he rested completely at peace. Christopher had set off a bomb in the quiet sanctuary of my life that had left my world in shambles.
It blew through me constantly. His words. The accusation behind them.
That kiss.
God, that kiss.
Every time I closed my eyes, memories of it tore through me like a tempest, a savage, destructive force, fighting to eradicate every kiss Ben had ever given me.
Every inch of me burned.
It felt as if I were being incinerated from the inside out. All that hatred that had bled from him only scorched me deeper, winding me up in fear and trepidation and the sense that nothing was going to be the same.
Christopher Moore had always been trouble.
Now I knew he was dangerous.
I edged into the center of the office. Martin, our IT guy, rocked back in the office chair. He didn’t turn to look at me, just continued to tap away at the keyboard. “Looks like someone’s getting lucky tonight,” he said, the tease seated deep in his words. “Why do some guys insist on making the rest of us look bad?”
My gaze landed on the bouquet that sat on the high reception counter just inside the door of the main office. Dread knotted up my insides, because I instinctively knew two things.
Those flowers had been delivered for me.
And they weren’t from Ben.
Ben would have sent me a billowing floral arrangement, pink roses with garnishes and twists of white satin ribbon.
But this… this was as foreboding as the chaotic expression Christopher had worn on his face when he’d chased me down in his truck this last weekend. The bouquet was held in a tall, slender, cylindrical clear glass vase. Black calla lilies extended from the top in a regal arc, and at the center was a large white lily protruding above them all, as if the light were stretching up to keep all the darkness out. The stems were wrapped with a red silk ribbon, twisted in the simplest bow, though it somehow seemed the center of the arrangement.
It was simple. Graceful and mournful.
It felt like sorrow and hope.
Unease prickled the hairs at the base of my neck. His words tumbled through my consciousness. You’re dead to me… I want to fuck you until you know who you belong to… It’s time you admitted who broke who.
I sucked in an addled breath.
Everything he’d thrown at me four nights ago had been at odds with the other, his need and apparent hate, and I had no idea what to believe. Somehow this arrangement seemed to signify them both.
“What? Are you going to stand there and stare at it all day or see what your man has to say?” Martin asked when he looked at me over his shoulder, perplexed.
Our head secretary, Lila, came bounding into the office. “Oh good… you’re here. I just about died when I saw the deliveryman come through the door. Of course I went and hoped that my husband might have remembered our anniversary is this week. Should have known better. Seventeen years and he hasn’t remembered once.” She plopped into her chair and pushed her glasses up her nose. “I signed for them and promised I’d get them to you. Hope that’s okay, honey.”
“It’s fine,” I whispered.
She waved toward them. “Ben must really love you. Special occasion?” she asked.
“No.” My voice sounded raspy. That haunted feeling that had trailed me for days slithered up my legs, wrapping me in tendrils of fear.
And that was the truth. I was scared. Scared of the control Christopher Moore held over me.
I mean, God, I’d basically allowed him to assault me against his truck. I’d been close to begging for it. It’d taken everything I had to push him away.
My stomach clenched, and I forced myself to walk around to the front of the counter. There was a large envelope tacked to the side of the arrangement, and my name was scrawled across the front in a strong script. My pulse stuttered when I recognized the handwriting, and I was rushed with a swell of light-headedness.
Christopher had personally written what was inside.
“You okay?” Lila looked up at me. “You don’t look so good.”
I ran shaky fingers over my sweaty forehead. “I’m actually not feeling that well. I probably got too hot out at recess with the kids. I think I’m just going to…” Awkwardly, I gestured behind me, trailing off when I realized I was a blabbering mess. Without another word, I took the bouquet, clutched it against my chest, and escaped back into the hall. I slipped into an empty classroom.
My knees were weak and I sank into a chair. Tremors rocked through me, and I fumbled with the envelope and pulled out the card.
It was blank on the front, and I almost anticipated the inside to be as well. But no. The note was made up of letters etched heavily into the page, the pen crushing through the fibers of the stock.
When your life is made up of more regrets than joys, you no longer know who you are.
You are desperate and violent.
You destroy what is good and go in search of what will destroy you.
You shun the light and welcome the dark.
You hate because it hurts too much to love.
You cross boundaries that should never be crossed.
Attempt to steal what is not yours to take.
You lie.
You curse.
When in truth, you are only cursing yourself.
And that regret hounds you, eating you alive.
Until it spits you from its mouth, casting you out onto your hands and knees.
And you’re there, the hard earth piercing your skin, and you realize you’re begging.
Wishing for a way to take it back.
Begging to be forgiven for what you’ve done.
At the bottom, I could feel the change, could picture Christopher’s face as some of the intensity faded.
It seems like every time I see you things won’t come out right. All that shit I said? Everything I did? None of it was okay. What I should have done was begged you for the chance to be your friend. I know I don’t deserve anything more than that. Hell, I don’t even deserve that. But I want it and I’m a big enough asshole to ask for it. Please don’t walk away from Aly. Or from me. Stay.
I pressed the unsigned card to my chest. This is what I’d gone in search of. Forgiveness. To find a way to set free the pain of our pasts. But somehow Christopher’s anguish only made me hurt more.
But was it real?
Or another game?
The most unsettling part was I wasn’t sure how much he was asking me to forgive him for.