Chapter 19
Eric
After going to Emma’s on Sunday morning to pick up her dog, I’d immediately asked the limo driver to drop me off at the nearest bar after dropping Quinella off at my house.
Watching the excitement in Emma’s eyes that she was trying to hide when I’d picked up Quinella this morning had torn me apart.
Because I knew it was him – Lucas – who was capable of putting that excitement there.
And yet, I was left with nothing…
Yes, I was the one who had orchestrated the whole reunion, but it was hurting more and more with each passing day.
I’d only done it for Emma’s sake…because over the past year I’d come to admire and respect her more than any other woman in my life…ever.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her anymore.
It was that I cared – finally – for someone other than myself. Watching that broken smile of hers every day had chipped away at my conscience, breaking me down.
But she belonged to - with - someone else.
Entering the local bar just down the street from my house, I head straight to the bartender and order a shot of Jager. I quickly down it and order another. As I down that one, I finally feel the numbing effect of alcohol slip through me. Satisfied that I had myself set on course to become the drunkest I have ever been, I order a dirty martini.
Followed by another and another.
Allowing myself to slip away, into blessed drunken oblivion…
Even as I feel like I’m stepping ever closer to the edge.
Because I’m left here.
While she’s with him.
“Hey there,” a red-haired woman purrs next to me.
Glancing at her, I smile a mocking, knowing smile at her.
“You here by yourself?” she murmurs, her eyes half-lidded from her own drink consumption plus god knows what else.
I’m instantly turned off as my mind flashes back to the day of my birthday, the day I was stripped of all innocence by a woman who had only been concerned about herself, about satisfying her own needs, uncaring that she’d hurt another human being in the process.
My mind continues the flashbacks to my mother’s face, seeing her watching, standing by doing nothing to stop her so-called friend from taking advantage of her son.
But then she had made it worse when she made her young son available for her posse of middle-aged women.
My stomach recoils, twisting and turning and I stumble away from the woman in horror as the contents of my stomach force me to the restroom where I fall to my knees in front of a toilet and empty my stomach.
Grasping each edge of the toilet, uncaring at the unsanitary conditions, I continue to heave until there is nothing left.
Until I’m drained physically, as well as mentally.
When I feel a little steadier, I push to my feet and stumble to the sink. Trying to steady myself further, I grasp the sink and stare into my eyes in the mirror.
I’m all messed up…
Feeling as if I’m spinning around in circles…
My demons dancing around me…
And I’m hanging off the edge…
With something wild…venomous spiraling through me.
Wanting, suddenly, nothing more than to be relieved of this constant emptiness.
Lifting my hand, I calmly stare at my reflection, hating what I see, who I am, as I slowly curl my fingers into a fist. Then, swinging my arm back, I feel only satisfaction slide through me as I hit the mirror in front of me, shattering the glass.
Blood drips from my hand, over the sink and onto the floor but the only thing I feel is continued satisfaction.
The door to the restroom swings open, and the shocked look from a girl, that can only be described as a pixie of an angel, filters through my drunken mind.
My vision blurs, then refocuses as she steps towards me quickly.
She lifts my hand, inspects it and removes a few pieces of glass before placing it under running water to cleanse the wound.
But I don’t feel a thing.
I can only drunkenly stare at the angel that has seemed to appear from nowhere.
“Are you here with anyone?” she asks.
Shaking my head, I murmur, “My limo is waiting outside.”
She nods her head, and then after wrapping my hand in paper towels, she places her arm around my waist and I’m immediately caught up in her scent, the feel of her body against mine.
She smells of clean, warm sunshine.
And something else that teases at my drunken mind.
Turning my head, I murmur, “You’re the smallest woman I’ve ever met. Like my own personal pixie angel.”
But she is all business as she ignores me while bracing my weight against her small and slight frame.
Despite my largeness, she is strong enough to surprisingly support me.
Slowly, she leads me from the restroom, with me drunkenly stumbling along until we are outside to where my limo driver is waiting.
Charlie quickly exits the limo upon seeing us, concern written clearly across his face in the bright afternoon sunlight.
“Sorry, miss. I’ll take it from here,’ he says to the angel by my side.
I’m suddenly and unexplainably agitated because Charlie is interfering with me keeping this beauty with me.
“When the fuck did you start to care about me?” I ask him snidely.
He halts abruptly for a second before he continues towards me as he says just as snidely, “Since you started showing some humanity.”
Then looking at the angel by my side, Charlie says, “I’ve got this, miss.”
The angel nods, and then I feel an immediate loss as she removes her arms from around me as Charlie takes over.
“Hey!” I say, as she begins to walk away.
When she turns to face me, I stagger away from Charlie as I say, “Wanna come home with me?”
She looks at me, her look one of pity as she shakes her head before she replies, “Not a chance.”
Then turning, she continues down the street.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I scream out to her, trying to take one step forward to go after her but instead I only stumble and need Charlie’s assistance more. I continue to stare after her, feeling stupidly as if I lost something I didn’t quite have.
“Come on, Romeo. Let’s get you home,” Charlie says, wrapping his arm around my waist to guide me to the limo.
“Did you see her, Charlie?” I ask, now unsure if she actually existed, or if my drunken mind had conjured her up.
“Yes Eric. I saw her,” he says patiently as he tries to get me to get into the car.
But I only continue to stare down the street looking for her, for some sign she actually did exist as she is now nowhere to be seen.
“I should’ve gotten her name, Charlie,” I murmur, as I try to lift one leg to get into the limo, but miss and instead, I stumble up against the limo.
“Here now. Let me help you,” and then Charlie is finally successful as I attempt to lift my leg again, while he braces himself for my weight, so I don’t stumble again.
When I arrive home, Charlie helps me to the couch where I promptly fall asleep.
Opening one eye in the morning when I feel something warm and wet repeatedly touch my hand which is hanging over the side of the sofa, I turn my head to see Quinella contentedly licking me.
I attempt to lift my head and immediately groan.
Dropping it quickly back against the throw pillow, I wait for the room to right itself before attempting it again.
Slowly swinging myself around on the couch, until I’m at least into a slumped sitting position, I look down at my injured hand and the previous night teases at my mind.
The pixie angel’s face flashes before me.
Quinella barks, drawing me away from remembering the exact details of that face, to her as she now excitedly starts doing dancing circles.
“What is wrong with you?” I ask.
Then it occurs to me that she is waiting to be fed.
Sighing, rubbing my uninjured hand exhaustedly over my face, I then push myself to a standing position. Slowly making my way to the kitchen, I open the bag of dog food and scoop the portion out Emma had shown me.
Emma…
She was with him now…
Sighing deeply, I wait patiently for Quinella to finish her food before taking her out into my backyard. She quickly uses, and I pick her up to bring her back inside.
Heading to my bedroom, I glance down at Quinella in my arms, wondering what to do with her now. Looking around my bedroom for somewhere to place her, I instead decide to take her to bed with me. As she quickly tucks herself into my side, I begin to understand why people have dogs. Her warmth and presence is so soothing.
Closing my eyes, I listen to her deep and even breathing.
It’s consoling, and my mind replays the previous night over.
Had that girl been real?
She had been exquisitely beautiful.
Beautiful enough to be a model if she was taller.
Silently smirking to myself, I think of the encounters of all the models I had met. Every one of them had been superficially fake.
But the pixie angel’s scent haunts me.
She had that clean wholesome scent that I smelled on myself after working in my vineyard all day.
It was the best, and most addictive, scent.
Relaxing further into the bed, I silently think just before I fall back to sleep, that perhaps it was best if she wasn’t real and was just a figment of my imagination.