Present
LONG BEFORE THE SUN CAME up that morning, my co-worker and best friend, Joy, drove me to the airport without a word but with a sourpuss expression. I often joked that fate brought us together a year after I moved to New York to take the job at the PR firm of my dreams for the simple fact her name represented something my life had been lacking for so long.
“Will you say something already?” The scrutiny in her silence was driving me insane.
“What’s there to say, Eden? I can’t believe you’re doing this.” She shook her head as she gripped the wheel, dodging in and out of the slow-moving traffic.
I kept my eyes on the road in front of us rather than make eye contact with her. “What’s so hard to believe? I feel obligated. I’m a good person. I’d never be able to live with myself if I could’ve been there to prevent something bad from happening.” I cannot endure the loss of Lennox all over again. The boy I once loved with all my heart. The boy who broke my heart into a million shattered pieces.
“Obligated? Don’t make me smack you. You owe neither of those lowlifes anything!”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Her words were true, but still harsh. Joy was the only other person who knew what I’d been through with Lennox and Violet, about my father and my shitty childhood, what caused me to uproot and start over miles away from the place I once called home. Still, I guessed she sensed by my non-response that her words struck an invisible chord.
One of her hands left the wheel and found my thigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, you’re right.” I sighed, patting her hand with mine. She was right. This was beyond stupid. I was wasting vacation time at work, money I didn’t have to throw around on plane fare, and my fucking dignity. But I was still in this car, on the way to the airport, ready to face hell. “I know you want to scold me and I deserve it, I do, but what I really need right now is for you to tell me it’ll be all right. I need my best friend to be on my team right now. Can you do that?”
Joy huffed and leaned her head against the cream-colored leather seat of her tiny Fiat. She blinked her eyes and took a deep breath as if she was gathering the strength to lie straight to my face. “It’ll be all right, Eden.”
“Thank you,” I choked out, swallowing a thick knob of sadness in my throat. I had to believe her false promise or I’d break apart before I even got to Tampa. If I couldn’t hold it together, what would be the point, anyway? Violet called me for help. That couldn’t have been easy. We went our separate ways a very long time ago, as enemies. She made her bed—with Lennox—and they got to lie in it together. Drunk, high, or however the fuck they wanted.
A once-familiar, now-foreign voice that haunted my dreams and invaded my memories repeated a phrase on a sick cycle of torture. “You can’t give me what I need anymore, Eden! Only she can . . .”
A pit of skin-prickling rage mixed with the recollection of humiliating betrayal stung my gut and pierced the corners of my eyes with hot tears. Every time I thought of that moment, that day—the end—it felt as if I was reliving each crushing heartbeat all over again.
“What are you thinking?” Joy broke through my ugly visions, bringing me back to the here and now.
“You don’t want to know.” I half-laughed, half-scowled, forcing away my wild emotions. She knew every gory detail about the cheating and lying. She was along for the ride as I discovered tidbits of the trouble those two were in from old acquaintances back home or the newspapers that sometimes followed the downward spiral of NFL has-been, Lennox Dean. Joy didn’t need me to spell it out. I was a mess. I didn’t want to face them or the disaster of a life they made for themselves. But most of all, I absolutely did not want to face my past. I left it and watched it disappear through a rearview mirror years ago. I buried it deep inside and didn’t trudge it up as a method of survival. Survival. Ha! This is a poor excuse of an existence. What I’d been through morphed me from the hopeful, happy person I used to be to the empty shell I was now. Only a person who’d been beaten and broken the way I had could understand why I allowed these painful memories to hold residence and significance in my soul. But I didn’t need to overwhelm Joy with the dread that engulfed me as I prepared myself for this visit and digging up old hurts.
I was fucked. This would be a major step back, a wormhole in a direction I never wanted to venture again. My heart raced and my hands felt clammy with nerves. Panic set in but I didn’t let it show. If I displayed even one ounce of trepidation, Joy would have no part of it. She’d forbid me to go and I’d listen because I was too weak to deal with her disapproval. In the corner of my weary mind, I kept asking myself Is it too late to turn back? If I only pretended they didn’t exist—the way I had for so long—maybe I could go back to my apartment, my job, the few friends I had, and get the fuck on with my life once and for all. Without them. On my own. The way it seemed I was destined to be.
“YOU CAN’T GIVE ME WHAT I need anymore, Eden! Only she can . . .” Lennox choked on his words as the humongous snake enveloped him, taking his breath and stealing his control.
“No! You’ll hurt him! Please! Stop!” I reached out to save him, but the snake lunged and snapped its mouth open, baring sharp fangs. I recoiled and blinked back my fear, only to open my eyes and see that Lennox wasn’t trapped by a monster. He was being held captive by Violet.
“Violet? Don’t do this. Please,” I pleaded once more, hoping she’d see how she was hurting me—hurting both of us—by making him choose.
“He wants me now. Not his precious, righteous Edie. Live with it!” Violet hissed, her eyes glowing as if she actually were the demonic reptile I saw at first. Her evil, hypnotic stare did nothing to spellbind me, but that wasn’t the case for Lennox.
With just one look from Violet he submitted, limp and sedated beneath her touch. She pulled out a needle, stuck it in his arm, and laughed as Lennox’s eyes rolled back in his head with an expression of pure, abandoned ecstasy. A smirk stretched across her lips and mischief oozed from her eyes as she zoned in on me, grasping Lennox’s pleasure-smeared face in her hands and bringing his willing lips to hers.
“No!” I cried, falling to my knees. “No! Stop! Lennox . . .”
“Miss! Miss, are you okay?” I was startled awake by a male flight attendant and then noticed the disapproving eyes of two passengers who shared my row.
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry,” I whispered, wiping the sheen of sweat that coated my forehead. “I must’ve been dreaming. I’m so sorry.” I darted between the attendant and the strangers beside me with my hand plastered over my mouth.
In an instant, the nightmare came back to me and I knew I’d screamed out loud in my sleep. It wasn’t the first time, it wouldn’t be the last, but it certainly was the most embarrassing.
“Will you excuse me, please?” I ignored the people staring and kept my head down as I made the walk of shame down the aisle to the restroom.
This is a mistake. This is a huge fucking mistake.
It had been months since I dreamt of them in that way, years since I felt this helpless about the circumstances. Wounds this deep never really healed, they just scabbed over until you picked at them again. This trip was just that—a deep stab in an old gash. I’d inflicted mental ruin on myself by agreeing to return home.
If I could parachute out of this plane right now I would. Unfortunately, there was no turning back now.