Chapter Thirty-Two
Alissa
Early January
I couldn’t move from my bed however hard I tried. I wanted to lie under the sheets. I wanted to lose myself in the warmth... I never wanted to leave. Outside, the world was a nightmare, full of chaos and heartache. In here, nothing could get to me. I was safe. With no one in bed with me, nothing could hurt me again.
Except for the chasm of agony that I already had in my heart, of course.
I dropped another tissue on the floor in the ever-increasing pile. I’d been sobbing on and off for days, and I wasn’t sure how to stop. It was an intense sadness that I’d never experienced before; it was killer. With Cade being just another asshole to add to the list, every emotion that I felt from everyone else came flooding painfully back.
My mother...who hated me for years and treated me like I was a piece of shit. Luke...who treated me like a fucking ATM as I fell deeply in love with him. Elle...my best friend who stabbed me in the back for money, who threw away years of friendship for some cash.
And now Cade. Another man I was falling for. I felt like I was falling deeper for him than I ever had anyone else, including Luke, which made his betrayal even worse. I loved him, I thought he was different, but again I was wrong. I had such a shitty judgment.
I rolled my eyes, and I turned onto my other side as my phone beeped again. I knew it was Cade; he’d been texting and calling me the whole time, but I didn’t want to speak to him. I wasn’t ready for that just yet. I didn’t want to hear his crappy explanations.
Maybe I should just hear what he has to say...
I didn’t want to speak with him, but there was a twisted part of me that wanted to know what his explanation for his behavior was. I knew he’d told me his side of the story as we argued at New Year’s, but I couldn’t totally recall everything he’d said to me. There was a part of me that wanted to hear what he had to say.
I turned slowly and reached out for my phone, hoping I wasn’t making a mistake by letting him back in just a little bit. I wanted to be smart, not fall head over heels for just another douche bag, but we did share something powerful. Maybe it was wrong of me not to, at least, listen.
“You have four new messages.”
My heart danced around in my chest as I waited for his voice to burst through the handset. I even slid my eyes closed to try and keep some of the tears inside. This was going to hurt; it was probably going to kill me.
“Alissa, please pick up the phone to me, I just want to talk to you.” Then he paused for a deep sigh. “I know this sucks, and I look like a dick right now, but if you’ll just hear me out, I can let you know exactly what’s going on. I know that if you’ll just listen, I’ll be able to make you see.” Another pause. “I just want to speak to you, Alissa. Please call me back. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
I hated the way his voice still affected me. I could feel it deep in my chest, pumping blood around my body. I wanted to hear him without feeling anything. I didn’t want to even acknowledge him as a human, but each word swirled memories with it.
Our meeting...our dinners...the sex...the feelings.
Lies, it was all just lies. I needed to harden myself to that.
My ragged breaths stung my throat, but I forced myself to hit the button to allow the next message to come through. I wasn’t strong enough for it, but now that I’d started, I figured that I might as well finish.
I could hear the music thumping in the background, and it became quickly clear that he was wasted. While I was lying in my bed, heartbroken, he was out drinking and enjoying himself. Marvellous.
“Alissa... Alissa... I need to speak to you. Why aren’t you answering the phone? I know... I know it was wrong. I know the way that we first met up wasn’t right, it’s been torturing me ever since. But I like you; I really like you. I think you’re awesome.” I sucked in a deep breath, trying not to fall apart.
“I deceived you about how we met, but everything else was real. I don’t even like your mom. I have nothing to do with her. I took the money, but not just for you. For my future. To do something with it...not that I’ve been doing a lot with it. I’m supposed to be doing something positive in this six months...”
All of a sudden, the call ended. I wasn’t sure if he realized that he had gone off on a tangent or if something else had happened, but I sharply pulled the phone away from my ear as I noticed that I’d pressed it so hard against my head that an imprint had been left behind.
I only had two more to get through, two more, I could do that.
The next one came from later in the night, but Cade sounded surprisingly soberer in it. Sombre, too, as if the events of the night had left him depressed.
“Alissa, I’m sorry. I keep calling and texting you, and it’s obvious that you don’t want to talk to me. Maybe it’s time I give up. I know that I did wrong and that I hurt you, but I never meant to. I never wanted to be just another person who let you down. I didn’t deserve you. Even with the money, it isn’t enough. I have money now, I have power, but I don’t have what I really want. I don’t have you.”
Fat tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them coming hard and fast down my face. I wasn’t sure if I could listen to the last one, but it rolled on regardless. I must have accepted it without even thinking.
Luckily, this one came from another day entirely, so he wasn’t drunk which made the words clearer.
“Alissa, I know you must be sick of me right now, but I just have one last thing to say to you. If you ever give me another chance again, then I won’t lie. You can trust me. I know you might not, and I should just accept that this is goodbye, but I just want to let you know that one last thing. I’ll never lie to you again.”
With that, I dropped the phone, and it clattered noisily to the ground. I wasn’t sure what to feel about any of that, it was all so overwhelming. Was Cade so arrogant that he thought I’d trust him again? Even if I hadn’t been through hell in my life, even if I hadn’t been pushed to a point where I didn’t trust anyone anymore, that would be a hard thing to do.
There was no fucking way that I’d ever let him back in.
I forced myself out of bed and padded across the apartment just to give myself a change of scenery. It wasn’t much, it was still the same place that I looked at every damn day with betrayal oozing out of the walls, but it was something.
As I poured myself a glass of water, I stared out the window to the streets of New York below, wishing I could be just another person with an ordinary life. I wanted to shake off my self-doubt, I wanted to let go of my emotions and just to be free and normal, but it seemed that was never going to be me. I would never be that lucky. While I watched the people milling about without any troubles in the world, I felt separate, like I was on the outside looking in. Just like always.
There had to be some reason things like this kept happening to me, there needed to be something that I was doing wrong. Things like this didn’t happen to everyone. I could blame my mother, of course, and she was certainly a part of it, but what if she wasn’t all wrong.
What if I was the problem? Maybe if I were a better person, then Luke and Cade wouldn’t have been allowed into my bed; maybe if I could see things more clearly, I would have been able to work out what Elle was up to before things got too complex. Maybe if I were stronger and more normal, I would have a job in the music industry now, rather than running out on auditions like a terrified little mouse.
Maybe if I didn’t keep making shitty decisions with my life, then I would be happier.
All my mother’s insults circled my mind; I was thick, ugly, naïve, stupid, slutty. Only this time, they didn’t feel like the harsh musings of someone who wanted to hurt me – they felt real. Mom had told me what Cade was up to, which was much more than he ever had. She let me know that my desperation to be loved had turned me into a victim all over again. She was the only one brave enough to confirm that I had too many damn faults to list.
And, she was right.
I picked up my clarinet lying in the middle of the room, as discarded as my musical dreams, and I pressed it to my lips. I played the first thing that came into my head, which was the melancholiest sound I’d ever heard in my life. I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I could feel myself sinking deeper into the spiral as I played, but I just couldn’t stop. The whole apartment filled with the terribly depressing sound, and I felt it clouding above my head, sending me down...down...down...
The whole world had crashed around me, and now I had no one. I didn’t have anyone to talk to, anyone to support me. I didn’t have anything. I was pathetic. What sort of person got to adulthood without any real friends? It was bad enough that no man could love me, it was even worse that no friend even wanted to stick around. I truly was worthless.
The tears continued to cascade down my cheeks, and soon the weeping became full blown sobs. My clarinet dropped loudly to the floor all over again, which is where I wanted to leave it. I needed to give up on music; it clearly wasn’t for me. I needed to give up on everything; nothing was worth it.
I wanted to be back in bed. I felt much safer there. Even standing up in my apartment was a nightmare; it made me feel things that I wasn’t ready for. I practically ran back into my bedroom, and I dove under the warm sheets, pausing only to grab yet another tissue.
I wouldn’t move again. This was where I needed to stay. I’d learned my lesson. I had given life a try. Now it was time to squeeze my eyes shut again and to try to sleep. At least in my dreams, things weren’t always so shitty. If I could keep all the people from my real life out of them, then it was fine. It was separate, another life in which I could be someone else.
And being anybody but me was perfect right now.