Past
EDEN WAS DUE HOME TOMORROW. Things had gone swimmingly, if you considered Lennox raiding his stockpile of fun every hour on the hour the definition of swimmingly.
I didn’t partake, even when asked. I needed to keep a clear head because God knew my head was so jumbled right now it was a miracle I was still breathing. I was there for moral support, a shoulder to cry on, a handy helper, cleaning after the mess of clothes and food he left behind. It was all I could do. I kept reminding myself that I created this monster and now I had to love the monster for who he was. A junkie.
Lennox was zonked out on the couch, the game controller hanging from his still hand. The background music to Madden played on a loop, driving me mad. Walking over to the television with a huff, I shut it off and set out to shower my work day away and crawl into bed. Only, it seemed fate had other plans for me that night. That wicked bitch.
With one foot already on the stairs, my cell phone buzzed in my hand. I paused to look at it, expecting it to be Eden checking in, but my breath was stolen from me when his name appeared on the screen.
Daddy.
It was almost as if he was calling from beyond. I hadn’t spoken to him in over a year, and even then it was me who did the reaching out. I wasn’t even sure he had my number. He never had a reason to. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. I wasn’t his favorite person, and Eden wrote him off well before we settled in Philly. I followed suit and did the same, even if part of me felt like a horrible daughter for leaving him behind so helplessly. Regardless of the way he treated me and my sister growing up, I was the reason for his grief and anger, and the guilt that came along with that made me feel sorry for him.
But what did he want? My heart whacked against my rib cage at the thought that someone could be calling with the news that he was . . . Why should I care, anyway? Crazy thing, though—I did.
“Daddy?” I answered frantically, pummeling up the stairs two at a time as not to wake Lennox.
When I reached my room, I closed the door behind me and asked again, “Daddy? You there? Is that you?” I sounded like a desperate child, in urgent need of love from the one person who never showed it to me.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the high and mighty mistress of Mr. Crippled QB.” His voice was scratchy, marbled, full of condescension, but he had my undivided attention. How did he know about me and Lennox? I should’ve hung up right there, not given him the satisfaction of ruffling my feathers, but that desperate child begged me to listen to what he had to say. He called for a reason. He actually knew I existed. What did he want?
The better part of me remembered he was probably drunk and looking to take his frustrations out on his favorite punching bag. I went along with the old routine and warily waved off his arrogance. “What’s up, Daddy? I haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay?”
“Don’t play snide with me, you good for nothing piece of—”
“Okay, that’s enough. It’s been a long day and I’ve gotta get go—”
“Just like you hadda jet outta here like a bat outta hell a few days ago? What? You’re too good to come see your daddy? Ya think I wouldn’t know you came in with that loser and left without so much as a visit to see if your old man’s dead or alive?”
How did he know any of this? And the better question—why did he care? “Who told you?”
Agnes, the mean old bag, was tucked away in some run-down nursing home after dementia got the best of her and no one cared to carry that burden. William and his daughters did not have friends in common. I’d made sure to stay as far away from my old home as possible for this purpose exactly. There was no way he could have known. Unless . . .
“You made time for your good pal, Denver. Isn’t that so?”
Dad knew Denver? This wasn’t good. I had to get off the phone. I couldn’t do this right now. My brain was frazzled from all the Lennox bullshit I’d withstood the last few days. I was already a mess of tattered yarn, disentangling bit by bit. There was no way I’d survive this type of conversation with my father without totally coming undone in a heap of useless string. “Daddy, why don’t I call you later. When you’ve got some sleep in you. You sound really . . . tired.” He sounded nothing of the sort. He sounded drunk and raring to go. I’d been on the opposite end of that dangerous combination one too many times, and I had no desire to step back into that time warp.
“No, you listen here, little girl. Next time you come whoring around here with some rich has-been on your arm, searching for a good time with your old flame, you best be sure to make a visit to your old man. You owe me. You and that hoity-toity sister of yours.”
“What do we owe you, Daddy?” I was curious. Tears tingled my eyes, my nose, the back of my throat.
“Enough!” He hollered into the phone. I could hear his hand slam against something hard. Mechanically, my body tensed and I closed my eyes. Just hang up, Violet. Just hang up. He has no power over you. But even with miles and years separating us, he did.
Tears finally broke through the pitiful force field I tried to create as my father continued to threaten me. “Don’t think I don’t know how much money that fancy football asshole dropped down here a few days ago. I have ears, girl. I know everything that’s anything when it comes to my kin. Especially now that you’re both prancin’ ’round like some royalty up there in your land of make believe.
“Well, you can put lipstick on a pig, sweet pea, but you and your sister are still just good for nothing white trash, and you left me here for dead after I provided for you, gave you a roof to sleep under, and fed your ungrateful mouths. All the good it did me—” He mumbled more nonsense, all the while ripping open old wounds that I was sure had finally started to heal. I tried to tune him out. I did my best to chalk his words up to the hateful outburst of a sore loser. But what he said next could not be ignored.
“I want my share for all I did for you, you mother killing brat. I want what’s owed to me and if I don’t get it, you bet your high-society ass word’ll get out to your sister that her knight in shining armor is nothing but a doped up junkie, just like her old man.” He laughed then. A thick, phlegm-filled choking cackle, full of hatred and intimidation. “Now, ain’t that a bitch? Bet she never thought she’d spend her days with a man just like me, did she? Or maybe she don’t have to worry after all, seeing as you two’ve become so chummy chummy, huh?”
Words fled my consciousness. I had no verbal response; my only reaction was to fall to my knees on the floor of my bedroom. What was I supposed to do with this? What choice did I have? I would not let William be the one to ruin Eden. This was my mess. This was my fault. I’d have to find a way out of it.
On a whisper that sounded more like my last breath, I finally spoke. “I have to go, Daddy.”
“Did you hear me, girl?” he shouted. His brash tone did nothing to my frozen state.
“Yes, Daddy. I’ll take care of it. Of you. Don’t worry.”
I pressed the end button as another laugh rumbled through him. The phone fell to the carpet next to my limp legs. With my head in my hands, I sobbed. I let the hatred I had for my father overpower any love I ever felt for that bitter, horrible man. How could he do this to me? To us? How could he be this cruel?
I’d never been so powerless in my life, and the only thing that could cure how sorry and pathetic I felt was sitting in a bag that Lennox had hidden in a dusty corner of our attic. I needed to forget for a while.
COMPLETE DEMOLISHMENT WAS MY OBJECTIVE. I ransacked the liquor cabinet first, bypassing the wine and going straight for the whiskey. It needed to burn going down. This was no recreational binge. I wanted to feel it all: the hurt, the shame, the consequences.
I pulled a heavy-bottomed tumbler from where it rested on the drying rack, beads of water still clinging to the glass. Two ice cubes clanked when I threw them in, and then I poured the aromatic, amber liquid to the rim. Before I could empty my hand of the bottle, the glass was at my mouth, the liquor coating my thirsty lips. I sipped at first, then gulped the drink down, hoping it’s effects would strike hard and fast.
When the glass was empty, I licked the remaining flavor from my lips and poured another. There was plenty at hand and this was only the beginning; the pre-game. After this one, I’d bound up those stairs and help myself to Lennox’s cornucopia of plenty in the attic. It wasn’t stealing, considering that, A—I’d been the one to help him secure it, and B—he’d offered it to me over and over again. Time to cash in.
“Hey, party for one?” Lennox’s groggy voice startled me but didn’t stop me from guzzling the rest of the whiskey down in a flash.
“Yup. And it’s only just begun.” No use in lying. I’d done enough of that.
“Got room for one more?” He rose from the couch and stretched. His body was starting to change under the influence of his addiction. Where his muscles were once thick and prominent even through his clothing, the same clothing hung a little looser, his frame thinning out.
Yawning away his nap, Lennox walked over to join me in the kitchen. My party for one seemed like the right idea. I needed to wallow in self-pity and self-loathing. Those self-things should be done myself, right? But that second glass of whiskey was doing funny things to my perception, and if anyone knew about being a lost cause, it was Lennox. “Sure. Why the fuck not?” I raised my empty glass as Lennox found one for himself.
He refilled my glass, but I only allowed him to pour a few fingers’ worth this time. No use forcing an end to this shindig before it even started. No one liked a party pooper or a girl who couldn’t hold her liquor.
The whiskey sloshed in Lennox’s glass as he lifted it to meet mine. “What are we toasting to? This party have a cause?”
“A cause? You need a reason to fry your brain these days?” I eyed him over the circumference of my glass, blinking to focus.
“Point taken, but you’ve been . . . I don’t know . . . on the sober end of things lately. Why the sudden change of heart?”
So he had noticed. Did it bother him that I’d left him to fly solo on his journey to experience every drug under the sun, or was he just making small talk?
“And you care because?”
“Because I do, Violet. You think I don’t care about you?”
That gave me a warm and fuzzy so different from the warm and fuzzy of the whiskey. I liked it. Maybe a little too much. But this right here was all about too much. How much of too much could I devour tonight? I hoped enough to make me forget every one of my unforgiveable sins and that my father was the devil himself. That made me the spawn of Satan.
“Too much talking. I’m going to the attic.” I slammed my empty on the counter and rushed past him.
His hand gripped my wrist, halting me. “Not so fast.”
“You’d deny me?” I spun to face him, arching an eyebrow and pouting seductively.
A devastating, knee-buckling smile spread across his face. “Never, but I’m not letting you have all the fun.” He let my arm fall from his grasp, speeding past me and racing up the steps.
This game would prove dangerous. An adult version of Hide and Seek mixed with a risky rendition of Tag! You’re it! It was exhilarating, to say the least.
I followed behind, gaining up on him. We reached the landing at the top of the stairs and Lennox stretched his arms above his head to pull the rope to the attic door. His T-shirt rose a few inches and exposed abs that had not yet diminished from lack of working out. With a loud creak of the hinged door, his eyes danced as if he’d just unlocked Pandora’s Box. He also caught me staring at his stomach.
I bit my lip to hide my embarrassment and he ignored the fact I had to be blushing. Whiskey, emotions, pent up frustrations—what a cocktail for disaster. We moved along with our purpose, nonetheless; quenching a thirst that could only be sated by what we’d find at the top of those squeaky wooden steps.
Lennox unfolded the staircase, flipped on the light switch on the wall beside him, and gestured, “Ladies first?”
“Nah. I’ll stay down here. I’m already a little woozy from the Jack Daniels.” I was actually woozy from the Lennox Dean, but he didn’t need to know that.
He chuckled and crawled up. He took a few steps around, moved a box or two, and then unzipped the duffle that encased the secret weapon.
Before I could find leverage on the wall to stop my legs from swaying, he was out of the attic, back on solid ground, half a baggie of coke in his hand. The smile plastered on his dreadfully handsome face should have worried me. His eagerness to get high with me should have worried me. But what worried me most was how much I wanted to cry in his arms, against his chest, with the beat of his heart calming my erratic thoughts about what had just happened with my father.
Lennox, clearly sensing the bi-polarness of my emotions, stepped forward and clenched my shoulders. “Vi? What happened between the time I went up those steps and now?”
I could unleash. He’d listen. I’d listened to his woes with an open mind and a way out, but I didn’t want to talk about it just yet. I wasn’t numb enough. “It’s nothing.” I shrugged, looking away. My eyes caught the bag pressed against my shoulder, still in Lennox’s grip. “Let’s continue the party. That’s what I need right now.”
Without so much as a challenging grunt, he released me from his hold and barreled downstairs. “Last one down’s a rotten egg!”
I shook my head, hoping to clear away the million and one reasons I shouldn’t follow him and encourage his childish outlook on this very adult matter. But I was already going to hell. I might as well enjoy the journey.
“I THINK IS TIME WE put thizzz away.” I slurred my words as I waved the almost-empty bottle of Jack before Lennox’s bloodshot eyes.
“Yeah, you’re prolly right.” He snatched it from me, unscrewed the top, and sucked the remainder of the whiskey down. I ogled the thickness of his Adam’s apple as it bobbed with a hearty gulp. So sexy.
I laughed despite the dizziness, the vulnerability, and the blatant wickedness of the situation before me.
Lennox and I had polished off all 750 milliliters of whiskey and snorted more coke than two human beings should ever snort. The effects—all over the place. Sometimes the combo made me a Chatty Cathy. Sometimes it made me Violent Violet, a nickname Denver gave me once after a night of partying that ended in me throwing a desk chair at a hotel television. Sometimes, like tonight, the drink plus the drug made my heart race, my tongue free, and my thoughts erratic as fuck.
“I hate my fucking father, Lenny.”
“Lenny?” He chuckled. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“Never mind that, Lenny. I’m talking about William.”
We’d switched spots from the kitchen island to the sofa in the den. The television was muted but cast bright spurts of light throughout the darkened room whenever the scene changed. I hadn’t the faintest idea what was even on the damn thing, though my eyes were captivated by its intermittent glow.
“I thought you knew that already. Old news.” Lennox squeezed his nostrils together, sniffling, and then nervously rubbed his index finger against his top row of teeth. He sat back and rested his head against a pillow as if my statement about my father was simply standard late night convo.
His flippancy toward the situation beckoned Violent Violet with an alluring invitation. I shot up, inched closer, and raised my voice. “Don’t dismiss this, Lennox. I’ve listened to you bitch and complain ’bout errything over the laz few months. I’m your go-to gal and now you’re too hopped up to console me in my time of need?”
That got his attention.
His posture stiffened and his eyes bore into mine. “I asked you before and you brushed it off. I am so grateful for the way you helped me, Violet. I’m here for you, as fucked up as I am, so if you want to talk, talk, but I can’t pull it out of you.”
His admission tore at my heartstrings. Suddenly, those erratic emotions caused by too much of everything got the best of me and I started to cry. “I hate him so much. He ruined my life. He made me this way—this horrible, terrible person with no boundaries, no fucking idea what love really is. I have no love, Lennox. I am the epitome of unloved. How sad it that? No matter how hard I try, I’m worthless to everyone! My own sister probably only keeps me around out of obligation. I fucking hate myself! More than I hate him. I’m filled with so much hate!” Everything spewed out of me like vomit. My confession was not tidy nor logical the way it would have been had I done what I should have years ago and sought out a shrink. As the tears rolled down my cheeks and my body quaked with emotion and intoxication, I emptied it all out for Lennox as if he was my only saving grace.
“Oh, Violet.” His eyes glistened with understanding as rough fingers cradled my tear soaked cheek. His thumb caressed my skin, inciting a passion so raw I almost sobered up right then and there.
“It’s not your fault, and you are not horrible person. You’re dealing the only way you know how. We’re dealing the only way we know how.”
His words didn’t make the pain go away. Only one thing could make the voices in my head vanish. I reached over to the coffee table and grabbed the vessel of powder. Taking his arm, I turned it so his forearm faced up. He didn’t object; he didn’t say a word. He only watched as I lined his skin with two rows of the poison that would help me forget. Without hesitation, I brought the rolled up bill to my nose, leaned down, and inhaled row by row. The most glorious sensation of serenity overtook me as the powder broke past the blood vessels and coursed through my body, right to my brain. I smiled and brought Lennox’s arm to my lips, licking the traces of my favorite candy off his skin.
In that moment, our connection was greater than it had ever been. It was profound, all encompassing, a union so fucked up yet so powerful that all reason and sanity fled from my mind. “Lennox?” I asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “I need you to take me away. I need you to make this hate go away. I need to feel loved. Just for one night.”
Slowly at first, we gave in to the temptation. I moistened my lips with my tongue and swallowed the guilt that should have lodged itself in my throat and choked me to death. But there was no guilt, no shame, no reason. I wanted him. Now. I needed to forget. Lennox and I understood each other. Nothing else felt as good. Not even the drugs or the alcohol that pumped through my bloodstream, blurring the lines between compassion and desire.
Our eyes locked again. There was a second when time stood still, warning us, a cautioning metronome. But I ignored it all and did what I knew would make me feel good because I was a glutton; a greedy, broken, fucked up monster who thrived only on the things that erased my pain.
Without another moment’s hesitation, my lips sought what they craved and my mouth collided with his. He did not resist, or throw me away. He accepted what I had to offer because, like me, he was a fucked up monster only capable of satisfying his need to erase the pain.
The instant we gave in to temptation, it was as if every wish I’d ever had was granted by his lips. My hands journeyed the expanse of his body as our tongues met in a forbidden dance. He tasted of whiskey which made it that much better, luring me to suck harder, lick faster, explore further. And that kiss, one of too many to count, escalated to so much more. It was a running theme between Lennox and me. We always needed more. We wanted it, required it, hunted it, and took it. It didn’t matter who we were hurting while we indulged in more, but then again, that’s the nature of greed. It’s selfish by definition. Clearly, so were we.