Chapter 14
Chris had only taken a step or two toward his car, when suddenly he heard Roxanne yell along with a thud behind him. Initially he thought that David had hit Roxanne, and was filled with rage, but after turning around, he saw the man gripping his groin in pain, screaming out loud, and Roxanne running toward Chris.
Chris saw his opportunity and leaped at David, who immediately brought the gun back up to face Chris, but just as his finger started applying pressure to the trigger, Chris’ hand grabbed the gun’s barrel and pushed it away from himself, and with his other arm landed a hard punch to David’s face at the same time as the gun fired the bullet in the air with a cracking sound.
Everything became silent and blurry for a few seconds, as slowly the realization sank in that Chris had defended himself from the bullet, and the possibility of him getting shot was at least momentarily gone.
Seeing Chris still moving, Roxanne suddenly felt some relief as the pangs of fear and anxiety in her heart calmed down, while the sound of Chris punching David was all she could hear. She noticed the gun lying close to the two of them, and hoped that Chris didn’t allow David to get near it again, but seeing that David started fighting back, she ran to pick up the gun, and ran back to stand at a safer distance.
From a distance it seemed like two dogs were fighting rather than men, dust constantly being thrown up in the air, the two rolling back and forth on the ground, one on top, punch, then other on top, punch, and so on. This went on for a while, until she saw Chris being filled with a concerning yet overwhelming anger.
After knocking David to the ground with one hard punch, Chris yelled out a victory cry and leapt on top of him, and then started kneeing David in the crotch incessantly. Soon enough, David lay there on the ground with a broken nose and bleeding teeth, and his clothes were torn. It seemed like he was unconscious.
Chris got up on his feet, and turned around to face Roxanne, who threw the gun on the ground and ran into his arms. The two embraced, wrapping their arms around each other tightly. Chris buried his face in her neck, kissing her there repeatedly. Roxanne pulled away, and kissed Chris on the lips.
The two decided to leave Roxanne’s car behind and leave this mess, and ran toward where Chris’ car was parked. On the way, Chris called an ambulance to the spot, not wanting David to lose his life despite being the hurtful asshole he was.
After the two sat down in Chris’ car, there was an awkward silence for a bit, as if the encounter with David hadn’t happened at all, and Chris had just seen the polaroid.
Roxanne continued looking out the window, trying to muster up courage to meet his eyes. She could tell that the car was moving slowly, as compared to the speeds at which they were going during the chase, and soon felt Chris’ hand on her knee as he tried to comfort her.
He guessed that she must be pretty shook up from the incident, and wanted to do something to make her feel better. He tried thinking of what they could do, and his own apartment came to mind of course, but he knew that if they were alone in a room for long enough, the sexual desire inside him would take over, and for now that was the last thing he wanted. What he truly desired was an explanation, the truth, for once.
He decided to drive to a ice-cream parlor, thinking the cold and funky environment would lighten the mood, and at the same time allow for them to have a conversation.
“Who’s car was that? The one you were driving?” Chris broke the silence by asking.
“It was my father’s. Oh god.” Roxanne replied, and put her head down while realizing that she would have to explain all that to her father.
“Don’t you worry about it, once your father hears about what happened, he can’t be pissed at you.” Chris tried comforting her.
“You don’t get it. He will be pissed, and the worst part is, he won’t listen to any part of my side of the story.” she whined, her eyes getting teary.
“Oh right…” Chris replied, remembering suddenly the Hunt name David had used during their encounter.
“So you guys are connected by blood?” he added, looking straight ahead at the road in front of him and trying his level best to contain his anger.
“Yeah, he’s my second cousin, I’ll explain.” she replied plainly, and looked out the window as if she wanted the conversation to end.
Chris replied with a nod, and proceeded to turn into the city, making his way to this ice-cream parlor he had often frequented with his dates.
*****
“Why hello sir! Haven’t seen you in a while!” the short waiter burst out in a jolly mood, as soon as he saw Chris’ face.
Guessing that this was another one of Chris’ dates, he immediately directed them to a table for two, and pulled his notepad and pen out of his back pocket to take their order. Roxanne couldn’t help but smiling at how respectfully Chris was being treated, and how since she was accompanying him, she received the same hospitality.
“The regular? What will the madam have?” the waiter asked while looking at Chris intently, as if he was expecting Chris to signal him in secret.
“Yeah I’ll have the regular, two scoops, vanilla.” Chris replied to the waiter, and while looking at Roxanne and raising his eyebrows, asked, “You?”
“Um, I’ll have a scoop of strawberry, thanks.” She said to the waiter, trying to hide her restless legs and hands.
“Alright! Sir, Madam, be right back.” the waiter said while nodding to both of them, and then rushed to the kitchen behind the cash counter.
There was another moment of some awkward silence as Chris sat with his eyes pointed to the floor, and Roxanne looked around absorbing the environment. She noticed two families sitting in the other corner of the room, one comprising the parents, a son, and a daughter, while the second one was a mother with a toddler in her arms, playing the airplane eating game. On another table, she noticed two teenage girls licking their spoons clean.
All of this brought a smile to Roxanne’s face, as she realized that she felt quite comfortable and safe in this place, and could’ve easily stayed here for a few hours without getting bored, considering what had just happened.
“So I’m guessing you have a lot of questions.” she said after a while, afraid of how this conversation was going to go.
“More than questions, I have a lot of confusion. I know you lied to me, but I don’t understand why.” Chris said plainly, and waited for her to explain.
Roxanne’s heart rate shot up, and she started hearing the ticking of the wall clock next to their table much more clearly.
“Fair enough.” replied Roxanne.
The waiter popped back in before she could resume, and carefully set their ice-cream bowls in front of them, with small spoons to allow for savoring bites. Even the waiter could sense some tension on this table, and an outsider would have been able to see his expression change from a wide welcoming smile to a blank poker face. The waiter bowed and took his leave, wanting to give space to the couple.
“So…” Roxanne started saying.
Chris propped his elbows up on the table, one arm falling straight down on the surface, while the other one acted as a pillar to his chin, as he got into listening mode as if Roxanne was about to tell a children’s story.
“…the man you saw. My fiancé. He wasn’t wrong.” she said, all the while fiddling with her hands and looking straight down.
Chris had a spoonful of ice-cream, the clash between the metal of the spoon and the glass creating a clank piercing enough for it to shatter something inside Roxanne, as if he was he was hitting the gavel and about to declare her guilty.
“Okay, carry on.” he replied curtly, making it rather clear that he did not like the fact that she lied to him about the man.
“Well, either you understand after this, or you don’t. But here’s how it goes. David and I have known each other pretty much since childhood, distant family. Then at one stage, it seemed as if David started liking me, he started giving me extra attention whenever we would meet at family events, and even my family started noticing it…”
She paused for a bit, taking her time to consider his expressions and make sure if she should go ahead with what she was going to say next.
“Go on…” he nudged her on.
“So….they became quite vocal about this wish of theirs for me to marry him. And before we even got engaged, it was discussed as if my marriage is the family’s affair. I don’t want to lie to you, and I won’t, I did start liking him and convinced myself that I loved him, I was supposed to spend a lifetime with him after all. But once we grew close…”
Chris could see a tear forming at the corner of Roxanne’s eye, and for some reason, his heart softened and he took his hand to her cheek, and while looking into her eyes, moved it upward to wipe the tear. The same feeling he had when he gave her the necklace came back to him.
“Hmm?”
She took in a deep breath, and continued, “Once we grew close, I saw the man he really was. He was a coward in front of the world, and compensated for that when we were intimate. Controlling, unreasonable, and abusive, always doubting or suspecting me. It was very difficult to bring myself to convince my family to call off the marriage, but because of the ‘bad name’ this gave our family….”
Chris started caressing her cheek, and moved her hair strands behind her ear, wanting to kiss her. It was as if his feelings were in sync with hers, and he was under the same stress that she was.
She continued, “…they’ve never listened to my cries for help, not being able to believe that David could be anything like what I said, they accused me of making up stories! As if I had some personal agenda against him.”
An expression of worry grew over Chris’ face, as he tried to keep patient with the matter, containing the uncontrollable anger he was feeling toward David and her family. He felt extremely proud of himself for having given David the beating he deserved.
“What does he want? Now that the marriage has been called off.” Chris inquired.
“Well, for him, it was never really called off. Since the day I went to his house, my family didn’t even come with me, since that day he has been pestering and bullying me to meet him one last time, to kiss him, to lose my virginity to him and whatnot.”
She added further, “He….started following me around as well, to the point where I just gave up and was simply waiting for him to confront me so that I would record it and show it to my family as proof of his crappy behavior.”
“That was smart of you.”
“I suppose. But all thanks to you, I don’t think I’ll have to deal with that problem again.” she said with a grateful smile, as if she wanted to reward him for it.
She still remembered the flexing of his muscles as he landed punch after punch on David’s face, she loved how Chris, the man she was falling so hard for, the man she called her Daddy, had dominated the man she rejected.
“Don’t mention it.” he said and they giggled for the first time in a while.
She felt much lighter now, relieved by his reaction and feeling glad that she decided to come clean to him. Lying to him had been causing a lot of stress to her in the first place, and now that he knew everything, and it seemed like he understood everything, she felt like she had a supporting friend, a lover.
“So what are you going to do now?” Chris asked after a while, when he felt like she had calmed down completely from the tension of the incident.
The puzzle inside his mind was starting to fall into place, and events such as David showing up at the shop, her discomfort in front of him, even the reasons of her lying to him, were making much more sense to him now. In a matter of minutes, his mood shifted from anger and confusion to understanding and guilt.
He cursed at himself for ever being so harsh on her, cursed at himself for the way he screamed at her in her room, ruining the first time she had ever had an orgasm on her own bed. The whole process could have been so much easier had he just asked her what the photo meant calmly, rather than causing such a ruckus.
But he knew that he couldn’t blame himself for that, for had she never lied in the first place, none of this would have been a problem at all. But what he was glad about was, he could understand why she lied, otherwise he was afraid he would start hating her.
“I don’t know. I was thinking, what just happened, is the confrontation I was looking for no? I could tell my family he brought a gun, if the ambulance got there then we could get the police involved, we’ll have evidence. Oh god, this might just have been the best thing to have happened!” she reached the realization while becoming hysterical.
Chris gestured to her to calm down, while smiling. He loved the optimism with which she was living life. Realizing only now how much courage it must’ve taken for her to dress up and put on a skirt, and show up to get jewelry, when she had all the reasons to be depressed and give up on life.
“It does make sense, but hey, nothing has to be this urgent. Give yourself some time to breath. You can go back to your house by night or something. I can also check with the hospital to see what became of David.” he said, trying to do the rational calculations for her, knowing full well that she was in a very emotional state right now.
“You’re right. That definitely makes sense. Could I step outside for a smoke? If you don’t mind of course.”
“Not at all, please do. Mind if I join you after paying the bill?” he asked in a cheery mood.
She felt more warmth in his company now, feeling as if he was a partner she had been living life with for longer than she could remember. She grabbed her bag and phone, and stepped outside to light the last cigarette she had in her box.
Chris watched her smoking outside through the door, how her gaze shifted from car to car, until he realized that it wasn’t objects she was looking at. Her eyes were carefully absorbing the people around her, as if she saw some art in their chaotic lives.
He giggled, and signaled the waiter to bring the bill. After getting the change back, he tipped the waiter rather generously with a smile, and while taking his own cigarette box out, stepped outside to breath in the rough city air.
He had only taken a few puffs, when Roxanne suggested something that was the last thing on his mind, but his stomach was filled with butterflies as soon as he heard it.
“Can we go to your apartment?”