Bent not Broken (35 page)

We smile at each other and enjoy the moment of having found something else we have in common.

“Alright, let’s go. I’m starving,” I say.

Pulling me close as he wraps me in his arms, Arsen lowers his mouth and plants a kiss behind my ear. With a Harry Potter book in one hand, and a heavy plastic bag in the other, my stomach tightens when he whispers, “Me too…”

I hand Arsen the shopping bag and tell him I need to use the restroom. On my way to the bathroom, I notice the children’s section that is filled with comfortable couches, toys for sale, and bright and colorful book covers. There’re strollers parked here and there, moms telling their kids not to touch this or that, babysitters gossiping amongst themselves, kids running and throwing books off the shelves with their small hands while others sit nicely and browse through pages filled with pictures. Feeling a familiar pang in my chest, I pick up the pace and try to get away from there as quickly as possible. After I use the restroom and wash my hands, I head to the entrance, avoiding the area that makes my nightmares reappear at all costs.

When I get to the entrance, Arsen is nowhere to be found. After a few minutes of walking around the sections closest to the front of the store, I begin to think that maybe he went looking for me. Begrudgingly, I go find him, though I really don’t want to go near the back again. Just knowing that I’m approaching that area makes my heart beat faster, my steps feel heavier and my palms sweaty.

In the months since my last miscarriage, I’ve been able to avoid coming in close contact with children, particularly toddlers and babies, and I would like to keep it that way. I swallow hard. I’m not sure I’m ready for my lucky streak to end. I can’t even look at a pregnant woman without feeling envy and anger.

Where the hell is Arsen?

“Jaime! Come back here this minute!” A woman calls after a small boy who comes barreling through the narrow pathway between tables filled with books, zooming right past me. Moving out of the way just in time, I barely avoid him crashing against me. With a hand on my chest trying to slow down my breathing, I look around for Arsen. I don’t think I can stay here for much longer. Panic is starting to work its dark magic around me.

I lean against a bookshelf taller than me and close my eyes for a moment.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

You don’t care, remember?

You’re over them.

You’re over it.

Chanting these words as if they were a litany in my head, I fight the usual darkness attempting to swallow me whole when strong arms that feel like a lifeline pull me out, bringing me back to reality where there’s light. His light.

I keep my eyes closed and let him wrap me in a soothing embrace. With his arms around me, smelling his spicy smell, listening to the calm beating of his heart, the haunting ghosts begin to fade. The wonder of the moment is that Arsen isn’t embarrassed by my manic outburst. If anything, it’s as if he is trying to help me through it.

“Catherine, I’m here. It’s okay,” he whispers softly.

When I can form a coherent thought and feel more calm, I speak into his chest. “We need to leave, Arsen. I-I’m not sure I can do this…not yet.”

Arsen is silent for a moment. “I don’t think so. I think we should stay here, Catherine.”

His words are a slap on the face.

Hurt, I begin to pull away, but he stops me when he tightens his grip around me. “No. Please, Dimples, hear me out.”

“You have one minute, Arsen. After that I’m out of here.” Opening my eyes, I raise them to look at him straight in the eye. “With you or without you.”

He lifts a hand and tugs the front of his hair. “You can’t keep running away from your nightmares. They’ll eventually catch up to you. They always do. I wasn’t there for you when that fucked up shit went down, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret it, but today I can help you. I can be there for you. You don’t need to do anything. Just go in there, face those fucking demons, and show them what you’re made of. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You’re standing here with me after all. You’re laughing and living life again. So fight, Dimples. Fucking fight it.”

“Oh, Arsen…”

His words break me and heal me all at once. A blow to the stomach and a comforting caress in one swift movement.

“Listen to me. There’s no way to correct your present without confronting your past. Let’s just go in there, sit down for a few minutes, and then we can leave. I won’t push you to do anything else, just this one small thing. Please, let me be there for you.” There’s a fierce entreaty in his voice, in his eyes, in his hold of me.

I laugh because he makes it sound so easy. “Just this one small thing?”

“Hell yeah. I know you can do it,” Arsen says.

I shake my head because I can’t believe I’m actually going to listen to this nutcase and go through with his idiotic idea of healing.

“Fine. I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”

Feeling a light tap on the side of my leg, I lower my gaze to find a small child standing in front of me holding
Where The Wild Things Are
in her hands. Her big, innocent, brown eyes are stripping me naked with their intensity as she watches me.

“My brahther is mean. He don’t want to read me a ‘tory and I can’t read yet. I want a ‘tory. I want a ‘tory.”

With a tight knot in the back of my throat, I let go of Arsen and kneel down. “Um…where is your mommy or your babysitter? Do you want me to find them for you?”

“Nu-uh. Lilah is with her friends.”

“Do you want me to go get Lilah for you? Is she your older sister?”

“Nu-uh. Silly! Lilah is my nanny. I want you to read me my ‘tory.” She scrunches up her nose when she sees me shaking my head no. It’s horrible, I know. Denying this beautiful girl what she wants breaks my heart, but I can’t do it. I just can’t.

I’m about to stand up when she grabs my shoulder, her face brightening like the sun. “Pleeeasse? My mommy told me that if I say please and thank you I can get whatever I want. Pleassee?”

I silently curse and turn to look at Arsen, pleading with my eyes for an out. His hands in the front pockets of his jeans and a lazy smile on his lips, he shrugs his shoulders carelessly, mouthing, “She asked you.”

I know he’s pretending to not care, but his eyes give him up, they contradict his blasé demeanor. His eyes are willing me to be brave.

Swallowing hard as my heart beats as fast and hard as a stampede of wild animals, I nod to the small child. “Sure. Why not?”

And it’s at this moment with Arsen smiling down at me that I decide to fight back. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with him, but his support has everything to do with it.

When the little girl sits on my lap right on the carpeted floor, with books around us and the noise of people talking, I feel the comfortable heat of her body on my lap, warming me, warming my heart, and I know I am on my way to recovery. Closing my eyes for a moment, I lean down and inhale the sweet smell of strawberries and chocolate emanating from her hair. After a few minutes, I lift my eyes and see the blue fire that I love so much staring back at me with such tenderness.

That’s when I know a painful chapter has been closed.

He was right. Even when the horizon seems to be bleak and full of pain, we must learn to fight and persevere because the rewards of those tears of struggle mean that you get to live your life once more.Arsen taught me that.

Staring at him, a blinding fog disperses away from my heart as the truth stares back at me in those misty eyes.

I love him.

I’ve fallen in love with another man.

But can you love two men at the same time?

Because I think I do.

Chapter 23

Arsen

I can feel again.

I can see her face.

I can touch her body next to mine.

I can bury my nose in her hair and breathe her in.

I can close my eyes and feel her sweet lips tracing my face with lingering kisses.

I can feast on her body as if it were my last meal.

I can feel again.

The afternoon sun is shining through the naked windows of my apartment as I open my eyes and find Catherine here, watching me sleep. She is lying on her side, facing me with both hands tucked under her right cheek, the sun bathing her face in light. She hasn’t left yet. I notice the small smile playing on her lips, and I can’t help but smile back. She makes me so damn happy.

There are still moments when I can’t quite believe that she’s finally in my arms. You would think that spending almost every day together while her husband is at work, laughing over stupid shit and having lots of fuck-tastic sex, would have grown old by now, but it hasn’t. I live for these moments when she’s with me; when the world is left outside this room and the only person that matters is right here next to me.

She’s wearing one of my old t-shirts. Hmm…I wonder if that’s all she is wearing. Sweet. Her blonde hair is down and framing her face, but her eyes look puffy and red as if she had been crying. I want to ask her what made her cry, what has brought that sad look in her eyes again, but I touch her instead. When we are together, that sad and lost look leaves her eyes.

I remember the first time I met her. As we shook hands and I gazed into the deep green depths of her eyes, I could see her damn soul through them, and it was broken, calling for me. Dimples, though beautiful on the outside, was hiding something shattered, something hard, something that I very much wanted to fix. I also got the feeling, one I can’t seem to shake to this day, that she would change everything as I knew it.

I want her to be free of whatever still haunts her.

I want to be the temple that she seeks solace in.

I want to be her damn savior.

I want to help her heal.

“Tell me about Jessica,” Catherine asks, touching the tattoo on my chest.

At first I don’t answer, allowing myself to just enjoy the burning sensation her fingers leave behind as they trace the outline of the butterfly.

“Arsen?”

I take her small hand in mine, bringing it to my lips, and placing a kiss in her palm. How can mere words adequately describe how guilty I still feel over Jessica’s death?

Clearing my throat, I decide to be as honest with Catherine as possible. I can’t look at her perfect eyes and tell her that I killed someone, so instead I focus on our intertwined fingers lying against my chest.

“She died. She died because of me.”

“Arsen, look at me. What do you mean?”

“I killed her. I was drunk…we were drunk…she was driving.” Pausing for a moment, I take a deep breath before continuing, “I shouldn’t have let her drive, but I was just as fucked up as she was. We were supposed to sleep over, but we got high and decided to take a drive in her new Ferrari. I walked away with only two broken ribs, but she died.”

“Oh, Arsen. I’m so sorry…”

We are silent for a while before she speaks again.

“D-did you love her?”

“Yes. I thought she was the moon to my starless night.”

“Oh.”

“How old were you? I mean, how long ago was this?” she asks hesitantly.

“I was twenty, and she was eighteen.”

I shut my eyes tightly. Fuck. Even after all this time it still hurts.

“I’m so sorry, Arsen. “

“Yeah, me too,” I pause, “The women, the drugs, the alcohol…they all helped me to forget and numb the pain. But eventually you have to deal with your demons because you’re never truly free until you’ve faced them. And I have.”

“Do you…do you still love her?”

“I do. I think some part of me will always love her. Yes, we were young when we met, but she was my first love.”

“You have to stop blaming yourself for her death, Arsen. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know it wasn’t my fault, but I could’ve prevented it. I still blame myself…I just don’t let the guilt eat me alive anymore. I don’t let it destroy me. I know Jessica wouldn’t want that.”

“Why don’t you try to meet someone else? Fall in love again?” she asks, staring directly into my eyes.

Putting Jessica back in the recesses of my heart, where she’ll always be, I watch Catherine for a very long time. I take in the feverish color covering her cheeks, her stormy green eyes, and the way she seems to light up the whole room, my whole world.

“You know, I didn’t think I could fall in love again but—”

“Why are you wasting your time with me? This...this…” Without finishing her sentence, she stares at me as if I were a fortune teller, but it’s her question and the pain I see reflected in her beautiful face that take me by surprise.

“What’s the matter, Dimples?” Needing to feel the warmth of her skin against mine, I raise a hand to trace her cheek, the curve of her cheekbone, her lips.

“How can something so wrong feel this right? Like it was meant to be?” she asks throatily.

“Maybe we were meant to be together…”

But were we? Or did we force our hand?

Catherine is silent as she gazes at me with so much fucking feeling that it makes my shitty heart sing. It’s at times like this, when she’s stripped of makeup, her lips swollen from my kisses and her hair is lying on my pillow, that I can’t help but be glad that I pursued her, that I didn’t give a damn that she was married, that I took advantage of the situation like the son of a bitch that I am.

I need her.

“Why do you want me? I’m so screwed up. And to top it all off, I’m a cheater, and a liar,” she asks.

“I want you. Simple as that. No explanations are needed. No whys, no hows, I just do. You are perfect to me, Catherine. Completely. Make no mistake about that. And if you are a cheater, what the fuck does that make me?”

“But, what about Ben? This isn’t fair to him. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“I don’t know. Let me ask you something. Would you be able to walk away from this, from us, right now—without once looking back?” I ask.

“I don’t know…”

Questions left unanswered, Catherine closes her eyes and pushes herself against me.