Delusive (29 page)

“No,” I explained, smiling at the compliment. When I first took the job, I barely knew how to do much. After working there for almost half a year, I was much better at it. “I just do it on myself and occasionally customers when the assistant manager isn’t around.”

“Are there rules against applying makeup to customers?” she asked.

“We’re not supposed to,” I explained

“That is nonsensical.” She waved at the adjoining cosmetics store. “You have a fully stocked cosmetics line. This would be how you promote it.”

I bobbed my head in agreement. “Store policy.”

“I work for F.A.C.E. Cosmetics here in the mall. We just lost an artist to a promotion. You should apply.”

After running her card and placing her items in the branded white damask print bag, I gave her a friendly smile and said, “Thank you. I’ll consider it.”

I drifted around the store after my customer left, surveying what needed to be tidied up or rearranged. At the entrance on the lingerie side, Elias came in with his muscle, Jaco. I hoped Elias would give me the space I needed…or the space I
thought
I needed. As he stood there, his eyes trailing around the store, looking for me, I almost let him find me.

Shaking off the thoughts about how much I missed him and could’ve forgiven him “only if,” I marched toward the cosmetics store swift enough to kick up the air around me. I caught Claudia’s attention on the way and asked, “May I take my lunch now?”

She looked up from her clipboard and surveyed the store for a second. With a nod, she granted me permission to leave for lunch.

I slipped off my black blazer and headed out the door. I was almost a store away from La Dentelle when he called my name.
 

“Why are you here?” I snapped, turning on a dime. “Is there something you wanted?”

He gave me a boyish smile, a smile that claimed his forgiveness before he deserved it. “Since twenty-thousand dollars’ worth of clothes and flowers didn’t gain your attention, I came here to beg.” He glanced at Jaco. “It’s a huge deal for me to do this, because that man over there has worked for me for a number of years and been my friend since we were in diapers. To ever see me on my knees, pleading for anything might make him think the sky is falling…” Taking my hands in his, he got down on his knees. “…but if my sky is falling, so is his.”

My watering eyes rolled up at the sky, almost lured with the man’s way of persuading me. “Does this work on the women you abuse? It won’t work on me. Don’t worry. I’m picking up and leaving by the end of the month and you can move on to some other woman to woo and fuck over.”

His eyes turned dark and his face dropped.
 

I looked at Jaco, who stood near us, pretending not to listen in. Elias, appearing annoyed because my attention was divided, shot Jaco a chiding look. Jaco threw up his hands and walked in the opposite direction.

“Hanley?” Elias’s voice cracked as he gazed at me like I had destroyed the thing most precious to him and made him watch while I did. “No. You can’t. If you leave—”

“People are beginning to stare.” I glanced around at the shoppers passing us by. Some snickered, others stared at Elias with their mouths agape. A few select women swooned over Elias and shot me sharp looks in my direction.

“I don’t care,” he snapped, calling more attention to us.

I pried my hands from his and began to walk again.

“Hanley!” he shouted, stopping me cold.

Feeling him close in on me, I started up a hurried gait and marched harder, faster. Once I arrived at the indoor area of the mall, I had almost reached a running pace until he grabbed me and pulled me into the corridor leading to the public bathrooms and the mall security office.

“Get your hands off of me.” I swatted at his hands, wanting him away because his touch made me recall things that would weaken my resolve.

He held up his finger and took a step back. Shortly after pulling out the tails of his shirt, he began to unbutton it.
 

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

His chin rested against his chest. His dark, thick eyelashes glistened with moisture. Sadness swarmed his face, increasing in intensity with every movement he made. With his shirt undone, next came his pants. When he slipped out of both, he revealed the destruction he'd done to his body. His arms were slightly outstretched, and he looked like a beautiful, tragic, pain addict.

“Elias,” I gasped, stepping forward. As I touched his torso, he shuddered underneath my palm.

“I hurt someone when you left.” His hand moved up to caress my face but stopped just shy of making contact with my skin. “When that wasn’t enough, I hurt myself. I’ve never—ever—done this to myself before.
 

“I stood there, waiting for Jaco to finish a cigarette and I wondered what it would feel like against my skin. Would it be enough to make me forget you? Would it be enough to make the pain of losing you feel a little something less than the equivalent of being burned alive?” He pointed to the pinkish burns, maybe done by a cigarette, or a lighter, arranged in a perfect pattern down the side of his torso and inside his long, muscular thighs. “I did it repeatedly until I stopped feeling empty. Needless to say, it didn’t work.”

“Why are you so fucking crazy?” I asked wistfully, my mouth stuck in its open position.

“I’m crazy without you. With you, everything is much easier to control.”

I continued to gawk at him, my head moving from side to side. “Is it? Is it really, Elias?”

His hands clasped either side of my face too gently for me to feel the warmth of his hands against my skin. I pushed down the desire to make him hold me closer. The desire to make him reignite the sensation of what his touch made me feel.
 

“It will never happen again,” he promised me with enough conviction to make me believe him.

“Luther was his name,” I struggled to say the words just as hard as I restrained the urge to cry. “He chased my mother around the house and beat her until he was tired. When he was done, he behaved like the sweetest guy the next day. He cried for her and gave her keys to the car she always wanted. The car sat in their driveway for months untouched. It wasn’t until he died that she sold it.
 

“After he beat her, he told her he’d never hurt her again. The next week, he beat her into a coma. After my mother woke up, she forgave him and continued to be with him until he died a year later. I always thought if he’d lived a little longer, he would’ve eventually killed her. He couldn’t fucking help himself.” With a renewed sense of anger, my eyes shot up to his. “Does any of this sound familiar, Elias?” I shoved his hands away, stepping backward. “You must think I’m the stupidest girl in the world.”

“It’s not fair to compare me to him,” he replied, his voice lowering a few octaves. “What I did to you and what I am capable of doing to you, even at my angriest, is nowhere near what that man—and I use the term loosely—did to your mother. I never would…” Clenching his fists as his arms hung tensely at his sides. He shut his eyes for a minute, and it apparently depleted what little was left of his defensiveness. “What do you want me to do?” he asked in almost a whisper. “And don’t advise me to leave you alone. Don’t tell me to give you space. Don’t say you want to see other people. None of those are options, and for one, I know it would all be lies if you said any of those things. So answer me, what do you want me to do?”

I tried to be strong in my convictions, but I failed miserably—visibly. I swallowed back the sob and shoved away my tears becoming angry at my lack of self-containment, allowing myself to come undone.

He came closer, embracing the back of my head. “I know you miss me. Maybe half as much as I missed you. Come back to me.” When my head tipped down, his soft lips pressed against my forehead and his thumbs swept the tears from my cheeks.
 

Jaco appeared in the hall, tapping his watch. “Elias, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’re gonna be late for that…thing.”

He averted his eyes as he hissed at Jaco,
“Isso pode esperar até eu acabar!
” Holding me in his gaze again, his mild annoyance toward Jaco’s interruption began to disappear. “You have every right to be upset. Let me try to earn you back. Have dinner with me tonight. Wherever you want to go, we will go. We can start over and go as slow or as fast as you want. Consider me the man who will do anything for you—anything you want me to.” He kissed my forehead again and haphazardly redressed. He held my head one last time, his lips met mine as he whispered, “
Amo-te,
” before leaving with Jaco.

I clutched my chest, feeling my erratically beating heart. I slipped against the wall, banging the back of my head against it repeatedly until I could feel the physical pain. Staring at the ceiling, I shouted, “Fuck!”

AFTER CLOSING, I gave Skylar a call. I couldn’t go home and face Elias’s numerous versions of apologies or take the chance he might slip into my room. I was in deep need of a familiar place. A place devoid of the needs or wants of other people. A place devoid of the thoughts and emotions, demanding my return to Elias.

I took the battery out of my phone, removed the SIM card, and trashed it. Before leaving work, I headed to the store to purchase a new pay-as-you-go phone.

IT WAS THE first time Skylar had ever invited me to her house. As it turned out, she didn’t live far from the place she took me and dumped me. I felt guilty for my reaction to her residence from the moment she opened the door.

“Don’t give me that look.” She snarled in defense. “This is my aunt’s place. They are fumigating my house.”

“You don’t have to act this way, Skylar.” I gave her a coy grin and shrugged it off to let her know it didn’t matter where she lived. “I know you live on your own, and I know what La Dentelle pays.”

She tucked one side of her lavender hair behind her ear and expelled a large spat of air. “It pays enough for a place better than this.”

“It does, but—”

“Stop it. I know you’re just going to insult me.” She pulled me inside and slapped my ass for good measure.

Rubbing the sting out of my behind, I strolled into her living room.

Looking around her “aunt’s” house, it looked like she lived alone for a long time and the maid had quit some years ago. Many of the furnishings were worse for wear from what I could see of them. Skylar’s lingerie and many of her clothes were strewn around the downstairs area of the house. “If you need any help with the cleaning, I could do it on my day off.”

She pointed at my face as hers soured. “You said you wouldn’t judge.”

Clearing off the piles of unopened mail so I had a place to sit, I curled up on her dingy microsuede sectional. “Elias and I broke up.”

She was immediately at my side, sitting next to me and clutching my hand in comfort. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

The idea of Cabo swirled around in my mind. The voice of reason told me
No. Not yet
. “No,” I finally replied. Chatting about it wouldn’t have helped me get through it or rid me of the aching pit inside me that felt starved for Elias.
 

Being that she had the tendency to be a little hot-headed, discussing what he did to me would only anger her. I preferred to keep her in the dark. Especially because I knew I wouldn’t be without him for long. She would always remember and be unbearable over her need to tell me how bad he was for me.

“Party favors are on the way. Here.” She grabbed a small white packet from the table in front of us and slipped a pill from it, handing it to me. “Take this.”

“What is this?” I held up the pale blue pill with a hole in the shape of a heart in the center.

“It will take the pain away. At least for a little while.”

I shook my head. “I’m not into drugs, Skylar. Never have been and never will be. This won’t cure my pain.”

“You have all the time in the world to feel it. I wouldn’t give you anything to fuck you over. Promise.” She gave me a smile. “Besides, how bad can something with a heart in the center be?”

“From what I’ve heard, Mollies usually have glamorous, and sometimes artistic, designs.”

“Point taken,” she laughed. “Never mind.”

I grabbed her wrist, halting her before she was able to put the pill back in the bag. I sat up and took the pill along with the bottle of water she gave to me.
 

Within an hour, I was completely mellowed out. I had never felt so calm. Like nothing mattered and there wasn’t any rush to do…anything. The more I mellowed, the more visitors Skylar had. My body felt heavy and desired to meld with the floor. Everything in motion around me moved at a calculated pace.

“Come over here!” I heard Skylar shout.

Her voice surrounded me, making it difficult to determine exactly where she was. “Skylar? Where are you?”

“Right here, silly.” Someone braced my shoulders and led me around.

I flopped down and thankfully, there was cushion underneath me to cradle my fall. Next to me, I focused on a familiar face. “Brent.” I smiled.

“Hanley.” He smiled back. “Never thought I’d see you again.” He took a hold of a small joint and inhaled, holding his breath for a moment. As his breath unfurled, a long stream of smoke skirted around him. He handed it to me.