Denying Heaven (Room 103) (12 page)

“GOD DAMN!!!” I screamed as my ankle jarred with the
force of the kick, the substance of the door fighting against me as I rammed
the base of my boot into the frame where the lock resided.

It finally gave and crashed against the hallway wall
giving us access and opening what could potentially be the gates of hell.

I was terrified what we would find. My stomach was in my
throat as I rounded the hallway into the lounge.

I stuttered to a stop, a whimper rolling out of my mouth
as the guys behind me slammed into me with my sudden halt.

Her desolate eyes lifted to mine from where she sat on
the floor, slumped against the sofa with her knees tucked under her chin and
her arms wrapped around them.

My knees wobbled in relief before my eyes flicked to the
table, taking in the lines of coke before they slammed back to hers.

“I… I couldn’t do it.”

I barely caught the whispered statement as my attention fixated
on the single fat tear that traced the delicate contours of her cheek bone.

She was broken. She reeked of it. It was like a fog
around her; the desolation and sorrow billowing from her with a physicality
that touched everything present around her.

I shivered with the chill as I approached her cautiously
and crouched before her. I heard the guys shuffling around in the hallway,
giving us a moment of privacy as I slowly reached out with my open hand and
placed it gently on the side of her wet cheek. “Baby, Spirit.”

Her eyes gradually travelled to mine and I bit down the
twinge inside me at the emptiness behind them, the once bright green jade now a
dull lifeless olive blandness. “Did you take anything?”

She blinked sluggishly and my guts screamed with a panic
but I controlled my breathing and waited patiently for her reply.

You would not believe the relief in my chest when she
shook her head.

I nodded, closing my eyes for a second to compose myself
before giving her a gentle smile and reaching into her hesitantly with my arms,
lifting her and bringing myself to stand as I bundled her ruined body against
my own.

“Sort her some stuff out” I said to Romeo as I removed
her from Kenny’s depraved care and carried her down the stairs.

She didn’t speak; I wasn’t sure if she even knew where
she was or even who the hell I was.

Seeing her so utterly destroyed had slapped my denial in
my face. The damage I had done was now mocking me and gloating as I placed her
gently in the back seat. I had done this, callously and cruelly, and the guilt
was eating me from the inside, slowly soaking me with shame and regret.

“Oh dear God,” E muttered as she budged across the seat
and drew Spirit into her with a gentle pull on her shoulders.

Spirit went willingly as she curled against E and rested
her head quietly on E’s chest.

She was quiet, so quiet and no tears were flowing. Why
wouldn’t she cry? God, she needed to cry. It would help. It had helped me.

“Shush, Spirit. It’s gonna be fine.” E whispered all the
way back to my house but still she didn’t cry, not even a single tear. It was
like the one that had escaped when she was on the floor in her flat was the
final one; the lost, lonely one that had fled the misery inside Spirit and now,
well now there was nothing left… Just emptiness.

And my baby.

***

I didn’t know what to do.

I studied her blank face as I gently bathed her, my eyes
falling to the sponge as I tenderly laboured at washing away the pain.

I hadn’t bathed a woman since Shona and it felt weird to
be doing it again, but this time was so much different.

I stalled as I ran the sponge over the rise of her
stomach. The soft roundness calling out to something inside me and thoughts of
another time, another round full belly prickled my senses.

My heart clenched as I swallowed back the bile and forced
myself to carry on.

“You should have told me, Spirit.” I told her softly,
unsure whether she was actually listening or not.

She remained emotionless, her eyes an abyss of barrenness
and her face vacant and detached. “You should have told me.” I repeated, not
knowing what to actually say to her.

I dropped the sponge and cupped the softness of her
belly, a small pop in my chest flicking my lips up into a faint smile.

I was scared, fuck I was terrified.

What if?

What if something happened and…

Oh Jesus!

I inhaled a sharp breath and moved back before lifting
her out of the warm water and planting her gently on her feet. She was so detached,
so… absent and I held onto her in case she dropped to the floor in a heap when
I let her go.

I didn’t know whether to call a doctor. The pain she was
causing me with her inner horror was consuming. The intensity of her personal turbulence
was grieving me so much that it felt like Shona all over again. Like this
beautiful tortured sinner was actually dead, deceased and lifeless inside.

“Come back to me, Spirit.” I whispered as I softly patted
her dry.

She remained silent. Of course she did.

I picked her up again and carried her into my bedroom,
laying her gently on the bed after I lifted a t-shirt over her head and slipped
in behind her, encompassing her with my own body and sliding my arms around the
tops of her limp ones and enclosing her thigh with my own.

My heart constricted at the slight whimper she made as I
pulled her in tight. “I’m so sorry, Spirit; I never meant to hurt you. I would
never hurt you.”

I swallowed heavily and closed my eyes, “I’m falling for
you, so hard and… and… the guilt of that is tearing me in half.”

I blew out a breath and grit my teeth in determination. I
would say this, it needed saying and it needed to be heard. I just hoped she
was listening.

“When…when Shona was killed… she was seven months
pregnant with my son.”

I noticed the flicker of a heart beat bang against
Spirit’s chest and I wasn’t sure if that helped or not but I persevered, ready
to tell her, ready to open the door and let her in.

“Shona was so full of life, her life was led for mine,
and mine was led for her. We were inseparable, so totally and utterly in love.
She got me, understood where I came from, where I wanted to be and what I
needed to be. She also knew about my… parent’s, showed me that I was…
me
and not them.”

My gaze moved to the open window with the thoughts of my
parents, if one could call them that. Spirit’s thumb flickered across my own, a
small soft stroke. It was nearly not there, a faint wisp of a caress but I
sighed with the strength she was trying to give me, even though she had none
left, what she did have, she was giving it to me and she could never understand
how much that meant to me, how much her support mattered.

I remained silent for a while, relishing the soft stroke
of Spirit’s thumb moving rhythmically across the ridges of my knuckles before
dragging down deep for the courage to continue. “They, my parents, are in
prison. They got life for running a drugs cartel.”

There, it was said. It was out; the first deep dark
secret out in the openness of the room. Spirit’s stroking paused before it gradually
started moving again.

Now for the biggie, the horror of my childhood and I just
prayed to God that she didn’t condemn me because I wasn’t sure, at the moment,
if I could handle that.

“They… they were sent down when they didn’t cut some coke
correctly and overdosed 38 people, killing them instantly.”

    
The silence was deafening. The
still of her hand stirring my memories as my mother’s distraught face swam
through my eight year old head, her frantic face as she shouted out to me,
telling me she loved me and how sorry she was before the court guards led her
back down to the cells. Yeah, right! I remembered, so clearly, uncle Tank
taking my small hand in his, leading me out of the relatives room in the huge
courthouse and just handing me over to the sick bastards who would eventually end
up hating me more than I hated myself.

The bed shifted slightly and at first I thought it was
the frantic beat of my heart causing the ripple but slowly, gradually Spirit’s
body started to move.

My whole essence stiffened in panic when I felt her legs
shift.

But then she turned towards me, her body rolling smoothly
until she was facing me, leaving me slightly breathless with the beauty staring
me in the face. Her eyes scanned my face, the demand in them bringing on a fear
but then she softened; her face calmed and the coolness in her eyes warmed as
she reached out jerkily with her fingers and traced the edge of my jaw.

My body shuddered, her soft touch igniting a fire of need
deep inside. Not a sexual one for a change, but something much deeper,
something harder and more intense.

Holy shit.

“Spirit…” I choked out but she pursed her lips and
shushed me with a faint shake of her head. 

“Moving on doesn’t mean people die, Bulk. It means you
have taken this fucked up world and kicked it in the balls. It means your heart
can start beating again, your spirit can start healing and your soul can dance
again. It means you can love again… love me.”

I couldn’t breathe against the emotion. They were such
simple words but with infinite solace, yet it still felt like betrayal and I
wasn’t sure how to voice that, how to get her to understand why I couldn’t do
this; couldn’t be with her, love her. Even though I knew it was too late, I had
fallen. However that didn’t mean I should act on it.

I wanted her with a need so overwhelming it was smothering.

“Did…”

I could read the tentativeness and gave her a slight nod
to urge her on, “Did they catch whoever did it?”

I sighed heavily, camouflaging my expression before I
shook my head. She slipped her hand from my face and sought out my hand,
entwining her fingers through mine delicately. “No, no evidence anywhere.”

This was so bad, my guts were coiling and my brain
thumped sharply against my skull but it needed to be said. “I… never saw her,
Boss found her and… wouldn’t let me… see her.”

My throat was closing in with the restraint of my tears.
Shit, why did this have to be so hard? “You see,” I sighed, hating the fact
that I was about to break her heart; be the vicious and cruel, broken bastard
that dominated love stories and movies. “I promised Shona, as they… at her
funeral that I would never utter the words ‘I love you’ again.”

Her eyes never flinched but she rolled her lips. “You
promised her?”

I nodded slowly, trying to get her to understand that I
would never break my promise.

My heart was closing as I waited for the pain to reach
her face but she smiled softly, her pretty pink lips turning higher until her
tender smile radiated through her eyes and through her touch on my jaw.

She shifted her hand until it reached across my cheek and
her thumb played across the ridge of my cheek bone. “If… if you had got to
Shona before…” she closed her eyes for strength then opened them with a
determined look. “If you had got to Shona as she was dying and she made you
promise her one last thing, what would it have been?”

My heart stuttered to a stop as I swallowed and closed my
eyes, “To… to be happy.”

She didn’t answer me and I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t
want to see what was on her face. The thunderous peace in the room was so
extreme I could feel it probing my brain and pulsing against my cranium.

Her fingers dropped from my cheek and softly trailed a soothing
touch down my throat and over my sternum until she flattened her palm over my
heart. My breath stilled as her mouth repeated the route, her moist soft lips
leaving a damp path until she reached the place her hand rested.

“You know,” she whispered as my guts tightened and every
single drop of my blood seemed to rush to my cock, making me light headed in
the process. “You know. What we have, love or not, well, it doesn’t have to be hard.
We don’t have to wrestle with it. We just see where it goes and promise each
other to not use the term.”

I blinked hard as I placed a finger under her chin and
lifted her face so I could see her stunning green eyes. They were brighter than
earlier and I wondered if it had anything to do with her arousal or whether she
was actually back with me, the pain of the situation easing.

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

She leaned forward and brushed her lips over mine, her
little tongue slipping out and flicking my lip jewellery causing a burn in my
gut.

Holy fuck, my dick was panting, begging with me to slam
her on her back and fuck her until she went crazy and I touched heaven... or
hell.

The feel of her, the beat of her heart against mine, the
touch of her yielding lips over mine, the warmth of her breath stealing my own
as she gently brushed against me was both invigorating yet comforting.

“What I’m saying is… I don’t
love you
…”

A lump the size of Canada formed in my throat and I
struggled to breathe for a moment. My heart forgot to beat as an ache appeared
to reduce my gut to embers.

Her eyes held mine, but they were idolising me, a
complete contrast to what her mouth was telling me, “But… I reallyyyy
like
you
.”

Was she saying what I thought she was saying?

I gave her a slightly puzzled expression and she smiled
widely. “I really, really like you. Do you get what I’m saying without saying
it?”

She
was
saying what I thought she was saying.

She loved me but wasn’t saying it.