Make Me Sin (30 page)

Everyone hugs, we say our good-byes, and after they’re gone, I get in my car and head home, trying to not worry.

T
he first thing I notice that’s wrong is the chain-link fence on the dirt road leading to the hotel is open. Wide open, not just unlocked.

I pull to a stop several yards away, staring at it. I’ve never seen it unlocked before. In fact, I lock it behind me every morning when I go to work.

I swallow, assuring myself it’s nothing. I drive past it, unsure whether to leave it open or lock it behind me, but there’s this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach and I don’t want to dally, so I drive on. At the top of the hill when the hotel comes into view, I see the second wrong thing.

A car, parked next to the fountain in the driveway. It’s a beauty, too, a brand new Rolls-Royce Ghost, black on black, sleek and shiny. For a moment, I’m confused.

Did A.J.’s manager come here?

The strange feeling gets stronger. I park my car next to the Ghost. I try to look inside, but the windows are blacked-out limo tint; no luck. I hurry inside, take the staircase two steps at a time, and run down the hallway toward room twenty-seven, my handbag bouncing at my side.

Calm down!
I tell myself. But it doesn’t work. I’m panicking. I know, on a deep gut level, that something is very, very wrong.

When I open the door to the room I’ve been living in for the past two months, it only gets worse.

A.J. is in bed. He’s lying on his back with his hands beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. He’s bare chested, the lower half of his body under a sheet, but I can tell he’s naked. Though it’s midafternoon and still light outside, all the candles are lit. It’s warm in the room, too warm, and it smells like . . . perfume?

I step inside. He turns his head and looks at me. What I see in his eyes—the deadness, the total lack of light—stops me short.

“A.J.? Are you all right, sweetie? You missed the meeting.”

Before he can answer, I hear a sound that stops my heart cold in my chest.

The toilet flushes.

Someone is in the bathroom.

A.J. is naked in bed,
in our bed
, and someone is in the bathroom.

Then the bathroom door opens and my world comes to an end.

Heavenly steps out, brushing her long, wet hair with a brush I instantly recognize as mine. My grandmother gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday; it’s a sterling silver boar’s hair brush with my initials inscribed on the back. She looks up, sees me standing in the doorway, and freezes.

She’s nude. She’s beautiful. She’s just taken a shower.

She’s just fucked the man I love.

A noise comes out of me, an ugly, choked groan from deep within my chest. It sounds like an animal in agony.

Heavenly drops her arms to her sides. She makes no move to cover herself. She doesn’t even look surprised to see me. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly, looking away.

Sorry for what? Killing me? Because that’s exactly what she’s done. She’s just stabbed me a thousand times in the heart with a dagger. She’s just shot me in the gut with a shotgun. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. Everything is suddenly too bright, too loud, too close. I feel like I’m suffocating, drowning, like I’ve jumped off a building and am falling at top speed toward the ground. My heart pounds and my hands shake and my throat is closing up.

For the final blow, Bella ambles from the bathroom, sits at Heavenly’s feet, looks up at her, and barks.

I know that bark. It’s her “feed me” bark. It’s a bark she’d only make with someone she’s comfortable with.

With someone she loves.

Oh God. They’ve been doing this all along. I’ve been going to work every day like a stupid, naïve little girl, and my man and his whore have been fucking in the bed that we share. If I hadn’t come home early, I’d never have caught them. I would have let A.J. put his hands and mouth on me tonight, I would have believed every murmured word of worship and love that passed his lips.

I feel the exact moment when my face crumples. I back up a step, clutching my stomach, tasting bile in the back of my throat. I look over at A.J., but he’s gone back to staring at the ceiling.

In a voice devoid of any shred of emotion, he says, “I’ll pack up your things and have them sent to the shop.”

I’ve been dismissed. Just like that, I’m no longer needed.

I’m no longer wanted.

It’s all been a lie.

There’s nothing left to say or do, so I simply turn and run.

A
fter Chloe’s gone, Heavenly stares at me for a long time from her place near the bathroom door, while I lie flat on my back with tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

“You should tell her, A.J.”

I sit up and rest my elbows on my knees. I don’t know if I can answer; the crushing weight on my chest is almost too much to bear. But finally I manage it. “I know what I’m doing. It’s better this way.”

“She loves you. She’ll stay with you if you tell her the truth.”

I bow my head and close my eyes. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

I hear Heavenly cross the room. Fabric rustles; she’s pulling on her dress. Then she kneels beside me on the mattress and rests her hand on my arm.

When I look up at her, I can’t stand the pity in her eyes, so I look away.

In Russian, she says, “You can still be happy, old friend. It’s not too late.”

“It
is
too late,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “I knew this was coming, and I took it way too far with her. I should have ended it sooner. I should have never started it in the first place.”

She sighs. She knows it’s useless to argue with me, and we’ve been over this before. This is the way it has to be. This is the only thing I can offer after how selfish I’ve been. It’s easier to leave in anger than in sadness, and now Chloe will hate my guts forever. That, at least, will give her some strength.

I know from personal experience how motivating hatred can be.

Heavenly stands and stares down at me. “You’re a fool. If I had a chance at real happiness like you do, there’s nothing on earth that could stop me from taking it. And you’re just throwing it away.”

The laugh that tears from my throat is more like a moan of despair. “Don’t be stupid. There are no happily-ever-afters for people like you and me.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she softly agrees, “but if I had what you have, it wouldn’t stop me from trying.”

She turns and walks to the door, picking up her clutch from the sofa on the way. She steps into her heels, then pauses for a moment before looking back at me one last time.

“And it’s never too late, A.J. As long as you’re still breathing, it’s not too late.”

She lets herself out, gently closing the door behind her.

I
don’t remember the drive to my apartment. I don’t remember parking the car, or taking the elevator, or unlocking the door. I move like a sleepwalker, blind and deaf, only coming to consciousness when hot water pours over my head.

I take a shower fully clothed, shivering violently, my teeth chattering though the water is almost scalding. I can’t get warm. Everything inside me feels frozen. Beneath my skin lies nothing but a vast, deserted tundra of ice.

A lie. It was all a lie. He never loved me at all.

Finally, the full force of the pain hits me, and I bawl. My body is wracked with the strength of my sobs. I can’t stand up anymore, so I slide to the floor and lean against the shower wall, crying hard, snot running down my face, my arms wrapped around my knees as the water pounds over me.

I don’t know how long I stay under the spray. Long after the water turns cold, I sit in the corner of the stall with my arms around my knees, shaking. Somehow I eventually find the strength to stand, turn off the water, and strip out of my clothes. I leave them in a sodden pile on the bathroom floor. I don’t bother to dry off. I make it to my bed before my strength gives out, and I curl into a ball with the covers pulled over my head.

For hours uncounted I lie there in silent misery, rising only once to lean over the toilet and puke.

T
hat day passes. I don’t eat. I don’t drink. I don’t answer the house phone or my cell phone when they ring. I know I’m in some kind of shock, and that this isn’t healthy, but I can’t find the strength to care. I have nothing left. I’ve been hollowed out, scraped clean.

I sleep.

I cry.

I die a thousand deaths, each time I remember it.

A
nother day passes. I wonder how my heart keeps beating.

I wish it wouldn’t.

A
fter another day or two or ten later, a loud pounding noise wakes me.

The clock on my nightstand reads four p.m. I have no sense of how long I’ve been in bed, of how much time has passed. When I lift my head and look around, I’m dizzy.

I can’t remember when I last ate.

The pounding comes from my front door; someone is furiously knocking.

Go away. I’m not here. Send flowers to my funeral and go the hell away.

“Chloe! Are you in there? It’s Kat! Honey, please, if you’re in there, open the door!”

Her voice is muffled, but the frantic tone is clear enough. I can’t muster the energy to feel sorry that I’ve worried my friend. I can barely muster the energy to sit up in bed, but I do because she won’t stop her insistent hammering. I run a hand through my hair, shuffle to the bathroom and get my robe, and shrug it on while moving like a zombie through my apartment.

When I open the door and she gets a good look at me, Kat cries out in shock.

“Chloe,” she says, her eyes huge, “my God, honey! What’s happened? Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been here. I’m fine. Don’t worry. I need to go back to bed now.”

My voice is strangely flat. I try to close the door, but Kat slams her hand against it and pushes it wide open. She takes me by the shoulders, steers me to the couch, makes me sit, then goes back and shuts the front door. She returns and kneels on the floor in front of me, taking my hands in hers.

“Chloe, you’ve been missing for four days. No one knows where you’ve been. You haven’t been answering your phone. You haven’t showed up for work. You haven’t called anyone.”

She speaks to me slowly and with very clear enunciation, as if to someone with a shaky grip on the English language.

“Your parents are freaking out. They thought Eric . . . well, you can imagine what they thought. They filed a missing person’s report. When the police came by, all your neighbors said you hadn’t been here in months, but the building manager was going to check on the apartment later today to make sure there wasn’t a dead body in here.”

There is a dead body in here
, I think.

When I don’t respond, she repeats more forcefully, “Where have you been?”

“I was here,” I repeat woodenly, staring past her at the wall. “I’ve been here the whole time. I’m fine.”

She sits beside me on the sofa. “You’re
not
fine, obviously! What on earth
happene
d
?”

I think about it for a moment, and arrive at the only logical conclusion. “I died. And now I’m in hell.”

When I turn my head and look into her eyes, all the color drains from her face. “You’re scaring me.”

My stomach growls. I try to swallow but my throat is so dry I can’t. I’m dizzy again, so I close my eyes so the room will stop spinning. “I need to be alone now, Kat. Please tell everyone I’m fine. I just need to be alone.” I try to stand, but my knees give out and I end up sagging back to the sofa, breathless, the room spinning.

“That’s it,” Kat says firmly. “I’m calling your father.”

My eyes fly open. “No! Kat, no, please, don’t call anyone. I can’t see anyone. I can’t . . . I just can’t . . .”

Suddenly I’m struggling for breath. I feel as if all my organs are failing. I look at her, at her worried eyes and pale face, and realize with a painful intake of air that I don’t want her to leave.

I’m afraid of what will happen if I’m alone for much longer.

I gasp, gulping air, beginning to shake all over. I blurt, “He doesn’t love me, Kat. It’s over. It was all a lie. I found him with Heavenly . . . I walked in and he was . . . they were . . .”

Her face goes through a number of expressions before it settles on fury. Her lips thin to a pale, hard line. “Don’t think about it right now. We can talk about it later. Or not, whatever you want. Just lie back and rest.” She gently pushes me back onto the sofa, and covers me with my fluffy chocolate cashmere throw. Suddenly I can hardly keep my eyes open.

“I need to make a few calls, but I’m staying here with you. I’m not leaving, okay?”

You’ll never have to be alone again, not if you don’t want to be.

I remember A.J.’s promise, and all the broken things inside me grind together, making me bleed.

I don’t answer, but Kat doesn’t seem to require it. She sets about turning on lights, opening windows, letting fresh air into my dank, stuffy apartment. I hear her on the phone, ordering food, then she calls several other people. My parents, I assume. Probably Grace, the shop. I drift in and out of a hazy sleep/wake state, lulled by the soft cadence of her voice in the other room.

I fall asleep once again.

One small mercy: I don’t dream.

O
ver the next few days Grace and Kat take turns looking after me. They fill my refrigerator with food, do my laundry, make me meals, hold my hand in silent support when I begin, out of nowhere, to weep. I’ve refused to speak to either one of my parents, but the girls take care of that, too, reassuring them I’m okay, and that I just need a rest.

I might need more than a rest. I might need a prescription for strong painkillers and a long, pleasant stay at one of those places where a nice lady in a white uniform speaks very softly while pushing me around tranquil gardens in a wheelchair.

But slowly, over the next few weeks, my strength returns.

With it comes a terrible, burning rage. I find myself staring at random sharp objects—knives, scissors, the sharpened point of a pencil—and imagining myself plunging them into A.J.’s neck.

It’s a little frightening, but it’s better than the bottomless despair that swallowed me before. At least the rage gives me energy.

I go back to work. I relearn how to smile. Though it’s not genuine, most people either don’t notice or don’t care. Kat and Grace do notice and care, but I think they’re just glad I’m out of my pajamas and back into what passes as the real world.

Not that it is, of course. The real world is back in a crumbling ruin of a hotel in the hills, in a candlelit room with opera music and a three-legged dog and a man who taught me what happiness looked like.

Here, there, all an illusion. Everything is make-believe. Nothing really matters to me anymore either way.

Though part of me wants to burn them, I carefully pack my collection of beautiful origami birds into a box and bury them under a pile of old blankets in the back of my closet. Maybe someday I can look at them without wanting to scream, but for now they’re entombed, like my heart.

June passes, then July. I don’t look at newspapers, I don’t watch television, I don’t surf the web. I don’t want to accidentally catch a glimpse of him. And I can’t bear to listen to the radio. I don’t want to be reminded of all I’ve lost.

Of all that never existed in the first place.

Several times I get the hair-raising feeling I’m being watched, but when I turn to look, there’s never anyone there. I convince myself it’s wishful thinking. No one’s watching over me, not anymore.

Then August arrives, and the wheels of Fate turn once again.