Tangled in a Web of Lies (4 page)

                           
Hope you made it home okay.

                                                                      -Odin

Damn him. It’s so sweet, yet I can feel the emptiness inside me growing larger. I swallow it down, pushing myself forward with no end in sight.

When I step inside, it looks like Jaime has already claimed his stuff. What he didn’t take, he thrashed. The house looks like shit but all my boxes are where I left them. It’s a good thing I got most of my packing done early. The movers are right on time, and I instruct them to load the things I want to take. I’m hopeful that I can get this finished today, and be done with this house forever. I move through the rooms filling boxes with the things I plan to donate. When I reach my room, I’m left starring at the beautiful black wooden furniture set that Odin got me. It’s painful how much I miss being with him in this bed. I shut the door behind me, and lay down on the bed. Pulling one of the pillows to my face, I inhale the scent, a heavenly mix of Old Spice mixed with hard working man.

I don’t want to lose it, so I carefully pull the sheets off the mattress, and tuck all the bedding into a ball to take in my car. First I finish going through my room. Jaime must have found all his things in the other room as most of our bedroom seems untouched. Except the guns are gone from my bedside drawer. I have one in my purse and one in my safety deposit box. I check my jewelry drawer and find my wedding ring gone, along with a lot of the other jewelry that came from Jaime. And the few hundred dollars I had tucked in it are gone. I think it’s more his way of reminding me he can do what he wants, and I can’t do anything about it.
Stupid fucking asshole.

My arms are filled sheets when I walk out the front door and see Odin standing on the street, leaning on his truck. My heart skips a beat. The numbness inside me dissipates in an instant, leaving me vulnerable and open.

“Moving?” he asks surprised.

“Yea, escrow closes soon.” I try not to look him in the eye as I walk towards my car. Odin races ahead of me to open the passenger door for me.

“Did you find a place already?”

“Yea, I’m renting a condo from my boss.” It hurts to carry on light conversation with Odin. Every part of me wants to reach for him, and hold him, and feel his embrace, to be safe. Carrying on like I’m not still madly in love with him is torture. I wonder if he stills feels the same about me. He looks like he’s lost sleep. There are dark circles under his eyes. Maybe he’s just been drinking.

“Do you need help with anything?”

It’s polite of him to ask.

“No, that’s what the movers are for.” I have to stay cold. I have to make him believe I don’t love him, even though I do with all my heart.

“I just want you to know I’m still here for you,” he says. I feel like someone is literally squeezing my heart in my chest, and it fucking hurts. Odin is like a magnet. My heart, and everything inside me is pulled to him, tied to him. Resisting him, goes against my every instinct.

For the first time in a while, I actually want to cry. But I can’t, he’ll figure out the truth.

“Thanks,” I whisper.

He takes his hand, and places it on my shoulder to demand my attention. I stare into his cold blue eyes, seeing a storm of emotions behind them. Mostly, he looks lost. I can’t bear to look at him like this, so I cast my eyes at the ground instead, feeling ashamed. I know it’s not my fault, what Jaime did, but I feel the guilt of hiding it anyway.

“Why won’t you look at me?”

“Why did you come here?” I glare at him with two eyes as cold as his.

“Because, whatever happened between us, I want to work it out. If you’ll just talk to me, give me a chance Lila. I…” For a moment I think he’s about to say ‘I love you’.

I shake my head, closing my eyes and fighting back tears. I can’t let him go there. It’ll only make it worse. I wonder if he knew what happened, if he’d even still want me. Without my blanket of numbness closely wrapped around me, I’m open to my own emotions. I feel disgusting, deceiving, ruined… I can’t help but feel like if he knew what I am hiding, he’d be totally repulsed by me right now. I start to lose the battle with my tears, feeling my eyes get watery. I need to get away from him, before the curtain drops on my little act.

But before I can put one foot in front of the other, I feel his hand on my face, his thumb gently wiping the first tear that roll down my cheek.

“I still care about you Lila. Tell me that I still mean something to you, that I didn’t imagine the last three months of my life.” Odin’s voice is desperate. I’ve never seen him desperate. It’s humbling for a man of six foot four, decked in a biker cut and tattoos.

I open my eyes wide, shaking my head no. I can’t do it. I can’t make him believe he means nothing. I can’t tell that lie without bursting into tears, so I just bite my tongue. Just before the tears start falling, I turn to leave but Odin pulls me back to him. I’m quickly pressed against his chest and he wraps his arms around me.

I need to get away from him, but I can’t push him away. Odin is my rock, my strength, my protector and my whole heart. How the fuck am I supposed to let all that go?

“I still care too,” I admit, blowing a huge hole in my own lie, and not being able to do a damn thing about it. I care more about him than I do anything in this whole fucked up world. I feel his grip on me tighten, and know that my words are a huge relief to him. “But I have a lot on my plate right now, and I need space.”

Reluctantly, I back away from him, pulling myself together as the numbness starts to come back to me.

“I can give you that,” he says, knowing he has no choice.“Just promise me that we can still be friends in the mean time. I can give you all the space and time you need, but I can’t lose you Ly.”

I cling to the idea of being able to keep him around as a friend, even though I know the chances of that working out are slim.

“I’d like that,” I say, pushing away my sadness to make way for a small smile. Odin mirrors my expression. He seems relieved, and oddly I feel a little better too.

“Let me know if you need anything. I have to get to work.”

Until he mentions it, I didn’t even think how strange it is for him to be here at 11:00am on a Monday. He’s been waiting for me to come back.

I nod, and watch as Odin steps back into the street toward his truck.

Devil’s Cut

Odin climbs into his truck and heads back to work. He knew Lila would be moving soon, and kept stopping by throughout the day to make sure he’d be there when she did. Now he just has to follow her to her new home. He tells himself he just wants to make sure she’s okay, that it will help him sleep. But the truth is, he won’t sleep either way. If he doesn’t follow her, he’ll be up all night worrying about her. If he does, he’ll be up all night trying to catch another glimpse of her, trying to find out exactly what she’s up to. Something definitely feels off about all of this.

As he waits cautiously around the corner out of sight, for the moving truck to leave he thinks about the last few days. What pains him the most, is that he’d planned on asking her to move in with him. He’d made the spare key already, and had a proposal all worked out. It was a huge step for him. He’d been so used to living a secluded life, and it made him nervous to open it up to her, but he was ready. All those days he contemplated asking her, afraid she’d say no and she’d rejected him before he’d worked up the courage to ask.

He follows the truck all the way to West Covina, and once it stops in her condo complex, he lets it out of sight. He’ll figure out which condo is her later, for now he heads to work.

He pulls up to the job site in a hurry, kicking up a cloud of dust with his tires, and drawing attention. He’s been pouring himself into work these past few days, trying to keep himself distracted from how shitty he feels being dumped. It brings back a lot of memories about Daniella leaving him for more money and he tries to remedy that by working more. Plus with all the breaks he’s been taking to drive by Lila’s old house, he’s had to make the time spent on the site really count.

He pulls his tool belt and hard hat out of the truck and slams the door, walking back into the building structure where Cole is already hard at work.

“She home?” Cole asks, hoping that Odin would find some peace of mind once Lila made it back. Odin can say he isn’t hurting, but his brother Cole knows better.

“Yea,” Odin barely stops to answer, picking up a load of wood and hauling it across the room.

“Well, is she okay?” Cole shouts over the noise of construction at Odin’s back. Odin doesn’t answer.

Cole spits at the ground. Odin needs to get it together.  They have a lot of shit the club is dealing with. Rival heat has been getting a little overheated this past month. Odin needs a clear head, but all this Lila bullshit has him turning into an insomniac alcoholic.

***

The next two weeks inch by slowly. It’s pretty miserable, other than a few texts from Odin asking me how I am, and how work is going. His messages put a huge smile on my face. Work is a welcomed distraction. We have a new server named Daniel that I like a lot. We sometimes smoke a bowl in the parking lot before work. He’s got a total frat boy body, and he always has “I picked up this girl last night” stories that make me laugh. I feel bad for college girls who wind up being conned into sex, and then never get a call back. Daniel is a player, but he makes a great co worker.

I keep having nightmares. At first, the Valium was enough to make me sleep through them, but lately they’ve gotten worse. I swallowed my pride and took myself to a support therapy group last week. I thought I would hate it, but I actually enjoyed it. I heard a lot of stories, equally as violent and sad as my own. And I was comforted to know that even the people who knew their attacker, and chose not to press charges out of fear, weren’t being judged.

Of course for therapy to really work, you have to open up and talk about it. I’m just not there yet. I did get a chance to talk to the group therapist about my nightmares. I was happy to learn that they are common. She was able to prescribe me a sleeping pill that she said helps a lot of her patients. Before she handed it to me, she made sure to tell me not to drive or operate machinery. And of course not to take it should I become pregnant.

It reminds me that I’m about due to have the birth control rod in my arm replaced. But I know they’ll want to probe around in my lady parts, and I shutter just thinking about it. Since I’m not having sex, and have no intention to, I think I’ll put it off a while.

Just the idea of sex scares the shit out of me. I hurt for days after Rick and Jaime violated me, and the thought of anything touching me there makes me so anxious I could vomit. Even the thought of sex with Odin scares me. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to mentally handle it, even if I want to.

It doesn’t matter. It can’t happen, so it doesn’t matter.

The therapist also told me it’s important that I talk about it with someone, whether with a close friend or relative. She said coping alone is the hardest way to cope. Despite everything that has been pounded into my head about keeping quiet, I take the therapist’s advice and invite Kelli over on Saturday.

She shows up with a beach bag, filled with her pool gear. We smoke a bowl in my living room before we head to the spa. I told her over the phone that I had some really big shit I needed to tell her, but she’s been polite not to pry, even though I know she’s filled with anticipation. Kelli loves drama.

“So does this news have anything to do with you and Odin breaking up?” Kelli can no longer contain herself, once the spa has emptied and it’s just the two of us. She was never really approving of my relationship with Odin, but knowing how important it was to me, she tried to be supportive. We haven’t talked much, other than a few quick phone conversations where I cut her short. I’m glad she’s here now, and I’m ready to take a load off my chest. Kelli has been my best friend since high school. I know I can tell her anything, and she’ll keep the secret safe. I would do the same for her.

“Something really terrible happened,” I swallow the lump in my throat. “The night Jaime got out of jail, him and Rick showed up at my house…”

Kelli’s expression turns to horror as I tell what happened. I spare a lot of the details, not wanting to relive them. She hugs me, and tells me how sorry she is. I try and convince her that I’m okay, and I’m holding it together. But there’s no denying the pain in my voice when I tell her all the lies I’ve told Odin. Kelli completely understands. She knows exactly why I’m not going to the police and she doesn’t judge me.

“I don’t think I can even look at them now, knowing what they’ve done. They’re fuckers, Lila!” Kelli is enraged. It’s nice to have someone to share in my anger toward my sickening ex-husband and his repulsive fuck of a father.

“You can’t act funny, or they’ll know I told you.”

“I know. I won’t. I hardly see them anyways. Cody quit hanging around Jaime when he got kicked out.”

“Jaime got kicked out of the club?” I ask shocked. I had no idea. That explains why they were so vicious towards me. It’s just like both of them to blame me for their mistakes.

“Yea, had his tattoos burned off and everything. Cody says they might eventually let him back in, but he’s on Club probation right now. I don’t know what happened.”

Sergio. The Club found out about Jaime dealing with Sergio. No wonder this all happened to me.

I smile, knowing that the thing Jaime loved the most, his precious club, has turned its back on him.

“Good.” I say with a grin as evil as Jaime’s.

It starts to get late, and Kelli has to go home. She promises to visit me in West Covina more. I hug her goodbye. Joan, my group therapist, was right. I feel a hell of a lot better now that someone knows my pain. I thank God that I have a friend like Kelli.

Saturday and Sunday night are riddled with nightmares. I stop at the local pharmacy Monday before work to fill my prescription.

Work is busy. Being around my coworkers makes me feel normal. Watching Daniel flirt his way into bigger tips motivates me to do the same. I totally embarrass myself when I get done chatting up a male customer from Texas, then turn to find Odin has just taken a seat at the booth behind me. I flush, and hurry off to get him a menu, since he’s seated himself in my section without help from the hostess.

I take a few deep breaths, steadying my nerves before I take his order.

“Can I get you a drink?” I ask, politely doing my job.

Odin glances over the beer selection. “Having a good day at work?” He glances up at me from the menu. He’s so beautiful. I can tell he gelled his hair back before he came in, even though it does nothing to hide the dark circles under his eyes.

“Sure.” I shrug, still completely mesmerized by his presence, the way I was that first night we hooked up in that hotel. Will that feeling ever fade?

“I think that table likes you.” He gestures to the table of guys from Texas, and I try not to blush, ignoring him. 

“I’ll take a brew and a burger. Can you take a break?”

The Elk Lodge uses smart phones to take orders. I put in a ticket for a plain hamburger and check the time. I’m due for my 15 minute break.

“Sure, I’ll be just a minute.” I smile at him, and turn on my heel back toward the bar. I let Daniel know I’m taking my break, and ask him to keep an eye on my tables, then I take Odin a beer and sit at his booth across from him.

“How’ve you been?” he asks. He still doesn’t look like himself. I think he’s lost a few pounds in his face especially. But he’s still the sexiest man I know. I wish I could say the same for myself. I feel like I’ve gained 10 pounds since we broke up. Smoking pot, eating junk and lazing around on Valium is hardly a diet.

“I’m surviving. How ‘bout you?”

“Barely.” His face falls, and he takes a long swig of his beer.

“How’s work going?” I try and change the subject.

“Shitty,” he says honestly, successfully making me feel a bitch. I know it’s my fault his life feels shitty right now. He let me in, and I left him. I rejected him. And now here he is, serving me my fair share of guilt, and it’s working.

“Sorry about that.” I look down to find his knuckles are all bruised up. Friendly feud with his brothers in the ring, I hope.

“It’s okay. I don’t blame you,” he says, playing with my heart like a cat with a ball of string.

I know he doesn’t blame me. He told me a million times he didn’t feel like he deserved me, that I was too good for him. He’s wrong, but I can hardly tell him that now. I take in a deep breath.

“I miss you, Ly.”

My eyes lock on his, but I don’t know what to say to him. Luckily, he fills the silence.

“I keep hoping any day now, you’ll call and say you’ve had enough space. That the pain inside me will go away. But every day I get up, and drag myself out of bed, and throw myself into my job, I fear that day is never going to come.”

I knew what Odin and I had was strong, but he never told me he loved me, and that always left a doubt in the back of my mind. Knowing how much this break up is tearing him apart, wipes out any doubt, and leaves me with a sense of happiness that I feel guilty about under these circumstances. I just want so badly to tell him how much I love him back.

Will the day ever come that I’ve had enough space? Will I ever be able to be with him again? I have been clinging to the idea as my only hope, and it’s gotten me through the past few weeks. But I know he’ll want to tie me up, and I can’t go there! What was once our darkest fantasies are now my deepest fears. The restraint and over powering, the whipping, and spanking and fucking, my nerves tremble just thinking about it. I don’t think I will ever overcome the fear of being held down. I can’t be that bold and courageous Lila he’s used to.

I place my hand on his, and gaze into his stormy blue eyes, gaining his full attention.

“You are a great man, Odin. You’re one of the best people I know and I care about you very much. All the guilt you carry, and all the things you think about yourself are total bullshit. You’re not the big scary monster you think you are. You deserve a great woman. I know you don’t think so, but you do. Unfortunately, I’m can’t be her. I’m sorry.”

Odin grasps my hand and glares painfully into my eyes. I can see the torment behind his icy stare.

“You are her. I would do anything for you Lila.” His words burn into my heart. I stare back at him, with nothing to say, nothing to comfort him with.

Daniel sets Odin’s burger in front of him, but Odin doesn’t so much as glance away from me. His gaze holds mine, and I fall into him like a moth toward the killer blue light.

“I have to get back to work,” I mutter, taking my hand away and swallowing my emotions. I feel fucked up, like a mom leaving her newborn at the fire station when I get up and leave him behind. He’ll never understand why. I take the last couple minutes of my break smoking a bowl out in the back lot. Gus is pretty cool about his staff blazing it at work, as long as we don’t get sloppy. When I walk back into the restaurant Odin is gone, and his untouched burger and empty beer are left in his place. There’s a sick feeling in my gut, telling me to run after him.

“Who was that?” Daniel asks me about Odin.

“No one.” I’m not in the mood to talk about it.

“Bull shit.” Daniel calls me out, but he doesn’t stick around to ask any more questions. I put on a fake smile, wearing it like a mask to hide my anguish and get back to work.