When It All Falls Apart (Book One) (12 page)

“David, what? I can’t leave. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes, you are. I can’t be here with you and we both know who Rori would rather have sitting next to her.”

I recoiled as if he’d slapped me. I brought my hand up to my face as if he’d left a mark. “That’s so mean.”

He jumped up from his chair, pointed at the door, and with spit flying out of his mouth, yelled, “Mean! I’m mean? You’ve got to be kidding me. Get out–now–I’m serious. I can’t even stand to look at you. I don’t want you near me! Ever again.”

I stood, my knees wobbly. This was really happening. I reached for him, trying to pull him close to me. He jerked his arm away.

“Don’t touch me, Celeste. I swear to God, don’t touch me.” His face was bright red and his entire body shook.

I put my arms down by my side in defeat and hung my head. “Okay, I’ll go.” I walked over and planted a kiss on Rori’s forehead. The only good thing in all of this was that she wasn’t aware of any of it.

I trudged back down the hallway feeling all of the nurses’ eyes boring into my back. I could hear their thoughts—
whore
. I was practically running by the time I reached the doors. I shoved through the glass and the light hit my eyes. The sun was shining brightly and the birds were chirping. It seemed like a cruel joke.

I sat in my car with my hands shaking and a lump of clay rolling around in my gut. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go home. I thought about going to Robins but I knew I wasn’t welcome there either. I didn’t have anyone else I was close to. I considered going back inside and begging David to listen to me, but quickly gave up on the idea. I couldn’t handle another rejection from him. It felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest. David was a part of me. I couldn’t live without him.

I started beating my hands on the steering wheel.

“No! No! No!” I screamed.

I was going to die. There was no way I’d live through this. I wanted to tear my skin off my body, anything to stop the agony swirling inside me. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I put the car in drive and nearly drove through the parking gate. I slammed on the brakes quickly, flinging myself forward. I rolled the window down, realizing I’d forgotten the hospital keycard they gave all the long term patients so they didn’t have to pay for parking every day. I buzzed the parking attendant. She opened her window. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like, but today I didn’t care. Nothing mattered. “I need to leave and I forgot my keycard.”

She looked me up and down, taking in my disheveled state. Her eyes filled with pity. “It happens. Rough day?”

I nodded.

“What’s the patient’s name and room number?”

“Rori. Aurora Reynolds. She’s in room 429.”

“Which ward?”

“Pediatrics.”

“Oh...” She looked away. People didn’t like hearing about sick kids even people in the hospital. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry.”

The gate went up and I headed through anxious to get away from her pitying stare. I kept all of the windows down, gulping in the air, trying to get it into my lungs. I wanted to put my foot on the pedal and drive as fast as I could, but rush hour was just beginning. Cars were crawling and they’d only move slower as the hour progressed. I headed north towards Sunset Boulevard inching up the hill on La Cienega. My brain was racing but the world was moving in slow motion which only made it spin faster. My mind only worked when there was something to hold on to. I could handle anything as long there was a solution. Sometimes it took a while to find it, but I always could. Once I did, my brain latched on to it and held tight. I didn’t allow my thoughts to wander left or right. I clutched the solution, but for there wasn’t a solution to this. None. Without it, my brain spun wildly as if it was on a broken merry go round and anytime I could get flung off. I was circling the drain of an empty pit.

Part of me wanted to stop the car, jump out, and start running as fast as I could. It took everything I had to keep inching forward. I went east at the light and headed towards Hollywood, a part of town I always avoided. Unlike the images on TV and in the movies, Hollywood was dirty, covered in filth, and littered with broken dreams. It wasn’t long before I arrived at the circus life of Hollywood Boulevard. The boulevard was writhing with people no matter what time of day it was and today wasn’t any different. Throngs of tourists crowded the sidewalk, spilling out onto the streets, flashing their smiles and holding up their selfie sticks. Every few feet someone offered free tickets or a tour of the city with the slickness of a used car salesman. Bright young hopefuls pushed their way through hoping to get discovered. What they didn’t know was that the Boulevard wasn’t where you went to make it—it’s where you went to die.

I reached the end that culminated on Hollywood and Highland where the dinosaur from Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum hung above the street threatening to devour me alive. I felt the panic and hysteria rising again and willed myself not to cry. I needed something, anything to make my head stop swirling and my emotions reeling. I drove a few more blocks and pulled my car into one of the open spots in front of one of the many hole in the wall liquor stores with only half of its blinking lights still working.

I needed a drink even though I didn’t like to drink anything except a few glasses of wine. I was careful about drinking because I’d seen the way it stole Rachel’s life. I’d only been drunk a handful of times in my life and those times were only because I’d accidently crossed over the line without knowing it. I liked having a few social drinks over dinner or at an event, but I always stuck to wine even during college. Robin teased me mercilessly about my inability to handle my alcohol and how I always stopped drinking whenever I started feeling the effects.

“What’s the point?” She’d always ask.

I’d shrug. “I don’t like feeling out of control.”

But today was different. I wanted to get obliterated. I skipped the rows of wine and went straight to the hard stuff. I grabbed the first bottle of vodka I saw not caring what brand it was. I didn’t know the difference between a good brand and a bad one anyway. I quickly paid and headed back to my car with my bottle in the brown paper bag. I locked myself in, tore open the bag, and pulled the wrapper from around the cap. I was driven by something I couldn’t identify or comprehend. I gripped the bottleneck and took a huge gulp. It tasted like antiseptic and burned all the way down as if I’d swallowed fire. Radiating heat landed in my stomach and moved throughout the rest of my body in waves. My eyes watered. I took another big pull and another feeling the sting of the alcohol on the walls of my throat, coating my insides. After the initial shock to my system, dead calm set in as if I’d been shot with Novocain. It was exactly what I needed.

I drove on aimlessly, drinking in the open at red lights, not caring if anyone saw me or I got pulled over. What would it matter if I got a DUI? I deserved to be locked up. I’d committed a crime—an irreparable crime. I needed to be punished because I was a horrible person. There was no more denying it. I was more than just a terrible mother. I was a terrible person too. The images of David and Phil began to swerve in front of me again making it difficult to focus on the road. The stoplights were getting fuzzy and blurring. Suddenly everything around me was moving quickly and I was moving too slowly to keep up. I was having a tough time staying in my own lane. I realized I was going to have to stop driving or I was going to crash into someone. I didn’t want to hurt another person. I’d already hurt enough people.

I pulled into the parking lot of a shabby, run down motel. It was one of the many dingy pay by the hour motels in Hollywood that were always cluttered with homeless people and prostitutes. It was the type of motel I’d never consider staying in, but it was perfect for me now. It was dirty and gross just like my insides. I opened my door and the cold air shocked me, making my head swim and my stomach thrust violently. I spewed vodka all over my feet, holding myself up on the door so I wouldn’t fall over. It took a few minutes before the contractions stopped. I shuddered and steadied myself as the parking lot moved underneath me. I walked carefully into the office focusing on each step. There was a woman standing next to the desk swaying side to side with her own bottle in a brown bag.

The receptionist barely looked up.

“How long?”

“One night.”

“42 dollars.”

I pulled out bills and tried to focus on counting them. It was impossible. I handed him the money and he plopped a key in my hand. He pointed to the left. “Room 211. Let me know when you leave,” he grunted, flicking his cigarette in the ashtray.

I didn’t bother to respond. I shuffled down the side of the building avoiding eye contact with the people sprawled around. I had to push my body against the door to get it open and slam it hard to get it to shut once I was inside. I steadied myself against the wall. The room was small, cramped, and dirty. It smelled like stale cigarettes and the sweet musty odor of another chemical I didn’t recognize. The bed took up most of the room and the bedspread was old and worn through in places. Various size stains dotted the threadbare design. I shuddered to think what had happened on it. There were cigarette burns on the floor.

It was only ten steps to the bathroom which was the size of a small closet. There wasn’t even a bathtub—only a sink with a small shower lined with a rank plastic shower curtain. I stood next to the sink afraid to touch anything. I gripped my bottle, unscrewed the top, and raised it to my lips drinking quickly before my body could reject it. I drank past the feeling of wanting to vomit. I swallowed it back down each time it came up. I needed to get the burning liquid inside me. I devoured the bottled as if I had been dehydrated for days. My body went slack with a sweet release as my back slid down the wall until I hit the ground.

I lay next to the toilet resting my head on the cracked linoleum. The linoleum spun like a wheel in front of me. If I moved my head to the right or the left, the world fell with it so I stared straight ahead at a spot of brown mold underneath the shower curtain. The pungent odor of unknown smells wafted up my nose making me gag. I let the puke drain from my nose and mouth without lifting my head. I was completely numb and exhausted. I fell asleep with my eyes wide open.

M
y phone jolted me awake. I rubbed my eyes, looking around at the muted tiles covered in film before I remembered where I was. My head throbbed and my stomach felt as if there was acid eating away at it. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Eight missed calls from David. My heart started to pound. Was he ready to talk? Did something else happen to Rori? He hadn’t left any voice messages to give me a clue. I quickly tapped his number, trying to shake the cotton wool from my head.

He answered on the second ring. “What kind of a sick game are you playing, Celeste?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. What was going on? “I...uh...what do you mean?” It felt like I had a mouthful of marbles I had to speak around.

“I called Phil.”

I waited for him to say something else, but he was silent. He was waiting for me to give him a response but I didn’t have one to give. I couldn’t believe he’d called Phil. I was horrified. What’d he say to him? How’d Phil respond? I’d spent so much time and energy pretending like That Night never happened. It had been difficult having to work with Phil every week and acting as if everything was alright like nothing had changed. He never mentioned it and continued treating me like he’d always treated me. At first, it’d been easier that he acted so nonchalantly as if we were the same colleagues we’d always been, but he was so convincing I started wondering if I was crazy and had imagined the whole thing. But then I’d catch him looking at me with that look in his eye and all of the memories would come flooding back.

“Are you ever going to start telling the truth?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m telling the truth.” My words came out slurred.

“Are you drunk?” I heard the shock in his voice. I looked at the time. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. I’d never been drunk at three in the afternoon.

“I...I- just...I had a few drinks.”

“Jesus Christ. I really don’t know who you are, but you know what– I don’t even care. I just want to know who Rori’s father is.”

“Phil. It’s Phil. I told you.”

“Funny, that’s not what he said an hour ago.” David’s voice didn’t belong to him. It belonged to someone else. A person I didn’t know or recognize. There wasn’t an ounce of love or softness in his voice. “He had no idea what I was talking about. He told me he’d never had an affair with you. That nothing ever happened. He was actually very nice about it. Said he wished he could help.”

I threw the phone against the wall. I clamped both hands over my mouth trying to stifle the scream tearing at my throat. My breath was ragged and my chest tight. Sweat soaked through my black t-shirt. Wave after wave of nausea washed over me. I pulled my knees up to my chest, hugging them in place with my arms.

“We didn’t have an affair,” I whimpered to the empty walls.

Of course Phil had denied it. What else could he say? What other option did he have? Vehement hate shot through my veins. I hated him, but I hated myself even more because it was my fault. If only I’d ignored him. That Night wasn’t the first time he’d hit on me or said something suggestive—it was just the first time I’d paid attention. I made it a habit early on in my career to ignore any flirting from my male colleagues. Insurance was a man’s world and I’d been working in it since college so I was skilled in keeping my guard up. Being taken seriously as a woman required it. There were lots of women who slept their way to the top, but I’d painstakingly worked my way there just like every other man in a suit. I never did anything that hinted of flirting. If only I hadn’t been so lonely, but it’d been so long since I’d been touched and his touch had been electric igniting all of the parts of me that had become muted from inattention. How could I have been so stupid? I groaned.