“I know.”
“You going to sleep in the car tonight? You can come upstairs and stay at my place.”
“She won’t be able to see me then.”
“You think she’s watching?”
He stares up at the balcony again, where there’s been no movement.
“I know she is.”
Oliver shakes his head. Whether in dismay or disbelief, I’m not sure. He slaps me on the back and jogs back inside.
At six that night, I text her.
Going home for the night. The car out here has two women—Chloe and Elaine. They’ll watch over you until the morning. I love you.
There’s no response. Not an immediate one and not one when I get home.
There’s not a response two hours later.
I break out the whiskey at the three-hour mark. Maybe I should have used a winky face.
Ian and Kaga arrive at ten. Sabrina must have called them. They step into the pink bedroom, where I’ve been sleeping since Natalie left.
“It’s late,” I note sourly.
“Heard you broke out the reserve. You can’t drink that alone,” Kaga protests. He settles into one of the two pink velvet chairs flanking the front window.
“Jesus. Did Barbie throw up in here?” Ian takes a seat in the other chair. “Why do these chairs have no arms? Where are you supposed to rest your elbows while you’re drinking?”
I glare at both of them. “I haven’t drunk enough to tolerate you two jackasses.”
Ian shifts, uncomfortable in the armless chairs. “I can’t get comfortable. Can we go to the den?”
“You can, but it’s now Natalie’s office.”
“Fuck.” He takes a glass of Kaga’s special reserve and downs half of it. I tip my now-empty glass toward Kaga, who provides me a refill.
We sit silently staring at the liquor as if it holds the answers to the world’s questions.
“Don’t bite my head off,” Ian says, “but Natalie sounds like a lot of work. She worth it?”
“Yes.” I don’t have to think twice about it.
“Okay.” He accepts it without more interrogation. “What can I do to help?”
The chill that set in when Natalie left eases a bit. I’ve got good friends who’ll help me drink my sorrows away and who’ll open their wallets, if necessary. To show them how much I appreciate them both, I kick my legs out and lean back. “Armless chairs are good for fucking.”
Ian leaps out of the chair, as if I told him there was a snake underneath. Kaga just smirks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
NATALIE
On the seventh day, my prescription runs out and I can’t sleep. I toss and turn all night long. Worse, whenever I close my eyes, I see Jake. I see him standing above me, one hand gripped around his shaft and the other in my hair as he holds my head steady while he feeds me his big, swollen cock one delicious inch at a time. I see him underneath me and feel his muscles bunch and flex as I ride him. My body aches with the memory of him next to me, under me, over me, inside of me.
I pull out my phone and read his text messages and emails. My favorite is the winky face. No, my favorite is the one where he tells me that someday my fear will be the thing that keeps me sharp instead of making me bleed. I’m bleeding now because I don’t have him next to me, holding me in his arms while we fall asleep. I don’t have his sunny smiles to greet me every morning. I don’t hear his deep laugh or the loving concern in his voice when he speaks of his sister.
Every day and every night that I look out of my balcony, the black Audi is there. I know that it’s not him all the time. He texts me when he comes and goes. He has things to do, but he’s always back. I wonder that he hasn’t gotten a ticket yet, or a cop hasn’t stopped to warn him that he can’t sit outside the same apartment building for seven days straight. I guess he’s right. The security in this neighborhood really does suck.
The nights with the sleeping pills are dreamless and I feel calmer than I have in a while. It’s making me think more clearly. When I ran out of Jake’s home, my mind was a whirlwind of competing emotions—fear, anger, sadness. I was already feeling the loss before I’d even walked out the door. Since then I’ve had time to think about being alone in this place that I’ve called home for the last three years.
It’s no longer the haven that I once thought it was. I keep looking outside, but not because I’m wistfully longing to join the masses. Instead I look toward Jake, and all my reasons for leaving him seem hollow now.
Both Dr. Crist and Dr. Terrance are right. I can’t get better for Jake. That’s a fruitless goal. I have to get better for myself, but truly, that’s always been my desire. I’ve wanted to get better so that I could live a fuller, richer life. But that full, rich life of going to museums and restaurants and movies and riding the subway isn’t appealing if there’s no Jake there.
In my office, I open my laptop. The large blank space under the centered all-caps word DEDICATION stares back at me. I deleted the dedication to Daphne. She doesn’t deserve it. At this point, I don’t know what she deserves. She never did me any physical harm. For anyone else, the pranks would be laughed off. I wish I could laugh it off, but it’s more my problem than hers. I should have answered her emails instead of ignoring them. I should have been more open about how I was creatively depleted while I was trying to get better. But Daphne shouldn’t have jumped off the deep end either.
We were both at fault, but that didn’t mean I could forgive her, not yet.
But I need to forgive myself and accept myself for who and what I am. I’m full of anxiety and I will always be a little fearful. Right now, I prefer to stay inside my home. But this apartment isn’t my home anymore.
After some time, I allow myself to write what’s in my heart.
When I was lost, you found me.
When I needed safety, you protected me.
When I fell, you caught me.
When I needed time, you stopped the clocks.
Wait for me. I’m coming.
I take two of my diazepam. It’s what I took when I left Jake’s townhouse, and I figure any larger a dose I may just pass out on the street. According to Jake’s text, he had to go see a client, and Mike and Rondell are watching the condo. I wait until the car service pulls up, and then I start to count. It’s ten steps to the entry and five more to the door. It’s twenty steps from the door to the elevator. There are forty-seven steps from the elevator to the exterior doors. I don’t look up. I keep counting.
My heart is racing and my palms are so sweaty I can barely keep a hold of my breathing bag. Once outside, I put it up to my mouth and start panting into it. The crinkle of the bag reassures me in the same way the counting does.
“You sick, lady?” the driver asks. I don’t look up at his face. Sweat pours down my back and covers my forehead. Despite that I’m cold as ice. “I ain’t an ambulance.”