Burning Moon (18 page)

I cut her off. “Okay. Fine. I get that part. But why are you really here, Michael?” I pointed at him. Did he really think he could get me back?

And did my friends and family really want me to get back with him?

Had the world gone mad since I'd left?

“Look…” Michael started approaching me with a patronizing tone. “I get it. What I did was really, really wrong and I don't blame you for losing it—”

“Losing it?!” I cut him off abruptly. “Do you think I've lost it? Do you all think I've lost it?” I turned and looked at everyone, and they didn't need to say a word, because I could see the answer on their faces.

But I hadn't lost it.

I'd actually found it.

I was more myself right now than I'd ever been in my entire life.

In the last few days I'd seen a different side of myself.

And Burning Moon had changed me irrevocably.

A calmness washed over me. Not that weird, psychotic calmness that I'd experienced at the wedding, but a confident, silent calm. In fact, I felt pretty damn cool, calm, and collected right now. If this had been a movie, it would be in French and I would be one of those chic, powerful French women who sat at cafés drinking strong coffee, reading
Vogue
magazine, and smoking cigarettes.

What the hell…

I wandered over to the trash can, pulled the box of cigarettes out, and lit one. I inhaled like a pro and exhaled with an air of
I'm too cool for school
.

“Right,” I said, slowly walking over to the window and opening it. I casually leaned against the wall as I flicked my ash out.

Everyone stared at me. I was probably just confirming their suspicions that I'd lost it.

“Michael.” I turned my attention to him. “You left me at our wedding.
Our wedding.
In front of five hundred people.”

“All men are totally bastards,” the PI said with a disapproving headshake.

“I like you.” I waved my cigarette at her.

“I'm not a bastard.” Michael took a step forward. “I know I fucked up and I'm sorry, I freaked out. I made a big mistake, and I'm sorry—”

I cut him off with a wave of my arm. “No, no, please don't get me wrong. I'm not angry with you. In fact, I want to thank you for doing it.”

You could hear the sound of jaws dropping to the floor.

“You did me a favor, actually. In the last few days I've learned so much about what I
really
want. I'd thought I wanted you, because you ticked all my boxes and fit into all my plans, but…I don't want you anymore, Michael.” I took another drag and let the smoke billow out of my mouth. It made beautiful shapes as it curled and twisted in the breeze.

You could have heard an ant drop. You could almost feel the shock waves rippling through the room.

“So you want some tattooed junkie?” Michael's eyes flared with aggression now, and James instinctively took a step forward. Bless his overprotective heart. Bless all of their overprotective hearts.

But I didn't need them right now. I was more than capable of handling this by myself—I was smoking a cigarette, after all.

“Michael.” My voice was so calm. “What I want is for you to leave.”

Michael stared at me in disbelief. He couldn't have looked more stupefied it I were naked and mud wrestling another woman on the floor.

“One day you'll make some woman very happy, but I'm not that woman.”

Michael opened and closed his mouth like a fish.

He blinked his wide eyes.

He shuffled from foot to foot.

I could see him trying to process the info, and when he finally recognized what was going on, I saw his wounded ego fluffing its feathers and puffing up.

He struck an aggressive male pose. “You're making a huge mistake. Huge!” This was his big clever retort. “You'll regret this, Lilly. Trust me.” He turned and started walking out but swung around as he reached the door. “But…but when it doesn't work out with that weirdo, and he knocks up some hooker and comes home with a disease, don't come crawling back to me. Okay? Don't you dare come crawling back to me because it didn't work out with the junkie.” He glared at me with such hatred.

“Junkie? Knock up a hooker?” I smiled at Michael's ignorance, and then I laughed.

This, of course, pushed him over the edge, and he said very some ugly things about me before telling my brother James that they should lock me away and he was glad he didn't marry me, because I was clearly unstable, etc. You know, the usual wounded-male-ego-type responses. James looked like he was going to punch his lights out and Annie grabbed him by the arm. God, this was all so dramatic!

Michael ran out the room and slammed the door behind him so hard that I thought the glass would fall out of the windows. The feisty PI looked at me, shook her head, and followed Michael out the door. I wondered if she was going to punch him instead. She looked like the kind of woman who knew how to throw a punch.

My sister-in-law marched out after them. “Don't worry, I'm still going to sue his fucking pants off.”

I smiled and flicked my cigarette outside. The others all looked at me, and as much as I wanted to explain it all to them—where I had been, the amazing Damien, what he was really like, how he'd changed me, the party, the new Lilly—I was too tired and I knew they weren't going to get it or understand it all right away.

“I'm really sorry for causing all this chaos. I didn't mean to worry you guys and have you come here, but…” I turned to Val and Jane first. “I love you guys. You're my best friends. But right now, I need to be alone. I need some space to figure a few things out in my head. I promise I'll explain everything when we get back home, but right now, I need to be alone. Please try and understand.”

I wasn't sure if they understood, but they both agreed to leave only if I agreed to tell them on the plane home the next day. And so I promised them twelve long hours of uninterrupted girl talk, which seemed to make them happy.

I turned to my family now. “And I love the way you all love me so much and are always there to protect me, but…I think from now on, you won't need to come to my rescue as much.” I wasn't sure if they all understood, either, but they respected my wishes, too, and left. But not without allowing Adam to examine my head wound first. He concluded that it wasn't life-threatening and it wouldn't leave a scar. My dad and Annie hugged me and told me that they were just happy I was all right.

And then I was alone.

I was totally alone for the first time in my life.

It was my last night in Thailand, so I walked down to the beach, sat on the sand, and looked at the moon. It would always look different to me now and would always remind me of my night with Damien. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing, to have a nightly reminder of him, but then again, I also didn't want to forget him,
ever
. I wondered if he was also looking at the moon right now. And in the future, no matter where he was in the world, the same moon would always link us.

I looked at the calm, pale sea; it, too, was reflecting the moon's light. And even though this was one of the most beautiful places on earth, it did nothing to alleviate the complete heartbreak that was twisting my gut into knots. I took a deep breath. It was almost painful to breathe.

A tiny white crab ran past me on the sand; it stopped and looked at me for a moment before scuttling off and disappearing into its hole. I wondered what was waiting for it in its hole: Was there a Mrs. Crab and perhaps some bouncing baby crabs?

Or maybe it was also a sad, lonely crab.

I smiled at myself. Even though my heart was broken, I'd also never felt so strong in my entire life.

Before coming on this so-called honeymoon, I was the girl who'd never eaten at a restaurant by herself, always had a boyfriend and a group of friends around her. She'd never really done anything on her own, was afraid of change, and paralyzed by the unpredictable things that didn't fit into her plan. And sex, I was afraid of that, too. But I would be returning home totally different. I'd left the old Lilly behind at Burning Moon, but I'd also left a little part of my heart there. Sigh. Maybe you can't have it all?

I wanted Damien.

I wanted him so badly, but I also knew that I didn't need him.

I would be able to live without him; I wouldn't die in his absence. It would be hard and painful and there would be a lot of tears, tissues, and ice cream, but I would eventually get over him.

But I would never forget what he'd given me.

I was awakened. Changed. New.

I felt the warm tears start running down my face again. The breeze was picking up and the temperature was starting to drop. I looked around once more and, I admit, a part of me was hoping for the big Hollywood ending, that I would turn around and see Damien somewhere, illuminated by the million-and-one candles he'd brought and lit for me.

But I knew he wasn't going to be there.

And I didn't want him to be.

I loved him, truly and unselfishly, and I didn't want him to give up his dreams for me. He was the ultimate free spirit that couldn't be tamed, and that's what made him special and unique and so, so lovable.

As much as I felt different, I was also still not the girl who could disappear for a year and leave everything behind.

No amount of Burning Moons could change that, and the same applied for Damien.

It was like he said: The timing was just off. Maybe in a year from now…who knew? But right now, there was no magical alignment.

“Hey, Lilly.” I turned and Annie was standing behind me. “I know you wanted to be alone but…are you okay?”

I nodded slowly and started standing up. “Sort of. I will be.
Yes
.”

She rushed over and hugged me. Hard. “We're all here for you, you know that.”

I held on to her tightly and out of the corner of my eye saw the bushes shake. I glanced over at them; Jane was so tall that her entire head and shoulders were sticking out the top of them.

“I see you hiding there,” I called out.

“Sorry. Sorry,” she said, bursting out of the bushes with Val close behind her.

“We just couldn't sit in our rooms knowing you were here alone.”

I smiled at my little group of friends.

“I'm going to be fine, guys.” I turned and took one last look at the moon, before we all linked arms and walked back toward my room together.

“We love you very much, Lilly, but you really,
really
need a bath,” Annie said, bumping my shoulder affectionately.

I managed a little laugh.
Yes
, I was going to be okay.

All right, so maybe I wasn't going to be okay right away. But that was to be expected. My heart was breaking.

I'd been absolutely fine on the flight back home. In fact, this new brave Lilly was totally surprising me. I'd even managed to joke and laugh with my friends and family. I'd been able to think about it all in this deep, philosophical manner in which this was nothing more than a little learning bump along this path called life.

Halfway through the flight I'd even convinced myself that this was a good thing. A wonderful opportunity for character growth—
what doesn't kill you makes you stronger
—that kind of thing. I was so sure of myself and my ability to be A-okay…That is, until the wheels of the plane touched down and I disembarked.

But as I stepped onto the tarmac, it all came crashing down around me.

Damien was on the other side of the world. We were officially on different continents, separated by thousands of cold, lonely miles. This realization first crippled me with throat-strangling panic. I couldn't breathe and wanted to run back onto the plane and demand that the pilot turn it around immediately. But even in my state I knew this was impossible, and I began to weep.

The tears started and they didn't stop, even when I finally arrived home and was deposited onto my couch. This felt so familiar. I'd been sitting here crying only a few days ago, except I had been crying over Michael. This time I sobbed and wailed and blubbered and then got stuck in a repetitive loop of self-pitying babble:

“But I love him, guys.”

“I'll never love anyone like him again.”

“He's the one.”

“I'm never going to meet anyone like him again.”

I was finally dragged to bed at some stage. Stormy-Rain sang me some kind of ancient Tibetan chant that was supposed to calm me. Strangely enough it did, and I drifted off to sleep.

The next day tragically mirrored the day before, and the night was basically another stuck record session, but this time, I'd added another phrase to my self-pitying mantra.

“We would have had such cute babies.”

Somewhere between eight and nine that night, I threw myself off the couch and started frantically packing a bag for the next flight to Thailand. I had to be talked down, as if it were a hostage negotiation, and I was finally lured off the brink of insanity, back into the real world, and straight into bed.

I woke up the next morning feeling just as bad as the day before. I shuffled through to my kitchen and found my friends sitting there—this was so familiar. But this time, instead of appearing concerned, they all had another look plastered across their faces.

“What?” I asked. Their eyes were boring holes into me.

Jane jumped up and pulled a chair out. “Have a seat, Lilly.” This was all so formal. I didn't like it.

“What's going on, guys?” They exchanged a series of looks, as if they were trying to decide who should speak first.

“Guys…?”

“Okay.” Annie stood up and moved closer to me. “I'll do it.”

“Do what?” I was so nervous now I felt sick.

“After you almost ran off to Thailand last night, we all had a long chat.” She looked to the others who nodded as if they'd been told to. “And we were wondering if,
perhaps
, just maybe…” She paused and looked around. “It's not that we don't believe you, per se. We believe that
you
believe and think that…and we're not trying to say this to hurt you and undermine your feelings in any way…
Oh, shit
, I can't do this.” She turned and looked at the others, and Stormy stood up.

This was bad. Stormy didn't mince words. She confused them sometimes, but they were never minced.

“What she's trying to say is that you like guys who wear ironed shirts and shiny business shoes. You like guys who carry big corporate briefcases and drive their expensive BNW's to the country club to play croquet, and eat hors d'oeuvres with their colleagues while their trophy wives stay home with John Junior the second esquire.”

“Um…” I blinked at Stormy, trying to make sense of her speech.

“You do
not
like guys like that…” She pointed at Jane who slowly turned her computer screen to me. And there he was. I almost threw myself at the screen, I was so happy to see him.

He was dressed in his signature black. His messy, slightly dirty-looking hair fell into his face, obscuring his features a little. He looked exactly the same as when I'd first seen him on the plane. My heart exploded in my chest. I reached out and ran my fingers over the photo, but Stormy smacked my hand away. Jane clicked on another photo.

In this one, he was clearly in a nightclub and had been dancing. He was standing in a crowd with his arm around Jess. His shirt was off, and he was covered in sweat and tattoos. He was smiling that dark, dangerous smile and his skin was bathed in red light—it reminded me of our last night together.

“Lilly, that man does not eat hors d'oeuvres.” Stormy pointed at the screen.

The others all let out a mutual “mmmm” and did some communal nodding.

“Is it possible”—Jane leaned across the table—“that maybe the trauma of what happened to you might have skewed your judgment a little?”

“We're just trying to protect you, Lilly,” Val offered.

“What?” I couldn't believe what they were saying. Were they trying to imply that what I had with Damien wasn't real? That I didn't really love him?

Stormy, less than subtle, jumped in again. “I'm sure you guys had lots of fun and adventures, and let's face it, he looks like he's an amazing shag and is totally hot in that filthy kind of way—”

“Stormy,” Annie interjected. “I think what she's trying to say that he's not your type.
At all.
Maybe this is just some kind of passing infatuation brought on by the stressful situation.”

“Post-traumatic stress from being left at the altar,” Jane said. “It's very common and a very real affliction.”

“What are you guys saying, that I don't really love him? Because I couldn't possibly love someone that looks like that, could I?”

“Well, he doesn't exactly look like the settling-down type. And he's certainly not someone to throw your entire life away for.” Annie sounded firm.

“I'm sure you think you're in love with him, but you've only known him for a few days.” Val tried to reach out and touch my hand, but I pulled away. I folded my arms across my chest to stop my heart from being ripped out of it.

“You're right, guys. Everything you say is one hundred percent correct. I have only known him for a few days, we did met after a traumatic event, and he does look dark and strange and that's why you can't imagine the two of us together. That's why you assume that what I feel might not be real. It's perfectly logical.”

They nodded looking totally relieved.

“Thank Goddess you see that.” Stormy leapt across the room and hugged me.

“What a relief.” Annie smiled at me. “Now you can start moving on and try and—”

I held my hand up to silence them. “But it is real.
It is real.
” My voice was steady. I felt that same strange sense of calm and strength I'd experienced on my last night in Thailand. “What Damien and I have is real. I've never loved anyone like this before, and I've never felt more changed—for the better—by anyone. Damien and Burning Moon might have been the best things that have ever happened to me, and now I have to learn to live without them.”

I stood up slowly and excused myself politely. I didn't blame my friends for what they'd said. If I was in their position and Jane had run off to Malaysia and fell in love with some exotic man that looked like a Hell's Angel, trust me, I'd be the first one to try to talk her out of it (not that she ever would). So I wasn't angry with them. Instead, their concern touched me.

But they were also right. I had to move on. I had to find that inner strength and courage again, and then cling on to it for dear life. And so I did, and the days got slightly better. Some days were still totally horrific, though, and all I wanted to do was climb into bed and succumb to the searing, pulling, ripping pain of my heart breaking.

But I didn't succumb. Not once. I climbed out of bed every day, put on a brave face, and got on with it, no matter how crappy and painful it felt. But whatever I did, it always felt like there was something missing. And just when I thought I couldn't miss him, or think about him anymore, he sent me a Facebook message.

My heart instantly inflated with the greatest joy I'd ever felt, but then immediately deflated when the cold, hard reality set in. I didn't answer his message for three days. I didn't know if I should. Eventually I caved in.

We started messaging each other every few days. The messages never escalated into full-blown declarations of love or despair; we were both being cautious. But as much as I was dying to hear from him and know that he was okay, I wasn't sure if his messages were making me feel better or worse.

Despite the shaky start, my friends continued to rally around me. I tried not to drive them too mad with all the Damien this, Damien that, and Damien the next things I was spouting every few moments. But they listened and never complained. God, I have the best friends in the entire universe.

As usual my family was also supportive; my sister-in-law was still offering to sue Michael, or Damien if I wanted to. It's her solution to most things in life, and I know it comes from a good place, but it's rarely the answer. James offered to hook me up with some “awesome dudes” he knew from the gym. Stormy also offered to set me up. She was convinced that a sexy one-night fling would get Damien out of my system. She fully subscribed to the motto “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone new.” But that was the last thing I wanted to do.

Even my mother seemed concerned—well, as concerned as a self-obsessed narcissist can be. And when she could see I was still struggling to cope, she insisted I go to Esmeralda or her new hypno-regression therapist, who she had recently started seeing and who had taken her through her spiritual birthing, or some such crap.

Instead, I decided to take myself to a psychologist. I knew that I needed some extra help getting over this. Friends and family were one thing, but I craved the kind of objectivity that one can only get from a stranger.

I'd never been to a psychologist before. So at four thirty on a Monday afternoon, almost one month after returning home from Thailand, I found myself sitting in the waiting room of one Kevin Stanley, MD. I didn't really know what to expect.

His waiting room was an interesting place, and if I didn't know his profession, I would have said anthropologist or archaeologist. The walls were awash with tribal masks. One item in particular caught my attention. It was a disturbing thing with slit eyes and long fang-like teeth carved out of a dark wood.

“It's a North African voodoo dancing mask,” I heard a voice say.

I looked up to see a man that looked nothing like Indiana Jones, and who I assumed could only be Kevin himself.

“It's said to be a conduit that allows the spirits to journey into their ritual ceremonies.”

“Mmm, interesting,” I said, not meaning that in the absolute slightest.

“Would you like to come inside, Lilly?” He gestured for me to follow him.

The office was exactly what I imagined: A massive mahogany table dominated the center of the room with a chair in front of it, facing a large, comfortable-looking couch. Next to the couch stood a side table, very well prepared with a bottle of water and a giant box of tissues. But by this stage I had no more tears to cry, unless I wanted to dehydrate and shrivel down to the size of a raisin. Kevin gestured for me to sit.

An awkward silence followed. Was I supposed to talk? I didn't really know how these things worked.

Finally he saved me from the toe-curling discomfort. “Do you know why I collect masks, Lilly?” he asked in a voice that you would imagine a psychologist to have. Soft, monotone, and purposeful, as if each of his words was deliberately chosen to elicit a certain response in you, which they probably were.

“Um…” I looked at the walls and noticed that they were also covered in masks. “Because you like them?” God only knew why anyone would choose this form of decor—it certainly wasn't to set his patients at ease, because I was now face-to-face with a gold, grotesque devil bird!

He shook his head slowly and jotted something down in his notepad. I wondered what the hell he'd managed to extrapolate from that single sentence of mine.

“Because my work, Lilly, is all about masks. We all wear them, and it will be our job to find out what Lilly's mask is and to remove it, so that Lilly no longer needs to hide behind it.” He smiled warmly and jotted something else down. I mentally rolled my eyes, scoffed, and snickered—what the hell had I been thinking? I hated this kind of thing, this wishy-washy stuff that could neither be quantified nor categorized. And I also hated it when people used my name too liberally. What was going to happen next? Was he going to make me lie on the couch and discuss my earliest childhood memory and my sex life—or lack thereof, which was undoubtedly where the problem lay, since I was no longer wrapped up in the arms of Damien.

“What does your mask look like, Lilly? Let's find out how we can take it off, so that we can reveal the real Lilly. So, please lie back,
Lilly
, and make
Lilly
comfortable and tell me,
Lilly
, about your first childhood memory…
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly
.”

Needless to say, I never went back.

I walked out of his office that afternoon and didn't feel like going home, but I didn't feel like going anywhere else, either, so I just stood on the sidewalk for a while and watched the people go by.