Fervor (9 page)

"Because
we learn from our mistakes son, she's a little wiser now hopefully and if
something like this should happen again she'd be prepared. Haven't you ever
made a mistake son? Done something you wish you could take back? What's done
can't be undone we either learn to live with it or walk away. Those are your only
options.

Well fuck.

Okay time to
think Suzette. I hit myself on the side of the head as though to knock some
sense into myself. I haven't had an unbroken thought since that frantic phone
call more than a week ago. Every time I tried to think I felt a black void
trying to suck me in.

I remember
leaving the gym getting that frantic phone call and then Terry being there.

Why had he been
there again?

I couldn't
remember now things were still a bit hazy.

I felt bile
rising up to choke me as I recalled the feel of his lips on mine. The revulsion
and fear that consumed me in that moment, it was then I realized that no matter
if Gage had been cheating or not I could not be without him. He was worth
fighting for. We were worth fighting for.

Too bad the
realization came too late, and with a price, a very hefty price.

James showed up
around three, by then I had left my room to check on Suzette. She'd been asleep
curled up in a ball with tear tracks on her face. I stood there gazing at her
for the longest time trying to find the answers but nothing came, the only
thing I knew was that the thought of not having that face beside me for the
rest of my life was fucking unbearable. I knew true heartbreak, that shit was
real. I actually felt the pain of it breaking inside.

Turning away
from her I headed to the meeting. My whole family was there, everyone except
Suzette I didn't want her sitting in on this not yet. She was one of the key
players here after all and no matter what I had to protect myself. I walked into
that room praying for her innocence, hoping that all would be well. Seemed like
my whole fucking life was in the balance. How the fuck had we come to this? For
the first time I almost regretted meeting her on that set almost four years
ago. Man why did that thought feel like a fucking betrayal?

They were all
sitting around the table waiting for me I guess. James that fuck had a drawing
board set up with graphs and colored tacks pinned all over it. The fuck, was
this CSI LA or some fuck?

"Gage."

"James."
I inclined my head, there wasn't much more to say this motherfucker knew some
fucked up shit about my girl and I didn't know how to fucking process.

"Right, so
as you can see I've set up a timeline and these right here." He pointed to
the multicolored tacks.

"These are
representative of communications between point A and point B." Stoic
motherfucker did this bitch have any facial expressions at all?

"Here
where you see the cluster of red is Miss. O’Reilly, let's call her point A, and
here where you see the blue is Poole."

The fuck? I was
at the edge of my seat already and he hadn't even gotten started.

"What we
have here is a series of calls between O’Reilly and Poole and vice versa. Now
we can surmise that the two had to work together because of Miss. Sorenson but
my sources confirm that there's way too much interaction for that purpose. So,
first question, why the back and forth? Since we can't go back and listen in on
past conversations we did the next best thing. All communication devices
belonging to the two parties are now being monitored."

"Is that
legal?"

He gave Tiffany
a look like she was stupid and that shut her right the fuck up. I didn't even
want to fucking know, whatever works.

"Right;
next order of business when we follow the trail here." He pointed to some
yellow tacks, what the fuck? Is this Sesame Street or some fuck? Just saying.

"These two
have been communicating with this gentleman; a man by the name of Humphreys. If
you notice the timeline, you will see the contacts between the three really
heated up about a week before and up until a couple days after the story broke.
At which time all communication ceased. This is all just surface stuff, so we
started digging deeper and what we've found so far is that."

He took an
erasable marker and drew a line from the red dots to the yellow.

"These two
are related, O’Reilly and Humphreys are related by marriage. Humphreys is a
washed up alcoholic wanna be photographer. This was his mother lode, on the day
of let's call it operation cluster fuck."

No, let's not.

"Communication
between the three was hot, cell records triangulation show that these
two." He drew a line from Humphreys to Poole. "Were in the vicinity
of Miss. Sorenson's gym in separate cars of course but both within walking
distance."

I'm sitting
here livid as fuck not sure what to think. All I keep seeing is butterfly in
that car. Knowing what I know now it's finally hitting home that someone set
out to do this to destroy us but why? And who the fuck was the real target?
Her, me, or both of us?

And why the
fuck has Karen O’Reilly been calling me nonstop for the past few days?

The beast was
raging again fighting to get out. If I set that motherfucker free there would
be nothing but fucking chaos, from here into the motherfucking ether.

Front page?
This shit wouldn't hit the front pages this motherfuck would consume the whole
fucking thing.

"I want
everything you get when you get it, they took this shit to the public, well let
it play out there but not on their terms on mine. I want to bury these two
fucks so deep even sonar can't find them." I had to get the fuck out of
the room as my family started asking questions.

I'd heard
enough for the day I just needed to see my girl and my dog. Fucking sap.

She was finally
awake when I collected Rex and headed to her room. She looked so fucking small
and vulnerable laying there my hoodie swallowing her small frame. She looked up
when she noticed me standing there watching her. It was time.

"Let's
take a walk."

The first ten minutes
of our walk was spent in silence, neither of us seemed to know where to begin
so we watched Rex's antics as he was let off his leash.

My family owned
a shit load of property and since the back butted against private forestry
there was no worry of the fucking vultures seeing us. Mom was convinced we'd
seen the last of them in these parts but I knew better, I'm sure some
enterprising soul would try to find a way in.

I wondered
whether or not I should tell her about meeting with James and what was found,
but that didn't seem like a good place to start.

Two weeks ago
she was the love of my life and now I didn't even know how the fuck to talk to
her. Should I lead with anger? Did I lash out in the rage that had been my
constant companion for so long now? Or do I show compassion for the girl I had
met and fallen in love with?

But was she the
same girl?

"Are you
ever going to forgive me?"

Alrighty then
at least she had the guts to start it off, looks like my balls were still in
hiding.

"Don't ask
me that right now." She bit her lip and nodded her head weakly. I could
see she wasn't too far from crying but tears wouldn't get in my way this time.

"What you
did was fucked up, you took something from me that I don't think can ever be
replaced. There's more to this than you believing a pack of lies. You didn't
trust me; we were supposed to be a team remember? We were going to be
different, not like all the rest with their affairs and scandals, lives played
out in the fucking rags. All that' gone now we 'are' just like everyone else
and that's something I never wanted to be.

Acting's just
my job, it's not my life that whole scene was never me, we went out of our way
not to live our lives in front of the world and you exposed us in the worst
fucking way possible."

She shuddered
at my raised voice, steps faltering. I had thought I wanted this, to have it
out with her, but now faced with the situation I couldn't get pass the anger.
It didn't matter what the investigation unearthed. The other players in this
farce were nonentities this was between her and I and what her actions did to
us, what it took from us.

There was so
much at play here, things I had hardly allowed myself to think about in the
beginning of this shit storm, worst of it being that from now on my life would
be under a microscope, unless I moved to Tibet and became a fucking monk. If I
wanted to salvage my life this part of it, I was gonna have to make a huge
sacrifice, the woman who owned my heart, or my pride. Fuck it all I can learn
to ohm.

I couldn't breathe;
walking next to Gage felt surreal I still didn't have my bearings as yet. First
waking up in his family's home not having any recollection of getting there,
seeing my Rex, and then his wonderful face was there, that face that has been
haunting my dreams. I wanted to cry out in joy until I saw his eyes.

My Gage wasn't
there before me stood a stranger, a stranger with an unknown expression in his
eyes for me. I'd never seen anything but love there before, except that one
time, a night I wish I could erase from memory, the night he told me not to
come home.

I felt renewed
pain at the memory and the hated tears were back, seemed all I did anymore was
cry. I had been riding on a high only two mere weeks ago, the world was my
oyster, I had the fame and fortune most people would give their eye teeth for,
there was so much to look forward to and now there was nothing.

I laid in the
bed in tears after he’d left me, my father and brothers were here but I have no
idea what was said, I didn't want to talk to anyone, only Gage always Gage.

Linda came by,
saying nothing she’d kissed my brow that was Linda, never one to interfere
unless invited. That simple gesture went a long way to easing the hurt in my
heart. When I heard others approach I feigned sleep, I didn't want to see
anyone.

I’d drifted in
and out of sleep until some sound awakened me. It was Rex and Gage. He looked
at me with those eyes again not saying anything for the longest time and then.

"Let's
take a walk."

I felt equal
parts trepidation and elation, any time spent with him was to be treasured, but
what if he said the one thing that was sure to break me? We walked next to each
other like strangers and I died a little more inside. Not even the comical
antics of Rex frolicking in the grass could ease me. I was losing hope fast.

I asked him if
he'd ever forgive and his answer, though not as bad as it could have been was
still devastating. He laid bare all my sins against him, all that I had cost
us. Hearing him speak the words made me wonder not for the first time, what had
I been thinking? Who was that girl that had been so easily led? She wasn't the
self-assured butterfly that had blossomed under Gages' unwavering love no she
was the wilting wallflower she'd always been.

It was then I
realized without him I 'Was' that girl, he gave me strength, the strength to be
who I was when we were together, the strength to be a part of us, the two of us
together. As he spoke with such uncertainty about our future I had an epiphany.
I wouldn't lie down and die as though this wound was unto death, I would suture
this wound until it healed like new, maybe with a tiny scar, but heal it I
will, I just had to figure out how.

Time washes
clean love's wounds unseen; isn’t it funny that that was a line from one of my
favorite songs by Linda Ronstadt?

"I have my
fucking pride Suzette and you fucking trampled it into the ground on the side
of the fucking street, and for what? A piece of shit actor who nobody's even
heard of. I could give a fuck what they told you about me, that's just a
bullshit excuse, fuck that, two people as close as we were, as in love as we
were supposed to be do, not, do, that, fuckery to each other.” I didn't give a
Fuck that I was scaring her at least I didn't have my hands wrapped around her
fucking neck snapping it in two. The anger was back in full force, let her deal
with it, we were going to have this shit out once and for all. I’ll be fucked
if I’m going to do this shit over and over again. I needed to purge this pain
from inside me before it ate me away like a fucking parasite. In that moment I
hated her so fucking much it scared the shit out of me. I hated yet I loved,
two sides to one coin, my fucking life was in a tailspin by someone else's
design, someone else was controlling my moves, someone else had set this
fuckery in motion, and I was the fucking court jester left to pick up the
fucking pieces. Well since she had been so fucking stupid to get herself caught
up in this shit the least she could do was bear my fucking wrath. I deserved
that much.

"Do you
realize that most of the free world now sees you as a home wrecking slut?"