Stronger (11 page)

"It is to me."  He reaches out like he's going to trace my collarbone, but he pulls his finger away before he touches me.  "I did that.  I lied and told you my name was Shane.  I used to do that when I was sleeping around."

I roll my eyes.  None of this, no matter how shocking, changes that he's been trying to pin me as a drunk.

"No big deal.  You didn't want anyone tracking you down, I get it.  It was a long time ago, it's fine."

"That's not everything that I want to tell you though.  There's more.  That night, I was hoping we would have a mind-blowing, one-night stand and that was it."  He pauses, his grasp loosening, his eyes dropping away from mine.  "I figured I'd hit it and quit it, but I was really wasted.  By the time we finished, I passed out."

I shrug again.  "Happens to the best of us."

"But you woke me up."

"Lucky you," I say.  I'm going to add,
lucky me too
, but I won't let myself get sucked in by the soft curve of his lips.  I stay focused.

"It would've been lucky," he smiles, "except that's not why you woke me up.  You weren't even awake.  You woke me up, crying in your sleep."

I shut my mouth.  Some of my shadows seep out of the corners and close in on me.  I can feel my breath getting heavy in my chest.  I don't talk about the nightmares.  I try my best to never think of them. 

"You were sobbing, Lydia.  You kept saying that you didn't want to live anymore.  It scared the shit out of me.  I didn't even
know
you, but there you were beside me, breaking down and opening up to a complete stranger, without even knowing it.  We'd just done one of the most intimate things two people can do together, but I was scared to death to hold you, to try and comfort you.  It really did something to me.  I didn't even know
your name,
and there you were, bawling in your sleep, really needing someone to just reach out and I was the only one there. 

"So, I did it.  I took care of you.  I wrapped my arms around you and I kissed your forehead and I told you that you'd be okay.  My whole chest was dripping with your tears, but you settled down.  And it really, really hit me--I knew
exactly
how you felt.  I knew what it was like to wake up terrified in the middle of the night and to wonder how I was going to keep going when no one was there to tell me things would be alright.  My life had gotten pretty singular--all I did was spend night after night drinking and trying to drown out everything that was wrong with me.

"But then, you fell asleep and I laid there for four more hours, just laying beneath your cheek, listening to you breathe.  I wanted to be sure you were okay.  It made
me
feel okay to know you were peaceful, and I hadn't felt okay in so long, I didn't want to leave.

"At seven or eight in the morning, I started to realize that you would probably wake up and not remember any of it.  I didn't want you to wreck the feeling you gave me, of trusting me and relying on me, even if you had no idea you were doing it.  I got up and left before you woke up.

"But what happened between us that night changed me.  I went home and I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I wanted more.  I wanted to feel like I was needed again.

"I stopped drinking that day.  I got help.  I got sober and it sucked, but whenever I felt like giving in, I'd get out and come by this apartment house and I'd think of you.  I never wanted to forget that.  You helped me to stay sober every day for that first year.  That's why I decided to move in here."

His mouth closes and I tear my eyes from it.  I swallow.

"That's..." The words fade.  I don't know what to say.  That's a pretty heavy story and I'm not sure what he thinks I'm supposed to owe him or what he wants from me now. 

My shadows dance close.  It's humiliating that Aidan knows about the nightmares.  I wake to a wet pillow and terror running through me a few times a week, at least.  It's another reason Des won't stay the night with me, even when he could.  He says my crying nightmares freak him out.

"You helped me, Lydia," Aidan says.  I glance into his eyes.  They swallow me up, as full of hope as every drink I've ever ordered.  "That's why I want to help you now."

He reaches out, his hands moving into my hair, but I step back.  I might be a little broken, but he's got to understand, I don't need
help.

"This is the last time I'm going to tell you, Aidan.  I don't have problems like you do. 
Let it go
."

The elevator returns, the doors hushing open behind me.  I step in, backwards and hit the button for the ground floor before he can start arguing.  I'm a little surprised that he doesn't try to stop the doors from closing between us.

I let out a deep sigh once the elevator gets moving.  I need to get down to Modo's fast.  I need to bring back a man that can not only beat the shadows back tonight, but one that will give Aidan the message, loud and clear, that we are
nothing
but neighbors and I don't need his
help.

A solid message is clearly overdue.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PUT A NAME ON IT

Toward the end of the night, the guy sitting beside me has a name and can't stop saying it. 

"I told you, I'm Eric," he starts with.  "When are you going to tell me your name?" 

"Call me
Intrigued
," I say, giving him a slow, eyelash flash.  This guy is nothing compared to Aidan, but he'll do.  He's got muddy brown hair and his eyes are pale and glossy--the myopic eyes of a dead fish, wrapped in plastic wrap.  He ditched his rowdy friends hours ago, guiding me to the back corner where there are small, u-shaped, padded booths.  The waitresses sometimes call this corner of Modo's The Kissing Corner, although that's the very least of what happens here.  Eric orders us more drinks before we've finished the last ones.

A few later, he leans in and says, "So what's your real name?"

"It's a mystery," I say, chewing on the red stirrer from my drink.  We're already sitting close, but he wraps his arms around my waist and hauls me onto the edge of his lap.  One ass cheek on his thigh, and the other almost there, it's uncomfortable.  I try to shift, but he shakes me like he wants me to laugh.

"C'mon, girl.  I told you mine."

"I thought that was a game.  You know--I show you mine and then you show me yours."

Of course, that does the trick.  His grin goes looser and sloppier.  "You wanna show me yours?"

"Maybe."

"That'd be great..." He presses a wet kiss beneath my ear.  "What is your name again?"

"God,
Eric
..." I laugh and sigh at the same time.  This guy might be an annoying choice for the night, but it's getting on toward closing time, and what's left in the bar looks as appetizing as week-old Chinese food.  I stab my straw between the ice cubes in my empty glass.  "Relax on the name thing, okay?  You're you and I'm me.  That's all we need, isn't it?"

He ticks back his head, squinting down his nose at me.  "What's the big deal?  Are you wanted or something?"

"Of course not."

He smiles then, nuzzling my ear with his wet lips.  He's going to give me a rash.  "Just tell me then.  No big deal, right?"

If it wasn't 1:45 in the morning, I would just get up and leave, but Eric here has me in a tough spot.  The shadows have been hanging around the edges of the Kissing Corner all night and when I go home, I'm going to need help keeping them away.  Not to mention, I need to make enough noise for Aidan to hear what's happening; to let him know that
we're
not happening anymore.

I look back at Eric.  I've been trying to pretend he's Aidan all night, but it's not working.  He runs his palm up the back of my neck, gripping it the way a dog latches on to it's puppy's scruff.

"I need your name," he breathes into my ear.

"Lydia!" I say.  "For Christ's sake, it's Lydia!"

He pulls back his head, his expression joyful.  Or, blissfully drunk. 

"Okay, baby.  Good," he says.

<<<<>>>>

We're in the elevator, going up to my apartment, when I tear away from Eric's mediocre kiss and ask why he was so dead set on getting my name.  It's been nudging my brain since we left Modo's, but the moment to ask him about it hasn't come up and wasn't going to, without my intervention, as far as I can tell. 

"I had to be sure it was you," he says, diving for my lips again.  I pull back, a cold drizzle of anxiety running down my spine.

"Sure?  Who do you think I am?"

"Lydia Strong," he says, his smile crooked.  The drizzle turns to ice and I am frozen in place.  I've been waiting for this stiletto to drop from the moment Des said Claudia hadn't even mentioned a prenup.  I knew that sooner or later, Claudia would get wise to Des and send her detectives snooping, to figure out what's really going on. 

'Detective' doesn't really seem to fit this guy, but I've never seen him around Modo's before either.  Tonight, he slid in with a bunch of frat-boy leftovers--the guys too old to be working through college, but still trying to squeeze out the last, dehydrated drops of their glory days.   If they're all detectives, they're the very best kind, because they really just looked like a bunch of useless guys getting drunk.

Eric's still crammed into my personal space, flashing me his jacked-up smile.  If he's not a detective, then Rule Number One in the How-to-Handle-Psychos Book (by Lydia Strong) clearly states that calm is the only way to escape psycho.  It might be the only way to escape a detective too.

"How do you know me?"  I ask, tossing back my head with my own sly smile.  As if I'm not filled to my teeth with panic at what he might say.

"Let's just say, I was waiting my turn."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"C'mon,
Lydia
, you know what you are," he says, ducking in to plaster another juicy kiss on me.  I let him, but the sour taste of old tobacco blankets his beer-soaked tongue.  It dissolves most of the buzz I've got going.  I still laugh a little, to keep things calm and friendly.

"Fill me in," I say.  "What am I?"

He snorts as if it's too obvious to ask about.  He slides his hand around the back of my neck instead, urging me toward him with rigid fingers.  It takes effort, but I manage to hold my ground.  The elevator doors roll open to my floor.

"What am I?" I ask again.  I'd be fine with shoving him back into the elevator and making a break for my door if I have to, but Eric softens.  He lets go of my neck.

"You're Modo's Trophy Girl," he says with a wide grin.  "Your name isn't just on the bathroom wall.  The whole thing is dedicated to you, like a shrine.  Up for anything and the best at it.  You're the hottest thing in that bar and everybody knows it, so I didn't mind waiting for my turn."

What the fuck?  I know a lot of guys at Modo's and no one's ever said a word about my name, or my shrine, in the bathroom.  No one's ever said there was a line with tear-tickets to get with me either.

I'd continue to question him, but the whole purpose of bringing Eric home is to show Aidan that he's not the only game I've got going.  Now that I'm only steps away from my apartment door and moments away from accomplishing my goal, I'm no longer sure that I want to do it with a guy who thinks it's okay to tell me I'm a slut before he's even gotten any.

"That's funny that you've heard about me," I say as Eric follows me out of the elevator, "because I've heard about you before too."

He leans in with another heady smile.  "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I've heard a few people say you have a microscopic dick."  The smile melts off his face, but just so I don't lose him, I lean in and peck him on the lips.  "Why don't we go see if they're right about either of us?"

His bravado comes charging back in the form of rage.  He grabs my hand and drags me down the hall, his mouth set in a grim line. 

"Which of these is yours?" he growls, jabbing his mitt at the apartment doors.

"This one," I say, when we're coming up on Aidan's door.  I motion to his, even though I could easily argue that I am pointing to mine.  Eric does what I hope he will and grabs my keys, trying to jam them in the lock as he twists the knob. 

"They're not working," he says.  I hear footsteps crossing the floor inside Aidan's apartment.

"Oh, whoops." I giggle.  "It's not this one, it's the next one." 

We scoot over to my door and Eric pops it open like a pro.  I hear Aidan's door knob twisting, but Eric grabs my wrist and drags me inside my apartment too quick.  The best I can do is let out my best attempt at an excited squeal.

Still, it hardly seems worth it when Eric slams my door shut and flattens me against the wall inside so hard that it knocks the digital clock off the wall shelf beside us.  He grunts like a horny gorilla and breathes stale booze against my cheek. 

"My turn," he mumbles in my ear.  "Now I'm going to show you just how big my dick is.  You're going to choke on it, cunt.  This is my turn and we're going to do this my way--"

He reaches up and clamps one hand on my throat.  I lock eyes with him as he squeezes.  Hard.  I wasn't expecting this, but the one sick thought I have is that I need to stay focused and try to take pleasure in how loud and rough this is going to be, because Aidan is going to hear it all. 

But I can't swallow and I can hardly breathe.  I claw at Eric's fingers as he yanks down the zipper on his jeans.  I can't scream.  Finally, I just close my eyes.

<<<<>>>>

There is
making love
, there is
having sex,
and then there is
fucking.
This was none of those.

Eric fucks me until I pass out.  He might have even kept going.  The last thing I remember is how he jabbed a finger into one of the blistered patches that Des left behind, while keeping his hand on my throat the whole time. 

"I like how your face does that," he said.  He dragged me into my bedroom, too far from the thin walls where I could've screamed for Aidan's help, if I could've gotten the air to do it.  Eric was on a mission to prove that he had enough power under his belt to grind me to sawdust. 

The whole event was full of hair pulling and hard thrusts, murmurs of
you bitch
and other forget-me-nots that weren't nearly as pleasant.  And then, there was a bright dot in the middle of his face that kept spreading as he choked me, until it was larger than anything else I could see.  It swallowed my apartment.  I think that's when I passed out. 

I'm confused when I come to, but grateful when Eric jumps into his pants and says he has to go.

He pauses at the door and turns back, glancing at me over his shoulder. 

"It wasn't rape," he murmurs. "You invited me here.  And you have sex with everybody, right?"

"Sure," I say, my throat aching as I force out the words.  He nods.  I stay on the bed as he slams the door behind him. 

The shadows emerge the second he's gone, but this time, I welcome them, rather than Eric's company. 

What the hell am I doing?

I stand up to go to the bathroom and whimper at how raw it feels between my legs.  The burns are the least of my problems now.  I catch a glimpse of myself in my full length mirror.  My shirt hangs off one shoulder, my right breast dangling like a limp flag of surrender.  Long threads hang down where buttons were yanked free.  My nipple is blood red.  I recall Eric chewing it like an angry wolverine.  The closer I get to my reflection, the clearer I can see Eric's fingerprints painted on my neck in pale blue bruises.  I look away.  My skull aches. 

The satisfaction of having made my
point
to Aidan has vanished.  The only point I've proven is that I am a slut and even sluts can be raped.  
 

I shower, scrubbing him from my tender skin, and when I'm finished, I ease myself down onto the edge of my bed so I don't have to touch the sheets that touched
him. 
I drag on a dirty pair of yoga pants that were lying on the floor.  I pull my knees to my chest.

As I stare out the window at the moonless night, the shadows grow in number.  I have nothing left in me to defend myself.  The shadows press in with the truths that I've staved off for years-- 

I work my way through lovers like a box of Kleenex.

I am the Kleenex, not them.

All the men who love and admire me down at Modo's--they are waiting their turn.  And I am everything they say about me as they stand in line. 

I stare at the wall that separates my apartment from Aidan's.  He was right about me too.  I can't make it through a whole day without a drink anymore, or ten.  My body is a constant earthquake and a stiff shot can't always smooth out the Richter scale in my hands. 

I can't stop. 

I've tried. 

I've tried only drinking on weekends, only drinking beer, only drinking when people are around, only drinking when people aren't around.  Nothing works. 

Aidan was right and I chased him away.  I had to.  I can't stop. 

I bury my face in my pillow.

I can't stop.

The shadows gather around the edge of my bed, but for once, they don't continue to advance.  They seem to know too--I can't take any more.

I can't take it and I can't stop.