Zenith Falling (18 page)

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Right now. What do you need from me? To leave you alone? Stay with you? Take you out? Sit here all day? What would make you the most comfortable for today?”

He was like no one she ever met.
“You don’t have to babysit me, Nick; I’m not going to run away to Rob, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He sighed, reaching a hand up to his neck. “No. I wasn’t worried about Rob. Today is about you. Not him. Okay? Give that to yourself. What can I do to make things easier for you today? Right now?”

Joelle looked down at the beautiful, dark hardwood floor of his kitchen. “You’ve already done that. I would have spent the last night on the streets if I didn’t know you and where you live.”

“Yeah
, I realize that.” Nick shifted, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not looking for your gratitude. What can
I
do for
you
?”

She turned away, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter.
“I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t,” he said finally, to her quiet admission. He came over
, closer behind her. He seemed like he wanted to touch her, or hug her, or just hold her. But he didn’t.

“You look exhausted. Why don’t you go lie down, and watch some TV? I’ll shower, and get dressed. Maybe you could write down what you want from your house. I assume you’ll want to let him know where you are, and I
can do that.”

Nick’s voice always sneered whenever he said
“him” or “he” when referencing Rob. Nick preferred to avoid saying Rob’s name at all costs. “You can’t go walking into Rob’s house,” Joelle told him.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know how any of the people will react to you coming there to get my clothes.”

“I can assure you, he won’t try to pin me against the wall. I appreciate your concern, but I can handle him. Or them. Just write down what you need.”

“I can tell you: my purse, by the dresser, and my coat. Any clothes from the dresser. Whatever. I don’t care.”

He nodded with a clipped jerk of his head.
“I’ll take care of it.”

“I can’t believe I’m sending you there to gather up my stuff. I have a feeling it isn’t going to go well.”

“I’m not telling him where you are or that you’re here. I’ll only go so far as to tell him you’re safe. Which is something he sure as hell didn’t care about last night.”

“Okay.”

He blinked in surprise. “No arguments? No ‘he deserves to know more’? Or that you should be the one to call him?”

She shook her head. “No. Not yet. I think I just need to go lie down. I’m tired. So tired I can’t even see straight,
let alone, think straight.”

He nodded. “I think that’s the best idea you’ve had. Let me handle Rob, just this once.”

Nick found Joelle sound asleep on the couch, with the morning news still on, a blanket covering her, and ice packs obscuring half her face. His heart twisted. A weirder situation he’d never been in. He wrote a quick note, and left it next to her on the coffee table before locking the front door behind him.

Nick drove to Joelle’s neighborhood, which
wasn’t so bad. The house she lived in, however, was very bad. He parked in front of the hovel that Joelle formerly called home, the party house that virtually imprisoned her. He knew he should feel nervous, or out of place, but he didn’t. He felt primed, and all revved up. God, how he ached to punch Rob Williams’s face to a bloody pulp, and smash Rob against the wall like he did to his young, defenseless wife. He would gladly strip Rob’s flesh from his bones for the trauma and abuse he regularly inflicted upon Joelle’s life, her self-esteem, and her physical well being.

Instead, Nick knocked on their front door. It was several minutes before someone shuffled to answer it. Kenny, the lazy drummer guy, seemed to have just rolled out of bed to
come to the door.

“Whaddya want?” he yelled through the sagging storm door.

“Rob here?”

“Yeah. Come on in,” Kenny said as he turned down the hall. Kenny didn’t have a clue who Nick was, or
Nick felt sure he wouldn’t have been let in so easily.

Nick waited in the entry, holding his breath at the acrid odor of the place. It smelled old and musty, like mildew and gym shoes. Sweat. The carpet leading upstairs was worn through on several treads. The once gray carpet had a dull sheen of blackened, oily spots. How could Joelle stand it? Why did she stand it?

Rob came shuffling down the hall. His jeans were zipped, but not buttoned, and he had no shirt, bare feet, and his hair was worse than its usual messed-up condition. His eyes were bleary and red, and he looked like hell. But not half as bad as Joelle looked. Rage had him curling his fingers into tight fists.

“Where is she?” Rob’s voice came out gravelly, like dry corn stalks.

“Away from you, you miserable piece of shit. I came here for some things she needs and you’re going to let me take them.”

“Who says? Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?”

Nick was never prone to violence, or losing his temper, or any kind of rashness. But at that moment, he snapped. Before Rob had any clue he was coming, Nick rushed him, and pushed Rob into the wall, gripping his throat tightly with his hand and shoving him harder against the wall. Nick’s height blocked Rob in. Rob’s eyes bulged, as he struggled, and his hands came up to claw at Nick’s hands.

“Do you know what you did to her? I don’t see any reason not to kill you for it. Right now. I’ll just choke the life out of you against the very wall where you attacked your own wife on. Did it thrill you when you saw your wife bloodied and battered at your own hand?”

Nick sensed movement behind him. Rob was gasping and struggling, and Nick glanced back. There was the tall, thin man named Spike standing in the hallway. His hair was pointy as ever and his dark eye makeup, obviously from the previous night, was smudged and smeared around his eyes. He had on black leather and was standing there, just staring at them. Nick stared right back. Expecting Spike to make a  move, Nick knew he couldn’t take on both men.

Finally, Spike spoke,
“Something happen to Joelle?”

Nick looked up
and met Spike’s dark eyes. “Yeah. The living shit was beaten out of her.”

“
Not by Rob,” Spike said, but his eyes searched his friend’s for confirmation.

“No. By someone who came to rip him off. Rob here? He just yelled at her; and what would you call what you did to her, Rob? Were you trying to grope her? Or rape her? What reason did you have for doing that to her when she came to you, cowering for your help? Instead of helping her, he pushed her up against the wall and
kissed her so hard, her mouth bled.”

Spike looked on. His vampire
-like face unmoving, showing no indication he’d even heard Nick, or what he thought of it if he had heard.

“Is she safe now?”

Nick glanced back, surprised at the freak’s question, and Spike’s calm, clear, deep voice. “Yeah, she’s safe. As long as she’s far away from all of you.”

“I didn’t know. I wasn’t here. No one told me,” Spike said after a long moment. Nick didn’t know what the man was thinking or what he might do.

Nick kept pressure on Rob’s throat. He was hurting him, but not killing him. Spike looked at his friend again, and shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d hurt her, Rob! What’s happened to you?”

Spike turned and walked away
, as if to say,
have at it
to Nick. Nick didn’t expect that at all.
Huh.
He didn’t know what to make of the man. The whatever Spike was. Still, at least Spike cared enough to want to know what happened to Joelle, and seemed to worry more than Rob did over her.

Nick eased his grip on Rob before letting Rob fall to the floor, gasping, and grabbing at his red, bruised neck.

“This is how it’s going to be, you miserable little son of a bitch. You’re going to get out of my way. And stay out of it. And as for Joelle, don’t even think about looking for her.”

Rob sat on the floor with his legs spread before him, and his head fell forward onto his chest. He seemed to deflate, and virtually die almost right before Nick’s eyes. Nick didn’t know what to make of him, or of Spike
’s lack of interference. Nick ran upstairs and opened the first door, as Joelle described. Inside was a queen-sized bed, with a cheap, particleboard headboard, and garage sale, mismatched furnishings. The room, however, smelled pretty. A far cry from the rest of the house. Joelle made every attempt to form their room into something livable. There were unburned candles, a glass vase, and pictures of Rob and her that she’d framed. The bed was destroyed, but Nick bet Joelle usually pulled up the patterned bedspread. The entire room felt like it had been transported out of the shithole house and could have passed as any master bedroom in any pretty, little starter home, in any pretty, little neighborhood. Despite Joelle’s exertion and obvious attempts, to make things a little bit better for herself, she had very little to work with.

It made her small efforts at normalcy almost heartbreaking. Tenderness for Joelle filled Nick up, and he felt like a voyeur going through her drawers, and handling her underpants, her bras and socks, her pants, her shirts, and her sweatshirts. What choice did he have? He had to pack her stuff and underwear was necessary. He found a jewelry box, and dumped all of its contents into her purse.

He carried her stuff with him and shut the door behind him. Down the stairs, he found Rob still sitting there, looking utterly deflated on the floor. His shoulders slumped, and his body appeared almost boneless. Nick came down, and had to avoid Rob’s legs.

“Just tell me if she’s okay, man. Just tell me that much.”

Nick paused at hearing Rob’s voice. “You saw her. How can you think she could be okay?”

“I was high. I was out of my head when I got home. I didn’t mean to do what I did.”

“But you still did it.”

“She’s not coming back
, is she?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Are you fucking her?” Rob asked, his voice devoid of emotion. His gaze locked on Nick.

“Does it matter after what you did to her? What you’ve done to her? She hasn’t done anything, but try to make it work with you, and defended you, at the cost of everything to her. Let her go. Let
her have a chance. Because you know you’re nothing and you never will be.”

Rob didn’t get up or try to move. “I know I’m shit. She’s all I ever loved.”

“Bullshit. I’m not a little, vulnerable, naive girl you can con with your ‘poor me’ bullshit. If I have any influence, you won’t be able to con her again either.”

Nick slammed the door and threw Joelle’s stuff in his car. He drove out of there as fast as he could. That place, and Joelle’s life were more depressing than anything he’d ever witnessed.

Joelle slept for days, but only on and off. She kept ice on her face, ate very little, and talked less as the days went by. She was constantly aching,
and barely could move. She stayed on the couch, or in bed. Erica came and stayed there too; she was a godsend to Nick. When Joelle shied away from his touch, she had no problem letting Erica help her move about. She let Erica take her hand and guide her to bed, and allowed her to wait on her, whereas she couldn’t even look Nick straight in the eye.

He told Joelle a shortened version of what happened when he went to her house. She listened to what he said and Rob’s responses quietly, saying little. Only her eyes showed her confusion.

Nick ached for Joelle. He hated seeing her in physical and emotional pain. She had yet to get angry, or terribly sad. She just slept. And slept. She was so quiet most of the time, Nick and Erica almost didn’t remember she was in the house. She didn’t cry. She didn’t rage. She just accepted things without question. She accepted Erica’s help and pampering. She accepted Nick’s questions, but answered them only in monosyllables. She accepted the conclusion that despite how beat up she was, no one would pay for it. And she accepted that no one but Nick and Erica really cared.

Nick returned  to work after Joelle wouldn’t talk to him
or let him in. He was useless around her, so he went to work and poured out his frustration, his annoyance, and his own pain over her, at work. At least there, he could control his life and cause reactions. And get his way.

A week after her ordeal, her face appeared much less swollen, and her achiness had eased, too, only recurring in brief bouts. The bruises were well defined, but much less shocking. She sat on the couch, a blanket around her, as she seemed perpetually cold. She mostly wore sweatpants, workout pants, t-shirts and sweatshirts.
Nick continued to wear suits, slacks, ties and jackets. They couldn’t be more opposite if they lived at the North and South poles.

E
ach time he looked at her, his heart tugged. Broke. Ached. She seemed like his entire world, everything he thought about, and worried about. But there was little he could do for her. He came home one evening to find her sitting up for once, since usually, she was lying down. She turned her head at the sound of his entrance.

“Erica called. She said she would be late.”

Nick nodded. They had become an odd threesome. His girlfriend, his what? Employee? Friend? Little sister? What the hell was she to him now? He remained possessive of her, in his mind, in a way he’d never been with anyone. Not even Erica. It bothered him, scared him, and worried him, so he kept it to himself.

Erica was there too each day. Erica
came from a family of old wealth, and literally, high society. At age thirty, she was already a successful, busy doctor. Yet she and Joelle managed to form a very odd, and surprising to both of them, very close friendship. They were already closer than Nick could have ever imagined. They got along better than any of his sisters.

Nick usually avoided Joelle when he was at his house. He made her nervous, so he spent most of his time in his home office evenings, unless Erica was there. Then he sat in a chair as far from Joelle and Erica as he could find. But tonight, Nick and Joelle were all alone. She was sitting up and seemed less catatonic. She also seemed less afraid of him.

He hung his coat in the closet, came over, glanced at the TV, then sat down at the opposite end of the couch. After five minutes, he looked at her.

“You do realize you watch about the most pointless shows ever shown on TV
, don’t you? I mean they’re not even shows, they’re just pure trash.”

Joelle met his gaze. For once not shying at seeing him looking at her. “I know.”

He laughed out loud, unaware she already knew how bad her taste in shows was. “You like these?”

“I do. They are so stupid on these reality shows, they make the rest of us not seem so stupid, and troubled.”

“So watching their stupidity helps lift your ego?”

“Exactly. You should try it sometime.”

He glanced at the show briefly and didn’t even know the name. Didn’t want to know. But he was glad it seemed to draw Joelle out of her own issues, and melancholy. He was a little bit grateful it made her look slightly less tragic just then.

He sat back and watched some more, not really listening, or watching. He was thinking how glad he was now of having Joelle’s companionship, and missing the former ease of it. They hadn’t been at ease with each other since she first arrived there. Not like they were in the past. Things with them came and went. Sometimes, they understood each other like no one else, and at others, they could barely stand to make eye contact with one another. But since her assault, confusion, tension, and awkwardness seemed to
preclude any chance for conversation.

She kicked her legs straight out, and she was so short, they didn’t even take up half the co
uch. He saw her foot, poking out of her loose-fitting gray sweats. She had a tattoo at her ankle that ran up her calf. He slid her pant leg up to follow the green vine until it terminated into a red rose bud. It had to be four inches long. He ran his hand over it, surprising even himself when he touched her. She jumped, startled, and met his gaze. They stared at each other as if suspended in time, which imbued it with more drama than should have been evoked from just a light caress of her tattoo.

“Do these hurt?”

“What? Tattoos? No, not after they’re on.”

“I mean getting them.”

“Yes.”

He was
touching her calf. His hand could easily span the distance from her ankle to her knee. He absent-mindedly rubbed at the red color as if to see if it would smudge.

“How many do you have?”

“More than you’d like, I’d guess.”

“Which is?”

“A grand total of five.”

He considered that, since he only knew of two, and immediately wondered where and what the other three were.
“Why? Why do you get them if they hurt?”

She shrugged. “It’s not something you’d understand. Getting a tattoo.”

“I get wanting one. Kind of a thrill, I suppose. But why more than one?”

“I don’t know. I grew to like them. It kind of becomes a thing. A way of expression. It fit me for awhile.”

“So, do you like all of Rob’s tattoos?” He looked away. Why did he ask that?

“I did. I mean
, I do like them. I was, I am, attracted to him. When he was sober, he was the most charming, fun, teasing, intelligent man I’d ever met.”

“You need to get out more.”

Her gaze brushed over him. “He wasn’t always like what you saw. I wasn’t completely stupid when I married him. He was good to me and meant everything to me. Everything that makes him Rob, the man I married, is distorted by his addictions.”

Nick hated it. Her persistent attraction to Rob. Or knowing that she liked the freaking wallpaper of tattoos the man sported all over his body. Or that she was covered in big tattoos herself, and nearly branded with Rob’s initials. They, Nick and Joelle, were about as alike to each other as a cat is to a dog.

He was conservative, and what he considered normal, groomed, well dressed, and well spoken. She was pierced and tattooed, and she wore her hair in a weird, unflattering manner (at least, to his eyes, and those of the people he called friends). She wore harsh, dark makeup to give her a theatrical air. Her clothes were the sort of look on a woman that he did not find attractive. Yet, from the start, he found Joelle just that: attractive like no one else he knew. Even if she was married, too young, too vulnerable, and just too weird for him.

He also hated that she was still attracted to Rob Williams. Hated it because that precluded her from being attracted to a man like himself. He and Rob were about as different as two men could be in every way: physically, how they dressed, how they looked, and wore their hair. Even the way they walked and talked. If she thought Rob was sexually attractive, there was no way she’d ever look at Nick and see anything but a corporate suit. A big brother. Hell, for all he knew, she saw him as a temporary fatherly type. He was twelve years older th
an she, and at Joelle’s age of twenty-three, being vulnerable, screwed up, and confused, she embodied everything that wasn’t right for him.

He swore. He didn’t care anymore. He didn’t want Joelle returning to Rob. He wanted her to leave the bastard who was doing such a good job of ruining her life once and for all.

“Thing is, Nick, right now, none of it looks so good to me anymore.”

He eyed her sharply. What didn’t look so good to her? Rob? Tattoos? Her life? What?

“What does then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t seem to know anything right now. Hardly even know my own name.”

“You will, Joelle.”

“And you? Are all of your girlfriends like Erica? Long, blonde, beautiful, successful?”

He realized they were. “Yes.”

“How come you don’t marry her? You couldn’t do any better than her.”

He shrugged.

“Have you ever been married?”

“No. Always avoided that.”

“Why?”

“I was always too busy. I spent more time working than dating. I wasn’t so good at calling, if I got busy. I didn’t want to give up my time.”

“But Erica? Isn’t she different?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d be an idiot not to know that she is.”

“Why don’t you marry her if you think she’s so great?”

“You really get uncomfortable with the thought of marriage and commitment
, don’t you?”

“I’m committed. To my company.”

“A company doesn’t comfort you.”

“No
, I go on dates for that. And other things.”

She laughed. He hadn’t heard her outright laugh all week. She shook her head in amazement he said that to her. They seemed to usually avoid flirting. She left her leg outstretched and he left his hand on her ankle, his thumb absent-mindedly rubbing at the silky skin.

“I’ve been thinking about things.”

“Pretty good time to do so.”

“I think I should explain some things to you. Things you might not want to hear. Things about how I came to you that night.”

“I know how you came to me. Question is, do you?”

“Please, Nick, I need you to know something.”

“Okay. If it helps for you to talk it out.”

“Things with Rob started to go bad about a year ago. But until then, he and I were in tune with each other in a way I’ve never been with anyone else. I drank with Rob, and as much as he did. I went to every party, every gathering, every singing gig, and every ‘after and later after’ party. I encouraged it. I enjoyed it. I look like this because I wanted to. I fit in and I was as well known as Rob. Almost as involved. Those were my people, my crowds.”

“You were also
eighteen, nineteen or twenty years old. It seems normal at some point you’d want to grow up a little. Grow out of it.”

“I was right there doing whatever Rob was doing. Petty things. Stupid things. I spent a lot of my time drunk or high, and very often, both.”

Nick looked on, waiting for the rest of it, his face blank. Her eyes scattered around, and looked everywhere, but at him.

“So when I started to change, Rob didn’t get i
t. Or want to see it. It wasn’t entirely his fault, how we slowly deteriorated. I used to be who he is. How can I get so mad at him when I’m the one who changed, not him? I used to not mind where we lived; it meant very little to me. Insignificant. I was so glad to be there, living with the band, being there for and with Rob. I loved it.”

“And now you don’t?”

“No. I don’t.”

“And you still love him?”

“Yes. It doesn’t just turn off in a matter of a week or a month or even a year.”

Nick didn’t like what he was hearing. He took his hand off her leg,
and pushed it away from him. “So are you telling me that you’re going back?”

“No. I’m not saying that.”

He stared into her eyes. “So what are you saying to me?”

She lowered her eyes and licked her lips.
“I want you to see who I am. That I brought on most of this by myself. Maybe you shouldn’t feel that sorry for me, and hate Rob so much.”

“Ah
, but I do. I hate Rob that much. I don’t care if you were selling the drugs and having orgies every night, nobody deserves the beating you took, or the reaction you got from your own husband. God, please get that, would you? Get that much from what happened to you.”

“I get that.
But you still don’t understand how Rob saved me when I was nineteen. When I left for college, I thought it would hold the answers to my miserable life. I’d find friends, and acceptance and love. And this aching loneliness would leave me forever. But I didn’t. I was lost, anonymous. Too quiet and shy to make friends, too awkward to fit in. Until, one night, when I met Rob.”

“And suddenly you weren’t too shy, and you fit in,” Nick said wearily as he realized where she was going with her story.