Burn

When someone loves another person, sometimes it's hard to tell right from wrong. When you love them so much, it may be difficult for you to tell yourself to stop.

I always knew that my relationship with Nick would always be complicated.  I could look back now and think about how I should have prepared for what was to come but when you’re consumed by love, our love, then it’s hard to actually realize what you’re doing.

Last week was the first time I’d seen him in months.  It felt like forever and even though I had expected the worst I still hoped for the best.  Mrs. Jenkins my forty-five year old neighbor was the one to give me the call of his visit.  I was aware that she was almost like the neighborhood gossip and in most situations I would have opposed to her peering into my life but after my long dreaded wait I could care less about hearing her voice over the phone.

“Um, Jason.”  

“Yes Mrs. Jenkins.”  I was at my job and at first there was irritation in my voice.  Of course the snippy high pitch in Mrs. Jenkins’ voice didn’t help the fact.

“I’m sorry to be calling you at the pharmacy, but I wasn’t sure who to call.”

“Well Mrs. Jenkins if you have anything to ask me about your medication then that’s fine otherwise this is going to have to wait until later.”

“I’m sorry but it’s about a friend of yours.”

“A friend of mine?”  I said confused.  How would Mrs. Jenkins know any of my friends, I never invited anyone over since I moved in.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t it was just that I hadn’t made the time or effort to fix up my “fixer-upper”.  If I did then I wouldn’t be ashamed of bringing people over.

“Yes, a friend of yours.”

“Honestly Mrs. Jenkins I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t usually have company.”  I was labeling a pill bottle for a customer at the moment and tried my best to not let the irritation in my voice take over.

“Jason, it’s your friend the one who used to come over all the time.  He drives the silver Jaguar!”  She yelped.

I paused and for a moment I felt like someone had just hit pause on the DVD player.  I couldn’t even get myself to move.  The mention of his car had stoned me and for once I finally knew what all of Medusa’s victims felt like.

“I wasn’t sure if I should call you or not.  I saw him grab a spare key from under the rug and just walk on in as if he owned the place!  Honestly I don’t know why you would leave your key under the rug….”

Her voice trailed off and I slowly put the labeled bottle down on the counter.  The water in my eye started to crawl out but I held it back and took a deep breath and swallowed hard.  Letting out a huge sigh I finally interrupted Mrs. Jenkins from whatever she was talking about and let myself command the conversation.

“Actually Mrs. J, I left him the key.  He told me that he was coming by tomorrow morning but I guess he came early.  What do you know?”

“Really?”  She said with annoyance in her voice.  “I find it interesting that after the big argument that happened a few months ago that you two would be speaking.  I wouldn’t usually pry but after seeing it happen on your front lawn and in the rain no less!  I just had to let my ears chime in.”

“Well what can I say Mrs. Jenkins?  Some of us prefer company as opposed to rooming up with idle gossip.”

I couldn’t hear a word come from her lips but I could swear that I heard her mouth drop.  “Yea, take that b***h.”  And then I hung up the phone.

I sped home and didn’t even follow what the street signs or the traffic lights were telling me.  I didn’t really care, I was going home to see Nick and that’s all that mattered.  I thought about how much better this whole situation would be if I didn’t have to go to my sister’s wedding this weekend.  Saturday night was the rehearsal dinner and then Sunday afternoon she would be walking down the aisle.  Mom always said that she was going to be the first one to get married, the first one to graduate school, and most recently the first one to finish renovating her house.  Luckily for me I accomplished one out of those three things.

I groaned at the idea of having to deal with my sister and her wedding this weekend.  I don’t know what I hated more, her or her husband.  I couldn’t stand who she had picked - a pertentious prep who played golf at the local country club and thought less of anyone but a straight white man working in the business world.  I couldn’t stand the thought of listening to him chatter about the most recent sports game while chugging a beer at the dinner table.  His loud obnoxious voice would conquer everyone else’s conversations.  It was definitely not the type of man I would have chosen.

Even with all the complication that Nick and I had I couldn’t help but choose him over everyone else.  His sophisticated laugh, his awareness of the world around him besides his own.  He was the type of guy who would rather taste a glass of brandy and read literature and he had respect for everyone and believed that all were created equal, no one else above others.

I could see him in my mind sitting on my couch smoking his cigarette, slowly inhaling the tobacco smoke and enjoying the taste on his lips.  I could see his subtle reaction to my entrance and the act of not caring he would put on his face.  I would look into his amber-brown eyes and it wouldn’t be until the moment he kissed me that he would show his true passion.

Finally pulling up to my house I saw his silver Ferrari sitting in my driveway.  No one else had one like it.  I jumped out of my car and ran across my lawn up to the front door.  After unlocking it and pushing it open I was surprised to see Nick standing there almost frozen in place.

“Holy s**t!  What are you doing standing there?”

“I wanted to be right here when you came home.”  He said in his low masculine voice.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“A while.”

He looked me dead in the eyes and I could see he was serious.  I smiled and closed the door.  Looking at him now it was like I saw him yesterday.  He hadn’t changed a bit.  His blonde hair was slicked back as always and he was wearing a white button down shirt with a gray formal vest and matching pants to go with it. I looked over into the living room, which was on my right and saw his tie lying on my couch.  I looked at him and smiled.

“What’s your tie doing on my cushions?”

He smiled back at me but more smug.  As he looked at me with his amber-brown eyes he responded by saying, “It’s really hot in here, you should check your heater.”

“Then why didn’t you take off the rest of you clothes?  Like your vest for example?”

“Because I figured you’d want to do that for me.”

I opened my mouth to respond but before I could come up with a sexier thing to say he leaned in and kissed me on the lips.  I exasperated at the touch of his lips against mine and then I slowly relaxed into his arms, which he used to catch me and hold me while he interlocked himself with me.

I could only breath through my nose for a while and thought to myself that I never wanted it to end until he finally broke away from me and whispered into my ear, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”  I whispered back and then began to unbutton his vest while he started kissing me once more.

After hours and hours of endless passion we finally rested and fell asleep in each other’s arms.  By now it was three o’clock in the morning which meant that we had been at it for ten hours straight.  Thankfully Nick and I were both very calm sleepers and usually mutually agreed on stopping at the same time, although I couldn’t sleep at all.

I kept trying to shut my eyes and keeping them shut, but something kept me awake.  Maybe it was the fact that deep in my heart I knew that this was all going to end.  Although everything around me was nice and great it wasn’t going to last and every time Nick and I met up like this I knew in my heart that sooner than he came, would he exit out the door until he possibly came back.

I sighed.  It was hard to get up from my bed with Nick’s arm draped on my chest.  I lifted it off and prayed he didn’t wake up and soon after pulled on a black t-shirt with a pair of pajama pants from my closet.  I made a silent exit from there and closed the door behind me.

I grabbed my phone from the pants that I left on the floor earlier in the evening when I slipped them off in the hallway.  I went through my contacts and hit the number of my best friend Amy and waited through the dial tone.

A moment later she picked up the phone and answered with a perky, “Hello!”

“I’m so glad you are awake at three o’clock in the morning.”

“Well it’s easy when you have the graveyard shift…literally.”

Amy was a mortician’s assistant and got stuck with working the late hours at the morgue.  Luckily for her though she rather enjoyed it since she got to work alone and didn’t have to be bothered by anyone she didn’t like, which was practically everyone.

“So how are the dead people treating you?”

“Same old, same old.  They talk and I listen.  It gets really annoying especially when you want to get a word in.”  She laughed at her joke and then silenced herself in seconds.  “Speaking of getting a word in I’m guessing you called to talk about something.”

“Actually yes.”

“Okay let’s hear it.”  She pulled the phone away really quickly and shouted to something behind her.  “Okay Tomcats!  Keep it down, my best bud needs to talk.”  She came back to the phone again.  “Okay now that I got the stale flesh to quiet down let’s talk.  What’s up?”

“Nick came back.”

I waited for her to respond but instead I heard silence.

“Amy you there?”

“I’m listening.  Go on with your story.”

“Well there isn’t much to say except that he came back and it’s like…like…”

“Every other time?”

“Yes.”

“So pretty much he’s going to leave as soon as he has too and not see you for what?  Another month or two?”

I sat down on my couch and let out a large sigh.  “What do you want from me?”

“Honestly I want nothing from you.  I’m just going to tell you what I told you before.  You’re playing with fire and it’s going to get you burned.”

I shrugged and slumped into my seat.  “I think I love him.”

“I know you do, but how does he feel about you Jason?”  She sat there quietly waiting for him to answer.  “C’mon the flesh isn’t listening.”

“I know he does.  Even if he doesn’t say it, he does.  Why else would he come here?”  I looked over to the to the bedroom.  The door was closed and I couldn’t hear a sound coming from there.  All around my house it was quiet, the only noise in the whole entire house was coming from me.  If I was quiet enough I bet I could have heard some slight movements coming from him in the room.

“Just go back to your man Jason.  You can’t call me to just justify your choice to get involved with him when you know the consequences.”  I could hear Amy opening a wrapper and taking a bite out of something crunchy.  It was most likely a Butterfinger.

“Isn’t it enough that we love each other?”  I asked.

“Okay,” she said with broken words through the crunchiness of her snack.  “I do have to ask one question though.”

I kept quiet to listen to what she had to say.

“What happens when Ron comes back?”

I wanted to roll my eyes but I couldn’t.  She was right, as long as Ron was in the picture Nick and I couldn’t be together, not fully at least.  I just took a deep inhale and answered with this, “Well Ron’s not here so it’s not like it matters now.”

“Not now, but what happens later?”  

I was about to say something but then I heard the doorknob on my bedroom door turn and I quickly sat up and looked over to see Nick sticking his head through the door.  He rubbed his eyes and appeared groggy but managed to smile at me.

“Amy I’m going to call you later.”

“Have fun with your affair.”  She said it very mockingly and sarcastic.  This time I rolled my eyes and then just ended the call.

I stood up and walked over to him and lightly kissed him on the lips.  “I’m sorry I just had to give her a call about something.”

He nodded.  “Okay.”

“You want me to come back to bed?”  I ran my fingers through his hair that was now a mess but still had a thick layer of gel in it from when it was nice and slicked back.

“Of course I want you to come to bed.  You know how lonely it feels in your room.”

I thought about how unfinished my house was.  I spent years saving up and buying it and then now I was spending another ten years or so saving up to fix it.  I was lucky enough to have nice furniture but all the walls were bare and unpainted and the wood floor was rough and unpolished.  I had to admit that the best part of my bedroom was not only that on top of it being smaller than your average bedroom it also had only one window in it and it was Alice in Wonderland small.  It was in the corner of the room and blocked by a tree so you didn’t even get a nice view from it.  Making the room bigger with nicer windows was something I put on my list when I first bought the house at the cheap price I could afford.

“I’ll be there in five.” I told Nick just before he staggered back to the bed.

It did only take five minutes and now here we were in my bed with lit candles surrounding us on the dressers and end tables.  I was lying with my feet at the headboard and my head on his lower abdomen as he was lying with his head next to mine.  I usually wouldn’t let anyone smoke in my house but for him I didn’t care.  He inhaled the smoke of his American Spirit and slowly exhaled it out making the smoke appear silky and seductive in this exotic dance across his lips.  I giggled.

“What?”  He asked.

“Nothing, it’s just…”  I paused.

“What?”

“You’re trying to be sexy and it’s kind of cute.”

“Wow, I can’t believe that my sex appeal has been reduced to ‘cute’.  I think I’m insulted.”  He took another puff out of his cigarette.

“Cute is still sexy.”  I told him.

“Says you.”  He said as he exhaled his smoke.  “The one thing that I count on is my sex appeal.”

“Why?”

“To please you.”

There was a moment where we just stared at each other and as the thoughts ran through my mind I couldn’t help but let them out.

“I love you.”

He sighed, annoyed.

“I’m sorry but that’s how I feel.”

“I know, but you can’t feel that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

I lifted my upper body from where I was and towered over him and looked him dead in the eye.  “So I should listen to everything you say and just do what you tell me?”

“Yes.”  He said coldly.

“Why?”

“Because it’s for you own good!”  He shouted at me and it felt like he stabbed me in the heart.  I laid back down on his abdomen and just kept quiet.

“I’m sorry for shouting.  I just can’t have you feeling something for me that isn’t real.”

“It is real.”

“Well it can’t be.”  He said sternly.  “I can’t have you feeling this way when I could just be gone without a word, never to return.”

“You will return.”

“How do you know?”

I rolled my eyes.  Even though I knew he was right about what he was saying I didn’t want to say it was true.  I had to have hope.

“Jason I’m just telling you this because I don’t want you to get hurt.”  He came up and curled his body around me and ran his thumb across the side of my lip.  “As soon as Ron comes back I’ll be out of here and who knows when I’ll be back.  It’s not like I can control when he leaves.”

“I want him gone.”  I said through my teeth.

“I know, but you know that’s not as easy as it sounds.”

“Well it’s okay to pray for it.”  I didn’t see him, but I knew he was probably shaking his head.  He always did when I said that.

He came up to my ear and whispered softly.  “Pray for something else, something that’ll make you happy.”

I looked up at him and just licked the side of my lip that he touched.  “I pray for you because you do make me happy.”

I knew what he wanted to say.  I knew he wanted to convince me as hard as he could that he wasn’t worth it and that Ron was too much of a problem to deal with.  Deep inside he wanted to storm out and promise to never see me again and then force himself to never do so.  Unfortunately we both knew that if it turned out that way again we would end up back here without anything solved.  I think, at least in my mind that we both would rather cherish what we had instead of wasting it away with arguing.  

So we just lay there and flirted with our hands quietly until he lit another cigarette and I reached my hand out for him to give me one.

“You don’t smoke.”  He informed me.

“Tonight I do.”  And then he lit up my American Sprit and we enjoyed a smoke together.

I couldn’t stand the idea of Nick going but I had not other choice.  As he buttoned each button on his vest I stood there watching him dreading his leave.  I wish I could be one of those people who would help their boyfriend pack up, but the faster it took him to pack up the sooner he would leave.  So instead I chose the low road and stayed as my stubborn self.

When he was done clothing he took a quick glance at my end table and picked up an old tattered book that was sitting there.  He flipped through the pages and came to a page that I marked with a bookmark.  He looked back at the cover and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you always reading this book?  Because every time I come here this book is out.”

“Um, yea.  I love Greek Mythology.”

He put the book down and looked back at me.  “Next time I come back I’m going to have to read it.”

“Next time?”  I said with a smile on my face.

He completely dismissed what I said and continued talking.  “Especially this ‘Adonis and Persephone’ story.  I guess it must be pretty good since you marked it.”

“It’s my favorite.”

He stepped towards me and kissed me on the lips quickly and even though I wanted more I knew he wouldn’t give it to me.  

“Remember, don’t come outside or even look outside for thirty minutes.  By then I should be gone and it won’t be difficult for either of us to deal with it.”

I nodded and just looked away.

“I love you.”  He said under his breath and then as quickly as he said it was as quickly as he left leaving me in the room all alone.

It wouldn’t be thirty minutes but three hours before I walked outside.  It took that long for me to stop crying.

What I dreaded more than him leaving was going to my sister’s rehearsal dinner.  As always it was scheduled for six o’clock on the dot and if anyone was late my sister would freak out like she was getting a heart attack, which wouldn’t be so bad.

I stepped into my mother’s house, five minutes before six.  It was just enough time for me to not be late, say hello to everyone and pretend like I cared about what anyone had to say without actually having a full fledge conversation.  Luckily my sister started these things on the dot so there was only five minutes of suffering.

“Jason!”

I recognized my sister’s voice from a mile away.  As I put my jacket up on the coat rack I swallowed my anger and smiled in just enough time to turn around and look at her as if I actually was happy to see her.

We hugged and I tuned out everything she said as she dragged me to the kitchen.  The only thing I heard was, “Did you bring it?”  I knew exactly what she meant.  I lifted a pink bag to her face and winced when she squealed at the sight.

“Emily what’s going on?”  My mother called from the kitchen.

“I got my something blue!”  She cried as she pulled out a pair of blue panties from the bag.  “Oh thank you so much little brother.”  She said as she kissed me hard on the cheek.

“I’m only your little brother by eight minutes.”  I mumbled under my breath.  She didn’t hear me and just continued on to the kitchen to brag about how perfect her wedding was going to be.  “I hate having a twin.”  I said while shaking my head.

“Don’t worry cousin, you’re better off than she is.”

I turned around to see my cousin Alexis standing behind me with a martini in her hand.  As gorgeous as ever she never changed since childhood.  Always radiating as the natural beauty that she was, but still a b***h on the inside.  Not even her perfect long brown hair and strong cheekbones could cover that up.

I loved her that way.

We hugged and this time I didn’t have to fake a smile and nor did she.

“Just remember when you’re dating a guy with split personalities you have no choice but to make your wedding as perfect as possible.”  She whispered in my ear the words that affected me more that they should have under normal circumstances.

I looked over to see my future brother-in-law talking to another family member slowly sipping a beer.  I couldn’t stop staring at his amber-brown eyes wishing he was someone else.  

“Apparently his other side almost skipped out on the wedding this weekend.”

I looked at Alexis, “Really?”

“Yup.”  She took another sip of her martini and smiled.  “She was freaking out like crazy the other day.”

“Did she find out where he went?”

“No, but who cares?  Whatever he’s doing is probably way better than marrying her.”  We both laughed.

“Ron! Honey, come over here I have to show you what Mom just bought me as a pre-wedding gift!”  The sound of my sister calling her husband made me shake my head.  

“I want to meet this other personality of Ron’s.”  Alexis said.  “Apparently he’s a real wild fire.  He bought this overly expensive car, drinks hard liquor, and smokes cigarettes.”  Alexis laughed.  “God forbid anyone in this family meet him.  It would make everyone cower in fear.”

I nodded in agreement.

“What was his split personality’s name again?”  She asked right before sipping from her glass.

“Nick,” I said, “his name is Nick.”

 

Reviews

[St Peter]

I really like the twist ending. I have my interests in abnormal psychology, and I like how you saved that detail until the last second. Wonderfully done.

[Starfruitanimal]

"The mention of his car had stoned me and for once I finally knew what all of Medusa’s victims felt like." awesome line

[Starfruitanimal]

your descriptions are beautiful, the ending really catches me. nice job

[Kenneth Smoot]

Thanks a lot. I try : )

[Starfruitanimal]

keep writing :)

[Kenneth Smoot]

I will for sure : )

[Starfruitanimal]

:)!