Vengeance

Lies

Amelia Gill sweeps her raven hair over her shoulder before picking up the whiskey glasses and turning back around to face Rodrick. In the dim light of her apartment, he looks like a still frame from a noir film. A thrill shoots through her at the thought. She finds herself stalking across the room towards him, her blood-red silk robe matching her blood-red lips.

"Here you go." Amelia places one of the glasses in Rodrick's hand, and seats herself beside him on her dark leather couch, his gray suit jacket laid out between them. "Please tell me you didn't come all this way to mope about your wife cheating on you," Amelia says.

"She's lying to me." Rodrick doesn't look at her when he speaks. He hasn't looked at her at all this evening. "I need to find out who she was with."

"Laura doesn't seem the type to cheat." Amelia takes a sip of her drink and looks away. "That's more your thing, isn't it?"

Rodrick stays silent, but she can feel his gaze on her now. Amelia turns back in time to catch the dangerous look in his eyes. She leans in closer and drags her red fingernails gently across the back of his neck.

"Stop it," Rodrick snaps, pulling away from her touch.

Amelia lounges back, crossing her legs, exposing too much skin as the satin robe falls away. "Here you are, in my apartment, complaining to me that your wife is having an affair." She lets out a humorless chuckle and sips her drink again. "It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad," she adds before she can stop herself.

"Sad?" Amelia flinches as Rodrick spits the word at her. "You want to talk about sad? Look at you." Rodrick sneers at her bare legs, and Amelia pulls the edge of her robe across her thighs, suddenly feeling exposed. She can sense she's crossed some invisible line and is about to suffer the repercussions. That was the problem with playing someone else's game. You never knew the rules you were playing by.

Rodrick leans in close, so close Amelia has to lean away to stop their lips from touching. "Do you lie to yourself to make yourself feel better?" Rodrick whispers. "Tell yourself that I love you?" He nuzzles her neck, breathing in her scent. His touch always sends her pulse racing, but this time it feels different. This time, it feels like fear.

Rodrick grabs her chin, forces her to look into his shadowy blue eyes as he says, "because I don't. You're nothing to me but an easy lay."

"Get out." Amelia pushes his hand away and stands, putting as much distance between them as she can. She tugs at the edges of her robe with her free hand, pulling it shut across her chest.

"You're kicking me out?" Rodrick asks, leaning back on her couch, an easy smile breaking across his face, daring her to stick to her guns.

"Yes, I am." Amelia crosses her arms in front of her body, barely noticing the splash of whiskey that splatters to the floor from her glass.

Rodrick laughs and drains his drink. With slow, deliberate movements, he puts the glass down on her coffee table, stands, and grabs his suit jacket. "You know," he says, looking over his shoulder as he pulls her front door open. "It'd be sad if it weren't so funny."

As soon as the door slams shut, Amelia's bravery drains away. She can feel her legs giving way beneath her. She tips back the rest of her whiskey and sits back down on her couch. Her hands are trembling. She wants to scream. She wants to run to the window and tell him to never come back.

Instead, she lets the glass fall out of her grasp, drops her head in her hands, and cries. She cries because he will come back. And she'll let him in. Again and again.

It never gets easier to leave. As Sarah pulls her suitcase across the cobblestone pathway connecting the entrance to the Lazy Fox Inn to Main Street, she wishes, once again, that she didn't have to. She wishes she could go back home to find Horace and Sebastien in a well-humored but spirited discussion over some legal matter or other. She steps up to the edge of the curb and stops. Instead, here she was, going back to her cramped, squat little bungalow, where her memories haunted her every action.

"Sarah!" Sarah turns at the sound of her name to spot a hurried Laura making her way towards her, clutching her light beige coat closed in front of her. "Are you leaving already?" she asks when she comes to a stop in front of Sarah, slightly out of breath.

"Yes, my flight leaves soon." Sarah gestures at her small suitcase beside her as if providing proof that she really was leaving.

"Do you have a minute?" Laura brushes her red hair away from her face. "I really need to talk to you."

As if it were a gift from God to save her from having to have another heartbreaking conversation with Laura, her car pulls up. "I'm sorry, Laura, I really can't." Sarah reaches for the car's door, but Laura steps forward, blocking her.

"Sarah, please, there is something I-" Laura stops speaking abruptly as her eyes spot something over Sarah's shoulder.

"What's the matter?" Sarah asks, looking around for what has caught Laura's eye. A slender, well-dressed young man in a tan suit is standing by the hotel's doors. He holds his gaze over the two of them for a moment before he turns and walks in. Sarah recognizes that face, despite the effects time has had on it. It was a face she'd seen trailing behind Rodrick and Sebastien countless times, desperate for attention. Lawrence Dega. Sarah turns back to Laura, who has instinctually stepped back, eyes wide. If she didn't know better, she'd say Laura is scared.

"Nothing..." Laura mutters. She turns her attention back to Sarah, trying to disguise her apprehension. "Can we please talk somewhere else?"

"I really have to go. I'm sorry, Laura." Her path now clear, Sarah opens the door and gets in while the driver places her suitcase in the boot. Laura doesn't protest, her eyes still glued to the hotel doors Lawrence has just walked through.

As her car pulls away, Sarah can't help wondering why Lawrence Dega of all people had spooked Laura so much. Sarah shakes her head. Whatever it was, whatever Laura so desperately wanted to tell her, none of it mattered, not to her. Not anymore.