Their Tale

Numb

The heavy knock on my door rips my attention from the documents in front of me, "Come in." The door opens, but I do not watch it open, going back to my distractions. That and I already know who it is, "It's past midnight." Andrew says, the door closing behind him. I know what time it is, I know where I should be, where I would have been if I had not ruined the single most amazing thing in my life, "I know, but I have nothing better to do." I respond in a cold, monotone voice, hoping he will walk away.

Instead, he walks into my office and takes a seat across from me. He is silent in his seat, simply looking at me like he was waiting for me to say something revolutionary, but he would wait a long while if he thought I would. We sit in silence for another five minutes when I finally take to his silence and place the pen in my hand down.

Meeting his inexpressive gaze, I release a heavy breath before speaking, "Are you going to speak or spend the rest of the night watching me?" I ask as a matter of fact. Andrews's calm and calculating demeanor, one gained from the business world and practice and routine in becoming dominant. He made them go hand in hand. Always balanced them and tied them in a bow of charisma. "You're shutting down. Blocking out what you should be feeling and trying to deal with."

Closing my eyes to take a deep breath in and out. The heart-breaking sound of Evita telling me to leave ringing in my ear. I lean back in the chair. My hands rest on my lap as I look at my best friend and brother, as I fake the composure I practised in my reflection before coming to this hell. There is agony in every thought of them, none of the moments dim or a dark haze, instead I ache and bleed as I think of their warmth in body and soul as they rest beside me.

The idea of never basking in that warmth turned my heart as cold as my bed did, "Evita won't answer my calls or text messages, and Celeste has gone as far as blocking me. They want nothing to do with me." I choke out. The pain of the words defines my reality by the encounter I had with Evita yesterday. I could feel this pull of need for each other arms and bodies in and around each other the moment she saw me, but I also felt the heartbreak and pain that was the effect of my actions.

A disappointed scowl grows on Drews's face "I have known you too long to believe that bullshit." My teeth grind against each other at his words because I didn't want to hear them. I wanted to hear my own words. The ones that could protect the ones I hurt, myself included, "I am not running, if I was, I would not be sitting in this chair." A shake of disagreement is his response, "Fine you are not running. You are hiding."

His statement shakes me. The reality of the truth is that he was speaking harder to comprehend the recent events. I know the truth, but right now I didn't know if I could face it head-on. It might hurt more than the lies "Angel why the hell are you here and not fighting for the two women I know you would burn the world for." No, I can't fight for people who see me as the villain instead of the hero. I was the nightmare, not the haven, and I created its world, "Because I just can't." I seth through my teeth in hopes that he would let the conversation rest but he does not, "Why are you not fighting?" He repeats once again, leaning forward on the table.

I know this was his breath of dominance, but I was not his submissive and he was not my superior, "I said I can't Andrew." I state, bringing myself closer to the table, yet he still goes on, "Don't lie to me or yourself Angel, Why the hell are you not fighting for your girls?" His voice grows at the rest of his words, making me slam my hands on the table in fury of his question, but more so that answer I knew was in my head.

"BECAUSE...I done more than lie to them Drew I hurt the two people I would tear my chest open for to protect. I done the one thing I took an oath to never do, I used my title as an excuse. I disappointed and betrayed them all instead of allowing to let them know I hurt even without bleeding."

Andrew never had pity for me because I never had it for him. I had sadness, worry, concern and even general heartache, but never pity. Across me, I didn't see pity, because he knew as well as I did that this was my fault, but he had heartache, yet I still hated it.

With his manner calm once more he asks, "Who is them all?" His question pulled me in, and the reality of who they were sinking into me. Fuck pity, I felt shame because I didn't just ruin the trust and responsibilities that had been given to me in the present, but I ruined the ones in my past too, so with a heavy heart I give him the truth I tried to ignore, "Celeste, Evita..." Waiting for me to finish the last name, he says nothing when I finally gain the courage to look up at him and say her name, "And Diane." Her name leaves my lips like a poisonous cure.

She was a contradiction of suffering that gave me life. Her name brings the room to silence as though she stepped into it, each stride taking in oxygen as though she gifted it.

"Angel?" Andrew calls, making me look back at him. He was the only person in the world who could possibly tell me the truth and I actually listened and took it in, "Running from pain into spaces of dominance, or this delusional drowing of yourself in all this fucking work it doesnt change anything. You done something the rest of us denied, and you chose love, that shit is a space of vulnerability you took with trust and honesty. You need to wake the fuck up and realise you are never going to be perfect, no matter how much you control or you will lose them and yourself permanently."

Words chain and lock on my soul like an anchor in the middle of an ocean I was drifting in. Now, I sat in a chair with despised power, along with a self-inflicted wound in my soul with loneliness as a consequence of all I denied while I withheld the truth.

His final words complete Drew stands from the chair before buttoning his suit, his focus never breaking from me, "We knelt before we rose, always remember that." I knew what he meant, and I also knew he was right. Giving me a last nod, he pushes his chair back into position, no words left to say or hear so he steps back and out of the office.

Alone in the silence of the room, I balance my head in my trembling palms, a shivering breath coming from my lips. I knew what I needed to do. With motions slow and heavy, I close and file all that clattered my table before grabbing my coat, phone and keys. Stepping into the car I give the driver the location, one of suffocating memory. Passing the clutter of cars, people and lights that made the city I find myself so numb.

I have been numb before. So, numb of drugs I found myself sure that my pulse was all but a myth because life could not exist in the nothingness that was me in that moment. My body was numb from the shock of the pain that struck me as the car that held my mother, father and I took the impact of a truck driver. My heart is numb from the loss of my baby girl as she meets the earth she never got to see with her own eyes. I have been numb before, yet as the car went past each light in the street, I asked myself. Why the heartbreak and hate that poured itself over me at the hands of my lovers wouldn't let me go numb? Why was this the one thing I felt with every waking breath?

So lost in thought, I am made aware that we have arrived when the driver calls my name, "Mr Nader, we have arrived." I had gotten used to suppressing the discomfort that crawled up my spine at being called that, and each time I heard it I just heard Evita's dismissal of a man she did not know.

Looking out the window, I take in the house masked in the darkness with a single light of life above the front door. Thanking the man, I step out and close the door. Turning to the large structure each step feels heavier, and harder, the path longer and breaths shorter, I step until my feet take the last six steps before they stop at the door. Clear as day under the lumination of the porch light was a gold-outlined symbol of a peony plated proudly on the face of the door.

I knock on the door allowing the heavy echoes through. It's second before the sound of the lock chimes and the door slowly opens.

With the fight, I kept my eyes locked on hers yet, I had never felt more unworthy of being at such a level with her. Slick black hair braided back, a floor-length black nightgown and her authority radiating. She stands centred to the door with a look of no known expression as though my abrupt arrival was expected. Truth be told with all that happened in the last few months, my arrival was late, but she didn't show that fact. Instead, she addressed me, "Angel." With the memory, respect, tutelage and known role I look down, falling to the muscle memory of the lessons I had been taught and bow my head, "Mistress Diane."