He looks at her intently, goading her. “Are you going to tell him, Al?” Silence falls, and he soon shrugs his shoulders, completely uncaring to the possible ramifications of his divulgence. “Fine, I will then. She decided that men, who are vetoed, are more…thrilling.”
All I want to do is wipe off that colossal smirk which is pasted on his smug looking face.
“She fucked my sister’s fiancé. And it doesn’t stop there.”
I watch Samantha; her body closing in, inert as the words this man speaks renders her motionless. I thought seeing a sliver of her promiscuity all those months ago broke me, but observing the level of mortification and her contrite expression as this man utters about the darkened past she lived…it hurts more. It feels…real.
He shimmies into me again, and while his eyes fall on Samantha, he mutters, “A bit of advice, keep her away from your father. She likes to chase them, too.”
Bile rises to my throat, tears prick my eyes, and I try––I really do––to push them aside, to concentrate on a different emotion other than hurt, devastation…disgust.
I hear my heart literally shattering under my ribcage.
“If you don’t believe me, man,” he twists himself in his seat and waves over at an adjacent table. Two men, dressed in similar attire stroll towards us. “You can ask my boys.”
As they approach, one of the men crosses his arms and rocks on his heels. “Yeah, we have all had her. She can’t offer you anything special, she has given it to everyone. Sexual predators have no shame.”
Appalled by what I have just heard, I watch Samantha from over the table. She peeks up at me from under her fanned out lashes. A lone tear escapes her eye and travels down her cheek.
“What’s the matter, Sam?” Dominic asks, “You find it fun to fuck people over, yet you can’t take it when it is your time to be fucked?”
“Aye, come on now, Dom,” the third man interjects, “we all know damn well that she can take being fucked.”
“She most certainly can. Those soft, delicate whimpers, the way she bites her lip when she is about to come. Those images still keep me warm on lonely nights.”
“Okay, that’s enough now,” I berate between gritted teeth in an attempt to draw a close to the vile images that are being imprinted in my mind.
“’Oh, yes, Dom, yes. Harder…faster…’ So many names have fallen from your lips; I’m surprised you even call the right one out anymore.”
“Drop dead, Dominic!” she exclaims, her tears in full flow.
“Oh, trust me, Samantha. I would die a thousand deaths if it meant I could relive this moment, one last time. You’re finally getting what you deserve…and it brings me pleasure knowing it’s me that has you once again on your knees.”
My stomach roils; adrenaline detonates in my shaking body, incinerating everything other than repulsion. Hearing this…I…I need to get away from them…from her.
I begin to push my seat back, but she splays her hand atop of mine in a vain attempt to halt me. “Hayden, please…” she pleads, but I can’t bring myself to even look at her, let alone have her touching me. Shaking my head in shock-horror, I pull my hand away and resume my intention of escaping the living nightmare I find myself perishing in.
I push myself up, the seat groaning as the legs continue to graze across the hardwood flooring. I take long strides toward the side entrance with only the soft instrumental of Whitney Houston, ‘I Have Nothing’ piercing through the incessant ringing in my ears.
I’m thankful to the darkness which engulfs me as I step out into the obscurity of the alleyway.
Alley…Because she was always caught doing men in them.
Through the bile rising from my stomach, I idly contemplate if this alleyway has seen Samantha in the throes of passion; I somehow muster the diminutive strength left in my body to force the bitter taste back.
Streetlamps illuminate the sidewalk one hundred meters away. There’s a soft, gentle chill in the air, and a faint speckling of rain falls upon me. I fist my hands through my dampening hair and a sudden surge of anger erupts in my body. I kick the closest thing in my proximity, which happens to be the restaurant’s garbage can.
How can I get passed this? How can we, get passed this?
The side door is pushed open. I’m vaguely conscious of Samantha appearing from the entryway. Stepping out into the light falling rain, she stands in front of me with her purse under her arm.
The music from inside, drifts along the breeze and greets my ears. Whitney continues to croon. It’s funny, I have heard this song a million times, but I have never actually listened to it before. The connection that I have with the lyrics at this precise moment is inconceivable, and that alone makes matters worse.
I gaze, lost and bleak at Samantha while tears roll freely down her face.
“Please, Samantha, tell me it isn’t true.” My words lay heavily between us, hope bolstering, motivating me, as I eventually push past the lump in my throat. My vision swims under my hooded eyes.
Hanging her head defeated, she continues to spin the amethyst around her finger. She doesn’t speak; she simply nods.
Distraught, I’m left winded by her admission; all breath is ousted from my body. I lower my gaze, focusing on the steadily dampening ground, wishing with all my might that the floor will open up and suck me in. Hell has got to be better than what I am hearing right now.
She takes a step towards me, reaching out to clasp my hand that hangs lifelessly at my heavy, immobilized body. I pull away, stepping back to add additional distance between me and the one person who I ran towards. The sprinkling of rain progresses from the early, showering downfall, to a steady, insistent downpour. My shirt clings to my body, droplets fall from my hair and trickle their way down my face.
Samantha’s hair is drenched and clumped together like rats-tails. The scarlet dress turns darker hues as the rainwater absorbs into the weave of the material. Her purse falls to the ground when she fists her hands into her hair, pushing it back off her face. She steadily drops onto her knees in front of me.
As the rain cascades, she looks up and regards me with abounding regret.
I want to tell her that everything will be okay, that we can get through this…but I don’t think we can. Do I love her? Yes, I do––more than anything in the world. Do I love her enough to have her touch me, and make love to me, knowing that the men we met tonight have seen her naked? Have been inside of her? May have been responsible for her pleasure? Knowing she allowed herself to be used her as a sex machine, for their orgasms, and filled up by their…
I place her under my scrutiny as I tower above her, but my Samantha no longer takes place…I see
their
Samantha, the Samantha that…God, the words are to disgusting to even contemplate let alone give voice to. I quickly screw my eyes shut. Looking at her is killing me. I’m disappointed, devastated, pained, heartbroken…I wish I could say I was angry…anger I can cope with. I feel disconsolate, bleak, grieved.
The side door opens once more, Whitney is still serenading. I swiftly glimpse at the persons exiting.
“Well, look at that, Samantha Kennedy on her knees in an alleyway. Something’s never change––see you around,
Alley,
” the men taunt as they walk away, and it is the last straw.
I close my eyes, allowing the tears of my heartbreak to flow freely down my face and meld with the cleansing rain.
TWENTY-ONE
----------------------------------
SAMANTHA
The ground is wet, hard and cold beneath me, but I hold no qualms. Nothing in the world could make me move from my position. The sincerity, the desperation and supplication that I display for all to witness, is my validation of how I feel for him.
I rest back on my heels. The cold rain falls around me, running into my eyes and dripping from my nose. My dress absorbs the droplets, and my body is soon familiarized with the differing temperature.
I extend my arm in an attempt to grasp hold of Hayden’s hand. But he flinches and pulls away.
“Please, Hayden. Let me explain, let me––”
He shakes his head listlessly, halting my plea. His eyes are screwed shut; the wretchedness he is besieged by is evident in the contortion of his facial expression. And I recognize the feeling in my gut as it screams at me, telling me that I have lost him.
This time, it’s for good.
“Hayden, don’t do this, please…”
He opens his eyes and gapes down at me, his lost, anguished and despaired appearance making my blood run cold. He’s already looking at me differently, and I sense that the study his is placing me under is forced. The adoration, love and tenderness that he usually radiates, now substituted with repulsion, detestation and dismay. My heart aches and breaks. I am the one that caused this, me and the irresponsible, impulsive mien of my past. I feel sick.
“I am the one that has to live with the decisions that I have made, Hayden. I cannot change my past, the person I was. But I have changed the person that I am, that I am going to become, and you are the reason for it.” My voice is husky and fraught. I dash my tongue across my lips, and reach again for his hand that hangs at his side.
A nuance of hope is replenished when he doesn’t pull away from me.
Four months pregnant, and I’m on my knees in the rain, holding Hayden’s hand like it’s a lifeline. Dammit, it is my lifeline.
“I didn’t think that I had a future with anyone. I never thought that I would have to stomach the regret that I now feel, knowing that the one person I love more than anything, is being hurt by the actions of my past.” I push myself up from the floor; my legs feel wobbly, and disconnected from the rest of my body.
His gaze doesn’t falter; he remains stock-still, impaired, wounded and disgraced. Do I have the strength to look into his beautiful eyes for the rest of our lives, knowing exactly how he feels about me at this point? He doesn’t need to verbalize how he feels, his expression states it clearly.
What sort of person would I be if I compel him to look at me after the sordid images that have been imprinted in his head? To make love to me? For me to be a part of his life––for the rest of his life, knowing that he’s heard from three of my conquest of the lengths I went to in the darkest times of my former years?
It’s a game of Russian roulette, waking next to him in the mornings, marveling whether today he will love me or hate me, because of the sliver of my mercilessness he witnessed before…how would it be now? I hold enough guilt; I cannot bear to hold further blame, of what will become of our relationship, of Hayden’s desolation, because of this.
This is the beginning of the end for us.
A suffering animal is put out of its misery. I will not subject Hayden to more suffering. Not from me. I cannot become the reason why he will lack trust, or fall victim to even further paranoia. I will not be the reason why he feels suffocated by images of the old me.
I have to free him. I have to let him go.
With my left hand still locked in his, I set my right hand on the side of his face, clearing the streams of tears that are gradually slipping from their confines.
“I love you, Hayden. It took me time to admit it because I was scared to. But now there is nothing in this world that scares me more, than losing you. In saying that, I realize that after everything that has happened in there––everything that was said and everything you saw––holding you to me will kill the person that you are. You wouldn’t be you…you would be a shell with a copious amount of blame and resent aimed toward me, because you will at some point down the line, feel as though you were coerced into staying. And the weight that burden would bear on you…on us…I just can’t do it.”
Allowing my fingertips to linger a little longer than necessary, I slip right hand from his face and release his hand. Discreetly twisting the diamond, I pull it from my ring finger. I instantly feel naked, bereft, as I hold it in my palm.
“I wouldn’t be able to live seeing the fragments of disgust, loathing and heartache that I caused you.” Maintaining eye contact, I scoop his right hand, place the engagement ring in his palm, and close his fingers around it.
I hear his breath catch as I step into him, and it shatters my already splintered heart. I search his eyes, his dark, lost depths, the void already consuming him. I strive to maintain my composure and keep telling myself that I am doing the right thing; it’s the kindest thing, the most selfless thing I can offer him. But it doesn’t make it any easier.
Once again, I lift and press my right hand on the side of his face; my thumb traces his cheekbone, his lips. He doesn’t move or respond––he only closes his eyes. And I sense him, a part of my Hayden savoring my touch; the man who after everything we have both experienced, took a chance and came to love me…someone unlovable; someone unworthy of such a gift.
“I can’t hurt you like this. You don’t deserve it, and I sure as Hell don’t deserve you.” I push myself up onto the balls of my feet and lay a lingering kiss on his left cheek. He remains immobile, as I savor and relish the prickliness of his stubble under my lips, his scent…him.
As I pull my lips away, I turn my head and rest my cheek against his. Unable to conceal my tears, they overflow, spilling down my cheeks and mixing with the rain.
Finding great difficulty in pushing back the lump in my throat, my final words are a whisper in his ear, “This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. But I will do it. I will let you go, because I love you so Goddamn much. I’m so sorry.” I take a cautious step away from him, his eyes meet mine and for that split moment, the unpleasant, despicable emotions that he has shown to me, is overshadowed by the reflection of my own heartbreak.
I take a final moment to drink in one last sight of him, the man who was damaged beyond repair at the hands, tongue and actions of his promiscuous ex-lover, only to be drawn to another who was just as broken as him, who promoted meaning and purpose in his life, and found the strength in herself to abandon her promiscuity for the gift of his love.
Unable to pull my gaze away, I watch as he slowly unfolds his fingers, and glances down at the engagement band in his palm. He lifts his head, his eyes focused on mine, once more.