Be a Doll(69)

Her eyes took me in a moment longer and then she turned around, exchanged a few words with my mother and only her heels back on her feet and the front door opening and closing clued me on the fact that she had left the apartment. I was still in the exact same place in the kitchen, my heart beating fast in my heaving chest. I leaned against the kitchen island and let my head fall between my tense shoulders.

“What did you do, Mathis?’’ my mother asked from the bar.

One quick glance over my shoulder proved to me that I truly perceived disappointment and concern. That mix directed at me only made me want to get out of my own damn skin even more than I already wanted.

“Nothing.’’

Her answering sigh was more telling than anything she could have said, but it didn’t stop her there. “You can’t spend your life pushing people away and hurting them when you feel they’re getting through to you. It’s not a life, mon gar?on.’’

“Because this isn’t my fucking life,’’ I whispered so quietly on a painful exhale.

“What did you—‘’

“Nothing. I said nothing,’’ I retorted and rubbed at my eyes, hoping it’d dissipate the pinpricks in them. “Did she tell you where she went?’’

“No. You two have a strong character. I’m sure she went for a walk to calm down.’’

I kept my eyes on my hands tightly gripping the edge of the kitchen island. I watched the veins in my forearms bulging. I stared at my white knuckles contrasting against my fair skin.

“I should go, but mon gar?on, keep in mind I’m just a phone call away. I really want you to remember that you don’t always have to deal with everything on your own. I’ll always be there to listen to you.’’

My back stiffened some more as the pinpricks intensified in my eyes. The thickness of her French accent told me that she was battling with her emotions, but she wouldn’t let herself be overcome by them. Her strength resided in the fact that she was able to control her emotions without completely pushing them away. I couldn’t.

I breathed out, listening to her heels on the floor as she retreated back to the entryway where her coat probably was. I waited until the front door closed after her to let out a broken breath that sounded more like a pained gasp. I released my grip from the edge of the kitchen island and leaned on my elbows, my head a breath away from the top of the kitchen island as my knees buckled under me.

My life was a mess and I didn’t know what to make of the mess. I didn’t know what to do, what to make of what I felt after willingly hurting Lila for no other reason but because I needed an outlet for that damn surge of tension inside me.

Lila was from Carter Manor and money was the cement of this marriage, but she wasn’t after my money or my cock. She was her own person and didn’t deserve my shit. For the first time in years, in what felt almost like a lifetime, I cared about the kind of impact I had on someone else’s life. Simply put, and to a certain extent, I cared about Lila. I didn’t know why or in what capacity, but I cared enough to feel the need to go after her and find a way to apologize without actually saying the word.

But once again, Lila wasn’t that kind of woman.

She didn’t want sex to forget my shit. She didn’t want me to distract her with an overpriced gift. She didn’t want me to bullshit my way out. In fact, she probably didn’t want me in her life at all if she had a choice.





LILA


It was funny how I had spent so many years fighting to get off the streets, a roof over my head, somewhere to call home — to the point of going to the extreme and going to Carter Manor and ending up now at night in Manhattan, walking in my expensive shoes and clothes and not wanting to go home — out on the streets.

I didn’t want to go anywhere near the man who gave me his last name, stripping me of the one thing I held from my family, the only thing I had from a time when my life wasn’t so screwed up.

I slipped my frozen hands in my coat pocket and closed my fingers around my phone. With my every step, my Dior purse bumped against me, punctuating my steps regularly, adding another layer to the melody of my nightly walk in a charade of escape from my own life. My melody got lost in the mess of sounds from the city with the cars honking, the curses thrown out car windows and laughter from people walking around.

Life was a mess and should be loud. It was best if surprises were part of it and if it called out for you to always better yourself, challenge yourself, but my life was something else entirely. Being in an arranged marriage was based on myself being nothing more than a compliant wife. I didn’t have anything that was all mine, nothing I was proud of. I had achieved nothing.

Then, it shouldn’t have hurt when Mathis said I already had his money and sex and shouldn’t ask for anything more. I shouldn’t have been surprised he went there. He had never pretended to be anything different. He had the merit of always being honest, even when it bit and hurt. No, what I expected, happened.

Spending the night with him had been a bad idea and only opened myself up to being hurt. After years spent in a place where sex was talked as a chore to go through to satisfy the man we would marry, I shouldn’t have felt like maybe it would change me and Mathis’ dynamic. I didn’t want a relationship with the man, but I would lie if I hadn’t wanted something different now.