A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel Page 7

  Unless of course, you were inside when it was closed. Then there was only a way deeper in.

  I stared at the ceiling for so long my eyelids drooped. I closed my eyes in the middle of trying to fathom how a man could construct such a kingdom from the inside out.

  9.

  Gold Never Tarnishes

  Something woke me.

  When I forced myself into a sitting position, I was befuddled. My body had dipped into the cushions. My neck was crooked and my feet were freezing. I rubbed a hand down my face, and looked around at the dark room. The sun appeared to be setting. The glare was a brilliant deep gold, streaked with orange and rimmed in a lavender, creating an illusion I didn’t mind falling for. The sun set behind the horizon, and then it was gone.

  The room was bare of anyone but me when I got to my feet. There were dishes in the sink, so I knew Dash had come out. My hunger had reached heights I’d never visited. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I wrenched open the cupboards and pulled out random items, shoving a breakfast pastry into my mouth without heating it and then some bland tasting wheat crackers after. As I stood there shoving food into my mouth, I caught sight of myself in the windows. Thanks to the setting sun they were now mirrors.

  I looked wild, rabid, and forgotten. My hair was a mess. My face and skin were pale. My eyes were sunken. Crumbs fell to the floor as I devoured what my hands could reach. I turned away. I had always been into my looks. The daughter of two poor parents who cared more about screaming at the other than me, I had felt the brunt of their indifference from an early age. I endured the consequences of their actions more than they ever had.

  Meeting my own eyes wasn’t the same as making sure what others saw hid the cracks. I could remember the moment I became highly aware of my physical appearance still so clearly, that even now my face flushed.

  I was sitting at the lunch table. It had rained the night before, and the seats were soaked. I hadn’t known until I sat—as with most things in my life. Across from me sat Leonard Cooper and his horde of sluts. Girls who looked at me in disdain because my jeans had holes that weren’t intentional.

  “Is that a stain or her face?” one of them whispered loud enough for me to hear.

  “Maybe her trailer has a hole in it?”

  “Or her daddy missed her mouth this time,” Leonard mock whispered, making his girls snicker.

  I never had a problem with physical violence. I liked it, craved it—I enjoyed taking my anger out on people. On the inside there was a part of me who was cruel and unapologetic, just like there was a part of me who loved hard and wanted harder. And then there was a part of me I didn’t know. It was untouched, the truest part of me, the version of Kinley Hashawaye that scared me to no end. When I met Denny, I could ignore her.

  Thanks to Dash, I was thinking about her again.

  “Did you see her shoes? They’re fake,” they whispered mockingly. “I didn’t know Nike’s makes Nookies.”

  They all broke into a chorus of ridiculing laughter. Teasing others had never made me feel adequate. Part of what helped me with my patients was that I wasn’t afraid of them. I was okay with the fact that they weren’t like everyone else, because I wasn’t either. Taking something that hurt and using it against them to make them more upset, hadn’t ever made me laugh the way it did those people.

  From that day forward I decided to care about how I looked. And the moment I did, I realized that I liked having nice things. Perhaps it was an obsession. Marking magazine after magazine for hours, wanting what I didn’t have. My dream house, my dream clothes, my dreams were so far away they were really just one more illusion in a fake world.

  For the first time in my life I could stare at something beautiful and not want it. This was a mansion in the clouds, but all it really did was further eliminate reality.

  Hours slipped away from me as I delved into my brain. It was my only ally. At one point, I went into my room, falling face first into my bed as I picked myself apart. After a restless sleep, I awoke to find the main floors spotless. I searched through the cupboards for food, coming away with some breakfast biscuits.

  I stared at his door as I ate, feeling the first stirrings that my bowels were returning to normal. I wasn’t sure I was pleased. They had adapted to this. Would I? I ditched my food and stumbled and fumbled to my bathroom. I felt strands of my sanity snap. I ignored their breakings and did my business, peeling off my clothes and taking a long hot shower when I was done. I sank down against the tile and watched myself through the dampness on my lashes, unable to tell which droplets were my tears and which were water.

  This wasn’t a fairy tale.

  I wondered if the solitude was wearing me down, but dismissed the thought immediately. I was an adult now—why was I thinking of the years I wasn’t? I spent all day around others. My patients, my assistant Frida, and Denny. A day hadn’t passed in years where I’d spent it alone, and when I ran that’s what I wanted. And now days had gone alone. Completely and utterly alone. Choosing to distance myself from Dash felt different than being forced to be alone in a prison I did not construct.

  These were not my walls and they were not fitted with locks. Because if they were, no one would have gotten in to begin with.

  I dressed in sightless panties and random shorts, throwing on a tank top. I did pause to dry my hair. It was amazing to me how long I put into my appearance at home, and how little I cared now. I was a wild unkempt woman. I tossed my towel on the floor and ventured out into the main floor.

  It was night again, or already, or maybe day was almost here. I had lost count. I stared at the room in a daze. I missed my coffee. My bed. My order. My life. I glanced fleetingly at Dash’s door, and then away. Without anything else to do, I settled on the couch. The cushions had been reorganized. There was a magazine on the coffee table and a square of plastic beside it.

  My pulse sped up.

  My favorite fashion magazine and note markers. I enlisted every ounce of control I possessed before I tossed it out the window. I scooped it up and the sticky tabs. Perfection painted every page. Gowns, heels, gold earrings—I was in love. I traced the silhouette of a dark red gown over and over again, imagining my body inside. The sultry red fabric hugging my curves, drawing eyes to every dip and groove on my body. No one would ridicule me in this.

  I marked it.

  Briefly, minutely, only because I had something to look at other than my prison walls, I could not deny my gift from a man I hadn’t treated glowingly.

  “Don’t you dare feel guilty,” I demanded, flipping the page roughly. “He bought you. Don’t forget that.”

  And you took money from him every session, watching him fall deeper and deeper apart.

  “Now I’m talking to myself?”

  I thought if I distracted myself, my unease would lessen. However, two more days into my solitary confinement, and I had started having full-blown conversations with myself, because the only thing to distract me, was me.

  I curled up on my bed, trying to shut out the glow of the sunshine. It wasn’t sunny in this room. It was storming, raining my guilt down on me.

  What was that saying?

  “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side?” I supplied snippily.

  No, moron. Neither side of the grass was green apparently. Denny wasn’t who we thought he was, or maybe we were exactly who we knew ourselves to be. If you think about it, Dash was the only one being himself.

  “Not helping.”

  Once a cheater, always a cheater.

  “Patterns,” I whispered shamefully.

  Once broken, always broken.

  “Me?”

  You do this every time.

  “What?”

  No one’s ever made you feel whole. Except one.

  “Shut up.”

  You weren’t happy.

  “When?”

  Denny wasn’t perfect.

  “Kind of perfect.”

  He used you.

  “I neede
d him.”

  You pretended, but we knew. We knew what Denny was doing.

  “Suspected,” I breathed, bawling into my pillow. It was soaked.

  We knew…

  “He was mine.”

  A moment of gold and all those storms felt calmed.

  “Blue,” I sobbed. “Baby blue.”

  Gold never tarnishes.

  “It’s forever.” My words were illegible to me, but perfectly understandable to … me.

  Maybe he didn’t let you go. Maybe you held on to keep from fading away?

  “Who?”

  We knew.

  I clenched my eyes shut, shutting out the truth. I despised the truth. It was so self-righteous. Always right, never wrong. It never let me be.

  Listen.

  I covered my ears.

  Not all walls keep you in. Some keep them out.

  “Stop.”

  This shattering love shattered long before you did.

  “Did what?”

  Illusions are only illusions until you believe they’re lies.

  “Enough!”

  Then they become the truth.

  I bolted from my bed and ran through my open door, fumbling into the main space. Had I slept? The light coming in through the window was indigo, the deep blue of twilight before the sun started to rise. I hugged myself and stared at Dash’s door.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

  I sank to the floor and kept my eyes down, studying the designs in the wood. There was no rhyme or reason. Swaying tan lines in dark rich wood. I imagined them a river, and their calm waters would carry me away. I was stuck on them.

  “What are you doing?”

  I blinked and looked up. The sun was streaming into the window, rich and golden. Time had shifted on me. Dash stood there, shirtless, pale, hard muscled body covered only by a pair of loose black boxers. His black and brown hair was tousled and messy. His eyes were scalded. They were puffy and red, glassy from insanity, lack of sleep, something. And his voice, so deep my back straightened.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, as his expression slightly unhardened. “Did Denny hit you?”

  I looked back down at the wood. “We hit each other.” I couldn’t breathe. I unfolded my body and lay with my cheek pressed to the wood.

  “I didn’t know that.” He sounded aggravated that I’d hid something he couldn’t predict. “Now I know why he sold you out, though.”

  I glared at the wood “Would you hit me?”

  “Never,” he promised, voice strong.

  “It’s the only kind of relationship I know,” I admitted, my breath leaving me.

  “You shouldn’t have been a therapist.”

  “Maybe. I have perception on everyone else. I’ve never had it for myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Who knows.” I didn’t want to know. “I might not like the reason, or maybe it isn’t one reason, but so many. And then what? What does knowing the reason do?” For me?

  “I won’t hit you. We’re not going to have that kind of relationship, Kinley.”

  “We’re not going to have a relationship at all.”

  He ignored me. “No more hitting.”

  “I’m going to hit you.”

  “Every time you do, we’ll spend a few days apart. I don’t think I can last another day.” His voice broke. “Coffee?”

  “Is there any more milk?” Right now, another day on my own sounded like one too many.

  “There’s one gallon in the freezer. I’ll start unthawing it.”

  His bare feet padded into the kitchen. I watched his legs. His shins were covered in a thin layer of dark hair and his calves were prominent and pronounced. I knew from our meetings that he enjoyed working out. He said it made him feel high when he was low, and it brought him down when he was high.

  “Have you been exercising?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “There’s a treadmill for you.”

  My head popped up. I swayed from the sudden movement but managed to keep myself in check. “Where?”

  His back was to me, but he pointed to his side of the room. “I’ll bring it out for you.”

  I crossed my legs and licked my lips. “They took me when I was running.”

  “You took me when I was falling.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I can’t tell if you’re cheesy, or if I’m just sickened by any displays of romance.”

  “I’m cheesy,” he admitted, a smile evident in his voice as he quickly shut and closed the freezer with a plastic container of milk in his hands. “My past relationships can’t be wrong about everything.”

  “I can be sickened.” Cheese and hearts made me ill. Scream at me, show me you cared by not caring. I began to rise, and then took a seat at the bar as he pulled a small coffee maker from under the sink. I drummed my fingers on the countertop, watching as he filled the paper filter from a coffee canister. The smell made me moan, made me human, made me okay for one second with my situation.

  He smiled at the coffee maker. “I brought you coffee just to hear that sound.”

  I paused mid-moan and glared. Sure, Dash brought me coffee to our meetings when they were first thing in the morning, but I hadn’t been that easy to impress. Or maybe I had. Maybe that’s why I let him have me on my desk. Denny hadn’t made an effort. But Denny had been enough to keep me from floating away. In a way, what more could I have asked for? So our fights got physical. They always had. I wanted physical reassurances. I wanted to feel his emotions—good or bad.

  Or maybe, I had grown used to the bitterness of our love.

  “So you were manipulating me even then?”

  He looked up sharply. “I never manipulated you. I never did what you did.” His gaze intensified, throwing memories at me.

  He wasn’t hungry so much as remembering all the times he’d starved. I looked down. “So I wore certain things.”

  “Certain things? You call black stockings paired with heels and short skirts certain things?”

  “Denny never noticed what I wore.”

  “Denny,” he said, leaning forward to catch my gaze. “Is gone. Stop thinking about him.”

  “Or what?” I spat. “You’ll kidnap him too?”

  He shook his head, his mouth twisted in disgust. “When are you going to stop lying and tell the truth?” He flipped the switch with an angry thrust of his hand and turned back to the jug of frozen milk. Hot water poured onto the jug, creating steam that rose in the air, wrapping around his handsome face like a foreboding mist. “Unless you do it so much you don’t even know what’s the truth or a lie.”

  I picked at a nonexistent spot on the counter.

  “We were the truth, weren’t we?” His tone softened.

  I nodded hesitantly. “We were the truth.”

  “Don’t you want that again?”

  “Not like this.” I scrubbed harder, picking and picking at a spot that didn’t exist. “That truth became a lie the second I was taken.” I raised my head, eyes lethal. “You ruined us.”

  His lips thinned. “You’re lying again.”

  “So what,” I hissed. “I’m a liar.”

  “Stop.”

  “Oh, let me stop doing something because Dash doesn’t like it.”

  “Maybe I can give you an incentive to stop lying?”

  “Like what? A leash with diamonds on it?”

  He narrowed eyes and pulled the plastic lid away from the milk. Reaching across the counters, he pulled a mug from the cupboard over the sink. Suddenly, he smiled. “If you stop lying, I’ll …” His grin became wolfish, full lips and white teeth, a lie I didn’t mind believing. “Reward you in orgasms.”

  “That isn’t a real form of currency.”

  He surprised me by chuckling. A deep rough sound that made my spine straighten. Dash laughing was … new. I wasn’t used to it. He was so reserved, intense, a man who kept his emotions inside because they were already
in his eyes. It made chill bumps break out across my skin. I rubbed them angrily and forced the sexy sound from my brain.

  “This is our kingdom, my queen. We can make our own rules.”

  “Why would I want an orgasm from you?”

  He topped my mug off slowly, pouring milk into the dark liquid. “Sugar?”

  “A lot,” I breathed, a breathless plea. Coffee …

  “Every truth you tell me, that’s one orgasm in your favor.” He stepped away and returned with a bag of white sugar, pouring fine white granules into my coffee.

  I was mesmerized by it. It looked hot and creamy. My mouth watered. “Give it to me.”

  He held it in the air. “Tell me a truth.”

  “Whatever. Just give me the coffee.”

  He stepped closer with it in his hand. “You’re broke.”

  My heart dropped, and I sighed a sigh that made me instantly on the edge of tears. “Dash.”

  “Answer me.” His tone hardened, clearly sick of my lies.

  And maybe deep down, I was sick of this one too. “I’m negative. Denny and his parents owned my building and practice. After paying them back, taxes, insurance, student loans, and my bills, I had nothing every month. It was like no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep up.”

  Our eyes locked. His glimmered, an unknown emotion in them I wasn’t used to seeing. Concern maybe? Pity? Something that showed me Dash understood what my job meant to me. That job was part of what kept me grounded, and Denny was the reason I could have it, which meant Denny owned my soul. We were so intertwined that even apart I couldn’t escape him. My brain shifted, and the truth slithered in. Had I stayed because I loved Denny, or had I stayed because that love had given me a chance to do what I dreamed? Being a therapist made it so I could find a way to myself, as if tearing open the brains of the lost, would help make my lost pieces easier to understand.

  “Can I have my coffee now?”

  He handed it off with a small nod. I took the mug and immediately brought it to my lips. The taste exploded in my mouth. Rich and deep … kind of like his voice. Smooth and bodied—I frowned and brushed the thoughts away, taking a deep long perfect drink. “Oh, Dash.” My toes curled against the bar.