Manhattan Muse: A Contemporary Romance (11 page)

I awoke in tremendous pain. It was dusk outside and, judging by the clock, I knew that that 6:47 was PM and not AM.

I felt a hand running circles across my back and as I turned over, I was met with two of the most blood shot eyes I had ever seen in my life. I crumbled into the sheets with guilt.

“Say something,” Nate said. Those words only made my eyes squeeze shut even more.

“Papa,” I whined. I turned into him before becoming a convulsing mess. Each sob pushed me deeper into his chest and I was surprised when his arm invited me to stay. “I’ve got to go.”

“No,” Nate said, pulling me in tighter. This only brought my instincts back and made me fight out of his grasp. I ended up kicking him in the gut while freeing myself. However, when I got up and looked in the wall to wall mirror on the closet door, I was brought back down to my knees. Lining my entire body were bruises, big and small, black and blue. There were the bites along my neck, and the hits from my tumbles all down my legs.

I screamed out in terror.

“Don’t look at them,” Nate said, trying to regain his composure. When I didn’t calm down, I heard a crash from behind me.  Looking into the mirror in fear, I saw Nate’s fist come back out of the hole it had just made in the wall. His hand grazed through his hair before he went into the bathroom and slammed the door three times. When he came back out, he was fuming. “You are right, you need to leave.”

My eyes widened in shock. My mouth moved but no words were brave enough to escape. I couldn’t think. My body was in shock.

“You better leave right now before I do something I regret,” Nate said. I watched as his entire body shook trying to contain his pent up anger. “Get out!”

“No,” I said, before I could stop it from coming out of my lips. I felt my nervous system kick into overdrive, making my breathing shaky and sporadic.

“What did you say?” Nate said.

“I said
.…” I started. “I s-said, no.”

Nate
’s head reared back as if he couldn’t believe I had defied him. Looking at me as if I was stupid, he remained calm enough to say these last few words.

“If you don’t want me to end up hurting you,”
Nate said through his gritted teeth. He was seething. “And believe me, I do not want to, you will leave the room right now. But I can’t control my actions, and I certainly will not hesitate to make my way to another hotel so that my fist can connect in his wall.
Get out
.”

And so I did. With his clothes falling off of me, I ran down the hallway, down the stairs, and all the way to my apartment two miles away.

The rest of the day went by in a daze. I sat huddled inside of my closet under piles of blankets, shaking as I dissociated. My eyes were glazed over as I tried to remember what had happened last night. As my hands grazed my face, I
screamed in horror when I didn’t feel makeup on them. Clutching my makeup bag, I reapplied everything hastily, as if painting over the imperfections of last night would make the memories, or lack thereof, go away.

My stomach purged as I recalled how I must have embarrassed myself, and how I couldn’t remember half of how I
had acted around Nate. I just remembered the car ride in a car that was in no way his and the shower. The shower, where he must have seen me without my wig, my eyelashes, or my bronzer. He saw all of me last night, with no clothes or hair covering my shame. I was truly naked in front of him, with every flaw spotlighted underneath his strong embrace.

I tried and tried, but I couldn’t remember any of his reactions. I was so lost in myself then to care. This was surely the end, and with that thought I dry heaved once more.

When my convulsing stopped, I brought myself to terms with the truth. Wearing my vulnerability on my sleeve, I realized that, like every time before this one, I had thrown out something good in my life for something continuously bad.

That thought drove me back into dissociation. I heard the knocks at the door, and the calling of my name. I heard the lock being broken and the footsteps roaming my apartment. However, I didn’t care. I stayed inside the closet as everything in my apartment was overturned in hopes of finding me. When it didn’t provide positive results, the body left and silence was restored.

A light knock sounded at the door once more hours later. It rapped three times before pausing. I could feel the tension through both of the doors between us and instantly knew who it was. However, I didn’t get up when it rapped again, and again. I wasn’t brave enough. Luckily, he was.

Opening the front door, which had been broken from my other intruder, I listened as his steps hit the floor softly, and called my name.

“Molly,” Nate said, stopping in the kitchen. Using his senses, I saw his boots cast growing shadows on the closet door before it opened. Peering up at him, I saw his mouth drop open before he knelt down and sat next to me Indian style. “Hey, how are you?”

I saw him look at my vomit and was surprised when it didn’t faze him.
When he didn’t receive an answer, he turned his attention back to me.

“I’m really sorry about blowing up on you like that,”
Nate said, swallowing hard. I could tell my state alarmed him by the way he timidly brushed my cheek in a tender caress. “I wasn’t mad at you, I was just afraid I was going to let my anger get the best of me like years prior. It’s the main reason I became Buddhist.”

When he didn’t hear a response, his hand
moved to settle on my kneecap. Through the fabric of my blankets, I felt his thumb rub its length in soothing, even strokes. I let out a shaky breath.

“I just remember when you ran to my room terrified that night after our first big fight,”
Nate said. “I wanted to show you the same respect.”

He was so calm, with the ability to restore vitality and hope in me
with the simplest of touches. It begged me to speak my first words in hours.

“I feel like an idiot,” I whispered as my eyes
ached shut.

“You are not an idiot,”
Nate whispered back. The warmth of his palm was eradicating my cold exterior. “You don’t deserve to be treated as an accessory.”

“That’s all I am,” I said, thinking of Adam. “That’s all I ever was. He plays me like a fiddle and I let him. But this… this was the first time he went this far.”

Taking my hand in his, Nate raised it to his lips ever so slowly.

“While I don’t like the guy,”
Nate said, every ounce of hatred pooling onto each word. “I don’t think he meant for this to happen.”

“Why are you so calm?” I said, changing the subject. This peaked
Nate’s interest. “Aren’t you going to yell at me? Tell me that it’s over? Make me feel as if I lost the best thing I would ever have?”

“No,”
Nate said immediately. His answer was stern and confident. “Because those aren’t the truth.”

As I took in his words, I met them with a chortle.

“You’re a sucker,” I said. “I don’t even remember everything I did, but I know that it wouldn’t be alright with anyone.”

There was a long pause before he rose to his knees to scoop me out of the closet.
Cradling me into his lap, the light from my balcony cascaded over my face. I shielded my eyes by burying my face into his neck.

“Everyone makes mistakes, Molly,”
Nate said, holding me close. “I’ve made a bunch of them. They are inevitable, and I can’t for the life of me blame you for everything that happened when I played a big part in it as well.”

“Don’t,
Nate,” I said, trying to escape his grip. When he gently reeled me back in, I knew I would have to endure this conversation. “You always do this. You take blame for everything. Buddhist or not, it’s not plausible when it’s obvious that none of this would have happened if I didn’t try to win him back because of some stupid love game I have been playing for the past three years of my life.”

“I didn’t return your texts because I thought you needed space,”
Nate said, a shadow of guilt making his face home. “I didn’t fly out to see you every time I became sick to my stomach with the thought of missing you because I wanted to give you a chance to assimilate back into your life. I didn’t tell you how much I needed you because I didn’t want to make you dependent, a quality you are so adamant against. But I now know that that was, once again, the wrong approach.”

“I would have assimilated if I hadn’t been guilt tripped into thinking someone was paying for me to get back on my feet while I was in love with someone else,” I said. I watched as my heart poured out of my sternum and stained my shirt. It gasped and sputtered in my lap as the silence chilled us both until a pair of lips broke the silence across my forehead.

“That was my money,” Nate whispered, before kissing the top of my head once more.

“Ah, crap,” I sighed.

“See?” Nate said. “My fault. I paid anonymously because I knew you wouldn’t accept it if you knew whose it was.”

“As if my disability checks weren’t enough?”
I said, a little disgusted. “As if you didn’t think I could pay my rent on my own?”

“It’s not like that at all,”
Nate said. I tuned him out as I got up and went to my kitchen table. Opening the center, I pulled out the contents I had been hiding inside of it. Taking as much as I could hold, I dumped it in his lap where I had been sitting.

“Here,” I said. “That’s fifty grand, from my bartending,
‘stripping,’ and miscellaneous gigs. While it’s not everything you have given me, seeing as I haven’t received one bill for my medical expenses, I still owe you. But at least I can sleep a little more soundly tonight.”

“Molly,”
Nate said, getting up and letting the banded money stacks hit the floor. “Molly, listen.”

“No,” I said, flinging my wrists out of his grip with the little energy I had left in me. I was growing weak and tired, but it wasn’t stopping my anger from bubbling inside of me. “No, I’m done listening to people.”

He let me go, and gently folded my wrists to my sides. Shocked, I stood in front of him confused. Adam would have never let me go.

“
I didn’t do it to make you feel incapable or worthless,” Nate said ever so softly. “I did it because, to me, you are priceless and while my parents think I am a fool with a fleeting career, I say what better way to spend my fortune on a life that I can’t live without.”

Turning to leave, I watched as he moved swiftly to the door. While a part of me wanted so badly to kill him for making me feel
dependent, a part of me couldn’t let him leave.

“Wait,” I said. Walking to the table, I pushed it back together before patting it. “A man’s got to eat.”

“It’s OK-” Nate started.

“
Stop,” I said, pointing my finger at him before grabbing the pans. “I have to make up my debt somehow, and since you won’t accept cash I have chosen a lifetime of fine dining. I’ll be your personal chef if I have to.” When he complied and closed the door, I looked him in the eyes for the first time. “Let me go clean up so I can kiss you.”

I washed every nook and cranny of my body three times. The hot water scolded my skin until it was burning bright red. When I stepped out, I looked like a different woman – one I didn’t even recognize in the mirror. Staring at her reflection, I peered into her tiresome eyes which housed nothing but pain.

Drying myself, I vowed to stop beating myself up for not being perfect. My entire life has revolved around an unrealistic fantasy of a glossy lifestyle with no hardships or pain. However,
I realized that other people weren’t the problem. I was so caught up in how everyone portrayed me that I didn’t stop to look at how I was portraying myself.

Lowering my makeup brush, I housed it back in the case and walked into the kitchen.
I brushed my teeth and tied a bandana as a head band before strutted out of the bathroom. However, my new found confidence slowly faded as I saw red spots painting the kitchen floor and a grown man stumbling with tissues to his nose.

The kitchen was a mess, with its contents scattered across the counters
and drawers half-opened. I took a deep breath before I spoke.

“What just happened?” I said, panicking.

“Nothing,” Nate said, standing upright. “I just had a nose bleed.”

“Don’t start lying to me now,” I said, standing in shock. “You will kill your streak.”

“I didn’t lie,” Nate said, holding back anger. Every muscle of his body contracted as he seethed. “I really do have a nose bleed.” Grabbing more tissues, he threw his bloody ones in the trashcan. By the looks of it, that was the only place he had been hurt. That didn’t shock me since he was built like a door. He had won.

I let out another sigh and let my hand find my wallet.

“I’m running to the fish market,” I said, nervously. “Don’t leave. I mean it, put water on the stove and
clean this up
. I’m going to faint.”

“Son of a bitch,”
Nate uttered under his breath as I exited down the blood-splattered staircase and out the door to spit out a blood clot on the sidewalk.

I had walked around the block with my heart in my throat. I was petrified at what I had just seen, and a little on edge about how it had turned out. I couldn’t deny that I had been aroused at the sight of Nate’s battle wounds after fighting for my love, but I was scared at what Adam would have done to me if Nate hadn’t been there to block his blows.

Carrying my game back up to my apartment, I walked in to find an immaculate kitchen sans
Nate’s convulsing frame. As soon as he saw me, he quickly tried to pull himself together, but he was too late. I had seen the tear streaks and heard the light sobs.  I quickly dropped the shell fish in the sink and ran to him.

“Hey,” I said, running my hairs through his perfect military cut. It prickled my palm as I made each strand stand on end.
Nate calmed below me when my lips met his cheek. His hands met the back of my thighs and pulled in to him.

“I’m not as strong as you
are mentally and emotionally,” Nate said. I felt his body relax underneath mine, and became a little more aroused when I felt his bulge placed perfectly beneath my heat.

“Well,” I said, letting my fingernails trickle down his chest. “I’m not as strong as you are physically.” My hands stopped at his beltline after my fingers looped inside the waist of his boxers. “I’m not sure what would have happened if you weren’t here.”

I heard his breath becoming shaky and a raspy voice take center stage in front of my own lips.

“I was just thinking that,”
Nate whispered.

I couldn’
t look him in the eye, mostly because I didn’t know how to thank him for what he had done. Nuzzling my cheek against his, I felt his hot breath pool on my neck.

“We can’t all be perfect,” I said. “
All we can do is try, and I think you show great restraint every day for what I have put you through.”

“You are as perfect as they come to me,”
Nate said, tightening his grip on my body and running his hands across the small of my back.

“See, I don’t know about that,” I said, letting out a giggle. I could sense his confusion in the pause before I spoke again. “I read some of your interviews and it seems like I am missing the one thing you enjoy most about women.”

I felt his hand creep subconsciously to cup my rear, like all of the other times I had caught him in the act, and I let a smile stretch across my face.

“It’s just… it’s just,”
Nate said, flustered. His hand flew away from the crime scene. “My hand fits there nicely.”

“Uh huh,” I said, giggling. I pressed my body into his when I saw his face grow bright red.
“I made you forget about everything for a second.”

Brushing my thumb across the freckles lining his neck,
Nate cleared his throat before returning his hands to support my back.

“
That you did,” Nate said, sheepishly. “You know, I never did get that kiss.”

Once again, a smile found my mouth home. I let out a light laugh and ran my thumb across his lips.

“Well, you have impeccable timing,” I said, getting up and moving to the stove. “Too bad the water is boiling.”

Nate
sighed in frustration before succumbing to my five course seafood feast, complete with lobster tails, salmon steaks, and crab cakes.