Blind Side (5 page)

When it’s all too much, and I’m left drowning in my own release that I so desperately craved, I collapse onto my stomach, with my sweaty, clammy skin smothering the pillow beneath me. But he’s not finished yet. Not even close. He continues to fuck me from behind, his balls slapping against my ass as he buries himself deep within me time and time again.

I tilt my head over my shoulder to watch him work, sweat rolling down red cheeks and then dropping onto my back, sizzling against my sinful skin. His lips tremble and quiver, as he builds to his own release. His eyes bore down at his cock as he fucks himself deep into my wet cunt.

His entire body convulses and then goes rigid as he pulls his cock from my pussy, grips his hand tight around his balls, and rips the condom off his throbbing cock. Like a loaded gun, once he releases his grip, warm cum is shot against my face and upper back. His body shivers and shakes, and guttural moans are thrown from his throat as each shot of cum hits with less momentum and less range, until the last few spurts land hot upon the cheeks of my ass.

He stares me down with ravenous eyes before he collapses onto my back, pushing me deeper against the leather seat. His weight above me holds me down just when I think it’s about time to run.

And then the unexpected…

A soft kiss against my neck.

* * *

M
y eyes flash
open to the sounds of a rooster screaming at the morning light. Soft, hot rays of sunshine filter through the window. I’m hot and sweaty, with clammy skin and reeling with symptoms of a hangover though I haven’t drank.

I don’t remember when I fell asleep, only that it occurred not too long after I recovered my clothing from the dirty ground outside the car. I look over to see that he’s dressed too, though the last I remember all he had on were his underwear.

I look over to him, seeing him for the first time in the light, and I’m not disappointed. In the darkness, he was a beast fit for the monster I’ve become. Tall, dark, and handsome, that’s all that mattered last night. But now, there’s a striking innocence to him as he sleeps, with one hand cradled behind his head, and another shielding his sleeping eyes from the assault of the morning light. His face that was smooth is now rough with stubble.

His black cut off is tangled around his stomach, exposing the ridges and grooves of his abs, and spectacular chest. His shoulders aren’t as broad as I had remembered them, more fitting for a quarterback than a running back.

I look at him and more than all his finest features, I see my own guilt reflecting back at me. The freedom I had found last night is torn away from me as I’m thrown into a new kind of prison I haven’t experienced before, shackled by the weight of my choices, and unlike my husband, I don’t have the excuse that I was drunk.

I simply needed release, and that will never be enough to suffice in the court of public opinion. This can never happen again. It won’t happen again. It won’t so much as ever be talked about, because Kemper was right, what happened last night won’t have happened come morning.

Carefully, as to not awake him, I reach for the handle of the door and push it open.

T
he door is cracked
open when I arrive. Instead of spinning the house key into the lock, I gently press my palm against the door and it creaks open. My best guess is someone got a little too tipsy and didn’t close the door all the way. In the grand scheme of things, it’s the smallest of crimes.

My body and mind are weighed down with the symptoms of a hangover, but I haven’t had a drink in weeks. It’s more of a hangover of the soul where my body has been poisoned by the toxins of lust. It was meant to be a freeing experience from the hell I’ve been living in, a brief respite in the cold from the burning fire of my marriage.

But now, as I step slowly through this old house, I feel shackled by guilt. The original hardwood floors beneath me, a major selling point for our purchase of this home not even two years ago, threaten to expose me with every step. After the first creak of the floor, I slow my pace. Each step toward the staircase is another step toward facing the man I chained myself to at a very young age, a man I’m still chained to with no key in sight.

I ascend the steps one excruciating step at a time, until I reach the top where the iron spindles curves into a carpeted landing. The floor beneath me is soft, molding around my feet as I inch toward the bedroom at the end of the hall. I pass the first door on the right, an empty room with an empty closet and a full sized bed. It was the room I dreamed would become a nursery one day, and then eventually a bedroom in which my child would mature to adulthood.

Those dreams were dashed away three hundred and fifty-seven days ago. In eight days, I’ll be forced to relive the anniversary of the day I lost everything; my reputation, my husband, and my unborn child.

My heart elopes from my chest as I draw closer to our bedroom. I try to force myself to breathe, to remain standing as I finally reach my destination.

When I push open the door, the old hinges scream and I freeze in place. I peek through a thin crack of the door to see Brock lying in bed, his naked body tangled in a thin white sheet. I eye him for a moment, dreaming of any other way this could end, and reflecting back on the years of bliss we shared together back before the chaos ravaged our lives and our love for one another.

Sunlight paints the bed in angelic light, flooding the shadows until they suffocate under the glow of the morning light. In the past year of pain, sorrow, and heartbreak, I’d almost forgotten how beautiful he is. He’s older now from the stress we’ve endured, with gray hairs spiking sparsely through the brown stubble lining his face.

I’d forgotten the way he used to smile, brimming with life and happiness. A smile that’s now been ripped away from him, and replaced with a decaying sense of emptiness that is reflected in my eyes in the rare moments we’re face to face. I remember so much, and yet it all feels so far away, as if the memories I once cherished were lived in another life by somebody else. And then I imagine that somebody else out there is living the life I live now, and it’s comforting for the shortest of moments, that maybe none of this has ever mattered or will ever matter, because none of it’s real. That’s what numbness feels like. It’s the opposite of surreal, suffocating in a thick black hole where the only thing that aches is the missing piece where my heart used to be.

With the skill of a silent assassin, I lower myself onto the bed beside Brock. I wield no knives or guns, no weapons to mention, but I’ve already stuck the knife in his back. Fuck me if he did it first, two wrongs don’t make a right—another lesson my sister forgot somewhere between integrated mathematics and the stripper joint.

I lie in bed for what amounts to forever, staring at the ceiling fan above me, circling in a stale pattern like a poem that never ends and the words never changing. There’s no end in sight, and the seconds tick by, but they turn into minutes torturously slow.

I count the seconds in between Brock’s isolated snores, but like a watched pot that will never boil, the minutes will never turn into hours.

He usually sleeps on the couch, because he’s as distant from me as I am to him. I think he believes that if he gives me enough space, I’ll come around and we can be who we were again. That ship sailed long ago, but it only sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic a few short hours ago.

I should sleep on the couch. It’s the right thing to do, but there’s this tiny part of me who wants to see the exact moment his eyes snap open, to see the unedited look in his eyes, to hear the words that’ll come out of his mouth before he’s had time to rehearse them. But most of all, I want to revel in knowing that his mind is in overdrive trying to figure out where the hell I’ve been.

My heart jumps when he rolls from one side, and onto the other, wrapping his arm around me in the process, and then parking his body close to mine. He nuzzles his head against my neck, and I melt from the inside. I burn with guilt and anger, sadness and despair. I hate him, but I love him, and depending on my particular mood at any given moment, it makes things easier or harder. Usually harder.

He groans in his sleep and his body contorts. One leg is thrown over mine, and then there’s a quick jerk of his head as his eyes peel open.

“Where were you?” he mumbles, still half-asleep.

“Out.” I roll over onto my side, facing away from him and cradle my head against my hand. “I stayed with Ashley.”

“Why were you there?”

“I… Uh.”

“Jesus Christ,” he groans as he throws himself upward in bed. “What did you tell her?”

I roll back over to face him, his eyes are half-open, but they’re laser-focused on me. “What are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.” He spins his feet off the side of the bed and jumps into a pair of jeans, his taut ass disappearing behind dark denim. He turns to me and shakes his head while biting into his lip, fighting to hold his tongue. “Does she know?”

“Of course not,” I scoff and climb off the bed and onto my feet. “I know the situation. I’m well aware of the score.”

“This isn’t easy for me.”

“As you’re aware, this is fucking elementary Algebra to me, Honest to God, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that I’d rather be doing first thing in the morning than fighting.”

“Three months,” he cautions me. “That’s all I asked for.”

“Why don’t you remind me again, Coach?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Fuck you,” I scoff.” “Three months this. Three months that. As if it’s that easy.”

“It shouldn’t be too difficult.” He darts around the bed and rushes toward me. He smells of sweat, cigarettes, and holy whiskey. “Or have you forgotten that you used to love me?”

“I still do,” I whisper and turn to exit the conversation. “I wish I didn’t.”

“Sing me a new tune, darling.”

“You cheated.” I twist back to him and jab my finger at him. “Why is it that I have to bear the brunt of your infidelity?”

“I made a mistake.”

“A mistake is forgetting to tie your shoes in the morning, or marrying your high school sweetheart.”

“You are unbelievable,” he scoffs and swipes a dirty white tee off the foot of the bed.

“You don’t accidentally trip and impale some whore with your cock. That’s not a mistake.”

“I was going through a hard time.” He pulls the shirt over his head

“Oh my God,” I cackle. “And I’m the unbelievable one? I was in the fucking hospital.”

“I thought you were going to die.” When he’s finished dressing, he passes me and grabs his keys off the dresser. “I was scared, and I was drunk—“

“Sing me a new tune, honey.”

“See that right there?” He shakes his head. The keys that he’s holding too tight in his hands begin to cut into his skin. “That’s what you do. You can’t handle the shit that’s thrown at you, so you throw it right back to me.”

“Please tell me you’re not planning to stay conscious all day, because I’d rather honestly die than have to stay in this house and listen to your incessant rambling all day.”

“What happened to that girl I used to know?”

“She almost died in that car accident, and then you finished her off when she came home.” I point to the half-drank bottle of whiskey beside the bed. “Drink away, Coach.”

And with that, I’m out the door and slamming it shut behind me. It’s going to be a busy day, leap frogging from one tragic memory to the next. My marriage first, and then comes the next stop on my self-destructive tour.

W
hen I’m incognito
, I could be anyone. Anyone but Stassi Hamilton. I don’t remove the sunglasses or the baseball cap as I reach for the glass doors of Ridgefield Medical. I swing the door open, and keep my head down as I walk down the short hallway that bleeds into a lobby. I bypass the information desk and press on until I reach an elevator down a narrow hall.

I press the button marked with an upward arrow. As soon as the doors open, I step into the elevator and turn around just in time to see a tall young man join me in the elevator right before the doors come to a close. He’s outfitted in a blue pair of scrubs. His name is Trent, and I’ve known him since I was seven. We were neighbors for years until he moved away sophomore year. Now he’s back in town with a beautiful wife and an education, and he’s my only access to the boy I sacrificed everything for.

“You’re late,” he huffs under his breath and cranes his head to face me. “We don’t have long.”

“Sorry about that.” I cross my arms over each other as the elevator begins to rise. “It’s been a rough day.”

“I couldn’t tell.” A warm smile hitches across his lips and he leans his back against the elevator, with his palms gripped tight around the steel bars. “Once we get up here, you have five minutes and then I’m pulling the plug.”

I look to him with a harrowing look in my eyes as my stomach floods with despair.

“No.” He sees the writing on my face and moves to correct himself. “That was a poor choice of words.”

“I thought you meant…”

“His parents just phoned the front desk. They’ll be here soon.” He glances down at the watch on his wrist and initiates a deep, nervous sigh. “You know I could lose my job, right?”

“I could come back tomorrow.”

“No.” He waves me off with a forced smile. “They’re terrible people.” The elevator comes to a sudden halt and the hydraulic doors slam open. His palm lands upon my back and he guides me out of the steel enclosure and down a hallway. “Three knocks and you come out immediately.” We reach the end of the hallway, where two rooms are placed adjacent to each other on opposite sides of a corner. “Don’t make me drag you out of there.”

“Thank you, Trent.” I place my palm on his shoulder before pushing my way through the wooden door, and closing it gently behind me.

Nathan lies in the bed, with a ventilator pumping air into his lungs. The room is cool and chilly and I wrap my arms around my body to warm myself, but it doesn’t seem to help much at all.

A decorative blue gown is draped over his thin body, peeking out above a plain white blanket. His dark hair is pushed back, but rebellious strands hang across his forehead. He’s clean-shaven like he always seems to be, but this isn’t the way I remember him.

He used to smile. A tall kid with a laugh that could light up a classroom, even though he was far from being a member of the popular crowd. Now, all there is, is silence. His hair was dyed, sometimes a different color each day of the week. Now, he sports the hair he was born with. The same hair that was always too simple for him. He was a colorful kid with a colorful wardrobe, and now the closet adjacent to his bed houses only one pair of jeans, a tee, and a hoodie.

The noise of the various machines is enough to drive me crazy. The ventilator huffs like well-oiled hydraulics. Green and red lines chase after each other on a set of monitors, with head-splitting beeps once each color passes an arbitrary finish line and begins anew.

The faded yellow curtains are drawn shut, wavering in the breeze of the air conditioning unit parked underneath a long window that spans the length of the room.

I stand at the foot of his bed, trying in vain to push away the thoughts of guilt. As a sane human being, I know there’s nothing more I could have done to prevent this. All evidence points to the narrative that he’d be dead without my intervention, but evidence is oftentimes muddled by human contamination, and never surrenders to matters of the heart.

Maybe he’d be better off dead, rather than lying in a hospital bed for eternity waiting for the impossible day in which he’ll wake up. If I wouldn’t have jumped into his car, Nathan wouldn’t be in this condition, and I wouldn’t have lost my child. If I could build a time machine and go back, I would. That’s not to say I’d change anything, because the truth is I don’t know if I’d have the strength to change a damn thing. I’d still be there at the end of the game, watching him as he stumbled into his car, and the choice to not intervene isn’t one I can see playing out, because back then I cared too much, which ultimately led to my demise. Now, I care too little and I honestly don’t know which one is worse.

I remove my hat and sunglasses, and place them on the sink. I work up the strength to swing to the side of the bed to take his hand in mine and hold him tight, to pray with him in silent solidarity, to let him know someone still cares, to let him know that somebody will never give up on him the way so many supposed adults in his life had.

In my wildest imagination, I’ve seen this scene play out a thousand times on the silver screen. All it takes is a gentle squeeze of the hand, or a beautiful admittance of love. Fingers twitch. Eyes open. There’s a happily ever after.

But his fingers don’t move and his eyes don’t open.

The hydraulics pump.

The monitors beep.

Nurses and staff bustle down the hall outside the door.

“You need to wake up,” I whisper and caress his forehead with one hand. “You need to wake up to prove these people wrong. They say you’re never going to wake up.” I grip my fingers tighter around his hand. “So wake the hell up.”

No response. There never is.

“I’m tired of fighting, Nathan.” I pull away from him and take a seat in an uncomfortable chair beside the bed. “But I fight because there’s still one thing in this world worth holding onto. That’s you.”

The ugly truth is that I’d probably be six feet under if it weren’t for the imaginary story in my head; a story which ends like it does in the movies. He’s not my lover, nor has he ever been despite the town whispers. But I feel connected to him the way a parent is connected eternally to a child. I remember the first time someone told me I should become a teacher. I was in the seventh grade, and I was more focused on helping a fellow student pass their math exam than attending a mid-afternoon school dance.

Two things have changed since then; I hate math, and I don’t have that compassion—that internal want and desire to help others—in me anymore.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” I bow my head down and cradle my face with clammy hands before rising back to my feet. I can’t stay in one place. My nerves are too frayed, always afraid that someone could come through that door at any given second. “You’re supposed to be somebody to someone in this world, and I wish like hell you could be. I wish a lot of things. I wish that you were given a better hand in life, because you deserved it.”

After the third knock, I know my brief time is up, but I’m not ready to leave yet. “You’re going to get better because you have to. Do you hear me? You’re going to wake up because your story is far from over. You’re going to live a long, happy life, and you’re going to look back at this damn town the same way I used to. It made you stronger, but it was never home.” I brace my hands on the railing of the bed. “It can’t be, because people like you and I don’t belong here. We never did.”

My eyes shift to the door, and then back down at Nathan one last time. In these rushed moments, I become unraveled with the first tear marching down my cheek. My palm shakes, and my lips purse. “The strongest act of revenge is proving to the world that you’re strong when they’ve always called you weak.”

Tears begin to well in the corners of my eyes, pooling at the creases. I adjust the blanket on his cold body, and hunch over his bed. I plant a soft kiss against his forehead. “It gets better, Nathan.”

When I finally break away from him, I do so in haste. I run the back of my palm against my eyes, erasing the tears, but they’re just like chalk on a green chalkboard. I position my hat over my head and slide the sunglasses over my eyes. I pull the door open and Trent grapples my arm, twisting my body so that we face away from the way we came in.

“I told you three knocks,” he growls against my ear as he guides me down the hallway. As Trent ushers me down the corridor, I peer over my shoulder to see Nathan’s parents, wearing a haunted shade of grief on their faces. They have no right to grieve.

Their actions, and the actions of my husband, together created the perfect storm. Their choices snowballed into the ultimate tragedy where all four of us lost a child, and the two of us who were innocents caught in the crossfire are the ones who lost everything.

Why didn’t we die? It would have been easier. Right?