Fiendish: A Twisted Fairytale (85 page)

***

When Calida
got home, she ran up the stairs, heading straight to the bathroom. The water came on, ran for a while, then shut off. I waited for her to come out, but then the crying started. She was doing that more often these days. The last time a genuine smile graced her face was on my birthday, before everything. Now when she did, they were forced and never reached her eyes. I was trying to be patient and understanding, but she just refused to quit sulking. She flinched nearly every time I touched her, and instead of lying with me after sex like she used to, now she almost instantly would get up to shower. 

Then he was there last night
, and I saw the way he looked at her, but more importantly how she looked at him.
She doesn’t respect you
. I was angry. It was so hard not to kill them all, but I didn’t, for her, and she repays that by lying to me. When she kissed me, I was surprised given her recent behavior, but it felt so good to have it not feel like she wanted to run away.
But it was a lie.
She only wanted to protect what she shared with him. 

I was angry at her deceit, and I was angry that she thought she could get away with it. When I called her Ginger during sex, she tried to shut down. She closed her eyes and refused to look at me, tried not to answer me.
She made you act that way. She wanted you to hurt her.
 In the end, she’d told me everything.

Calida was pulling on a pair of pants when I entered the room. She froze when she felt my arms wrap around her exposed torso.

“Did you have a nice afternoon?” I asked, running my hands across the soft exposed flesh on her stomach.

Calida didn
’t respond, but I felt her body start to tremble when my hands travelled up to cup her breasts.

“Please don
’t,” she begged quietly.

I turned her
, allowing me to see the tears already pooling at the bottom of her eyes. As I leaned in to kiss her, Calida turned her head. I grabbed her face, kissing her roughly as she fought to push me off.

“Let go of me,” she cried
, gasping for air.

That only made me hold on
to her tighter as I kissed her again. “You don’t get to deny me what’s mine,” I replied angrily before letting her go.

Calida
was shaking, and I fought to keep somewhat of a lid on my temper. This wasn’t her; this wasn’t the woman I knew or wanted. I didn’t understand why she just couldn’t give me what I needed. Didn’t she understand that things would be better if only she’d stopped fighting?

“Yours,” she said with a
sarcastic laugh. “There was a time when hearing you say that brought me happiness, but now I’m just…yours.”

Something in that statement struck a chord with me. There was
an emptiness in her tone that screamed out to me, and that lack of emotion was reflected in the look she gave me.

“You say that as if being with me isn
’t good enough for you,” I replied, stepping closer to her.

I saw the fear instantly on her face, but I also saw her need to say whatever it was she had to say.

“What are you going to do, Seth? Not hurt me some more like you didn’t hurt me last night?” Calida looked me directly in the eye as she spoke. “You say I can’t deny you what’s yours, but it’s more than that. I can’t deny you anything; you just consume all of me!” she screamed.

This was the most life I
’d seen from her in weeks.
Because of him
.  She was challenging me because of that man.
She’s out of line! You can’t let her talk to you like this!

“You are mine!” I growled. “Last night you needed a reminder of that.
A reminder of the rules.”

“Right, the rules.
Don’t piss off Seth. Give him what he wants because that’s the only thing that matters.”

I stared at her
, frustrated that she couldn’t see how wrong she was. I’ve explained how important she is to me. I told her I loved her, and she still refused to see that she was the most important thing to me.
She doesn’t appreciate how you have changed for her.
This place of self-pity she wanted to wallow in has left her blind, unwilling to see what was right in front of her.

“Do you think I like seeing you like this? Do you think I like listening to you cry?” I yelled
, feeling my temper start to rise. I grabbed her arms, bringing her body flush with mine. She squirmed, trying to get free, but I only held tighter. “It’s all you ever do now.”

“You don
’t like seeing me cry, then don’t make me!” she yelled back. “Last night…I didn’t have much in my life that made me feel special, and it may have been a small thing, but that name was mine. Pure, unsullied, and mine. But you couldn’t allow me that. You…you took it and turned it into something dirty and vile!” she screamed, pushing against my chest. “I was unable to make eye contact with a person I’ve known for most of my life because I was…am so ashamed of what I allowed you to do to me. I was fifteen, Seth. It was one night of awkward teenage fumbling. But you and your jealous, psychotic delusions saw it as more and set out to destroy it! Set out to destroy me. And you did,” she said in a low tone. The anger gone; the emptiness returning. “I lost…I lost something that I can never get back.”

The tears streamed down her face, but I was unmoved. My anger and frustration was all that I knew.

“I’m well aware of how ashamed you are to be with me. You show me every time you run to shower after we have sex!” Calida’s eyes flashed a moment of shock. “So that name wasn’t pure; it was a betrayal! It made you feel special,
he
made you feel special, whereas I make you feel only shame. Last night wasn’t about that name, Calida. I didn’t destroy anything; you did that by lying to me about the true nature of your relationship.”

I pushed her
back, she collided with the dresser before falling to her knees. The only sound filling the room for a while was her sniffling as she attempted to get her crying under control. She was upset over me calling her by that damn name. She called what I saw between them a delusion, but it was very clear.

“Do you know what it
’s like to spend time around people that you know and love, yet feel so utterly alone?” Her voice was quiet and trembled when she spoke. The anger she spoke with moments before was replaced with melancholy. “That’s how I felt today. It’s how I feel most days.”  Calida wiped away the tears only to have them replaced with new ones. “They all looked at me with such pity, and I have to lie to the people that mean so much to me. I have to lie and tell them I’m fine and make excuses for why I stay with a person they feel is bad for me.”

“I don
’t care about what they think. They aren’t important; we are the only ones that matter,” I said, kneeling in front of her.

“No
, Seth, the only one that matters is you,” she replied softly, looking up at me. “I spent the day with my friend, but instead of being happy for her, I was resentful because she has what I’ve always wanted. I had a breakdown in a bathroom stall today because I…I couldn’t keep pretending. All of the thoughts and emotions I have to bury rushed to the surface. The shame, and anger, and…and resentment all of it. I had a breakdown on the floor of a public bathroom because the realization of my life finally hit me.”

Calida looked up at me, the fury and determination that was th
ere moments ago was now gone and replaced with sadness.

“Things can be like they were if you would only try,” I retorted
, standing. I started pacing the room, needing to move and put space between us. “I don’t see anything shameful in what we have. The envy you have over your friend’s relationship is clouding your judgment. If you would just let us be what we were, everything would be fine.
You
would be fine, but you just refuse to see it!”

I stepped around her huddled form, exiting the room, slamming the door behind me.

Chapter 56

Over the next few weeks
, I started to withdraw, and the more I did, the more smothering Seth became. He started driving me to work and would show up for lunch. I had to check in with him hourly or he would call. Then one day, he stopped. He quit sleeping in the room with me, and he quit eating dinner with me. In fact, I started to see very little of him. At first, it was a welcomed change, to have some freedom, but the longer it went on, the more worried I started to become and the lonelier I felt. Some nights he would leave, and I would be asleep before I heard him come back. I worried about where he was going and what he was doing. I started reading the papers to see if there were any reports of missing women, but there had been none. So either he wasn’t taking women from around here or he wasn’t taking them at all. I prayed it was the latter because I didn’t need the death of some innocent woman on my conscience.

I
’d gotten an offer on my house, but the agent had contacted Seth instead of me. He had already negotiated things before bringing the papers to me for signing. He didn’t talk to me about it; he didn’t ask my input on the offer. He just brought me the papers and told me to sign. Knowing my house was gone hit me hard because it was the final thing. He had successfully stripped away everything that was mine, and I had allowed him to do so.

The loneliness of my existence
wore on me, and it was the worst when I had to be with Macy. Seeing her happiness as she planned her wedding, it became something I dreaded. There were constant phone calls or emails or texts about one thing or another. Then, when I had to see Mitch to work on his office, he was just as happy. I swallowed my sadness, my jealousy, and my envy. I smiled and gave all the right responses then I would come back to this place.

Staying in his
house became even harder for me; so much was lost here. This house had claimed another life. Every moment I spent here, I felt more of my sanity slipping. My time was spent mostly in my room unless I needed to eat or shower.

I ran my hand over my stomach
, allowing myself a brief moment to think about what was lost. Most days I pushed it out of my mind; I couldn’t dwell on it because I knew if I did I wouldn’t be able to go on. I didn’t tell Seth about the miscarriage. I was going to, but I feared I would be blamed for it, or he’d use it against me later, and I just couldn’t deal with that. Besides I blamed myself enough. If only I had seen the warning signs with Seth, if only I had gone to the cops, if only I was a stronger person, if only…but if only wouldn’t help me now. I had to accept this was my life, and there wasn’t much I could do to change it.

I actually thought about apologizing to Seth, but for what? Telling him how I felt the night of our fight?
Or for being nothing but sad all the time? I knew my life had become a pathetic existence when I was ready to apologize to Seth for some unknown reason just so that he would talk to me again.

Today was Christmas
, and I didn’t want to get out of bed. Macy and I had already exchanged gifts. She wanted me to come over, but I declined, saying that Seth and I wanted to spend our first official Christmas together. She tried to push, but for once, I held my ground. I didn’t have it in me to fake it for the day. I didn’t want to be surrounded by her happiness and love.

My paren
ts had sent gifts for Macy and me like normal, but they also included one for Seth. It sat on my dresser next to the one I bought him. We didn’t have a tree; there was nothing around this place to signify the holiday at all, which only made it that much more depressing.

I knew he was up.
I heard his music, but I was scared to leave my room. So I lay in bed debating on my course of action for today. I had always loved Christmas, the spirit of the holiday. Being with family, whether it was mine or Macy’s, I always looked forward to being with those that meant so much to me. I didn’t want to be alone today. 

I slowly sat up
, silently willing myself to do this. I walked over to the dresser to retrieve his gifts. Glancing out the window, I saw the weather matched my mood. It was gray and overcast with heavy fog, very gloomy. I stood there for a moment, debating on if I really wanted to do this, before finally deciding I couldn’t avoid him forever. The door to his music room was slightly ajar; I stood there unable to make my feet move any further. Seth sat at his piano, wearing only his pajama pants. I watched as his fingers easily danced across the keys. He played the music from
The Nutcracker
. It was a refreshing break from the darker music he had been playing. He came to the end of the piece, and I still couldn’t make myself walk through the door.

“Are you going to stand out there and stare at me all morning?” Seth asked dryly.

He didn’t turn to look at me, and I wasn’t even aware he knew I was standing outside the door. Slowly, I pushed the door open more to step inside. My heart was pounding in my chest because I was so nervous. I shouldn’t have to feel this way, yet I did. I was nervous to be in the same room with him. I was worried about what his mood would be considering he’d not been speaking to me.

“I…um I just didn
’t want to interrupt while you were playing,” I explained quietly.