Man Seeks Woman 2, Man Seeks Wife (2 page)

Just the image
of it gave me a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t
know why but I did know that I didn’t like it.

“You don’t
have to do this.” Ralph said again quietly this time, so much
quieter.

I swallowed
hard and shifted a little in the seat, the leather underneath me
sighing with the movement. “You know.” I said after a long moment.
“Part of me doesn’t want to do this, Ralph. That part of me is
daring me to go back with you and to wait for Sebastian, to forgive
him because in reality, there was something between us, something
good but the other part of me, I guess my head is shouting at me to
get out of this flipping car and to walk away and never see you or
Sebastian again but...”

He turned
quickly in his seat, his eyes hopeful, and his smile ready to break
out. “But what?”

“But...” I
shook my head and nibbled on my thumb nail. “I can’t.”

Not after the
recording and his fateful words that cut me to the bone. I couldn’t
let him get away with that. Could you imagine if I did? What would
be next? It didn’t bare thinking about.

The hope in
his dark eyes died and a long regretful sigh left his body. He
nodded and turned back in his seat, his hands tightening around the
steering wheel making the leather creak. “I understand.” He said
eventually.

I snorted and
pulled on the handle so the door popped open, letting a swarm of
night air invade my space. “No, you don’t. You’re just saying what
you think I want to hear. I know how you feel and I’m sorry.”

Ralph shook
his head as he too left the vehicle and made his way around to my
side. He took my hand and helped me down because I was still in
those stupid heels. The pavement was uneven under my feet as he
continued to hold my hand and led me up the stairs to my flat.

We stopped at
the front door. I squeezed his hand and leaned into him. Ralph
wrapped his bear sized arms around me and squeezed the air from my
lungs with his version of a hug.

“Ralph.” I
squeaked and huffed out a laugh.

“Sorry.” He
said gruffly as he released me. He stepped backwards and held out
palm up. “Keys,”

“I think I can
let myself in.”

“Humour me.
You haven’t been here in nearly a week, anything could be lurking
inside.”

He sounded
like he was expecting a big fat rat to jump out and scare the
living shit out of me. Like that was ever going to happen.

Instead of
voicing my opinion, I rolled my eyes and dug through my bag for my
keys then dumped them in his palm. I stood to the side and waited
for him to do his thing and watched as he let himself in and then
listened to him moving around inside.

“All clear,”
He said as he re-appeared minutes later.

“Thank you.” I
smiled and patted his shoulder. I stepped back down the steps,
towards the car but Ralph stopped me.

“You stay;
I’ll get your bags. Go on, go in.”

“Seriously,
Ralph its fine.”

“Will you just
do as you’re told?” he snapped.

My eyes
widened at his tone. Hot damn, the man meant business. I made a
face as I turned and made my way inside. I stopped in the living
room and breathed in the stale ordinary smell that was my home. The
particles of dust in the air tickled my sensitive nose.

My gaze
drifted around my stuff. My old, boring stuff, stuff that at one
time or another would have meant the world to me but now, somehow
meant nothing. It was strange.

The bag that
had been hanging from my shoulder, slid down my arm and landed on
the floor with a thump. I walked past it towards the middle of the
living room and swiped my forefinger across the mirror ledge,
collecting the dust that had gathered. This place had a real
problem with dust.

Ralph came in
the door and gently sat my suitcase down next to the window. He
cleared his throat and shuffled on his feet, looking suddenly
uncomfortable.

“Well...I’ll...” he pointed over his shoulder to the door.

I nodded and
quickly moved towards him and stood next to the door with my hand
on the wood, my nails digging into the thick shit brown coloured
paint. “Thanks Ralph.”

Ralph nodded
back and moved to the door, stopping only as his foot touched the
step outside. “You know.” He said over his shoulder, his eyes
straying everywhere else besides me. “You can call me whenever you
like, whatever time of the day, I’ll always answer you.
Always,”

A burn
gathered in my chest, making it feel like indigestion rather than
what I knew it was. I licked my dry lips and nodded like a freaking
fool. I felt like one of those doggy things that people had on
their dashboards.

I raised a
hand and placed it softly on his shoulder, giving his muscle a
little squeeze. “Thanks, big guy. You too,”

He snorted and
continued down the steps, letting my hand fall from his shoulder.
He walked to the car, stopped and turned around and looked up at
me. “Goodbye Victoria.” He said softly, almost not hearing him say
anything but I heard.

The tears came
then. I swallowed loudly and rubbed the back of my neck as I raised
my hand and stepped back inside the door, closing it softly after
me. I stood leaning against the wood, feeling the coldness of the
night seeping under my dress. I closed my eyes and blew out a long
breath as I heard the car start.

I blinked and
ran to the window, pulling aside the heavy red curtains and the
thin netting to see that Ralph had indeed started the car but
hadn’t yet moved. The driver window was wound down; his dark eyes
even though it was night-time were covered in a pair of dark
glasses.

Slowly, I
raised my hand and placed it on the glass where I knew he was
watching. He nodded in acknowledgement and wound the window up then
pulled away from the curb slowly.

I stood at the
window, my face pressed into the glass watching as the he drove
off. The bright red brake lights were clear to see until the end of
the road to where he disappeared as he turned the corner.

Letting the
curtain fall from my hands, I turned and wrapped my arms around my
middle and looked around at my quiet and lonely living room
wondering what the hell I was to do now. I was back home where I
was supposed to be. It’s where I would have come home to in a
couple of day’s time anyway, yet it felt so wrong to be here.

Gathering
myself, I shook my head and hands out and moved to the TV. I bent
down to push in the little on/off button and stopped, my finger
just hovering. It would be a waste of electricity to turn it on—I
wouldn’t watch it anyway.

I bit my lip
and decided against the TV and favoured the stereo. I quickly moved
towards it, not liking the horrid silence around me. The longer I
stayed in silence, the more I would think and the more my mind
would go through everything like a toothpick. I flicked the little
black button with the red light above it and listened to the click
before the radio station came on.

James Blunt’s
“Goodbye My Lover.” flavoured my speakers and echoed softly
throughout the dull quietness of the space.

“Oh, God,” I
mumbled as I stumbled backwards, my legs not wanting to take my
weight anymore. My hands reached out for the wall as I slid
downwards and landed on my arse with a plop. My breath hitched as I
gathered my knees up to my chest and hugged them to my body or as
far as my boobs would allow and laid my head against the top of my
knees.

Isn’t it just
the way whenever you felt like shit that the saddest song comes on
and makes you feel even more like shit?

I should’ve
changed the station before I flopped down but I didn’t, so I was
stuck with the mournful song, his word’s scraping their way through
me. I listened to the sad words and felt the hotness in my eyes
becoming overwhelming. Hot tears gathered in my eyes and dripped
down my face, dropping off my chin onto my legs and rolling down,
uncontrollably.

“Oh God,” I
mumbled again as a sob broke free of my chest, stuttering my heart
with it. The pain and burn in my chest intensified and overtook me.
Sobs of the strongest kind wracked my body, enough that all I
wanted to do was crawl up into a tight ball and forget about
everything in my life.

Next thing I
knew I
was
a crumbling wreck on the floor with tears and
snot streaming from me like a river...

A river that
had Sebastian Blackwell’s name written all over it...bastard!

Remind me
again why I hired you?

“Vic, are you
listening to me?”

I sighed into
the phone as I rolled my eyes and slumped back in my chair, the
thing creaking under my weight. “I am listening.”

I wasn’t
really. I was chewing on a pen lid and becoming rather annoyed with
Jenna who hadn’t stopped going on about a certain someone for the
past ten minutes since she’d called me.

“Ria,” Jenna
growled. “You are not listening to me, you’re chewing. I can hear
your gnashers chomping.
Chomp, chomp, chomp,”

Snorting out a
laugh, I threw the decimated black pen lid down, watching it sail
off the end of my desk and picked up a new blue one from a stack in
the little pot I’d been collecting and put it straight in my mouth.
“What do you want me to say, Jen?”

“Something,”
She shouted down the line making my ears hurt. “I want you to go
mad or cry or do something but you’ve done nothing for the past six
months.”

That was
true.

I mean I’d
cried a river when Ralph dropped me home that faithful night but
since then, I’d just felt numb and strange. Of everything that had
ever happened in my life, this was the strangest in terms of
emotions. Since that night, I would get up every morning and try to
not think about Sebastian. In fact, I would make it a chore not to
think about him but I would and then when I questioned myself as to
why I was thinking about him, like whether I wanted to emasculate
him or jump on him—preferably his bones, I didn’t have an
answer.

The one
question though that I did ask myself was, Could I be in the same
room with him or hear his voice? No. My body and my mind revolted
to that idea and thought straight away but yet had no problem
thinking about him from afar.

Strange!

I missed Ralph
and Rosa like crazy because they were really nice people and when
there weren’t too many of those sorts around anymore, you kind of
swayed to those types and I had.

Of course
Sebastian had tried to contact me through phone calls and text
messages, not emails because obviously I had given him his iPhone
back but he had tried to contact me no less. He’d sent presents
consisting of chocolates, satin baby dolls, underwear, jewellery,
electronic items and finally, art supplies which he knew for a
fact, I would have a hard time sending back but I did...
eventually. After I’d taken the paints out of the wrap and box just
to run my fingers over the expensive colours, I’d re-wrapped them
and sent them on their way.

The only thing
he hadn’t done was come to me in person or attempt to.

It was obvious
that he wasn’t sorry, it was him just trying to worm his way back
into whatever we had. Of course, I listened to the messages and
read them all, hearing and reading his excuses and waited to feel
anger towards him but yet felt nothing but numbness.

“Are you even
listening to me?” Jen snapped, bringing me out of my thoughts.

“Hey.” I said
calmly. “You need to calm down before you pop that baby out with
how much you’re stressing.”

The woman
would send herself into labour if she wasn’t careful. She wasn’t
due just yet. I think she was something like three weeks away or
whatever. I’d stopped listening when she’d started talking about
blood loss and placentas.
Yuck!

“Don’t talk to
me about babies.” Jenna roared down the phone. “I am a woman on the
edge.”

Yeah, I think
I grasped that already.

“Listen, Jen.”
I sighed and looked up at the ceiling in the office, absently
counting the joins in the large squares. “I don’t care who
Sebastian is doing right now. Why are you telling me?”

Liar!

“See.” She
growled again. I could just imagine her pacing the length of her
pumpkin orange kitchen with a bright red face and her hands already
out in front of her, wanting to strangle me. “You’re not listening.
I didn’t say he was doing anyone. I said you should have a look
online to see
what
he’s been doing.”

My brows
pulled together. “And why would I want to do that, exactly?”

“Because,” She
said as if that was a perfectly good reason which in my book was
not.

“Victoria!” my
boss, Conrad shouted my name from his office.

“Listen.” I
sat forward quickly and gave myself a head rush. I pressed my hand
to my forehead and spat the pen lid out of my mouth before I
swallowed it. That was typical of me. “Jen, I’ve got to go, that’s
Conrad.”

Jenna clucked
her tongue. “Tell him to wait.”

Normally I
would have but I saw his intervention as divine and would not pass
it up to get off the phone from a very persistent and stressed
Jenna. “Can’t, speak later.”

I put the
phone down on her threatening me with actual bodily harm. I
chuckled as I picked up another pen lid and pushed up from my
chair. I reached down to my skirt and pulled at the material that
stuck to me like glue.

“Victoria!” my
name came again.

“I’m coming,
damn it.” I mumbled and pushed open Conrad’s door. I stood in the
doorway and crossed my arms over my chest watching him fluster
around his office obviously looking for something.

“Vic—“he went
to shout again but realised I was already standing there.

“Yes, Conrad,”
I said sweetly, which I knew for a fact pissed him off more.