Chapter 4

PRESENT

I am caught in a web of my own premonitions of an intricate pseudo-reality of lies.

I was curious about where my heart could go, and it wasn’t that I didn’t want or love Cassiel. I have wanted him for so long, more than he can ever think. Sometimes, he thinks it isn’t so but it is this simple fact that has strung me all along. Even after three years of dating him, I am in constant need of want and attention from him.

Is it bad to want someone this much?

I am pondering over my love, or something in between, for both the men in my life, lost in my own alternate reality of thoughts when Daniel’s voice breaks me out of my dreamlike reverie.

“Don't you want some more of that sumptuous wagyu steak?” He asks me, licking his lips discreetly. “You would love this!”

“Yeah, I'd like that, Daniel,” I hastily murmur. "Are you ordering it again?"

A shabby-looking flower girl with her hoodie rattled at the edges, enters the outdoor bistro where we are having our steak and potatoes with vino. She stops in the front of our table, evidently in want of something. Her eyes are hungrily laid on our table, and my heart wants to give everything up just to wipe that look from her eyes. My heart weeps for her and goes out to her situation. She looks like a girl who can’t even get three proper meals on her table in the kind of life she leads right now.

Daniel hastily puts back his napkin and raises his eyebrows at her. The girl looks anxiously and a bit squeamishly at him. "Sir, would you like some flowers? Here are some of the calla lilies and roses?"

He looks at me as if uncertain of what to get me. I think he would ask me something like, “What would you like me to get you, Lee?” But I’m ultimately left disappointed because he doesn't ask me anything.

He just goes ahead and orders for me. Red roses. Red fucking roses. Not yellow, not pink, nor calla lilies that are here, but just red roses. Did I tell him I hate those? Of course not, you didn't Lee, you had to see this coming.

“Gladly, here, we’ll take these," he says and takes a bunch of them, all vibrant and shining in their own right. Daniel hands them to me, all the while fishing for a hundred dollar bill to pay the young girl. “Here,” he places the hundred dollar bill in her small palm, “Keep the change."

When the little girl walks away, I look at him intensely, shooting a glare in his direction. “You could’ve paid her a bit more, easily. You're a fucking billionaire for god's sake. It’s not like money’s hard for you. She looked like she’s in dire need of help."

“I didn’t make all this money by being a pushover. I gave her what she deserved, Angelique.” He looks at me vividly, his hand grazing my knee and squeezing it. "Now sip your wine because we have got to get out of here soon."

“You’re… never mind. I don’t feel like having dessert, or another steak.” I feel the bitter taste of his comment invigorating my palette. "I'd like to walk for a bit."

“Okay, we’ll get the check then,” he deadpans, not catching up to my mood. He gestures for a server, his eyes dancing around the room. "Are you sure you don't want dessert?"

I nod at him and go back to sipping on my wine, all the while thinking that if Cassiel were here, he would’ve paid everything he had in his wallet to that young, ragged girl without missing a beat. He wouldn't have thought twice about the decision because in his heart, he would know that it was the right thing to do.

Following our short dinner, I decide to take a walk around the city. As I come out of the bistro, I check my cell phone, except there are no more new text messages from Cassiel. I pull my sweater closer to my waist, wrapping my hands around my torso.

Daniel decides to stay behind. He was talking to the restaurant’s valet and sharing a quick smoke when I headed out of the restaurant. Something inside my heart doesn't feel right.

The weather is so cold and lonely, and I want to take a few minutes alone to introspect my feelings and to really think about where I'm letting my life take me. Where I am drifting away to? With what kind of a man? Someone who thinks giving away a few bucks to someone in need amounts to being a pushover? Isn’t it wrong of me to go behind Cassiel’s back when he's busy working, making dollars for our future? Then again, I'm not doing anything wrong, am I? I deserve my freedom and my happiness. I don’t need to ask for someone's permission to breathe.

”You look cold,” I hear a voice say. I turn around and there’s Daniel, with a loose cigarette still dangling from his lips. He knows how much I hate people smoking around me. I don’t intend to die anytime soon from lung cancer, especially not from passive smoking. “Are you feeling okay?” He asks. "You don't look like it, though. Maybe we should head back to your apartment."

“I’m okay.” The words are drier in the air than when they have left my mouth. "I'll be fine."

“Are you sure? You’re not feeling feverish?"

“No.” I shake my head, not to deny the statement but to calm myself from snapping at him again. "I said I'm all right."

“I think you should get back home. Come, I’ll drive you.” His fingers find mine again, but they don’t hold the same kind of warmth they had a few hours ago. “I know I’ve spoilt your mood, I didn’t mean to, Lee.”

He looks at me firmly and a bit more intensely than usual so that I find it difficult to avert my eyes.

“I didn’t mean that the girl didn’t deserve all the help she can get, but I want her to learn that life isn’t easy. Nothing in this life is easy. After you walked away, I found her again outside and gave her a thousand dollars.”

His eyes are a bit solemn now, looking like they’ve suffered a lot of tragedy.

“It’s okay, Daniel.” I wrap my fingers with his, looking for the warmth I crave. "You came to your senses sooner than later. That's all I can ask for, to be honest."

“You sure? You don’t hate me?” His eyes are somber like the night. "You don't feel like I was wrong to her?"

“Wrong, yes, but I can never hate you.” My lips are closer to his face now, the wisps of air that I exhale, seems a lot like smoke. Daniel finds me cringing with my face on his shoulder but I brush my lips lightly on his cheek anyway. “I don’t hate you. I just hate that cigarette smell.”

Daniel loses the cigarette and puts out the butt with the front of his brown boots. He opens his arms, and suddenly, I don’t know what is wrong and what is right. I’ve always wanted a boyfriend with arms that can excite every inch of me. And right now, I’m in the arms of Daniel Miles. His are as intoxicating as coke and rum. I don't ever want to leave the safety net of his arms that is being weaved right around me, at this very moment.

As a young girl, I’d always believed in the idea of black and white. But I don't know how, whenever I’m with Daniel, I see the world blurry, somewhat smudged around the edges. I think with my heart. And I’m scared that my heart is taking more wrong, blurry decisions than the right ones it has the potential to take.

***

The eternal fight is always emotional. I’m standing in the doorway when Daniel turns me around and hugs me one more time. The white rush of panic seeps through me and invades my entire being.

What if Cassiel is inside? Should I run? What if he catches me with him like this? Should I leave him? What if I lose control? What if I entirely let the control over my body and soul go so I don't have to think anymore? I can’t do this to Cassiel. He doesn’t deserve this. Our four-year relationship doesn’t deserve this.

So, help me, God. Please. Please.

I immediately let him go and busy myself with opening the front door. I look for keys in my purse, and unsteadily, feeling the wine finally kick in my legs, push the key inside the lock and barely open it. God, I can’t even open an effing lock? Am I that wasted? You’re definitely not sober, Angelique.

Danny's fingers swiftly take the keys from mine, and they help me feel a bit more in control. Until his upper body totally leans into mine and my whole back is molded into him. Electricity is erupting my body in places that I didn’t even know existed. I can feel his breath on my neck, and all I want to do is turn around and kiss those full, red tainted lips and taint my whole perseverance.

You can’t do this to Cassiel. Remember? He exists. You exist. Your love exists. Don’t give up on him that easily.

Daniel, in the most vulnerable moment of my entire life, wraps his well-built arms around my torso, and they are an ultimate shield from reality. Oh, how my blood is running softly in his arms, and I'm melting, pooling into a puddle in the concrete.

I turn around and he pushes the door to my apartment open and everything is hazy and blurry for a second. The next thing I know is I’m jumping into his arms, my legs wrapped around his navel, and he’s taking us to my leather couch. Desire gleams like stars in my eyes and a known need strengthens its presence in my lower belly.

Daniel carefully puts me down, and his tongue is on the hot skin of my neck, making circles and I’m moaning. I want him. I want him everywhere and nowhere at the same time. His long hands are on my long coat, hurriedly undoing the buttons and, fuck, if he doesn’t take it off in ten seconds, he would be my undoing.

A shrill ring at first, but my phone buzzes loudly on the whole dining table from the mouth of my purse, further illuminating the darkness in my studio apartment. I’d like to ignore it but it keeps ringing and we’re both frustrated and we’re leaving the agile caresses somewhere on each other's skin that we were holding on to.

The white rush of panic is back. I throw my black long coat on the white rug in frustration. I make my way to the table, long fingers desperately in need to get rid of this curious invader that doesn't know how to spare my feelings. What if it’s…him? Cassiel?

I finally find the phone sitting near the mouth of my purse, the screen locking immediately as I miss the call merely by a few seconds. I see who it was calling me in the notification centre of my phone's screen and hold my breath.

My breath constricts my heart and I have to place my fingers on my throat to get rid of the cotton ball that is once again stuck somewhere in my wind pipe. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get rid of it. It’s futile. Everything’s futile.

I unlock the phone and there’s already a voice message. A silent reminder of my pain and betrayal.

I open the voice message. I need it to remind me of what we are. I need it to slap my face back into reality. In a rushing flood of emotions, it is my only candle of hope.

The static goes silent and the crinkle in his voice tells me that he’s tired and missing me. The voice message starts with something like. . .

“Baby, I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it to the house. I know you are sick and you just wanted to have dinner with me and believe me, I wanted to be there with you more than you wanted to eat dinner with me… but I’m just so stuck.…”

His soft, gentle voice continues in the static.

“I‘m so sorry. I know it’s already very late. I think you’re asleep. I know, I know it’s already 2 a.m. I know that I promised you to get home by two. But, I’ll be there in one hour. And, I’ll pick some red velvet cupcakes for you on the way home just to say sorry. But you deserve a whole lot more than cupcakes, baby. I’m just so sorry that I can’t be with you tonight. Hope you’re not mad at me. I love you.”

I play the last few seconds left on the voice message over and over and over again. I know what to do now as tears well in my eyes and I turn around, doing everything I can do to conceal them but I’m already failing miserably.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Daniel’s folded arms and his back resting on the back of my kitchen’s wall tells me that he knows. And, he knows what happens next. I see a glass half full of water in his hands and resonate with his feelings or my feelings towards him. Definitely, a glass half full of emotions. "So he is finally coming home, isn't he?"

I can only nod at him because I feel that the cotton ball isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s kind of impossible to get rid of it now. I place my hands on both sides of the table, my knuckles turning white in another futile attempt to grasp reality. This is a difficult mess. I need both hands to sort this out.

"Do you want me to leave?" His words hang in the air like the whole painting has been smudged black. "I can leave if you want me to go home."

Now, my legs need support and my lungs some oxygen. I feebly walk to my couch and sit with one leg briefly tucked into another, not knowing what response to give him.

“Say something, Lee? Do you want me to go home?” His arms are once again around me, but now I find it difficult to lean in them. The warmth is still there, but I’m not there, yet. I feel lost. He takes my fingers in his and kisses the top of them, “I’ll go. Your silence is answer enough."

And just like that, he puts several miles between the constellations of our one, exclusive, shared galaxy.