Los Angeles, two weeks later
“It sucks. It really does. I don’t like it.”
He pouted and Lisa repressed a smile, noticing just how darn cute he was and how young again he looked whenever he acted that way. His classy appearance, the slicked back, curly grizzled hair, the well-trimmed beard, the perfect suit he was wearing. He looked like royalty, yet scowled like a little kid.
“Well, I don’t like it either, Michael, but it could have been worse… right?”
She shrugged and tried to dismiss the subject in the best possible way, even if her divorce proceedings weren’t going as good as she would have hoped. Not at all.
“Are you kidding me? Ten thousand bucks a month for five months? For fuck’s sake, Lise…” On the screen of her laptop, Michael shook his head in disbelief. “I will never understand men who expect their women to support them financially. Doesn’t he have any male pride left? Or… at all? Isn’t he able to take care of himself? I mean, he’s a big boy… what is he? Fifty-five? Come on, now…”
As he spoke he began loosening his tie, and Lisa felt love and desire rush through her. She missed him, more than words would ever be able to express. After a month away from him, she was starting to wonder how she was going to pull through. It was more complicated than she had imagined. Thank God she could rely on her pills. And some alcohol, if necessary. But of course, Mike didn’t need to know. He couldn’t possibly understand the stress she was subjected to on a regular basis. And it was just sporadic, anyway. She didn’t have any addiction. Not anymore. That was what she was struggling so hard to believe.
“Not everyone is as old-fashioned as you are, baby…” Lisa grinned tiredly. “…Or such a ridiculously proud caveman.”
“Yeah, well… But this is not even about me being a caveman… It’s a matter of…”
“Being an alpha male. That’s what you are. I know you, remember?” She sighed. “Mike, he doesn’t give a fuck… He believes he has the all right to ask for that money. And it looks like the judge believes it, too.”
“Look, I get what you mean. But that dude had everything paid for, for how long? ‘Bout ten years? And he never squirreled a little money away? And now he wants more? Well, fuck him.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“If you say so. I just hope the damn post-nuptial agreement’s still valid. It truly doesn’t make any sense. It was made for a reason… And if that fool doesn’t know what he signed, that’s his problem, not yours. Law doesn’t allow ignorance.”
“Babe… you and I too had a prenup, remember? And yet it didn’t matter at all when we divorced, did it?”
Michael stayed quiet for a moment, tilting his head.
“Our marriage… It was different. We had passion. We had love… Money never mattered for us.”
“It’s true. It’s also easier to say that money doesn’t matter when you’re filthy rich like we were.” She let out a sad smile. “And yet…”
He sighed, his head dropping. For a second, Lisa saw regret in his eyes. However, she was pretty sure it couldn’t be compared to what she felt. So much regret. So much remorse. They had loved each other so much, with such intensity, and with so much love had come the fear, the sorrow. On both sides. On hers especially. She had not followed her heart and had hurt him and herself in the process. And then she had ended up marrying a nightmare of a man who was now trying to bleed her white. Bad decisions always had repercussions. There was no point in pretending otherwise.
“And yet we managed to throw it all away…” Michael gave voice to her thoughts. His tone was even as his eyes glanced up and right into the camera.
Lisa just bit her lip. She didn’t know what to say. She knew he was right.
“What’s your biggest regret, Lisa?”
His question almost sounded out of the blue, and it made her wonder. She sighed again.
“Sending you those damn divorce papers… Even though the last thing I wanted was to leave you. I think that was the beginning of the end.”
His eyelids fluttered closed for a moment. She saw him clench his jaw for the briefest second. Then his face relaxed, and he looked over at her.
“And you know what mine is?”
“What is it, baby…”
“Signing them… even though the last thing I wanted was to let you go.”
Lisa’s heart cracked open and bled.
“Fuck, we were stubborn.”
“Yeah… yeah, we were.”
Hideout, February 1996
“So… Can I get you something to drink?” Calmly, moving slowly and methodically, Michael opened the fridge door. “…Water? Wine? Soda?”
Sitting at the kitchen table, Lisa watched him and then lowered her gaze. She stared at her own hands clasped on the table as tears threatened to spill. Who was this polite stranger? Was he the same man she had made love to hundreds of times? The same man who would pick her up and twirl her around, laughing? Who would snuggle with her on the couch while watching an old movie on TV, late at night? The man who used to wake her up nuzzling her neck, his hands everywhere on her body? It couldn’t possibly be.
And yet here they were – alone for the first time after signing those damned divorce papers. No entourage, no lawyers, no advisors, nobody but them for once. They had spoken over the phone and had decided to meet to discuss some things in private. It was a pathetic excuse.
They just wanted to look each other in the eyes and, possibly, convince themselves that it was really over. Or maybe they needed to assess each other’s condition after the war that had obliterated everything they had been building.
Lisa felt exhausted all of a sudden. This was all so wrong. This was not at all what was supposed to happen. Not to them. They hadn’t fallen in love to become enemies. That was not what was in their hearts.
“Water… Water will be fine, thank you.”
She bit her tongue. She was going to end the sentence with the usual term of endearment, “baby.” But Michael was no longer that, to her. They were divorcing. Close to Valentine’s Day, they were separated. At first, she thought it would make her feel better – her decision, which her “people” and her mother had pushed for with their teeth and nails, whispering in Lisa’s ear until it had seemed the most logical thing to do. It didn’t matter that the most honest part of her knew it was bullshit. She had ignored it. At least at first.
She hadn’t been able to fool herself for long, and now she just felt empty. Lonely. And desperate. A considerable part of her was suddenly shriveling. That part of her that was marked with Michael’s name.
“Look, Michael…” She rubbed her forehead. “…I just wanted to say that I don’t want any money. I just…”
He stopped cold, his back to her, the fridge door still open.
“You just…?” His voice was apparently calm and yet hid a dangerous, barely controlled undercurrent.
“…Nothing.” She shook her head.
He turned slowly, and a big sigh left his chest. She observed him. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept well in days, and thinner. But he was doing his best to appear impenetrable. Invincible. Unaffected. And he was good – because he looked like he didn’t care at all. Otherworldly beautiful and distant, like a star shining from another galaxy.
“So… you’re here to tell me that we can rip our prenup to shreds?”
“Yeah… Unless…”
“I don’t want anything from you, Lisa Marie.”
His bland, colorless tone made her wince.
“Not money, anyway,” he added then, under his breath. And yet she heard him.
“Then what is it that you want?”
He shook his head and turned her back to her again, pouring her a glass of water.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. It has always mattered.”
He slammed the pitcher back on the counter with such violence that Lisa jumped in her chair. She saw his head drop forward and he squared his shoulders, trying hard to control himself. He was livid, and his blind rage was barely concealed under the perfect, flawless gentleman mask. The cold, collected, detached stranger he had suddenly become. And yet she knew that he was hurting, just like her.
“Did it, Lise? Did it really matter?” He paused. “Has it ever mattered?”
She knew what he was talking about. He had accused her of not wanting his babies. Which was not exactly accurate, as she had tried to explain countless times – perhaps not in the best way. But the truth was that she loved Michael so much and wanted to have a family with him. Only, not if they were not united, not if they were not strong together and a solid front, not if they could not communicate. Not if they couldn’t get rid of the interferences, or if they kept letting their little advisors get in the middle of their relationship. And they had been hitting rough waters for a while. How could he expect her to want a baby when the preconditions for success were sorely missing? Didn’t he remember how Ben’s birth hadn’t saved her marriage to Danny?
To be completely honest, it had all gone well until the whole world had found out that they were married and about to build a family together. Lisa knew that marrying the most famous man on the planet implied hard work, but didn’t expect the harem. Within a few months, it had become clear that hers and Michael’s was not a marriage, but more like the murky court of a modern Sun King. Full of bilious paramours and courtiers looking for attention, jealous of the wife, jealous of the husband. And eventually, all those outsiders had been able to separate them – by instilling doubts, hurtful words spread subtly and relentlessly in his ear, in her ear.
She doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love you. She doesn’t want your kids. He only wants your kids. She needs you for her music career. He married you to clean up his image. She said. He said. She did this. He did that.
At first, it hadn’t even worked. They were solid and strong, and knew the truth. But after months and months of inexorable manipulation, the drops continually falling in the same spot had started to erode the rock, and the voices had become more and more intrusive, to the point that neither she nor Michael had been able to ignore them any longer.
And it was bullshit. Lisa knew it, the truth once again trying hard to find its way through the fog of malevolent, whispered advice, of not so disinterested suggestions, of malicious “friend talks.” It hadn’t taken long to hear her own heart scream out to him again, the moment she had so idiotically cut the rope.
And yet, here they were again. Miscommunication and resentment were so evident in their voices, in their tentative words, and in their silence. So well-nourished by months of careful manuring from both sides. They were now officially caught in a storm of shit.
“Michael… please. Let’s not go back to that.”
She felt irritation arise abruptly, because talking about that would inevitably lead to talking about him getting that nurse pregnant while he was still married. The fact that it had happened in a lab didn’t matter. The fact that he and the nurse had an agreement and not a relationship didn’t matter. The fact that he wanted to raise the baby with Lisa didn’t, either. What did matter was that he had done everything behind her back and, when she had found out, he had said that she had authorized him to proceed.
The mere thought made Lisa’s blood boil because Michael was not an idiot. And he knew that her answer, when he had told her, “If you don’t do it, Debbie will,” had been sarcastic. She had never insulted Michael’s intelligence – and at the very least, she would have expected the same courtesy from him.
As if reading her mind, he winced and recoiled suddenly.
“I was not – That’s not what I meant.”
Good. Because there were always two sides to the coin.
“Then what did you mean?”
She tried to keep her voice as calm as possible. She fought to bury the sense of inadequacy that had planted its seeds inside of her after her miscarriage, and that had now become an octopus, choking her.
“You asked me to wait… you said you wanted to try again, and then… and then I get those fucking papers.”
His voice showed pain and confusion, and it was Lisa’s turn to cringe. He was right. She had followed her mother’s and her claque’s advice and had blindsided him. She had done something she didn’t want to do, just to stomp her foot and force his hand. She had been immature, arrogant, and stupid. And he was right: he had gotten the message, called her bluff, and signed the papers. There. How was that, as a lesson? Educational enough?
Telling him that she wanted to try again and that those fucking papers had been a sort of spur of the moment thing, fueled by some bad advice and bad company, would have been pointless anyway. And so she just stayed quiet.
Lisa knew that Michael had trusted her with all his heart, and now his trust was shattered. Hers too was destroyed because of the Debbie debacle. But something else was still there, even though it would have been so much easier if it had just been obliterated in the nuclear explosion they had triggered. That something was the love they still felt for one another.
She squared her jaw and nodded, her gaze dropping. The damage was done. There was no need to keep up the façade any longer.
“You’re right, Mike… That’s what I did.”
She felt suddenly exhausted.
“Yeah. You managed to catch me off guard. Bravo to you. Are you happy now?” He scoffed dryly, his hands on his hips.
She kept her eyes fixed on her own hands.
“I wish I was, but no. I am not happy… Not at all.”
Her answer kind of deflated him and, suddenly, he looked overwhelmed. He rubbed his temples, then pressed his hands over his eyes.
“Goddamnit…” He murmured under his breath, as he leaned back against the kitchen counter.
They stayed quiet for what seemed an eternity. Finally, he sat down at the table, next to her.
“Michael…”
“Yes…”
“Can I ask you something?”
“…OK.”
“…Have you been eating?”
His heart broke a little more, and he felt the sudden need to bang his head against the wall. Everything was so confusing. His emotions were jumbled up, short-circuiting, all over the place. The part of his soul that still vibrated for her soared a little, realizing that she still cared somehow. He decided not to answer her question. It wasn’t Lisa’s business what he did or didn’t do. Not anymore. She had lost that privilege. And it was all her fault. This was not something he had wanted.
“I wanna know…” He said instead, his voice plain.
Lisa looked up at him briefly.
“…I wanna know when you stopped loving me.”
What?
She frowned. Was it that, what he thought? Oh, hell no. This was all too much. It was not what she wanted. She just shook her head and, within an instant, felt her vision drown in tears.
“Fuck…” She dried her eyes with the back of her hand. Then she got up and grabbed her purse.
“Where are you going?”
His eyes followed her and he tried to sound as casual and collected as he could. But his hand, up to that point resting flat on the table, balled up into a fist.
Lisa was putting on her jacket.
“Home, Michael… I’m going home. I think we said all we needed to say.”
He stood up and walked around the table, standing only a few feet from her, fighting the urge to stretch out his hand and stop her. To physically prevent her from leaving.
“Why? We’re talking… We’re not done yet.”
She let out a dry, desolate laugh through the tears.
“Oh yeah… Yeah, we are talking alright. And it’s worse than ever.”
He acted out of instinct and, before he could even realize what he was doing, grabbed her by the sleeve of her jacket, tugging at it just slightly.
“Lisa Marie…” His voice was still dangling dangerously between rage, concern and excruciating pain.
She shrugged his hand off and finally looked up at him, stared at him with those liquid blue eyes, immediately leaving a burning trail into his soul. It was incredible how such an apparently cold color could evoke so much fire, so much warmth. Tears were running down her cheeks.
“Michael, just let me go, OK? This is crazy… What the hell… I fucking never stopped loving you, alright? Why are you even questioning it? I can’t believe you think that… I sure gave you a helluva challenge, and I know I fucked up big time, given that I’ve never really wanted to divorce you… I’ve been fucking immature and shit, but this… this is just too much for me.”
He was speechless. His eyes widened.
“You… you just make it so difficult to stay, sometimes, you know?” She sniffled, and her voice broke. “You don’t even realize… You cannot possibly understand how hard it is for me, to…”
“To what?” He managed to croak out.
“To just sit back and watch you get swallowed whole by those fucking leeches you keep surrounding yourself with. They will chew you and spit you out and…”
He shook his head and sneered.
“Oh please, this shit is getting old…”
“That’s right… It’s getting old… But it’s over now, right? I challenged you, and you won. We’re done. You’re free. I should have known better. I was stupid – this was not what I wanted.”
“What did you want, then? Were you trying to make a point?” He still hadn’t let go of her.
She stared at him as if he was crazy.
“What did I want? YOU! Michael, I only wanted you!”
He spoke in between gritted teeth, his fury and frustration becoming palpable.
“You HAD me!”
She had to close her eyes and take a deep breath in sudden exhaustion. She realized there was no fight left in her.
“No, baby… I didn’t. Not anymore. You were already slipping away… and I didn’t know how to stop you. I tried… maybe not in the best possible way. But I’m only human, and I know that my intentions were good… I never was your enemy – this, at least, you gotta believe.”
Her voice sounded very sad and very soft. It hurt Michael more than her rage, more than any accusation she had thrown at him, more than their endless fights. Seeing her disarmed and defeated was more than he could tolerate and, for the first time, he felt scared. His rage just disappeared in a cloud of mist. He was losing the woman he loved.
“Please, Mike… let me go. Just let me go home.” Another set of tears spilled from her eyes.
He slowly removed his hand from her arm. His head lowered.
“I don’t want you to go…” He swallowed. “I ain’t gonna beg you to stay, Lise… But just know that I don’t want you to go.”
After a long, tense moment, she reached up and placed her cold, soft hand on his cheek, and he closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. He felt like crying and frozen in place at the same time.
“Com’here…” He breathed out, taking her other hand and pulling her into him gently.
She was too tired to resist and melted into his arms, her face resting against his chest. He felt the dampness of her quiet tears soak the cotton of his shirt and held her tighter, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He could feel her tremble and gently kissed her neck, keeping his eyes closed and savoring the moment. Hoping it would last. The scent of her skin reawakening his nerve endings and sending an electrical discharge to his comatose heart.
He heard her moan very softly, and then her hands were on his chest, pushing him back.
“No, Michael… please…”
He swallowed again and tried to hold onto her, but she withdrew, and his empty arms felt suddenly useless, burdensome. Lisa was still shaking.
“Don’t… Lise, don’t…”
“I have to go. I gotta get out of here.” She shook her head. “Please don’t make me do this…”
Michael’s eyes burned as she turned her back to him and started walking down the hallway. When he heard the door slam shut, his eyes fluttered closed and he blindly reached for the table, steadying himself. She was gone. And he was not ready. He felt his lungs constrict in his chest.
Then, a minute later, he heard the door reopen with a start, and his entire body reacted on autopilot. His soul spiraled upwards and seemed to leave his body and reach out for her. Suddenly he could breathe again after the most prolonged apnoea. Without even registering what he was doing, he strode over to the hallway, meeting her halfway. Then Lisa was in his arms once again, her purse falling on the floor, together with her jacket.
Without a word, he picked her up just as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her lips over his and he tasted tears. He was not sure if she was crying or he was, and it didn’t matter. She gently captured his bottom lip and he opened his mouth, his tongue immediately seeking hers as he started walking toward the bedroom. His walk was slow, unsteady. He felt her smooth hands on his face, her soft lips everywhere, on his forehead, his closed eyes, his cheeks, his chin, his mouth again. How he had missed her. He had missed her so much. The passionate, desperate quality of her touch only enhanced the intoxicating mixture of pain and pleasure he was experiencing on an emotional level.
“Baby…” She whispered in between kisses. “Oh, baby…”
Judging by how strained her voice and her breathing sounded, Michael realized that she was undergoing the same emotions. He let out a sob. The tenderness in her tone sliced him open.
Finally entering the bedroom, he was unable to move those last steps to the bed and instead stopped near the door, pushing Lisa up against the wall, his hands still on her waist, as she locked her legs around his hips.
“Lisa…” His voice was husky as he spoke right against her lips. “Say it again… say that you love me… Still…”
Her hands tangled in his short curls and those blue eyes as bright as the ocean stared at him through the tears.
“I do…” He felt her fingernails slightly massage the back of his head and shivered. “I do love you… So much…”
She would never forget how insecure he could be. This man had the entire world eating from the palm of his hand, yet needed reassurance about a love that was so powerful and overbearing to be almost lethal.
“And I love you, Lise… I’ve always loved you, I love you.”
His eyes threatened to pull her into their darkness and she averted her gaze, starting to unbutton his shirt. If he did notice the shadow of doubt on her face, he didn’t let her know. Lisa was glad that their power struggles were out of the picture, at least for the time being.
He gently put her back down and his warm, shaky hands covered hers.
“Here… let me help you.”
His lips sought her once again. He needed to have her, to sink into her and it had to happen quickly, as he was going to burst through his pants. As he struggled to get rid of his shirt, he suddenly got impatient and just pulled at the fabric, buttons flying everywhere. Lisa didn’t seem to register and kept kissing him deeply. They hadn’t made love in a month and it felt like an eternity for them.
Michael took her hand and brought it against his raging hard-on, breaking the kiss to take a deep breath. She pressed her palm there and bit her lip, glancing down.
“Can you feel this?” He panted, as her tiny hand closed on him, forcing him to swallow. “Can you feel what you do to me? Only you, baby girl…”
Her gaze moved from his crotch up to his eyes and he could not stand the hesitation he saw on her face.
“This is not just about desire…” He fought for control over the sensory overload messing with his ability to speak. The scent of her. Her touch. The warmth emanating from her body. “This is not just sex for me… I do love you… I…”
She pulled him down and silenced him with another kiss, their tongues sliding against each other sensually, as he strained more against her hand. All the while, she took his hand and pushed it into her pants. His fingers immediately found her scorching hot wetness through her underwear.
“Oh, baby… Oh yeah…” He breathed out against her lips, moving her thong to a side and finally getting touching her warm skin. Caressing her. “Oh, shit.”
Strangely enough, Lisa was quiet even though her body spoke volumes. She slowly sank to her knees and unzipped his pants with trembling hands, finally freeing him. Without a word, she glanced up at him for a moment and he saw the pain and lust she felt clouding her eyes. Then she began to bestow loving, passionate, open-mouthed kisses on his penis before taking him into her mouth. Michael moaned, caught off guard. His hand gently rested on her head, without forcing her. Letting her know that she could take the lead in this.
He sighed.
“Lise…”
She let go of him for a moment but kept him in both her hands, gently but firmly.
“It’s OK…” She just whispered. “I got you, Mike…”
Then her mouth engulfed him again and her lips and tongue made a number on him. His legs started to shake and he clenched his teeth, wincing.
“Fuck… oh shit…”
He raked his fingers through her hair as his other hand rested, palm flat, against the wall. Automatically, without him even noticing, his hips engaged in the dance.
He loved how she went down on him, and no other woman in his life had even been able to make him experience such pleasure with a simple blowjob, but he didn’t want to come that way. Not right now. He didn’t want her to think that he was using her in any way.
Fighting against his instinct to just let go and have her suck him until he passed out, he managed to grab her by the shoulders and pulled her up, immediately kissing her with all the love that his words were not able to express.
As he kept kissing her, his lips leaving a trail from her mouth to her neck, sucking on her earlobe and delighting in the goosebumps he felt under his fingertips, he removed her shirt and pulled down her pants and underwear. Lisa kicked them off, and he picked her up again, finally walking over to the bed.
He laid her on the comforter and bent over, worshipping her naked skin with his lips and hands. She writhed under his touch and he felt elated, relieved. Maybe she was right, and this was not the right time to talk, if not with their bodies. Perhaps, by making love, they would be able to say all those things that had been left unsaid. They would have time to communicate verbally… later. But some of the ice created by their recent, bitter fights had to melt away before then.
Lisa’s hands reached for his pants and pushed them down, and he got rid of them in one swift movement, finally reveling in the intoxicating skin-on-skin contact with the only woman he truly craved. The woman he didn’t always like or understand but surely had never stopped loving. Until that point, he had not been sure they were going to be intimate ever again, and now his heartbeat raced, realizing that it was happening. Even though they were both hurting, the immense desire and connection they shared were still able to soothe their frayed hearts.
Lying by her side, her nipple in his mouth and his hand caressing the taut muscles of her stomach, Michael felt her grab him and stroke him again and sighed against her skin. He kissed up her neck, sucking on the soft, pulsing vein on her throat and finally reaching her lips, finding them soft and parted. She turned to him fully and they stood face to face, her other hand in his hair, on his cheek as they kept kissing.
He pulled her leg around his waist, then covered her hand with his own as she kept holding and caressing him. Breaking the kiss, Lisa looked down at their intertwined fingers moving together on his steel as he guided himself to her center.
“Lise…” His breath was labored. “Tell me… tell me what you want.”
“I…” She swallowed, and a pained expression appeared on her face. “I want to feel you… I need to feel you. I miss you.”
He moved and began to enter her slowly, letting her feel every single inch of his desire and longing for her, savoring the moment. Hoping it would last forever. Their eyes still locked, she gasped and bit her lip, her breathing quickening.
“Like this?”
“Yes… Oh god…” Her lips found his mouth again.
He sunk into her, feeling her fingers press into the sweaty skin of his shoulder.
“That’s it…” His lips an inch away from hers, he started moving. “”Open up… Oh, baby…”
“I miss you so much…” Her hands framed his face as she let him take her that way.
He moved in slow, deep, languid strokes and they broke the kiss, staring at each other, breathing each other, letting the moment drag itself into eternity.
Even though their lovemaking was unusually gentle and tender, their arousal was sky-high and soon Lisa started to shake and spasm against his body, her muscles clenching on him, keeping him prisoner inside of her. He tried his best to resist the pulsing heat but couldn’t and his body reacted before he had the chance to control himself. His thrusts quickened and deepened. He sighed and sobbed and kept his eyes fixed on her face as he came violently, releasing into her again and again and dragging her straight into another orgasm. When he saw a new set of tears enhance the cobalt blue of her eyes, his vision fogged and he realized that he too was crying.
They spent the night together, drifting off and then waking up again several times to make love – the spectrum of their passion undulating like a pendulum, shifting from slow and gentle to raw and passionate. They never really spoke. Eventually, his body spent, Michael fell into a deep, dreamless sleep that felt like a lullabying black sea made of pure silence and peace.
When he woke up the following day, the sun was high in the sky and Lisa was gone. Only her scent remained, still lingered in the air. Realizing how utterly sore his body felt, he lifted his head from the pillow and squinted his eyes, reaching over to her side of the bed. The sheets were cold.
There was a small, folded note on her pillow and he opened it cautiously.
“Mike,
I do love you, more than you’ll ever know. Please don’t ever doubt it.
L.”
Michael’s head fell back in the pillow and he took a deep, exhausted breath. Without Lisa, he felt like an armless wrestler, like a legless runner.
Lisa watched the dark screen of her laptop and sighed, putting on her jacket and getting ready to go out.
Her lengthy conversation with Michael had been able to calm down her wrecked nerves a little bit. Still, a couple of drinks had been necessary to face him and tell him, with immense composure, that not only she was now virtually broke but also that her divorce proceedings were going worse than she had expected. Composure being the keyword here since the little control freak currently house-hunting in Scotland would have flipped out if he had seen her panicking, and would have possibly decided to throw caution to the wind and take an airplane straight to Los Angeles.
House-hunting had become a bit of a problem too. Michael had still not entirely convinced her to let him buy their house without her financial involvement and kept pressuring her on the subject. On a purely logical level, Lisa knew that he was right, and part of her felt grateful for what he was doing for her, for them.
She was finally able to see what had always been there. Michael loved her – he had always loved her.
With maturity had come the ability to read those messages that, a lifetime ago, had been murky at best and now she was sure that he was immovable in his feelings for her just like she was in her feelings for him. Despite the buckets of shit that had been thrown at them through the years, it had always been that way.
At the same time, that stupid, childish, proud part of her wasn’t relenting. She still could not just say to Michael what her heart wanted to scream out loud: yes. If you wanna go through with it, do it. Pick and buy the fucking thing. I trust you with all my heart. And thank you. I can’t wait to come back to you and walk through the door of the fantastic home you will choose for us.
Lisa cringed and her breathing quickened, becoming uneven.
Here we go again.
She was beyond tired. She was exhausted. The panic attacks were getting worse and worse, catching her off guard every single day in the most unlikely moments and circumstances. Usually, it happened when she least was expecting them and she thought all was OK.
Except for that feeling of being observed all the time.
After noticing the man with the fedora, that night in Memphis, she had rescheduled her agenda to leave for Los Angeles as soon as she could. In fact, she would leave way earlier than she had initially planned. For the first time in her life she didn’t feel safe in her hometown, not even Graceland. Sometimes she would wake up at night at the sound of voices whispering, but she couldn’t make out where they were or what they were saying. Usually, a pill or two helped and she was able to go back to sleep – or better, to sink headfirst into a sticky, tar-black pool of nothing for a few hours. The mornings following that kind of night were godawful: her head hurt and she could barely coordinate her movements. Her hands spun, she had trouble focusing, her speech sounded slow and slurred.
Deep down, Lisa knew she had a problem. And it was not the pills.
At first, she had thought that being in L.A. would make everything better.
She was wrong.
On her second night at Riley’s, while she was wandering around her bedroom, unable to sleep, she had spotted a couple of people on the street, and she had found them eerily suspicious. They were doing nothing, really, just whispering to each other, their heads close as if they were sharing a secret, but panic had mounted into her heart, and she had not been able to close her eyes at all. She had felt forced to wait for the sun to rise, and only then she had felt safe enough to sleep for a couple of hours.
Lisa knew that what she experienced had a name. It was paranoia. From a rational point of view, she also knew that she had nothing to worry about, yet the voices in her mind kept whispering.
What if they’re keeping tabs. What if they’re spying on you. What if they’re watching you. What if they know about Michael. What if it’s the church, and they’re digging, looking for something to use against you because they suspect something. What if they find out that Ethan Murphy is not who he says he is. What if he’s in danger because of you. Because of you! It’s gonna be your fault, and nobody else. He’ll be gone, and this time he won’t come back. Ever.
Those voices whispered and insinuated, planted seeds of fear in her mind, entangled her thoughts in a domino effect that risked making all her certainties fall, piece by piece.
On her worst days, the pills were able to soothe her discomfort a little bit. And yet, the panic attacks were only a symptom of a much more severe and deeply rooted problem. She knew that. This was not the first time she was going under. She recognized the signs.
She also knew she was trying her best to avoid the medications as much as she could. The last thing she needed was another stint in rehab, especially with the social services still involved in Harper and Finley’s care. So far, she had been able to control herself pretty well, but she knew something inside of her was broken and needed to be fixed. And no pills, no drinks could do that for her. Maybe not even Michael who, by the way, was starting to get suspicious about her disconcertingly calm behavior.
The only problem was that she was exhausted mentally and physically. She was going through the motions, day after day. She had no energy left and wasn’t lucid at all. Her only solace was the time she spent with the kids, all of them. But they were not the miracle cure for a festering wound that had eroded her skin, consumed her flesh and was now chewing on her bones.
Tiredly, Lisa dragged herself out of the house and started walking to her car. She had a meeting planned with one of her lawyers, and the thought made her want to vomit. Her head felt heavy and she could barely keep her eyes open.
She only wanted to be with Michael, in the house by the cliff, his arms holding her as they watched the waves crash against the black rocks of the coast. She wanted to take pictures of the dark grey sea, all whirlwinds and foam, and admire the sunrise with the man she loved. She wanted to make love to him and fall asleep draped over his chest, listening to his heartbeat and his steady breathing.
She didn’t want to deal with debts and courts and fear any longer. She wanted to be far away. With Michael, without having to worry if he was safe or not. She needed him to be safe. He deserved it. They both did. She just wanted them to be happy. To be free.
Her mind left the rigid constraints of her body for a moment, flying over to that peaceful place where everything was perfect and fear did not exist.
That was why she didn’t hear the car approaching as she absent-mindedly crossed the road to reach her vehicle.
When the car collided with her body, she didn’t let out any sound. She just flew in the air like a puppet and time stood still for a moment. She fell on her back violently, her head hitting the asphalt, her hand still clasping the car key.
As she stared at the blue sky and a rivulet of blood dripped out of her ear, the only thing she thought was: I can finally sleep.
Then she closed her eyes and everything went black.
Chapter song
