Page 69 of Awestruck at Dusk
With my eyes still closed, I sat on my bed and reached out for my phone. My head was threatening me with a monstrous headache that would surely explode in the morning. I looked at the screen through shuttered lids. 3:45 a.m.
I threw myself back on my bed to gather the courage I required to walk out of my bedroom and grab the water I desperately needed. And in that stillness, I heard a faint laugh across the wall. The laughter eased into a moan. And another. And another.
No. No. No. No. No.
This isn’t happening.
Hadn’t William’s doctor requested him to abstain fromexerting himself? But when has he ever done as he is told?
I grabbed a pillow and held it against my face trying to smother the moans of pleasure that filtered to my room, but there was nothing I could do to stop listening. And I remembered what William said about wanting to fight the wall when he heard me having sex with Nathan, and I’d never related to anyone or anything as much as I did at this moment because I wanted todemolishit.
Maybe Sophie and Cecile had arrived already. I needed backup, so I bolted out of my room and opened the guest room’s door only to find it empty, but the thirst was still waiting to be satiated.
After chugging down two large glasses of water in the kitchen, I dragged myself to the living room and collapsed on my couch, lacking the guts to go back to my room and keep listening to how William had also made his choice.
It surprised me how shock didn’t overtake me. It’s as if I knew to expect it. I suspected there was something going on between them, so why would I be caught off guard? I was furious, disappointed, destroyed. But stunned? Blindsided?
Never.
A bit of denial, maybe. It wasn’t like I had a hard time with pretending like shit didn’t bother me all the time.
Yes, denial wasn’t a half-bad idea most of the time. So I started by shutting my eyes and welcoming the nightmares. At least those weren’t real. They’d vanish as soon as I brought myself to a wake.
An Understanding
MY EYELIDS FLUTTERED, and my head rested on a pillow. A light blanket covered the lower half of my body. There was a fresh glass of water set for me on the coffee table. Outside my window, the day was deceiving, somewhat gray. I couldn’t tell the time, but it must’ve been early because it all felt too quiet—still. The city hadn’t woken up.
Sunday.
This time I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I planned to have an insanely dark coffee with a side of ibuprofen for breakfast. There was nothing much on my schedule for the day aside from: hardening the fuck up, forgetting about the moans beyond the wall, and lobotomizing William. For the hundredth time.For good, I promised.
Three simple tasks, but essential, nonetheless.
Oh yeah, and it was still my birthday. I’d probably wait for Lily to fulfill her promise of bringing over those almond croissants and stuff my face with them throughout the day. Jot that down as the fourth item on my to-do list, please.
Anyway, it was time to get my ass up from that couch, which became my new best friend after the unnamable events of the wee hours of the night. It was my good luck couch now because no nightmares occupied my dreams as I slept there. Even my subconscious was too fed up and drained to concoct any terrors.
I allowed myself one last long, slow, annoyingly unpunctual train of thought that consisted of self-inflicted mental torture. I didn’t know howthe hellI was ever going to be capable of looking at Zara again, knowing she’d shared William’s bed, listening to her reacting to him.
And now I needed a big fat cake because I knew what my wish was going to be when I blew those candles out:Ctrl+alt+delete Williambecause I had no idea of what my reaction would be like when I saw him again.
My fear was that if they became a thing, then what? We’d all somehow become in-laws? Attend each other’s weddings? Suffer in silence through eternity? It’d be like constantly picking a wound and denying it to heal. And perhaps with time, it would. But an ugly scar would surely remain—a constant reminder of what could’ve been but never was and never will be.
And my father wanted me to stop drinking? Pff. I shook my head at the outrageous inconsideration of his request. Not that I wanted to drink anytime soon, but I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t want to some other day. It usually takes a few days to forget a nasty hangover, I learned.
My mind wouldn’t cease the internal chatter. And another prouder part of me delivered me this disapproving look of,how dare you mope for William when he turned around and fucked Zara a sliver of a wall away from you when he’d promised there was nothing going on between them.When heknewyou’d be able to listen.When he said he wouldn’t stop pursuing you anymore.
That last statement didn’t age well, didn’t it?
As much as my blood boiled, my head shook, and my fists clenched with powerlessness, I couldn’t blame William. I pushed him into Zara’s arms, delivered him to her on a silver platter. But it was still so heart-achingly devastating to see how easily he allowed himself to be driven away. To move on and invite her to his bed.
It’d probably been the right call then.
That realization showed my heart a kindness that I held on to like a lifeline—that I so desperately needed. But my thirst brought me back to the physical realm, drove me out of my head, and demanded—what about me?
After emptying the glass of water that either Sophie or Cecile had laid for me on the coffee table at some point during the night, I decided to brew a delicious pot of coffee.
And as I waited for it to be ready, I walked over to the guest room to check on Sophie and Cecile just to make sure they were both home and okay. Carefully, I pushed the doorknob down and opened the door just a tad.
