Damion Read online

  I stumble to my feet. I let her take my hand and stagger down the damn hallway and into her bedroom. I’ve never been there before. It’s a large room. She does well for herself as a graphic artist who specializes in designing logos for business, non-profits and franchises.

  I flop to the edge of her bed, letting go of her hand. She’s leading me like a stray pet. Her succulently soft bed embraces my butt and envelops me. “What is this made of? Down feathers and clouds?” I mumble.

  She laughs softly. “At this point, I think even a bed of gravel would feel good to you. I’ve never seen anyone need sleep like you do.”

  She turns and heads towards the door. The hallway light illuminates her as her bedroom is dark.

  “Wait!” I almost yell. The panic that fills me is that strong. She pauses with her hand on the doorjamb. She raises an eyebrow in surprise, obviously curious about what I am yelling at her for. I shake my head. “Don’t go. I… I think I only fell asleep earlier because you were here. Every time I’m alone, it all seems to explode in my brain. Every moment. Every word at the hospital. Everything I did wrong or right and all the trauma we endured. I relive the fucking moment—”

  She fully comes back to me and sets a hand on my shoulder as she flops down beside me. “Okay, okay. Don’t, Damion. Don’t go into it right now. Okay? You’ll never sleep if you do. I’ll stay with you, if you think it might help.”

  I stare down at the space between my knees. A profound sadness weighs my neck down. My head is so heavy, how will I ever lift my head up again. It takes too much damn effort and energy. I don’t even want to do that. Her hand rests on my shoulder, her palm is heavy and warm. I close my eyes. Grateful for adult human contact. Because it is so rare now. Numbness fills my body and my skin seems immune to temperature or comfort or life.

  “Damion? Damion?” Her voice suddenly zigs through me. What the hell? Why is she calling me? Commanding me. I shake out of the reverie. I might have fallen into a half sleep as I sit here. I have no idea. No sense of time or space anymore. Her hands tug on both of my shoulders and arms; she’s pulling on my black leather jacket. Pulling it off me. “Lie down,” she orders. God, it’s so nice to have someone command me. My brain has stopped deciding what to do or think. It’s so weak and useless.

  I nod and finally lie back. I hear her sigh as she begins tugging at my feet. What? I lift my head, (damn, the fucker is heavy!) and glance down the length of my body to find Kaeja kneeling on the floor. What is she doing? Untying my shoes? My leather work boots. Duh. She wouldn’t want them on her pretty… what is this I am lying on? A bedspread? Quilt? Whatever. It’s soft and patterned and I think she probably cares about it. My feet are free. Air whooshes over my sock-clad toes. She neatly tucks my boots beside the bed. I probably shouldn’t have even worn them inside her hallway.

  She moves and starts tugging and pushing at my shoulder. I lean to the left where she indicates and she busily pulls and drags the covers back. “Roll back,” she instructs me. I do. She freaking tucks the covers around me. I grimace. Under normal circumstances, I’d never enjoy that. Finding comfort at being tucked in? No way. But right now, everything seems like so much work. Lifting my hand or my arm takes all my energy. I’m exhausted and she’s like a warm hug to soothe my aching nerve endings. It feels nice and nothing has felt nice for a long time.

  “There. Now maybe you can get more comfortable.” Her pillow cradles my head. It’s extra soft. I usually sleep on harder, firmer ones. But tonight, it’s perfect. It smells. Like her. Kaeja’s perfume is a scent she wears every single day. It smells like clean linen. Unlike Ireena. She wore distinct, heavy, dramatic, musky scents. That was her style. My heart clenches thinking about Ireena. Not yet. I can’t think of small things yet. Like how she smelled. Instead, I let her friend’s scent infiltrate my air space and think about that.

  Then a thought occurs to me. “What do I smell?”

  “Is it bad or good?” She’s on the other side of the bed, plugging in a nightlight. Jesus, next she’ll start to tell me a story and kiss my forehead goodnight.

  “Good.”

  “That’s a relief. Tea tree oil. I spray it on linens and hell, even on myself.”

  “It’s nice.”

  “It is. And it has all kinds of medicinal purposes.” She snaps her fingers. “I’ll plug my diffuser in and get some lavender going. It’s the best for insomnia.” She goes inside her closet and comes back out carrying something. I ignore her, staring up at the ceiling. I hear her fiddling with something and making soft noises before something softly murmurs as background noise.

  In a matter of moments, a light, nice scent fills my head. Lavender, I suppose. I’ve never gotten into that essential oil shit. Ireena wasn’t either. She dared to mock Kaeja for it. Kaeja never seemed to listen to her.

  “There. Close your eyes now, Damion.” Her words startle me. Weren’t they already? I… I don’t know. I keep drifting to an odd place. Not asleep. But not awake. Not here. But not gone. I’m aware of some things but it’s like nothing penetrates me. Panic grips my heart. She’s going to leave again. I’ll be in the dark. Alone. With my thoughts. Grief. Ireena dead. And me alive. I’ve never felt so weak before, and I just can’t face that.

  “Kaeja… please… just stay here. I can’t… face the middle of the night anymore. Not alone. Please…” My voice fades off, sounding pathetic and sad. But this isn’t an invitation for love. About as far from a sexual seduction as I could be. She all but undressed me and put me to bed. Now? Manly me is afraid of the dark. But I have an even stronger need for sleep. It’s almost desperate. Tomorrow… well, tomorrow might be the worst day of my life… again. The funeral of my wife. My wife. I can’t believe it. I’m a widower. I don’t even understand the word or how it can be used to describe me now.

  She doesn’t answer. The bed dips on the opposite side and the covers fluff up as cooler air wafts over my body. I feel her slipping into the bed. Slightly. She is almost invisible, barely occupying her own bed. Minutes tick by. She remains on the very edge of the bed. Ridiculously stiff and solid as she lies on the edge of the mattress. I almost reach out and pat her shoulder. She’s so beyond safe from any nefarious or inappropriate moves by me. I couldn’t get an erection if she… well, hell, not for anything. I can’t even focus my eyes long enough to register what I see. And carnal interest? No. I find the lavender scent more soothing and captivating than thoughts of sex. I just want her company. I don’t like to be alone and hurting.

  I sigh and turn on my side. I can make out her face in the dim light from the hallway. My eyelids feel heavy as dumbbells and dry and prickly as a cactus. But still, they won’t stay shut. “Tell me something good about her.”

  Kaeja’s head whips towards me. Obviously, I startled her. “What?”

  “All I hear are strange apologies about Ireena’s untimely death. I never hear… stories and… and all the anecdotes people usually talk about when someone they love dies. When someone dies so young or unexpectedly. All the well-wishers and grievers around me are my family and friends, people who know all about how we got together. There is nothing good to say. No one to share fond memories with. I need… I need to share her… Kaeja… I can’t… deal with things. Not like this. She was not some horrible person who naturally got what she deserved. She wasn’t. Maybe things started out bad, but we weren’t bad as a couple. She wasn’t bad.”

  “No. She wasn’t.” Kaeja’s voice cuts through my rambling. Her tone is stronger than mine. And clearer. Obviously, she’s not the mess I am. “But she was hard to know. She rarely let anyone really know her. You needed a crowbar to pry open her heart, and discover her true feelings and thoughts. You know that. You have to agree that people aren’t unfounded in their confusion. She kept them at a distance. Far away. She only let a handful in. You. Me. Dayshia.”

  Her assessment is right on. I stuff my hand under the pillow, warming to the conversation and Kaeja’s sure tone and knowledge of the person that I ache f
or. “Yes. That… was her.” It’s comforting to hear Kaeja’s opinion of her but it occurs to me I don’t know what Kaeja truly thinks of me. Here I am, lying in her bed, a weak, pathetic mess. What if, because of the awkward position my love put Ireena in, Kaeja actually didn’t like me for it? “Did you hate me? Back when we got together?”

  “I hated how it came about. I told Ireena to break it off with Devon and figure out her head before she had sex with you. She was confused. I can attest to that. The harmless flirting turned into something more. She didn’t intend for it to happen. She was sure she’d marry Devon. Then… then…” Kaeja’s voice drifts off. I see the smile that slices through her lips. “She finally and for the first time fell in love. With you.”

  I close my eyes and let her words ripple through me. No one else knows it. I swear. Everyone assumes we got caught, which we did. We conceived Dayshia the first time we had sex. On a drunken night that should never have happened. She was dating my identical twin brother for three years. It makes me wince even now, almost two years later. After marriage, a baby, and the death of my wife, I still cringe at how we found each other. It will forever be the most embarrassing and foulest act of my whole life.

  I know how wrong it was. How distasteful. I know why most people have nothing good to say to me about my relationship with Ireena.

  But it doesn’t change how I felt about her.

  Love. I was madly in love with her. I realized that about midway through her relationship with my identical twin brother. I never told anyone. Nor should I have. Certainly not her. I tried, I genuinely tried not to put any vibes out towards her that might clue her into my secret feelings. There was an undeniable connection between us. More than what she had with Devon. We talked and laughed all the time. We could connect across a damn room with only our eyes and speak to each other. And yet, she stayed with my brother so long, there was no way to share it. Or see that story through. I knew that. I believed it too. I would get over her. Eventually.

  And then we met for drinks. Devon was supposed to come, but he ended up working late and we stayed. We drank at an intimate bar with low-lighting and close seating. We were drinking and eating very close to each other. It started out so innocent. And ended up being everything I wanted and could never have. It was illicit. Wrong. And spurred entirely by love. We loved each other by then. It was mutual. She didn’t say it. I didn’t say it. But our gazes said it. Our subtle, innocent touches said it. Our platonic conversations, filled with the warmth and vibrancy of truly knowing each other.

  “You knew I felt the same?”

  Kaeja’s head nods on the pillow. “I knew. She told me. And I saw you.”

  I shut my eyes. “I never meant to act on the feelings. They existed when I didn’t want them. I never expected to follow through or hurt my brother. I never wanted her for real. It was a fantasy. A dream. I couldn’t have her and I knew it.”

  “But alcohol dissolved those barriers, huh? Yes, and you should have never drunk alone with her. You should have never gotten into a situation where you could act on your feelings. You should have been honest with Devon long before then. You should have dealt with that fallout first and then moved towards each other like you wanted. It was inevitable. I’m honestly shocked Devon never saw it. But you should have done everything differently.”

  My sluggish brain perks up and my eyes widen. A slow smile tips up my lips. “I didn’t expect the chiding.”

  “No. I never gave it to you. Ireena got the brunt of it, however.” She returns the same little, tilted-up smile.

  “We didn’t have enough time. If she… we never got the time to make up for how we started. You know? My mom was starting to come around. She saw how Ireena was with Dayshia, and who could resist Dayshia? It’s all so new still. We were just getting it right.” Tears fill my eyelids. My swollen, hurt and bruised eyelids. I can’t cry anymore. It physically can’t happen. I don’t rub them, but I say quickly, “Tell me something good. New. Different. Something I don’t know.”

  “Okay… hmm… did she ever tell you how we ended up going to private school for high school?”

  “No. I don’t think so. She just told me Kaeja was her girl. Her family. I could go fly a kite if I didn’t like you.”

  Kaeja smiles. “First grade. That’s how long we’ve been best friends. I can’t remember a time before her. I can’t remember when she wasn’t my best friend. We were the only black girls in the stupid, overpriced high school. Private school. They were all white students, except for five Asian students and us.”

  “Wow. Only two?”

  “At the time.” Her heads lifts and her gaze stares out. Her thoughts seem far away as she continues, “We were in first grade when we met. We sat down together for lunch the first day and she started complaining about the hot lunch. I agreed and we instantly started to laugh and, without a word, it was just so, you know? From the start we were bonded closer than sisters. Faults and all. As the years past, she always had a couch for me. You know?” Kaeja says softly. I don’t actually know what she means by that. Her voice lowers. She licks her lips. Her head shakes. “Ireena never told you that part?”

  “No. She was tight-lipped about you.”

  “I had this old uncle, and whenever he came around, which was often, she always let me crash there, without a word of why or how come. She just always had a spare bed for me. Always. So…”

  Always had a spare bed for me. Always. My heart swells. I think I understand what Kaeja is saying. Her childhood was something I didn’t know about her. Now I can see Ireena’s role in protecting her best friend. It’s good. Heroic even. It’s big enough that I want to shout it out to the world. I want the world to know what my wife had the potential to be. She would have gotten there. She was on her way. I saw the signs of growth she needed to do, sure. Emotional growth. But she would have done it. She was doing the work.

  But then she died.

  I reach out and touch Kaeja’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. But I’m glad you had her to rely on.”

  She smiles back. “Me too. We always had each other’s back. No matter what. Always. Against all foes.” A small, secret look appears in her eye and a smirk fills her mouth. “Even against you and Devon.”

  “You were really always on her side?”

  Kaeja nods. “Always.” Her eyelids blink. Hard. Tears fill her dark eyes. They are deep pools of oil, so ebony in color they don’t reflect the shards of light that enter them. I never noticed that before about her. Of course, I also never shared a bed with just a pillow length of space between us. I am riveted by her story. Studying her facial expressions, I want to see how they match her words and most of all, how her eyes express her love for Ireena. “You think you hurt, Damion? I had her for my entire life and now I have no one. I lost her too. And no one around here gets what that means to me.”

  “Because of my fucked-up relationship that tainted her so.”

  “Well… isn’t it usually blamed on the woman? Scarlet fucking A on her chest and all that.”

  I wince. She’s right. I can’t argue with her assessment. The humiliation in our relationship nearly destroyed me. When I had to tell my twin brother what I did… God, I can’t relive that right now. And the family and friends finding out. The endless shock that I, a relatively decent guy, would do such a thing. To my brother. My identical twin brother. My other half.

  But I did. I admitted it. I walked around in a daze for weeks. Those weeks, our beginning, were terrible. I mean, cringe-worthy to experience. We didn’t treat each other as two people in love. We weren’t then, or were we? Who knows? At that point, we were both trying to survive the blowback of what we did in a small-town area.

  But we moved past it and started figuring it—us—out. Some people started to forgive me or at least get past it. But as for Ireena? She wasn’t contrite in public. She was in private… but no one except me and Kaeja knew that. So, people weren’t half as forgiving toward her. I used to urge her to tell Devon she was so
rry. But she’d just shake her head. No. No, she didn’t have to explain herself or her sex life or her choices to anyone. She wasn’t married to Devon. Her life was hers to decide.

  I respected her strength. Truth be told, her backbone was steelier than mine. I couldn’t handle other people’s opinions. I wanted to apologize and make it better. I wanted to receive forgiveness. Ireena? She didn’t apologize to anyone for anything. It made her tough and hard, seemingly ruthless at times. Not the kind of traits people usually associate with women in their twenties. It’s what made her a manager. She was successful and ambitious. She would have no trouble outperforming me monetarily. She could be supporting me in no time, and I was not only aware of that but also fine with it.

  “Did you… hate me for that?”

  “A little bit.” She shrugs. “No. I just wished it wasn’t so hard on her. And Ireena was happy with you. I was grateful for that. She wasn’t often content, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. If she were a man, everyone would applaud her personality, her ruthlessness, her analytical ability that allowed her to perform and interact with neutrality. They would have found her ambition sexy and no doubt, encourage her to rise to the top of her field. Her drive would have been valued. Instead? She was scorned and called ignoble names. She was judged for what we both did, and quite spectacularly, together. And I did it to my own twin brother, which seems the worse offense.”

  Kaeja nods. “I can accept you because you get that. You portrayed that from the time you married her, and never once bad-mouthed her or let anyone else do it, even Devon. You were loyal and that counts more than how you two produced Dayshia.”

  “I was.” I readjust and smile softly. “Can you tell me more about growing up with her? It makes her feel closer to me.”

  Kaeja starts telling me stories, some of which I know, others that I don’t. I lie on my back, my eyes closed, the dryness too much to bear. I smile sometimes at a memory or example of sweetness or surprise by Ireena. Kaeja’s calming, neutral, cool voice drifts through my feverish, inflamed brain and aching, tired body.