Shhh... Gianna's Side (18 page)

I had run out of alcohol. I felt like shit and I’m sure I looked like it, too. I was starting to go stir crazy from being locked in a dark room for I didn’t know how long. And as more time passed, so did the feelings that resonated from what he did to me. It all came tumbling down like a force field and I was right at the bottom of it. I didn’t stand a chance. He wasn’t the man I knew anymore, the man I loved; or maybe it was all an act. Maybe I just imagined it all…

Hate.

It’s such a strong word, and even though it only has four letters, it carries a mean punch. I never thought I could hate anyone more than I hated myself, but I was wrong.

I hated him.

There was nothing left.

I lost the fighting battle.

The door opened and the light that followed made me crouch into a corner and shield my eyes. They burned. Something landed at my side that felt like cloth against my skin. My eyes fluttered open, and little by little, they became accustomed to the brightness. It was a shirt that was thrown in my direction. I followed the path from where it came from, and there he was, sitting with his back leaned against the opposite wall, slouched over.

He looked up when he felt my eyes on him
. “Put it on,” he ordered.

The man before
me was remorseful, the man before me was sad, the man before me had love in his eyes.

The man before me was James.

I was never one for praying; I didn’t even know if I believed in a higher power, but I found myself closing my eyes and praying for the lord above to give me strength for what I was about to do. I grabbed the white, collared shirt he threw and put it on, making sure to button it all the way down. I wanted nothing exposed to him anymore. Not my body, not my mind, and especially not my heart.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I looked right at him and busted out laughing. I was laughing so hard it made my head fall back and my stomach hurt.

“Oh my God!” I said in between laughing
. “Are you really asking me that? What the fuck do you think? I’ve been sitting in a pitch black fucking room for how many days?” I stood up, not being able to control my emotions. “Take a look around you,” I stated, gesturing with my arms around the empty space. “Does it look like I’m at a five star resort? I mean, you’re sitting close to my piss, Mr. Nichols.” I shook my head disgusted. “You’re unbelievable.”

He stared at me with inquisitive eyes
. “I know. Listen I’m so–”

“Don’t you even fucking dare!” I yelled.

“You need to calm down,” he barked, trying to control his temper that was looming.

“And you need to go to hell,” I remarked.

He chuckled. “I’ve been there, fuck…I’m still there. I have no excuse for what happened the other night.”

“How many nights has it been? How long have I fucking been in here?”

He pulled his hair away from his face and raised his knees to have his elbows sit on them.

“You’ve been here around four weeks and you’ve been in this room for four days.”

I scoffed, “So it took you four days to come in here…I see how devastated you’ve been about the fact that you sodomized me, but at least you actually raped me this time.”

“That wasn’t rape,” he argued through gritted teeth.

“Oh yeah? Tell that to my asshole, Mr. Nichols, because it begs to fucking differ!” I screamed, making him wince at my words.

“But I guess you got your payback, right? And
that is what this was all about. You wanted to get back at McKenzie and me…well con-grat-u-fucking-lations, teacher of the year, you succeeded,” I taunted.

“I never meant–”

“Bullshit. You wanted to hurt us. You’ve wanted to hurt me, but guess what, asshole, you can’t hurt me as much I have hurt myself.” He turned his face to the side, trying to avoid my words, as if they caused him pain hearing my reality.

“Look at me!” I seethed. “Look at me!” I repeated. “Fucking looking at me, James!”
He instantly turned his face and it was first time in this whole ordeal that he saw me…he saw G, he saw what G turned into.

I was done hiding.

“I’m a drunk. I’m a whore,” I divulged with conviction. “I wish I could tell you that what happened the other night was the first time that’s happened to me. It’s not. I have woken up in beds that I don’t even remember lying in.” I closed my hands in a praying motion, bringing them up to my mouth. “All the men’s faces blend together; I don’t see any of them. I just see someone that will make me feel anything other than wanting to take a knife to my wrist,” I chuckled.

I pointed at the air
. “I already did that though.” His eyes widened. “I didn’t mean to, at least that’s what I like to tell myself. You wouldn’t leave my mind, James.” I grabbed my head, wanting to pull out my hair and started to pace the room.

“I couldn’t get rid of you. I know I fucked you over, but you fucked me over first. I was pissed and hurt. Why? Why lie to me with sonnets, Shakespeare, and love if all you wanted to do was fuck me?” I agonized, trying to hold back the tears.

“That’s not what happened,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Really?” I stopped and turned to him. “Why do you keep lying? The jigs up! Just tell me the truth, please…”

He took a deep breath and bowed his head in defeat. I slowly walked over to him and sat right in front of him with my knees to my chest and my arms wrapped around them. His head leaned to the side on his arms to look at me. We stared at each other for a while, not knowing what to say or how to say it. I was exhausted. His hand reached out for mine and I knew what he was going to do. He grabbed my left arm and flipped it over. He closed his eyes and made a pained noise from the back of his throat.

I could see his internal struggle with wanting to look at them
, but that didn’t stop his fingers from touching the scar tissue. They rubbed back and forth on the rigid skin that I didn’t even notice anymore.

Just like my lies
, my scars became part of me, too.

He opened his eyes and immediately found mine
. “That thou hast her it is not all my grief, and yet it may be said I loved her dearly; that she hath thee is of my wailing chief, a loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye: thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her; and for my sake even so doth she abuse me, suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, and losing her, my friend hath found that loss; both find each other, and I lose both twain, and both for my sake lay on me this cross: then she loves but me alone,”
[11]
he recited. “We are one and the same,” he stated, and then flipped his arm over to show me his truths.

Right before my very own eyes were matching scars, our battle wounds identical to one another.

“When did you do that?” I choked out, not being able to tear my gaze away from his slashes.

“Which time?” 

I closed my eyes from the impact of his words. This was all too much. I wouldn’t make it out of there alive. He was slowly killing me. A single tear fell from my face, and when I felt his finger wipe it away, I subconsciously grabbed his hand and brought it up to my mouth, tenderly kissing each scar. He let me. When I opened my eyes, I saw that his were red and glossy.

“I was pregnant with your child,” I finally declared
, liberating myself from the lie I’ve never shared with anyone.

I wanted to be free.

Forgiven.

I closed my eyes again. I couldn’t look at him. The pain from it all was eating me alive.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he spewed, drastically changing his tone as I knew he would.

“You remember the cabin that you rented for Valentine
’s Day,” I chuckled from nervousness. “You remember how we made love everywhere for two days straight? We couldn’t get enough of each other, getting lost in our bodies, orgasm after orgasm…”

“Yes. That’s all I thought about in prison when I would stroke my cock,” he informed, catching me off guard
with his crudeness.

“We left there with more
than just fulfillment and satisfaction. We left with our creation.”

There was a long pause
. “G, look at me.”

I shook my head no. Not missing the fact that he had called me G.

“Please…” he groaned.

I took a deep breath and braced myself for what was to come, words can really damage you more than anything in this world. They have the power to change one’s emotions and feelings toward anything. Without words
, we wouldn’t be able to cause war. That’s why thoughts are guarded so closely, because they have the impact to produce words that can cause our strengths or weaknesses to prevail.

Like they say; w
ords can be forgiven, but never forgotten.

It was now or never.

I opened my venomous eyes and narrowed them at him. “What’s wrong, Mr. Nichols?” I mocked. “You don’t want to play anymore? I thought you were having a good time. Is it not fun to play with broken toys?” I expressed with glossy eyes.

He shook his head in dismay
. “I didn’t know. If I would have known, things would have been much different. You never gave me a chance.”

“That’s bullshit. I knew the truth. I’ve always known the truth. I was at your house. I heard you and your wife make up. I heard everything. You used me! The entire fucking time! You used me. After everything I shared with you. It was all a lie. I was something to get your dick wet.”

“Gianna, Jesus Christ you were there? Where? How did you even get in?”

“I used the key you kept under your rug by the front door,” I chuckled.

“Gianna, my wife- my ex-wife…” he exhaled. “I was captivated by you the second you walked into my classroom. I knew you were my student, I knew it was wrong, but it didn’t stop the thoughts I had of you. It was sick and it was twisted. I was disgusted with myself. That didn’t stop our paths from colliding. We were a fucking train wreck, G, right from the start. We were doomed.” He shook his head trying to reason with me.

“I was the adult, I was the one in charge, and I couldn’t help but feel like I manipulated the situation.”

“I came on to you.”

“And I never turned it down. I let it go on. It continued because I allowed it. The more I was with you; the harder it got to stay away. I started to think about the future…I thought about the future every time we were together. The fact that I had unprotected sex with you was just icing on the cake,” he added.

He braced himself for what he was about to say. “Sarah called me out of the blue one day, wanting to work things out. I didn’t understand because we both had decided to go our separate ways, but she told me she was pregnant…and I’m sorry, but I took it as a sign from God. What would you have done in my situation?”

I sat there
, shocked from his revelations. My mind couldn’t process what he was disclosing fast enough.

“Pregnant? You told me you were going to get a divorce! You told me you weren’t together since the beginning of the school year!” I yelled and tried to get up and away from him
, but he caught my arm, making me stay to listen.

“We hadn’t. But I fucked up and she came to me and was upset and crying. And we didn’t make sense, G! We never made sense. It plagued me and I had a moment of weakness. I thought
–I don’t know what the fuck I thought…one thing led to another and it just happened. Oh my God! I thought about you the entire time. And I felt awful when it was over and so did she. We agreed it was over. When she came to me eight weeks later and told me she was pregnant, then I knew. I knew that was it for us. We weren’t meant to be, and as much as I wanted it to be different, it wasn’t in the cards. I didn’t think that you would turn on me because I let you go. I did the right thing. I may have done it too late but I tried to do the right thing.”

I stood right
up and hovered over him. “That makes no fucking sense! You didn’t think about that before you decided to stick your dick inside me and get me knocked up–”

He stood up an
d closed his fists to his sides. “You said you were on birth control.”