Unsuitable Obsession - Part One (30 page)

Amber felt used, discarded, ashamed and unwanted.
Her Father Figure didn’t want her anymore. She was being left alone
again, waiting for her father by the window. Dressed in her special
outfit, shiny shoes and all, waiting for Sam Fitzgerald to come and
pick her up. Waiting and expecting her Daddy to show, but never
did. Her Daddy didn’t want her…never wanted a daughter…Eduardo
doesn’t want her…never wanted her to begin with. Her Father Figure
was rejecting her and Amber was frantic. Her commitment to him
suddenly became offensive and her passion for him panicked her and
she wanted to escape! Amber was beside herself; her body shook as
she tried to get dressed. If she couldn’t leave Victor, and Eduardo
wasn’t going to leave Leticia, then no one would win.

The alarm clock
rang.

It was that ridiculous device that she absolutely
hated.

It told her it was
time.

Time to break
apart;
time to go back to
work
.

Go home
.

Amber reached over for the alarm clock then chucked
it clear across the room. The alarm clock continued to buzz until
it silenced against the wall. Amber was hysterically incensed now,
so impassioned and knew that there was one thing left that her
lover hated most of all…mentioning sex with another man. “It’s over
Eduardo,” Amber callously uttered. “I’m going home to make love to
my husband. Prove to him that I’m still his...I’m gonna stick my
tongue down his throat...offer my naked breasts to his mouth in the
shower...and,
fuck him
all night long.”

Eduardo’s throat closed up, Amber couldn’t have said
anything more malicious to him than that. She knew full well that
mentioning sex with his brother injured his very soul. Eduardo felt
like he’d been kicked in the gut. “Why you little bitch—” Eduardo
proclaimed haughtily, desperately yanking her body back into his.
“You know you belong to
me.”

Amber pushed him away. “No I don’t! I never did!
This is over—”

Eduardo grabbed her back, “No, it’s not!”

“This is one time you’re not getting what you want!”
Amber screeched, slapping him across his face.

The burning sting only made him angrier. Eduardo
bound his muscular arms around her body; Amber tried to get out of
his wrap, yanked at his arms, scratched at his collar until she
felt his gold chain being yanked away from his neck. She watched it
as it gradually slid down his pant legs then onto the rug.

When it’s bad, it’s dreadful, she was riled up,
distraught, drowning and unhappy…something clapped inside her head;
she would be the one to break his style, teach him a lesson he
would never forget.

“...Are you going to calm down now?” He asked
exasperated, arms still around her body in a tight grasp. He wasn’t
going to let her take off yet, not until he gained his way.

Amber was breathing heavily, she wanted to compose
herself, she did, but relaxing would only mean to continue the
misery.
“Please leave her,”
she asked one last time.

He was worn out with the subject and closed his eyes
in disappointment.

His silence only fed her decision. She could either
go on through life the way she was living, or she could end it, no
longer feel the pain.

With all her might she pulled away from him and
pushed his unreceptive body into the wall. Amber ran out of the
doorway and hiked down the narrow hallway—ignoring his calls for
her return from the staircase above.

* * * * *

Call it intuition. A mother’s inner voice…but Sheila
knew somehow, her child was hurting. Sheila got sick to her
stomach; her body became nervous, anxious. She called Amber’s cell
phone, knew she would answer, but didn’t. Called her daughter at
work, they said that she hadn’t come back from lunch yet. Lunch? It
was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon! Thought about her being
with Eduardo, he would know. But how would she get a hold of him?
Where was Amber? Oh God, she couldn’t get passed that distressing
feeling!

Sheila had to think quickly. Amber told her about
their affair. Sheila dispensed her opinions about Eduardo how she
thought he was taking advantage of her but knew Amber wouldn’t
listen. Her daughter was fragile at times, always wanted to be
desired, wanted and loved. Sheila did the best she could; spoiling
Amber with affection but Amber always craved extra attention when
she was a little girl. Sheila tried to do her best, but Amber was
oftentimes short changed. Trying to accommodate her new husband and
showering her daughter with attention was oftentimes daunting.
Someone was always being left behind. If it wasn’t her new husband,
then it was Amber and Molly, and when she felt the girls were
content, her husband was not. It was an endless tug of war between
her children and maintaining a relationship, and she loved her
girls, and oftentimes not so much her husband and it was easier to
let the man go.

Sheila got into her car and started to drive. If
Amber was with Eduardo, then they were at a motel. Amber gave her
addresses to three of the motels they often went to just in case of
an emergency with Valentina or Adrian.
Just in case,
she
told her mother. Just in case at times like these? Times when she
felt something horrible had happened? She couldn’t shake off that
awful feeling.

She parked her car at
The Rose Motel &
Gardens
. Got out of her car and ran around the parking lot
searching for Amber’s white Volvo or Eduardo’s silver Porsche. They
weren’t there, but did that mean she wasn’t there at all? Sheila
still had that unpleasant ache.

Sheila got back into her car and drove down two more
miles towards
The Ocean Front Motel
; there was no ocean
around the vicinity and Sheila laughed sickly at the sight of the
seedy baby blue building. Again, she got out of her car and ran
through the few cars that were parked there in the parking lot. No
trace of Amber or Eduardo’s vehicles.

Sheila closed her eyes in frustration. Was she just
imagining it? Was she just wasting her time? What was it? It was a
dreadful, terrible feeling deep down in her gut that kept her in
pursuit. She finally reached
The Motel Coronado
.

Oh my God! Sheila found Amber’s car. Sheila ran
around it and into the motel and yelled at the manager, “Where’s my
daughter!”

The office manager looked up from his paperwork.
“Uh? What? You need someone missy?”

Sheila was out of breath and was on the verge of
delirium, “My daughter, her car is outside; I know she’s here, I
need to see her!”

“Now ma’am, please calm the hell down, you know I
can’t give out any information on who’s staying here, it’s against
procedure and against the law.”

Sheila pounded on the counter in front of him,
“Listen idiot! My daughter is in trouble so if I don’t find her now
I will have every biker here on your doorstep demanding free room
and board for the next twenty years!”

The office manager doesn’t like that word
biker
and ran through the roster of names and offered the
frantic woman a few room numbers filled with single women. Sheila
sighed when she realized there were only three rooms to visit.
“Thank you.”

Sheila stopped over the rooms one by one, knocked on
the first door and woke the woman up from a deep sleep, a
prostitute obviously, looking for her next ‘John’.

The second, a battered wife with a bruised face. Oh
God, Sheila realized, what kind of dives did this asshole take her
too?

Sheila finally reached the last door. Knocked, no
answer. She had that horrible, frightful mother’s perception
slapping her in the face again. She banged on the door. Tried for
the knob, it was locked. Goes to her purse, searched for a
bobby-pin, tried to pick the lock. And by some miracle (the marvel
that she was even there miracle) forced the door to unlock. She
threw the door open and noticed the bathroom light still on and
called out, “Amber?” No answer.

Sheila quickly scanned the room. There were her
clothes, her purse, and the cell phone taken apart on the floor.
There were three letters left on the dresser. Oh my God! The three
letters were all addressed! Fear spread throughout her body.

OH MY GOD!!

Sheila ran towards the bathroom and gasped at what
she saw; Amber’s lifeless body had sunk underneath the water in the
tub making it red as a rose. Blood apparent on the tiled walls, it
dripped over the edges and trailed onto the floor causing the white
linoleum crimson as well. Sheila reached for her daughter’s body,
“Oh my God!”

Sheila managed to pull Amber’s unresponsive body up
and out of the water and held her to her chest. Her life was
gone…her spirit…her heart, her will to live. “Oh Amber, why, oh
baby, please...please wake up, please? Oh God, not my baby….oh God
please, Amber no!”

If You Eat It You Will Choke

Sheila sat alongside her daughter’s comatose body.
Amber was in a coma caused by lack of oxygen to the brain coupled
with extreme blood loss. A few minutes later, a centimeter deeper,
she would be burying her daughter rather than hovering by her
bedside. Sheila then focused on the surgical wrap around Amber’s
left wrist. It was an obvious display of what had happened. What
would possess her daughter to do such a thing, a suicide attempt?
What a horrible awful insight; her once sane daughter…her normal
daughter, the one she always believed was more practical and
stronger than herself?

“I’m gonna kill him,” Sheila conceded, “Or at least
make
him
bleed.”

Molly tugged at her mother’s sleeve, “Make who bleed
Mom?”

Sheila forgot that Molly was in the room, forgot
about a lot of things. Sheila was so distraught,
unrecognizable.

Sam Fitzgerald came as soon as he got off the phone
with Sheila. An intimidating sort if you weren’t friends with him
first, he was a tall thin leather-wearing biker with coal black
hair pulled back with a band with hazel eyes under dark sunglasses.
Sheila closed her eyes at that moment and wished to God Amber could
see that her father still cared about her and that he never did
abandon her completely.

“Will she be OK?” Sam asked, walking over to Amber’s
side.

“She’s in a coma Sam...” Sheila whimpered.

Sam goes for her and wrapped his large arms around
her body and held her close. “I’m so sorry,” he apologized now for
deep-rooted regret. “I should have been there for her.”

“I know...I know you are,” Sheila gave back to him.
“But you’re here now.”

“I hope it’s not too late,” Sam said, still holding
Sheila within his arms.

Molly goes for her father as well and gives him a
hug. “Thanks for coming Dad, I know it would mean a lot to her
knowing that you were here,” she said clutching him close too.

Victor suddenly entered the hospital room and walked
over to his wife and surveyed her body lying there. Disbelieving
what she’d done. “Sheila . . .Sam?” He asked in a defenseless
voice.

Sheila broke away from Sam and viewed Amber’s
unconscious body, nodded her head in disbelief. She knew in her
heart what to say, but didn’t quite know how to express it.

Victor grabbed Amber’s motionless hand and stared
down at the bandage on her wrist. Never a clue...Nothing was wrong.
It was life as usual. She was stressed from work, but who the hell
wasn’t? He was never demanding, never forced her to do anything
that she didn’t want to do, or asked to do. She was always allowed
to go anywhere she wanted. Free to go shopping, to the movies, get
her nails done and work late, out to see her friends, Leticia. He
loved this woman, he showered her with affection, comforted her
when she wept, felt lonely. What did he do? Why did she want to end
it all? The kids…him, what was
so wrong
?

Eduardo rushed into the hospital room out of breath.
It was Eduardo alone detached from Leticia. He was always with
Leticia, and there he was…solo. Victor looked his brother up and
down. Why was he here anyhow? How could he have known? He didn’t
call him, why would Sheila call? Eduardo was so concerned about
Amber and Victor watched his brother as he slowly staggered over to
Amber’s bedside; inspecting his wife, practically dying at the
sight of her in slumber.

“Eduardo?” Victor barely got out.

Sam raised an eyebrow at Sheila. Sheila’s stone face
and tight lips were all he needed to validate that these two men
adored his daughter. Sam walked over to a nearby corner, crossed
his arms and enjoyed the show. Molly went with him.

Sheila sat silently back down. She knew this day
would come eventually. But she never thought,
never
dreamed
that Amber would do something so drastic to make it
all come to pass
.

“Is she…all right?” Eduardo expressed, holding back
tears. “Is she gonna be OK?” He demanded from Sheila at that
moment. “What do the doctor’s say? How much blood did she
lose?”

Sheila gazed at Victor’s quizzical expression and
forced herself up to escort his brother out of the hospital room.
“Eduardo, you’re making a scene,” she let out shoving his body
against the wall in the hallway.

“Is she gonna be OK? Will she be all right?” He
repeated.

“She’s in a
coma
,” Sheila started to cry,
releasing tears of sorrow. “We don’t know yet if she’ll regain
consciousness.”

“Good...God,” Eduardo expressed, rubbing his hands
through his hair, he was going to throw up; he never felt emotions
so terrorizing. He closed his eyes and found a nearby water
fountain, splashed water on his face. Turned around—

Sheila slapped Eduardo across his cheek. “Damn you!
Look what you did. Amber told me what happened, what’s been going
on, how could you do this to her?”