Void (34 page)

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE going to get Link?” I asked with a small tremor in my voice.

He only nodded as he slowly approached me. There was something different in his gaze, a slight swagger in his steps, as if he had all the confidence in the world.

I stood up from where I was seated on the bed and walked on unsteady legs toward him, nearly tripping over my feet in the process. He was there instantly, catching me with his strong hands. Hands that I have felt on my body many, many times over, yet these hands were a strangers.

As he helped me steady myself, a strong, but gentle hand was placed on my jaw, tilting it to where I was staring directly at him. It was then that I knew I was no longer talking to the man I loved who had walked out of the room only moments before. Now, I was talking to the man I loved, who I had never met before.

“Link?” I questioned with a whisper. His only answer was a nod as he stroked my cheek back and forth with the pad of his thumb. I felt my knees tremble as if I could fall to the floor any moment if it weren’t for him holding on to me.

All this time. The entire fucking time I thought I was with Link, it had been Andris all along. It had been Andris who took control of my body, invaded my thoughts and set off the nuclear reaction that had severed my old life from my new one. It was he who ignited my vacant soul and who had manipulated my body in so many ways as I submitted to him. It was also him who paid me.

It was him the whole time.

Anger grew within me, and for some odd reason, I felt betrayed. Lied to. Deceived. Stupid, and just about every other fucking negative adjective I could think of.

“I know you are angry. I see it in the sparkle of your eyes.”

His own softened, and it was like he was flashing back and forth between two different personalities.

Oh, my, God,
I thought as I brought my hands up to cover my gasp. And that’s when it happened. I started laughing. Hysterical, uncontrollable laughter to the point that my stomach hurt. Tears were forced from my eyes and streamed down my cheeks, but no matter what happened, I couldn’t stop. Then, those laughs turned to sobs and before I knew it, my eyes were burning and my chest heaved as anger once again returned.

Andris didn’t say much as I backed away from him. Or was it Link I had just lost my shit in front of?

“The entire fucking time it was you?” I asked calmly. Almost so calm, that you could never tell that I was damn near in the full stages of a panic attack only seconds before. I felt the familiar mask I had worn for so long voluntarily slip back into place. I felt my emotions once again fade away, just out of my reach.

“Yes. Nicola, Link has helped me in ways I cannot describe to anyone. Like your parents ignored you, my father did also, except when he was telling me what a worthless piece of shit I was or how I didn’t deserve the air I breathed. Link was the one who helped me feel like I was worthy, even if I had to pretend to be him for a while.”

“So, everything is just pretend with you, is that it, Andris? You can only fuck girls who don’t have the liberty of seeing you? You get to pretend to be someone else and hide behind the image of another persona? Were you pretending the whole time with me?”

“In the beginning, yes. But you changed something within me, Nicola. You gave me the strength and the confidence to step out from behind Link. You are the first and only woman that I have made love to as Andris.”

He stepped closer to me, as if needing the connection between us, but I stepped away from him. I didn’t want him to touch me. I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted him to feel how stupid and worthless I felt.

“So, should I get a special prize for that? You have had plenty of opportunities to tell me the truth. So is that why you always had me use the headphones?”

He nodded.

“I made the girls wear them. I picked them up at whatever destination that Lexie told me to and blindfolded them, just as I did you. The headphones were so that they couldn’t hear my voice and put two and two together. I needed the anonymity of Link to be able to even have sex. My father drilled some seriously sick shit in my head, Nicola. Shit that no one should ever have to go through.”

“Huh, imagine that. A psychiatrist who has mental issues. That isn’t one that I have heard before.”

“It’s the truth, Nicola.”

I walked up to him and jammed my finger into his chest. I felt my emotions slowly beginning to shut off. I wanted to still be angry. I wanted to hate him for what he had done to me and I needed to show him that before I lost every shred of progress I had made over these last few weeks.

“You lied to me. You played me, Andris. And I’m supposed to be okay with that? I’m supposed to say ‘Come here baby. Let me hold you’ after the shit you just laid on me? For
weeks
, you have let me think that I was falling in love with two men. You let me believe that it was because of both of you that I could finally function as a human being. Was I some sort of experiment,
Doctor
? Was I some kind of research you thought you could do to report?”

I was damn near spitting in his face and he never flinched. Never moved a muscle, instead, he just stood there and accepted my wrath.

“I
never
knew you were a patient, Nicola. Fuck, I was supposed to meet Kiki that first night. She was supposed to be the one I fucked and let go until the next time that I needed a fix. I work in a field where people medicate to get rid of their problems. Well, this is my medication. This is the sanctuary I come to when I feel pressure or tension. This is how I unwind and get my dickhead of a father out of my head,” he said as he gestured with his arms around the room.

“The arrangements with the escorts were my way of feeling normal. They were my way of feeling like I was worthy enough to be with a woman, even if I had to pretend to be someone else to do it.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you continued to lie to
me
! God, I don’t know what to feel right now,” I said as I laid my face in my hands.

“Tell me what you feel.”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare try to analyze me, Andris. You knew this was wrong. You knew that there was a possibility that I could get hurt from all of this.
You
of all people should have known how this would affect me. Fucking hell! I just learned how to process all of these feelings and emotions that I never had before and now they are all swarming me at once. You should have been honest. You should have told me the truth when we started our relationship! I feel so stupid!”

My voice began to rise the angrier I became.

“You don’t think I wanted to? You don’t think I wanted to step out from behind the wall of Link I put up between us and be the man I thought you wanted and needed? You think it was easy for me to hear that you had feelings for Link, when I was him the whole time? It tore at me every fucking day, Nicola, but I knew if I told you…”

“You knew what?” I asked impatiently. Sweat had formed a soft sheen upon my skin, and even though internally I felt the heat rise, on the outside I was cold.

“That this would happen,” he said, gesturing between us with his hands. Lifting them up, he ran both of them through his hair. The motion pulled the hair that normally fell just over the top of his brows away from his face and it was then that I could see the anguish in his features. Momentarily, I softened towards him. I knew deep in my gut that it had to take him an abhorrent amount of time to get the courage to confess this to me, but dammit if I wasn’t hurt.

It’s strange really, how the body reacts to certain things. Some emotions can bring on the same types of physical reactions within the body. It was insane how physical pleasure could heat me from the inside out. How it could make me think irrationally, or to do or say things that I didn’t mean in the heat of the moment. But at the same time, anger could do the same thing. Or like how when you are really happy, you were brought to tears, but you also cry when you were sad or depressed.

“What do you expect from me, Andris? You knew that the inevitable outcome would be something along these lines, yet you still continued to lie to me. You made me believe I was in love with someone who doesn’t exist.”

“I’m sorry, Nicola. I wish I could make you understand.”

“Understand? That is all people have tried to get me to do my entire life. Nicola, do you understand anger? Nicola, do you understand pain? Pleasure? Sadness? I’m so sick of people trying to constantly push things on me. But when I was with you and Link, I didn’t feel pushed. It felt natural—effortless. It was like my mind and my body just knew what to do. Are there some things I still don’t quite understand? Yes. But you and Link made it better.”

He let out a long sigh once again, running his hands through his hair before placing them in his pockets. I wondered if he did it to try and control himself. Did he want to stop himself from reaching out to me? As much as his touch would anger me even more, at the same time I craved it. I needed comfort. I needed to know that we were going to get past this. I needed to know that I could survive the torture my heart was feeling at the moment. I hated the unnatural way my heart banged within my ribcage or the staggered breaths that were being forced from my body. For the first time since my emotions were switched on, I no longer wanted to feel anything so that this awful feeling would go away.

“All I can say is I’m sorry, Nicola. I love you. That’s why I told you the truth. That is why I brought you here and confessed everything. I wanted to put all of this behind us so that we could move on together. Have a normal life. I want us to not have any secrets between us or any hidden agendas. I want nothing but love, honesty and trust with you. If that means I have to face my demons head on in the process, then so be it. You are worth it to me. I’ve never imagined that would ever happen with anyone.”

Secrets
. I had a big one. Andris had no idea that I had stolen the prescription pads from his desk. Even though he was honest with me, I couldn’t tell him what I had done because he would try to go after Cardinelli. As much as I hated him at the moment, that didn’t mean I didn’t care about him. I didn’t want to see him going to jail for helping Cardinelli with drug trafficking. There was only one thing that I could do. I needed him to hate me. I needed his love to go away, then maybe, just maybe, mine would too. My emotions were turned on when I met him and Link, how hard could it be to turn them off if I put distance between us.

Sucking in a deep breath, I walked towards him and stood toe to toe. Not quite close enough to touch, but enough that we could feel the warmth from each other’s bodies. What I was about to do would no doubt destroy him, but I needed to get the point across that I didn’t want this anymore. I thought I could handle the stipulations that went with having a normal relationship. I thought I could easily process all the new emotional shit that I would be experiencing, but I was sorely wrong.

Looking directly into his eyes, I said, “If you were a man, you would never have had to hide behind the image of a make believe person. Did you not have the balls to give it to a woman without the help of your imaginary friend? Sucks to be you.”

Then I stepped around him and walked out of the room, straight down the hallway and into the elevator without looking back. As the elevator descended, I felt the tiny breaths of air that blew against the flame of my emotions, so that by the time I had reached the bottom floor, the flame was out. All the new emotions and feelings that had begun to smolder within me were now gone and I was once again left feeling void.