Chapter 21 - Adrian
As I wake, my body starts to stretch lazily beneath the tangle of blankets knotted around me. My lips curve into a smile when I think about how she managed to coax me into resting. My beautiful wife. My naughty little kitten.
I let out a long groan of satisfaction as I stretch my legs further and arch my back, hearing a faint pop as my body realigns. I really needed that sleep. Far more than I understood.
And I needed her. And she was there for me.
Rolling over in bed, the blanket half falls from my body, but I pay no attention as I reach out in search of her, hoping to pull her into my arms and repeat what we did early this morning.
It’s no surprise she isn’t there, though. It’s the middle of the day, and she got plenty of rest last night. She’s probably reading or getting up to some mischief somewhere in the house.
Mm. I wonder if she made lunch. I sit up, suddenly craving the richness of that spaghetti Bolognese she made before.
Tossing the remainder of the blankets off myself, I slip out of bed, ready to go sweet-talk her into making it again. Maybe a little less this time, though.
A chuckle rolls through me.
This week has been hell. Absolute hell. I’m dreading the moment I have enough information to actually tell her about her father. The moment that will break her heart. I wish I didn’t have to be the one, but I am. And I’ll be there for her to support her in any way she needs.
But so far, I have no leads on who took his life.
I hate keeping this from her, but it’s the only way I can save her from the hurt of it all.
I grab a pair of sweatpants from my closet before I head downstairs. On the way past her room, I peek inside, but it’s empty. a little messy, but empty.
“Kitten?” I call out. “I haven’t slept that well in a decade. You really do have magic hands,” I chuckle as the memory flashes through my mind.
“Kitten?” I call louder when only the silence of the mansion comes back at me.
Frowning, check the living room—there is no fire going, so she wasn’t relaxing in there. The room is quite cold and unwelcoming without her warmth filling it.
“Athena?” I shout louder, leaning into the kitchen, which is also empty.
The library. She loves sitting in the afternoon sun reading.
I run upstairs, taking them two at a time.
The library is empty as well.
The entire mansion suddenly feels cold.
The playroom! Of course!
I grab my phone to check the cameras. But the shooting range and training area are empty.
Where is she!?
In panic, I run back to her room, bursting through the open door.
It’s not just messy—it’s almost pulled apart. Her cupboard door is open, and clothes have been tugged from the shelves, leaving the rest lying on the floor. Her bed is covered in random items as though she was busy packing and left some things behind.
My heart stammers, skipping a beat.
Her travel bag is gone.
In the bathroom, her person items are gone.
Her phone is gone.
She’s gone.
She left.
She finally escaped.
The scream that rips from my lungs is one of pure agony. Why! Why did she leave now? Was it all a ploy to get me to relax enough to let my guard down? No, it can’t be!
Grabbing my phone, I dial her number.
Each ring takes an eternity.
I begin to think she won’t answer when, finally, her voice comes through the line.
“Hello,” she says quietly, sounding drained.
“Athena!” I blurt out her name. “Where are you!” I demand.
“I had to leave, Adrian. You already know why,” she sighs. Has she been crying? Her voice sounds raw.
“I.. I don’t understand. Please, come back to me. Please, Athena. Tell me what’s going on,” I beg.
She lets out a long breath.
“My father is dead.”
I swallow hard. My first automatic response is, "I know." But instinct tells me it’s the wrong response. Because if I knew, why didn’t I tell her?
“Come home, kitten. We can talk about it. I know you must be hurting,” I say gently.
“But he died a week ago, Adrian. The day before you were supposed to meet him?”
Fuck. How would she know that?
“Athena, don’t do this. Let me explain, come home so I can explain.”
“You can’t explain your willingness to lie to me about something this big, this important. You kept it from me. You didn’t tell me about my own father’s death.”
“Ath…”
“Of all the things I knew about you, the one thing I was confident in was that you weren’t a liar. You were honest with me, no matter what the topic. But now I see I was wrong about that.”
“Athena!” I sound desperate. I sound like I’m breaking apart because I hear the pain in her voice, and I am the reason for it.
“What was the meeting about?” she asks with intent. “Did you kill him, Adrian?”
“Fuck, no, no baby, I had nothing to do with what happened to him!”
“It seems very suspicious to me,” she sighs. “I know you didn’t like him. I know you’ve had issues and confrontations with him in the past.”
“Athena, no. You must believe me. I wanted to meet with your father to try to help him sort out his life. To find a way to get him into recovery so he could stop gambling. Get things straight.”
“Why would you keep his death from me then?”
“I was trying to find out who was responsible. I didn’t want to hurt you with the news without also giving you some respite in terms of knowing how and why it happened,” I explain.
She sighs softly. It sounds like she’s crying again.
“Athena, I am so sorry,” I whisper. “Please come home.”
There is a long pause. A pause that stretches for eternity and steals my soul away with each moment that she doesn’t answer.
But when she does answer, it almost kills me.
“I won’t be coming back, Adrian. You have really hurt me. You presented yourself as a man who would always tell me the truth, only to lie to me about something this important. I lived with my father’s lies all my life without even knowing it. I won’t go through that again.”
“Athena…”
But she has hung up the phone. The line has that hollow, empty, deadness to it.
I dial again right away, but it goes to voicemail.
“Fuck!” I shout in a panic, running to my office. I slam my fingers against the keyboard, typing my password and navigating to the track-and-trace program.
I type in her number.
“I’ll find you, kitten. I’ll come and talk to you in person and explain it again. I’ll explain it a thousand times if I need to.”
But the red circles continue to spin, searching for a signal, trying to connect to her phone, but failing.
I stare at it with growing trepidation.
Eventually, a pop-up informs me that her phone is not available on any network and most likely switched off or in a no-signal area.
She turned it off right after our call.
Why didn’t I track it before I called her! Why was I so stupid!
The office chair groans as I lean back in it. The palms of my hands press into my eyes while panic and pain soak my body. She’s gone. She chose to leave.
I hurt her so badly that she packed a bag and walked out of my life.
How could I have been so stupid!
I did it again.
I did it again, even after promising myself I had learned from my mistakes before. This is how Anka felt. I pushed and pushed, ignoring what she needed, thinking I knew best. I did it so effectively and hurt her so badly that she walked away from me, too.
Fuck! I finally truly understand.
I finally fully, deeply realize the pain that I have to cause someone to make them leave me.
because I have to be in control. Because I think I’m doing well! Because I’m a selfish fucking asshole! What right did I have to say who Anka could and couldn’t love? We don’t choose who we love. We can’t change it.
And what right did I have to keep Athena’s father’s death from her? As though she didn’t have a right to grieve in whatever way she needed to.
I am not a man who cries. But I feel the salted tears burning against my eyes.
I refuse to remove my palms from my eyes because I refuse to let the tears escape.
But I feel them. I feel them everywhere.
The pain of what I did in the past, and the pain of what I did again now. I destroy everything good that I have.
It takes me a long time to get myself under some semblance of control.
I shower. I get dressed. I make coffee, but I don’t drink it. I don’t even bother trying to make food because the thought of it churns my stomach.
All I want is to speak to Athena. And I can’t.
It’s an unconscious seeking of comfort when I dial my sister.
Maybe because she found a way to forgive me, maybe it gives me hope that Athena might do the same one day?
I dial Anka’s number and sit on the edge of the sofa with my head in my hand.
“Hi,” she answers.
“Hey. I fucked up. I fucked up so badly,” I groan in depression, my voice cracking.
“What happened?” she asks, flooded with empathy.
“I made the same mistake again and… Anka, I know I’ve said sorry to you before, but I have more understanding now.
How much I hurt you… how…. I… she left me, Anka.
I pushed her away because I tried to control things that I had no right to control,” I blurt out.
“I made the same mistake again and only realized it too late.”
“Adrian,” she sighs softly. “Tell me everything.”
We speak for almost an hour. She tells me about what she went through when I hurt her.
She speaks with honesty, from her heart, not hiding the brutal truth of her pain, but not seeking to accuse or judge.
I listen. I listen because, somehow, understanding her will also help me understand Athena, and I owe it to both of them.
When she’s quiet, I ask her questions. She answers them.
We speak until I know everything. All the consequences of my selfish choices, my misguided attempts to keep them safe, were only ever brutal acts of control.
Near the end of the conversation, I cry.
But this time, I don’t stop the tears.
I let them fall, and I let Anka hear my embarrassment and my pain as I whisper again that I am so, so sorry for what I did to her.
“Where do you think she went?” I ask after I’ve caught my breath and have nothing but a hollow sense of numbness inside me.
“Maybe it’s best not to ask that for the moment. Let her be where she is because she chose it. If and when she wants to contact you… she will,” Anka says gently. “If she wants to forgive you, she has to do it in her own time.”
“She might never do that, though,” I mutter, not wanting to believe my own words.
“I did,” she replies.
***
That night I make spaghetti Bolognese.
But it doesn’t taste anything like hers.
Or it does, and I just don’t have the capacity to taste or feel anything right now. Anything except regret. After dinner, I leave the kitchen in a mess, not caring to clean it, and I trudge up to my bedroom and collapse onto the unmade bed.
But when I press my face into the sheets, I am overwhelmed by such intense loneliness that panic begins to set in.
So, I stand up.
I leave my room.
I walk into hers.
I sit on the edge of her bed and pull her clothes onto my lap. Holding them, I lie on my side, breathing in her scent.
Exhaustion. Shock. Stress. I don’t know what eventually pushes me toward sleep, but I do finally fall asleep. And I dream of her. But she’s behind a dark curtain, and while I can hear her voice, I can’t see her or reach her, and I spend hours running, searching, and failing to find her.