Chapter 34 Roman
THIRTY-FOUR
ROMAN
After my wife passed away, I thought I’d never love again.
For the longest time, I couldn’t even think about being with another woman.
The world keeps spinning, though. Time keeps moving on, whether you like it or not.
It didn’t matter if I wanted to carry on without her.
I didn’t have a choice. She was gone, and I had a child to raise.
I was forced to keep living, to keep moving forward.
Eventually, the pain was numbed with liquor and anger, and my body was letting me know that I was still alive.
That’s when I started fucking random women to take care of the bodily need I found myself with.
Even then, I felt beyond guilty. When it came to Sasha, the guilt had slowly begun to fade, and in its absence, something else took hold.
I refused to acknowledge it, though. I thought if I ignored it, it didn’t exist. And if it didn’t exist, then it couldn’t go bad.
The problem was that I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me. I could feel it in her touch. Looking into her green irises made my heart hammer away as the butterflies formed in my stomach. I knew the feeling well enough to know that it meant nothing but disaster.
After our shower, I carried her to bed, where I held her against me as she fell asleep, as nothing else in the world mattered.
I couldn’t sleep as easily, though. I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling of our dark hotel room, trying to figure out how I could make things work.
The more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt, and the angrier I grew.
I think I passed out from sheer exhaustion in the early morning hours, but it wasn’t restful sleep.
I tossed and turned, waking often and having nightmares all night long.
I relived the day my world stopped spinning, waking in a cold sweat.
After going back to sleep, I dreamed about the first night I ever had Sasha in my bed, but as that faded away, something else came into view.
It looked like a grain of salt in the blackness.
I wasn’t moving, but the white speck was growing larger and larger.
As it grew larger and closer, it grew brighter until a warm white light surrounded me.
I covered my eyes as my ears started to ring, louder and louder.
I could feel the pain of my eyes being burned from my skull, and the ringing in my ears was so loud and earsplitting that my ears began to bleed.
At least, it felt like blood was dripping from them.
I was sure I was having a brain aneurysm, I didn’t know I had, that was about to burst. But then, it was all gone with the softest of popping sounds.
The light was normal, as if I were standing in any ordinary room of my house.
My ears were no longer ringing, and I briefly wondered if I was dead.
I opened my eyes and found myself standing in my bedroom. Everything was in its place, and nothing was out of the ordinary, except for the fact that my wife was standing before me, wearing a sheer white nightgown that I always loved on her.
She didn’t look the way she did the last time I saw her—she wasn’t pregnant.
Her blonde hair was hanging around her face in loose waves, and there wasn’t a speck of makeup on her face.
Her blue eyes were brighter than I remembered.
They cut right through me, making even the heart in my chest freeze as my mouth fell open.
She chuckled, the sound soft and familiar like one of my favorite songs. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said softly.
I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t think of a logical explanation for why she was there. I was frozen, wondering why she was coming to me after all the years I had prayed to see her.
She stepped toward me with her hand out, so when she stepped up to me, her hand was resting on my cheek. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it was warm and felt so real. I placed my hand on hers and melted, my eyes falling closed.
“I know things have been hard for you. I’m sorry.”
My eyes popped open. “You’re sorry?” was all I could get out.
“I didn’t have a choice, Roman. Life is just a game of chance that takes you on a ride. You never know where you’ll go or what you’ll get.”
“That’s all this is, huh? Is everything all by chance? There’s no grand design?”
She offered a sad smile, and she shrugged. “I guess that’s for you to decide yourself.”
My hand fell away from hers, and I stepped back. “What is this? Why are you here?”
“I’m glad you’re learning how to move on without me, Roman. I really am. But my little sister? Are you serious?”
My chest filled with anger while the guilt in my stomach doubled. “What?”
“Just because I’m not here doesn’t mean that I don’t see what’s going on. She’s my little sister!”
I backed away and shook my head. “You don’t get a say in who I’m with. You left.”
“There are a billion women on this planet, and you picked my little sister? She’s basically still a child, you know that, right?”
“No, she’s not,” I argued.
“Well, that’s how I see her. And that’s how you should see her, too. You taught her how to swim. She used to sit between us on the couch when we watched scary movies. You attended her thirteenth birthday party for crying out loud. That’s how you should see her when you look at her.”
I clenched my hands into fists, feeling my short, blunt nails as they cut into my palms. “You don’t get to do this.
You don’t get to judge me for being with someone when you were the one who left.
All these years, I was miserable. I waited for the day when we could be together again.
Hell, if it weren’t for Sophia, I would’ve killed myself to be with you. ”
“End it.”
“What?”
“End it with her, Roman. End it before everyone finds out what you really are. They’ll never forgive you, you know?”
“Who?” I asked as I stepped toward her in anger.
She jumped back to get away from me, and as I reached for her, she fell. I tried catching her, but she began to fade, and my hands moved right through her. Before she could hit the floor, she vanished, and I jerked awake.
I was soaked with sweat, and my heart was pounding in my chest. I was panting, breathing labored from the nightmare.
It felt so real. I couldn’t shake it. I could still feel the warmth of her hand on my cheek.
I could still smell her perfume, like it hung in the air.
I wasn’t the type of man who believed in the supernatural.
I believed that once we died, we were nothing more than worm food.
I never envisioned a life after death, not unless I was telling myself it’s where I’d be reconnected to her, but still, I never actually thought it existed.
I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t just a dream.
She came to me and told me she didn’t like that I was with Sasha.
I tried telling myself it was nothing but my guilt talking, but I couldn’t shake the emotions running wild through me.
I turned my head to find Sasha still in a deep sleep beside me.
The room was starting to fill with early-morning light, so instead of rolling over and trying to get more sleep, I decided to get up once and for all.
I knew it would be nearly impossible to go back to sleep after a dream like that.
All night long, I tossed and turned. If I couldn’t rest before, I knew it wouldn’t happen at all.
I moved quietly and slowly as I pushed the blanket back and stood from bed without waking her.
I crossed the room and grabbed a pair of sweats from my open suitcase on the dresser.
I didn’t bother to pull them on until I was outside of the bedroom with the door closed between us.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I entered the half-bath in our suite, where I emptied my bladder for the first time that morning.
I washed my hands, brushed my teeth with the travel toothbrush and toothpaste the hotel had supplied, then splashed some water on my face, hoping to shake off the feeling I woke with.
In the living section of our suite, I made myself a strong cup of coffee.
I moved toward the big window that overlooked the beach as I took my first sip.
I scoffed at the bitterness before going back to the minibar, where I grabbed a shot of Irish Whiskey.
I poured the liquor into the coffee and took a sip.
The taste wasn’t any better, but I knew I’d start to feel numb by the bottom of it, so I forced it down as I sat on the balcony, watching the sun come up.
I thought about my dream and how I’d known all along that Chloe would not want me with her little sister.
It was the biggest reason I held out in the beginning.
I knew how her entire family would feel about it.
Maybe that’s who she meant when she said they’d never forgive me.
Was she talking about her parents? Even if I pushed the dream aside and ignored how I knew Chloe would feel about the situation, there were still too many problems for Sasha and me to last. Her parents are the biggest problem of all.
We couldn’t carry on a secret relationship forever.
Eventually, we’d slip up, and everyone would find out.
Once they found out, I knew shit would hit the fan, and everything would go to hell.
Eventually, Sophia would grow up, and Sasha’s parents would expect her to move out.
No matter how I looked at things, I didn’t see them ending on a positive note.
“Hey,” Sasha said, slipping out the French doors.
I looked up at her just as she slid into my lap.
“Hey,” I replied. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby.” She rested her head on my shoulder. “What about you?”
“I didn’t sleep very well. Too much sun, I think,” I lied.
“We can just stay in today if you want. Rest up for the trip home and the busy week ahead.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I like the sound of that.”
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Deep down, I knew I needed to call things off with Sasha.
It was the right move all round. But even though I knew right from wrong, that didn’t make actually doing it any easier.
And I was selfish. I liked being with her.
Just thinking about breaking things off caused a pain to slash through my chest. I wanted more time with her.
So that’s what I decided on. It was our last weekend.
I obviously couldn’t break things off while we were halfway across the country. I planned on waiting until we got home.
She looked up at me with her big, green eyes that burned bright. “I’m going to order some breakfast. Want anything?”
“Yeah, just get me whatever.”
She lifted her head from my shoulder and cupped my jaw. “Is everything okay? You seem…sad.”
I loved and hated how she could read me by simply looking into my eyes. I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a rough night that I haven’t been able to shake yet. Go ahead and order breakfast. I’ll be in soon.”
She leaned in, pressed a soft kiss to my lips, and then stood and walked inside.
I bent forward, resting my elbows on my knees as I hung my head.
My eyes closed in anger, yet my chest heaved with sadness.
I hated Chloe for making me do this. I hated Sasha for making me fall for her.
I hated the universe for dealing me this fucked up hand in life.
But most of all, I hated myself. I hated that even when I was happy, I still couldn’t be satisfied because I was always going to have the fucked up past where I was married to her dead sister.
I pushed myself to stand and entered the room. She had just ended the call with room service. She looked up at me with a big smile.
“You’re going to think I’m insane, but I ordered a little bit of everything. I thought that what we didn’t eat now, we could munch on all morning while we hang out and watch TV. What do you think?” she asked, standing and moving toward me.
“Sounds good,” I agreed as I slid my hand into the pockets of my sweatpants.
“I’m going to go change.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Why don’t you find us something to watch?” She turned and walked toward the bedroom.
I took a seat on the couch and grabbed the remote to turn on the TV.
I flipped through the channels until I was interrupted by the knock of room service.
I let a hotel staff member in, and he wheeled in a cart full of covered dishes.
I slipped him some cash and closed the door behind him.
The smell of the food washed over me. On a typical day, it would’ve made my mouth water, but that day, it made my stomach roll.
I left the food on the cart and went back to the couch.
Sasha came in a moment later, and she lifted the lids on the plates, taking what she wanted. She came to sit beside me. “You not eating?”
“I don’t feel all that great.”
“Maybe you’re coming down with something.” She reached over and placed her hand on my forehead. “You do feel a little warm.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her, taking her hand from my head and patting it.
I didn’t tell her that the heat radiating from my head wasn’t from an illness.
It was from anger. My blood pressure was up, and I knew that it wouldn’t go down until I lost it all and was back to drinking myself into a coma every night.
A bottle of whiskey was what it took to make me forget the heartbreak I was plagued with.
I wondered how much it would take once I pushed her away.
There wasn’t enough whiskey in the world.