Chapter 45
Avoidance…
That’s what it looks like Alaric is doing. I didn’t ask him to be weird but he’s being weird. I wouldn’t have noticed before but I notice now. For the past month or so, we go to work together, he drops me off on my floor, kisses me like it’s what should be done and then gets back on the elevator.
It’s a sad thing that I’ve come to expect it. That I’m in a place where someone who I said I didn’t like and is my nightmare is being like this to me. He doesn’t get to be that. It can’t be like this.
But after work, when we’re back in the car, he’s distant. At first I didn’t notice but then it became a repeated pattern, something that had my brows raising up. If that didn’t do it, the push he kept giving me and Ricky jr. to spend time together made it more suspicious.
Now, I’m fed up with it because it’s a weekend and I’ve gotten used to spending time with my son.
A son that he failed to tell me has fencing lessons today so I’m all alone wandering around this big home.
I’ve never wandered to where he sleeps, not one time and maybe it was because he hadn’t changed the fact that he would sit in that menacing chair and watch me sleep.
Maybe he thought I’d escape during the night as if I was a ninja capable of hopping black tall iron bars of a so-called fence.
My feet stop when I notice where I am. I’m in Alaric’s bedroom.
A room I have never seen before. One that I shouldn’t be in but my curiosity has got the best of me.
It’s taking everything in me not to touch anything.
My eyes survey the room and on instinct, I raise my head staring up at the ceiling,
“What the fuck?”
I didn’t think it was possible for someone to shock me like this but Alaric has taken the cake for being the cuckooest human being I’ve ever had the displeasure to encounter.
Was this my family portrait? The one I was smiling at because I thought my life was great? I don’t even recognize her.
I want to be upset with Alaric but a part of me is grateful for being able to see something I never got the opportunity to see. By then, I told my parents about he who shall NOT be named and that’s when all hell broke loose.
“What are you doing in here?” Alaric asks and even though I jump from the fact that I didn’t hear him come in, it takes me a minute to realize he isn’t upset. It’s just a question.
“Why do you have that portrait of my family?” I watch as Alaric continues into his room removing his shoes and suit jacket.
“It was a reminder of the person that took every single fucking thing from me.”
There’s no bite to his tone but it still stings.
“I didn’t mean to, I wa—,”
“I know, Juli,” Alaric says as he continues undressing like I’m not in the room.
I avert my eyes staring back up at the ceiling, I wish I could go back to that Juliana, someone that I didn’t hate.
“Why do you keep staring at it?” Alaric says and he’s so close to me that I immediately turn to face a half naked version of him.
He has on satin lounge pants and nothing else. This is the most normal I’ve seen him, ever. My eyes venture up to his face and it dawns on me that he has a stubble and his hair has grown out more, it’s almost back to where it was the first time I met him. It feels like it was so long ago.
I know so much has changed between us because we’re standing in a space where neither of us should be together and the sight of him doesn’t repulse me. He’s not yelling or threatening me which is another thing that I’ve noticed.
“Why are you talking to me like this?”
“Like what?” He asks.
“Just like this. This isn’t you.”
“You don’t know me, Juliana.”
“But I do, Alaric. You’ve shown me the real you and that’s who I know. That’s who I fear and this?” I point to the ceiling. “This is scary.”
Alaric shrugs.
“You don’t know what I had to do to cope. You can’t feel what I felt. You don’t know why I have it up there and even if it is scary, it’s not being painted over.”
“Why?”
“I don't owe you an answer, Juliana.”
“It’s literally my family.”
“Okay.”
“With a focus on me. A smiling me.”
Alaric rolls his eyes and walks away towards another door.
I follow and it’s a half empty walk-in closet.
I want to ask more questions but I’m stunned at how he only occupies one side and the other is completely empty except for a toy stuffed giraffe with dry bloody splotches, a brown bear, a tiny baby elephant and a set of engagement and wedding band with the same dry bloodied splotches.
My eyes widen as three sonograms are there on the plush shelf.
Two are of his kids; one of the one who saw a few years and the other of the unborn one.
The last is of Ricky jr. I never kept the sonogram when I was in jail for fear of wanting to seek him out and ruining his life.
My chest aches because I didn’t mean to take away his family. I wouldn’t have done that to anyone.
“I’m so sorry.” I whisper to the children that I was responsible for taking their lives and their mother that was innocent in all this. “I didn’t…”
Alaric doesn’t say a single thing to me as he continues to look through his jewelry further into the walk-in and I watch his every step as he removes a necklace that I never noticed he wore.
He places it in the glass chest and for a moment, he stares at his wedding ring on his left finger.
He twists it but then he starts removing it.
He hesitates for a moment but then he fully removes it placing it also in the chest then locks it with a key. He replaces it with another gold band and his thumb rubs it a bit but he stops.
Alaric catches my eye as he turns then he looks at where I’m standing. I open my mouth to say something to him but he keeps on walking. My arm reaches out, holding him and stopping him from moving on.
“Let me go.” I tell him, surprised by my own words and Alaric chuckles as if I’m the one that’s crazy in this scenario.
“No.” He responds as if that is the only word he’s learned lately. He doesn’t even look my way.
“No to what?”
“You can’t leave.'' He says so matterfactly that I want to hurt him by thinking I can’t walk away from all of this.
I can… Can’t I? Even if it means I die in the process.
“You’re never going to be able to replace me with Carmen, Alaric. Let’s just be honest with ourselves. If I go now, you can let go of every bad thing that’s happened to you, me included.” My tears fall down my face and I don’t care to stop them.
“I told you already. I’ve replaced what I lost and that’s your cross to bear, Juli, don’t ask me to do something I can’t.”
Doesn’t he understand me? How can I ever be in the same spot as his wife?
I killed her and it was all my fault. No matter what, Edwin wasn’t driving the car.
I could’ve stopped for the red light but I didn’t.
It doesn’t even matter that I tried to crawl to his wife’s car but I couldn’t make it.
The indescribable pain that crept over my body is something I will never be able to forget.
“Let me go, Alaric. Do it for Ricky. Do it for our son.”
Alaric finally looks my way with an expression I’ve never seen displayed around me, longing.
“What about me, Juliana? You’re my wife and I won’t let you go.
It’s not going to happen. I’ve only seen you for five years in my head.
I’ve only dreamt about you for five fucking years and stayed in fucking agony for it.
Every emotion I have is attached to you.
So no Juliana, I won’t let you go. My answer is no. ”
He walks away from me leaving me more confused than ever.
What does he mean every emotion he has is attached to me?