“Start talking.”
“I’m trying to figure out where to begin. It’s a lot to unpack.” She sighed and took another sip of wine, bracing to unburden her soul.
“…Let me help you. Let’s imagine it’s one of those old books of yours. The kind you work on for a living. Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a princess named English. Her phone rang, and on the other end of the line was a dragon.”
Chills ran through her very soul! He knew! On some level, he sensed the heart of the story, without ever having read the words. Axel had inched into the depths of her internal shadows, the recesses of her brain, and pulled them out with a hard, hateful yank.
“…But English wasn’t any princess. She was everything but. She’d met the wrong person, at the wrong time, and got caught up in a web of bullshit. It was no fairytale.” Her hand shook as she took yet another sip of wine, then set the glass down. “This book doesn’t need a curator. It doesn’t need to be salvaged or saved. No operation of restoration can be performed. It’s fit for the dumpster and was ready to be burned as soon as it was written. This story almost ruined the heroine’s life.” She blinked away angry tears. “Chapter One – The Master has spoken…”
Chapter Ten
When Axel returned inside English’s house after taking her trash out to the street curb, he found her curled up on her couch with a cup of tea in her hands, shoes off and a faraway look in her eyes. He braced himself to continue what they started. The conversation was necessary to shine a light on the elephant in the room. In spite of the impromptu break, he wasn’t going to allow her any wiggle room to flee from the situation.
This seemed out of character for her, not opening up and exposing the truth. Her truth. Something was holding her back, making her a prisoner of her own mind. Of course, he’d only known her a couple of months, but still… something didn’t feel right. This didn’t match what he’d witnessed from her. She was usually fearless about expressing herself. Whatever was going on in her life, it seemed to almost paralyze her emotionally.
He scratched along his earlobe, curing an itch. He looked about the living room, and decided to sit across from her on a plush purple couch with sophisticated silver hardware. Her entire first floor, from what he could see, was decorated with pricy furniture and well-placed art. A crisp and clean space, smelling faintly of lemon Pine-Sol and Pledge. Her tastes were not his style by any stretch of the imagination, but it screamed intelligent, sexy, feminine…
“You didn’t have to take out my trash, Axel, but thank you.”
“It needed to be taken out. I saw it. I did it.” He shrugged, then ran his hand over his hair and massaged a kink in his neck.
Her phone buzzed again. This time, a text message. He grabbed her phone before she could reach it.
BITCH, CALL ME.
That was all it said. But that was enough for him. Red-hot rage fermented inside of him. Who was talking to her like this? And why would she allow it? After reading that, instead of keeping his foot on her neck and demanding answers, he decided to take five. She was clearly distressed. Her eyes sheened over. Not one tear dropped, but she was visibly fighting her emotions.
He took that time to clear the table, refill her glass of wine, and tidy up the kitchen.
After all, that’s what he did: clean up messes.
Removed the grime, stains and blemishes, reminders of what was now gone forever. Vile memories replaced good times so quickly… He made haste to solve an ongoing problem, all in an effort to assist the living. She was alive, yet something inside of her was rotting with shame.
So he dipped his cloth in the invisible solvent, and prepared to clean her hurt away.
“One of my daddy’s favorite songs is ‘Enter Sandman,’ by Metallica,” he began. His hands became lovers as they wrapped around one another. Rough skin gliding, fingers intertwined, warming to his own touch. “It’s funny that sometimes, when I talk to him, even on the phone, I can hear him playing it. At first, I thought it was a coincidence, because he’d tell me he just turned on the radio and there it was, but then, I figured he was almost summoning that song.”
English looked down briefly into her teacup, a sad smile on her face, then looked back up at him. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Eyes big, dark, and expressive. Cheekbones full and high. Lips thick and juicy, soft like an angel’s.
“The lyrics of the song are about crib death… of all things.”