Chapter Twenty-Nine

Erin felt as though she’d grown wings. Feeling lighter and freer than she had in months, she bopped around her house and office with joy swelling in her heart.

She felt as though she’d emerged from a dark tunnel, a cage she’d built herself, and felt the warm, bright sunshine for the first time. It was the feeling of lighthearted, in-the-moment euphoria that comes when everything in life is going right at that moment.

Jon loved her. And she loved him back. For the first time in a long time, she had given her heart up completely to someone else, trusting him with its well-being and safety, as though it were a fragile child (which it had felt like for years.)

They weren’t perfect – they were far from it – and she knew the damage she’d done with her lies wouldn’t be erased too quickly. But all that mattered anymore was that there were no more lies. No more secrets, no more pretending. She was finally in a place of total honesty with Jon, and though the path to that place had been rocky, it was good now. She knew she didn’t deserve him to be so understanding and forgiving, and for that she was deeply grateful.

The two of them had both been busy all week, and had only seen each other once since the weekend. But Jon had called her that morning to ask if she wanted to go to the club on Saturday, and she’d happily agreed.

Conveniently – or perhaps by subconscious design – Erin had forgotten for the time being that Max had turned out to be a stalker. She’d been so wrapped up in her worries about hurting Jon and fixing what she’d broken that she’d forgotten the reason she’d told him the damaging truth in the first place.

The future seemed bright and promising.

But as with all illusions, reality was waiting just outside the reach of her imagined sunshine. And darkness was waiting to swoop down once more.

____________


Max sat in his kitchen, focusing intently as he ran his thumb along the blade of a butcher knife. He kept the pressure just light enough so the blade didn’t slice into his skin, and the challenge was exciting. It was flirting with danger, a thrill that grabbed him and sucked him in, daring him to succumb to failure.

But he wouldn’t succumb. Failure wasn’t an option for Max; it never had been. He’d decided that long ago.

His mother had been a failure. She’d been unable to hold onto her first marriage; she faltered when she found herself trying to raise a child alone. She’d turned to alcohol and frittered away what little money they had on that.

Then she’d married a second time for money, she’d brought some egotistical moron into their home and made herself disgustingly subservient to him to make him happy. So he wouldn’t leave them.

Max smiled. But he had left them, hadn’t he?

His mother hadn’t lasted long after Lewis died. She wallowed in self-pity and drowned her sorrows until they drowned her. Max awoke one morning to the sound of the bath running – a sound never heard after 7am, when his mother left for work. She was lying face-down in the tub, red-tinged water filled to the brim.

Max dialed 911, informed them that a woman was lying dead in the tub, and left for school.

Now, he set aside the knife and stared at it, lost in thought. His mother had been weak, and she’d gotten what was coming to her. She deserved it. Life is for the living – those who are strong enough to fight for it.

Erin had seemed like a fighter when Max had first met her – someone who took her job seriously, who had her head on straight, who knew where she was going in life with devotion and purpose. She didn’t seem the type to get sidetracked and blinded; she was focused.

Until she met a rockstar whose very name made women wet themselves.

That was where she failed. She’d been tested with a challenge to see if she could remain on the steady path to success, and she’d failed miserably. She was such a disappointment to Max. It almost made him sad – she had such potential, he hated to see it wasted.

But the world didn’t have room for wasted potential - it only took up space. Just like Lewis, just like his mother, Erin had chosen her own fate the second she slipped up.

Max stood up, filled with a steadying resolve for what he knew he had to do soon. He wasn’t nervous, he showed no sign of emotion. It was a matter that simply had to be taken care of, but the trick was executing it just right.

Just like the night Lewis drank his final cup of coffee.

______________________

Jon arrived at Erin’s house at precisely 7:00 PM, just as he’d promised. Feeling confident in her short black dress and knee-length leather heels, she opened the door and smiled as the obvious signs of approval crossed Jon’s face.

“You look stunning, as always,” he shook his head. “It should be a sin to look as good as you do, woman.”

Erin winked and shimmied past him. “Thank you, sir. You’re not so hard on the eyes yourself, you know.”

They climbed into the car and headed off for Club Rocket again; both had agreed to spend an evening free of drama and complications, to just enjoy themselves in the company of other people and let loose the unspoken burdens of the weekend before.

Once inside Elmo’s VIP lounge, they headed over to the private booths on the far end. Erin was taken with a sense of déjà vu, and she smirked as they passed the darkened doorway in the back, remembering what had happened there the last time they’d been here.

They arrived at a secluded booth and slid onto the leather seat as a uniformed server appeared almost out of nowhere to take their drink orders. Erin swapped her usual martini for a gin and tonic, and popped a peanut from the dish sitting on the table into her mouth. Jon watched her amusedly.

“So you going to dance tonight?” he asked.

Erin shrugged. “Eh, not if you aren’t.” Somehow she felt that abandoning him to have fun on her own was the exact opposite of what they should be doing tonight. She furrowed her brow; she was also suddenly feeling slightly uneasy, as though something weren’t right. She glanced around the club, trying to shake the nagging feeling that they were being watched.

The server returned with their drinks, and as he bustled off toward the bar Erin followed him with her eyes, somehow strangely pulled toward the area as if she was supposed to be looking for something.

Jon stood up. “I’ll be right back, baby, I gotta take care of business,” he gestured toward the men’s room and Erin nodded.

An odd feeling took hold in the pit of her stomach as she glanced back at the bar, feeling suddenly apprehensive.

When she saw the curly-haired man sitting atop the end stool, her heart stopped cold.

Monday, October 5, 2009