Chapter Thirteen
This is so dumb, this is so bad
Gotta be numb to miss you like that
Lifting me up, letting me fall
Fuck with my head, like it's nothing all
You were my sun, you were my Earth
I was your best, and you were my worst
Breaking my heart one piece at a time
Well here's a piece of my mind, yeah
I didn't know where I was, nor did I know the time or anything. Here, time didn't exist. In this heavenly place I found myself in, all there was was me, and someone else. My eyes adjusted to the slight darkness, trying to make out the figure that loomed behind me. Why couldn't I turn around? I seemed to be magnified to the spot where I stood, facing a large window. I couldn't see out the window, only a fuzzy picture of gray stood around me. Nothing was distinct except for the floor under my feet and the ceiling above my head."So beautiful," a husky voice sounded from behind me. My feet finally moved to see Sebastian stepping towards me, his eyes clear on his intent when he reached me. I found myself wanting him, wanting him more than I've ever wanted anything else in my life. He reached his arms around me and pulled me into him, resting his forehead on mine. Before I could say or do anything his lips were claiming my own, pulling me flush against his body. I was quick to give in to the sensations he gave me with his touch, his kiss, his everything. Next thing I knew I was laying on the bed with him hovering over me. My mind was racing a mile a minute........
You don't know what it is you do to me
Yeah you stole my heart
And all I have is a hole where it used to be
And the hardest part is
Now you've got some substitute for me
But he's not the one
You don't know what it is you do to me
Yeah you leave me numb......
Numb, a feeling I was so familiar with. I'd grown accustomed throughout my life to just allow myself to be numb. Numb to insecurities, numb to the world around me. But Sebastian, he made me feel.......alive. He set me on fire and I didn't want to be drenched in water any time soon. There was a hold on me that was his and his alone. There was no substitute. There wasn't a way out. I could pretend all I wanted, but he had a hold on me. The kiss and this moment proved that. Slowly and deliberately he brought his hands around to caress and cup my face. I felt his hot breath on my face.
And that's when I woke up. As I opened my eyes suddenly and sat up, I felt overbearing sweat pooling around the back of my neck and on my face. This was the seventh time I'd woken up in a frenzied sweat from a Sebastian dream. Shit this was getting out of hand. What the hell was I gonna do? The man was going to be the death of me I swear to God.
Ha! a voice in my head said bitingly, He could be, but another guy is too, and not in any good way like Sebastian......
Before my mind could plunge any deeper without my permission, I pushed away my thoughts and the blankets off my body. I looked at the clock on my phone. It said 4:48am. Unable to get myself to settle back down, I got out of my bed silently and pulled on a sweatshirt and my single pair of black sweatpants. My thoughts were still full of Sebastian, looming around the edges like a wolf ready to attack in the woods. I didn't get this honestly. Why was I feeling so disoriented? Why him? Sebastian was on top of a list of things that I didn't like: rich, self-absorbed, self important, and ignorant. I'd dealt with too many kinds of people like that in my childhood, and most of them were rich self important people from Chicago Illinois.
In the summertime of Michigan, they would come to spend weekends and holidays in their "cottages." Yeah right. I know what the definition of a damn cottage is and those FIPs didn't.(Michigan's personal nickname for fucking Illinois people/persons, variations also were acceptable because you didn't and don't have to be from Illinois to be a FIP, it just was that way for the Chicagoans who invaded Michigan every summer). Most of them were more like average sized family homes to mini mansions. They drove gold cars, had no respect for the community that was our neighborhood, and always thought that their money could fix their fuck ups. Well, it never did. In reality it only frustrated us more. One incident that still clearly set in my mind was one that happened to my dear mother Julia.
At the entrance to our neighborhood, there was a sign that read INDIAN SHORES. When I was younger I never thought much of what the sign said. Now I think it's slightly racist, after working in a historical place where Native culture was a huge chunk of importance. Anyway, there was a small garden below the sign where for five straight years, my mother planted her best and beautiful flowers: black eyed susan, chrysanthemum, Japanese iris, pansies, dianthus, and many others that she took great pride in growing. Besides my father and us kids, her greatest love was gardening. By the time I was ten years old, the entire front yard was transformed into a great beautiful Monet garden. The backyard was no different, except as well as my mother's flowers, we had a plentiful vegetable garden from my father. It was always wonderful to never have to go out to the store if we ran out of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, onions, carrots, thyme, or mint. Mint always grew wild in our yard and we loved to make stuff out of it. More than once my father would make a mean batch of Mojitos from it. We loved it, through and through.
Unfortunately, not everyone could see beauty when it was smacking them in the face. People often criticized my mother for her beautiful wild Monet gardens and asked her to change it. She refused every time. They told her she needed to cut back and make it look nicer for other people to see, again she refused.
My mother was in charge of planting at the sign so it would look welcoming for the residents. Again, not everyone agreed with her. One day when my mother and I were coming home from work when I was 18, there were two older ladies at the sign, trampling and digging up the flowers to replace the ones my mother had worked hard on to groom and put on additional plants that would do well with the acidity of the dirt (the sign stood right below a bunch of pine trees) only weeks before. My mother stopped the car and got out. I didn't have to be outside to understand what she was saying to them. These bitches had destroyed my mother's hard work. They claimed to know what they were doing, but if they did, then why were they destroying all of the flowers my mother had planted? Who does that? And instead of apologizing, those two idiots bitched at my mother like she was to blame. I almost got out of the car myself and gave them what for.
The disrespect and idiocy of the FIPs was obvious to me and my family, but sometimes not everyone in our neighborhood could see what they were doing. It was awful, and one solid reason I disliked rich people so much. They screwed things up that mattered, and then think their power and or money could fix their fuck up. They didn't understand the meaning of life and living well. Well, they lived well, but they didn't understand us and how we lived, so they hated it and opposed it like most of the human race does when they don't or can't understand something. They chose to hate it and crush it. It was sad, but unfortunately true.
Now here I was in the midst of possibly falling for a billionaire. What was wrong with me? Didn't I know better by now than to hurt myself? For so long I just stayed to myself. It was comfortable, and it worked for me. Love only ruined me and destroyed me over and over again.
And there was also the matter of my secret. A secret I couldn't tell to anyone except my parents before my father passed, and my mother would follow my father soon. She wasn't sick or anything, but she loved my dad more than life itself. She didn't want to live without him. I was surprised she'd gone this long. Sitting there in the darkness of my bedroom, I sighed. I understood how my mother felt because that was what I always wanted in love: someone I didn't want to live without.........but I had never found it. That was always my criteria for settling down: it had to be with someone I couldn't live without, someone I needed in my life. Not just someone I wanted in my life. I could want a lot of people in my life. Who I needed in my life was a different level though. I had always been independent. I never needed the company of people to feel complete. That's not me saying I hated having people around me, I didn't. But when I was alone and on my own, I liked it. I relished in it, and I never felt lonely. So why now did I let a man into my heart? Had I let him into my heart?
I shook the onslaught of questions out of my head and got up, stretching my tired limbs. I grabbed my iPod from my bedside table with the earbuds and plugging them into my ears, began to walk to the kitchen as I hunted down a song to listen to. I scrolled through my choices: Blue Swede, Johnny Cash, Whitney Houston, Nicole Scherzinger, and others before I found one that suited me for the moment. I pressed play and shoved the device into the pocket of my sweatpants as the song started....
Now I've had the time of my life
No I never felt like this before
Yes I swear, it's the truth
And I owe it all to you
'Cause I've had the time of my life
And I owe it all to you
My original intent of coming downstairs was unknown to me, but when the beat kicked in, my body and soul came alive and I began to dance. I'm not Patrick Swayze, but I had this song down like a hoedown. Bad joke. I felt my hips sway to the beat.
I've been waiting for so long
Now I've finally found someone
to stand by me
We saw the writing on the wall
As we felt this magical
Fantasy
Now with passion in our eyes
There's no way we could disguise it
secretly
So we take each other's hand
'Cause we seem to understand
The urgency
I started spinning around the small kitchen and living room, all my thoughts that had clouded my head before now vanished, unimportant. All there was now was me and my music. Me and my dancing.
Just remember!
You're the one thing
I can't get enough
So I'll tell you something
This could be love!
Because
I've had the time of my life
No I never felt this way before
Yes I swear, it's the truth
And I owe it all to you
As I pulled on my shoes and sweatshirt, the instrumental kicked in. Walking out the door, the sun was just beginning to rise over the quaint back streets of Brooklyn. It was something I didn't really appreciate frequently, but standing on my front porch now, I saw the spectacle as it was: radiant and beautiful.
With my body and soul
I want you more than you'll ever know
So we'll just let it go
Dont be afraid to lose control!
The song somehow spoke to me. But that would force the question in my head: how did I really feel for Sebastian? Could I let him in without potentially destroying myself? Did I really want him? No, that wasn't even a question, the kiss he had planted on me only three weeks ago proved that he wanted me, and I him. But did I actually need him? Unsure still, I began to work my way to the park around the corner. The basketball court was usually empty this time of the morning, so I would have time to myself before the regular basketball groups came around. I wasn't expecting Sebastian for his lesson until noon today (he'd been diligent about calling ahead of time to confirm his availability. Also wanted an excuse to talk to me, said so himself). After the lesson I had to go straight to the rehearsal dinner for Daniella and I'd meet the rest of the wedding party. I was also in charge of making sure no one stepped on another's toes during dancing. How perfect. Daniella goes damn bridezilla about dancing and I get threaded into it.
Yes I know what's on your mind
When you say
Stay with me tonight
Stay with me, and remember!
You're the one thing
I can't get enough of
So I'll tell you something,
This could be love!
Because
I've had the time of my life
No I've never felt this way before
Yes I swear it's the truth
And I owe it all to you
'Cause I've had the time of my life
And I've searched through every open door
Till I found, the truth
and I owe it all to you!
I closed my eyes in the basketball court and began to move, imagining someone else with me as I swayed back and forth. All I could see behind my eyelids was a blurry image of Sebastian. Was it Sebastian? The way my vision was, it looked like someone else......like Benjamin a thought popped into my head. But it was Sebastian. Did Sebastian look like Benjamin? I tried to picture the two of them side by side, but it was fuzzy enough it couldn't register in my head whether or not they were similar. It still made me curious though. Could they be related somehow? I didn't know, but I wanted to find out, therefore I would.
It was that moment I realized that the song was over. I had been too occupied in my thoughts to notice it sooner. It didn't matter, I was hungry and Astrid and Toni would be up by now. Breakfast time I suppose. As I walked back to my house, my thoughts were now overwhelmed by Sebastian again. And I still hadn't made any decisions.
This was going to be an interesting day.
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Numb by Nick Jonas on the top :D
Also as a bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICYcxbH8yag (@EmilyLombard0 this song is for you!)
WHOOSH! Finally an update! Thanks so much for hanging tight guys! I'm sorry this didn't come sooner (life was insane for me and new things are happening in my life!) and I hope you enjoy this update. I did the best I can. It's kind of a filler chapter to prepare for what's coming next!
Updates will not be frequent, since I will be starting my historical interpreting job. I will update as often as I can, when that will be I cannot say. I will update though, please just be patient :)
Thanks so much guys and good tidings from the Mitten State!
Kathleen McCarthy (aka southpaw7writer)