Love Lost revenge CHAPTER 1

Charlie

I sit in the plush armed chair in the corner of my room from my late teens and early twenties like I have for the last seven years. Only in the last few months have I been able to be aware of my surroundings. Thanks to my mother and whatever research she did on physical therapy, I can move around on my own.

We sit in here and have talks and lunch every day while my father goes about his business with the outside world. When he’s home, I go back to pretending to be a vegetable.

“She deserves to pay for what she did to you,” my mother, Adellia, tells me while pacing in my room. Her round soft bronze face flashes bits of red when she’s angry. Her black long bob wig stops just above her shoulders and swings with her head.

“Oh, Alise will pay.”

“And your sister, for taking your family.”

“A part of me wants to let Kitty have Devon and Amber. But another part of me wants to make her pay for taking over my life when she should have been by my side.”

“I WANT AMBER!” Mother always gets excited at the thought of my daughter.

“Charlie?” A familiar male voice asks. I turn my head to see my father looking at me from the doorway of my room. Balding salt and pepper hair, golden honey skin, and bright brown eyes. This is the first time I’ve been able to really look at him in years. He looks good, despite the confusion and worry written all over his face. He doesn’t seem to be relieved that his once catatonic daughter can now talk.

“Dad,” I simply respond.

“I thought he was gone,” I say under my breath so that only Mother can hear.

“He was. I didn’t hear him come back,” she whispers back to me.

“Me either.”

He looks to my mother, then back to me. “You’re back.”

“Oh, I’m more than back.” I’m raging, but I don’t tell him that. His relationship with my sister can ruin everything. I fought too hard to get free from the prison my mind was in to let him or anyone else put me into a physical one. He looks to my mother again and steps into the bedroom.

“How long have you been aware and able to talk?”

“Some time now.”

Turning to my mother, he says, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you would tell your daughter and she would tell Alise, who would tell the cops. Then my daughter would be shoved off to prison.”

“They are both our daughters, Adellia,” Dad states. I’ve heard him tell her this more times than I can count since I’ve been aware again. Mother has completely written Kitty off, whereas Dad has gone above and beyond to make up for the time he lost with her due to listening to his wife.

Mother dismisses his statement with a wave of her hand. “Kitty stopped being my daughter when she helped that man keep my granddaughter from me.”

“We were wrong for trying to take her from her father. Devon is a good man. I should’ve never let you talk me into filing that paperwork in the first place. And you can have your granddaughter in your life if you weren’t so stubborn. You could have all your grandkids around.”

“They aren’t my grandkids!”

As I watch them go back and forth with each other, I realize I need to put a stop to my father. Mother’s right. He’s going to tell someone I’m no longer a mental vegetable. “I’m leaving,” Dad says.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

He hesitates to answer. “I need to blow off some steam for a bit. You know how your mother gets under my skin. Even after all these years, some things never change.” He gives me a light, but obviously forced chuckle.

“Where are you going?” This time I ask more sternly.

“Charlie Rose don’t take that tone with me. You are in my house.”

“Don’t go ratting me out, Dad.” He just stares at me. “How much of the convo between Mother and I did you hear?”

“You need help, Charlie. The things you did. Tried to do, they weren’t right.”

“Nothing is wrong in the name of love,” I tell him. I stand from the chair I’ve wasted too much time in. “Now, for the last time. Where are you going?”

“Clyde, you can’t run off telling anyone about this,” Mother says.

“Kitty has a right to know that her sister isn’t catatonic anymore.” He turns and walks towards the hallway. I grab the vase off the table near my mother and chase my father down.

“Charlie!” Mother yells after me. My father turns around just in time to see me swinging the metal vase down onto his head, but it’s too late for him to do anything. He doesn’t fall to the floor with the first hit, but he’s staggering to get away from me. I hit him again. This time he goes down. After two more hits over his head, he stops moving. “Charlie, what have you done?”

“Do you want to see Amber or not?” I ask in response. I put my hand under his nose to check if he’s breathing. “He’s alive. Just knocked out.”

“Now what?”

“He can’t ever leave this house again. If he does, it’s all over before either of us get what we want.” She looks at me like she doesn’t get it. “Help me get him into the basement and tie him up to a chair.”

“Charlie, I can’t -”

“You are a part of this, like it or not. It’s time to get your hands dirty. Get his feet.” We struggle to get him down the stairs. Mother talks a big game, but she is so timid when it comes to actually doing something.

“Clyde, can you hear me?” She asks him after we get him settled in the basement.

“He’s still unconscious, Mother. He’ll wake up soon enough.”

“Maybe we should call for a paramedic. You hit him pretty hard.”

“And what are you going to tell them? The moment you start giving them any type of story, you’re going to mess it up for both of us.”

“I don’t want him to die.”

“Again, he’s just knocked out. Do I have any old hoodies here?” I ask to change the subject.

“Maybe in one of the totes over there,” she says while pointing to a row of built in shelving units that holds a number of totes and miscellaneous stuff. I go over to them and start digging through my old clothes. Mother told me the last time she saw Kitty was after she requested Kitty bring all my things out the house of betrayal. That’s what Mother calls Kitty and Devon’s household now. I find something comfortable and concealing to wear and keep digging. “You’re looking for the money you left in Alise’s apartment?” Mother asks with her slight southern drawl. I nod. She gets up, goes into her craft corner, opens a desk drawer, and hands me two yellow envelopes. “Whatever you hadn’t spent is still there.”

It took years of me putting this money away for when Alise and I would finally runoff together. Almost $200,000 at the time of the gala. The only thing I spent money on was a couple of outfits and the LSD I tried to use to rid Alise of Jaylen’s spawn, so I still have a good chunk of it left. “I need Dad’s car keys.”

“Where are you going?” Mother asks.

“I need to see her.”

“Charlie, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Don’t worry. She won’t see me. I’ll keep my distance, but I have to see her so I know exactly how I should repay her for rejecting my love.”

“You don’t even know where she will be.”

“When does Wild Things start?” I ask.

“Wild what?” Her face shows her complete confusion to my question.

“I can look it up on your laptop,” I respond. Alise attends Wild Things on opening night every year without fail, or at least she used to when I was still in her life. It’s when the Detroit Zoo lights up their holiday lights throughout the zoo. I would take Amber with us every year on opening day. I’d bet my life she will be there this year with the asshole she chose over me. And lucky for me, today is opening day.

I find a spot to park at near the gate off Woodward Avenue, which will aide me in getting out and back northbound quickly if spotted. I don’t want to make contact with Alise just yet. I only need to see her. See if she really thinks she’s living a happier life than the one we could have had together. Watch her smile. It won’t be the one I gave her, but it will be a smile, nonetheless.

I pay for a ticket at the kiosk and make my way to one of several entry lines. Once through the gate, I start scanning people, looking for any feature that reminds me of Alise. Her walk. Her curvy form under a long winter coat. Her beautiful eyes. Anything. After a few minutes, I figure I’d have a better chance of seeing her near the intersection by the giraffes and rhinos exhibits. They won’t be out but lights representing them are always near their exhibit.

Giraffes are Alise’s favorite wild animal. We would spend an hour at that exhibit alone when we came down on warm days. For it to be one of the last days of fall, it’s not that cold outside. I wonder how long it’s been unseasonably warm. I haven’t been outside in so long. There’s so much I’ve missed these seven years I’ve been trapped in my head, then in the house. No more.

I find a sign opposite the giraffe exhibit to lean on as I watch happy families go by. A particular lesbian couple with a little boy catches my attention. I watch them intently as they fuss over the child and his excitement. They seem so happy. One of the women notices me looking at them. She takes out her cell phone and comes over to me.

“Can you take a picture of us?” she asks me with a bright smile and hopeful eyes. It’s almost sickening. This woman clearly has never had her heart broken or at least not the way Alise broke mine.

“Sure,” I say smiling back at her. I take her offered phone and wait for them to get into position in the middle of the walking path. Some guests move around them and others wait to pass, admiring the little happy family. Once they get situated with one holding the child and the other with her arms wrapped around him and her partner, I hit the button. The camera flashes and everyone is happy. Well, I’m just happy this is over.

“Thank you,” the woman tells me when she takes her phone back. “Happy holidays.”

I watch them head off. “Lucky bastards,” I say under my breath. And then I hear a laugh so familiar to me, I would know it anywhere. Alise.

I slowly turn my head in the direction it came from. I need to hear it again. I search through passing bodies for anything familiar. She laughs again and I zero in on her. My beautiful Alise. Time’s been good to her, though I wouldn’t expect anything less. Her smile is bright. She always wears just enough makeup – never too much. A long black coat is cinched at the waist, alluding to her curvy figure.

Jaylen’s with her and so are three smaller children. Mom said she thought Alise had twins, but she wasn’t sure since she cut Kitty off. Two of them appear to be about the same age. The third is a little younger. It angers me she’s trying to have a life without me. She didn’t visit me once. Didn’t call to see about me. She’s gone on like I never existed. “How could you forget about me, Alise,” I whisper to myself.

At that moment, Alise looks up in my direction and our eyes lock. It’s almost like she heard me, but she couldn’t have. We’re too far apart. Where I was happy to see her, there’s fear in her eyes. She turns to Jaylen, who’s occupied with tying the shoes of the younger child.

I pull the hood further down on my head and walk quickly towards the exit before Jaylen has a chance to confirm Alise’s siting of me. I’d much rather fuck with her head, first, and then take my revenge out on her.

I’m going to enjoy this.