BRIA
Present day…
After the last sip, I set the glass on the dark wood table, pull myself up, and roam toward the ample mirror of the closet to survey myself. I stare while a heavy pant jolts my body as the last flicker of what has kept me going disappears from my hazel eyes. With my finger raised, I try to clasp and hold onto the dimming spark, but it flees through my clumsy fingers.
A breath I’ve kept a prisoner for too long slips out my mouth as my image in the mirror fogs before me for a few seconds. I try to find shallow pleasure in my appearance—how my long, golden-brown hair is straightened to perfection, and my black leather pants are so tight they meld like a second skin. My low, V-neck satin shirt with black pearls sewn around my cleavage give my look a glamorous touch—all sophistication and body-fitted. My barn owl heart-shaped necklace, which holds so many memories of a life long gone, now mocks me.
I stare at it questioning why I’m wearing it. Am I that masochistic tonight? I nod to myself in affirmation because, for a few hours, I want to remember, to delve into something, anything, even though I know it will be pain. What else could I still feel? I squeeze my hands into fists and examine further.
My makeup is the final touch—smoky eyes and red lipstick—the look of a woman who wears her marks with pride. I resemble a perfectly-put-together doll, shiny on the outside and empty on the inside. How well it suits me, a lean body of dejection.
I used to think I was pretty, but it was love that made my hazel eyes flicker with life and my lips pink and full from being kissed so often by him. He used to say I was the most beautiful girl on earth, his princess, his goddess. We were so young, stupid, and in love. Now, he can’t even look in my direction without biting back a snarl. The sigh which erupts from my lungs rocks my body.
With trembling fingers, I clamp my black lacquer Hypnose watch around my wrist and put on my lace mask. Its intricate ebony pattern hides my features and lends me a hint of mystery. I slip on my pumps, the black ones with the red sole, while the elegant watch on my wrist is heavy with its constant tick-tock, a clear sign my time is almost up.
The strong knock on the door yanks me out of my train of thoughts. When I open it, I see my dearest friend, Alexander, Quinn’s son. My lips curve into a genuine smile which he returns tenfold. This is how I show this unbelievably handsome man how important he is to me. I crane my neck to take in his tall, strong frame, elegant and perfectly-shaped brows a beauty aesthetician would find hard to recreate, complemented by a sharp outline of chocolate eyes which someone could get lost in—two pools of dark enigma—accompanied by his crooked smile that could melt women’s mind He is my partner in crime, the light to my darkness, the glue to my shattered pieces, and the real in my unreal life.
Alex presses me to him as my head rests in the crook of his neck, and I sense as I let the embrace go on he realizes I’m saying goodbye. It doesn’t hurt. It’s like everything else I experience—nothing is there, it’s as if I’m already dead, yet still stubbornly breathing.
He cups my face with his long, fine fingers, a fallen expression covering his face. His head hangs, and the corners of his mouth turn down. My eyes sink as I tilt my head to the side and sigh. This is what I do to all the people who care and love me. I destroy them because I am the fuel for their suffering and etched in their forlorn gazes is my signature. Destruction should be my middle name. He hides it behind his full lashes as soon as he realizes I’ve noticed.
“Ready, Bria?” he asks me in that deep and rugged voice which is so familiar to me.
It’s been seven years of being ready.
“We’re talking about me, aren’t we?”
I view the pain stretched in his hooded eyes, the turmoil in his soul, and I hate myself more because of my incapacity to feel. For him, I would have given everything I have to summon my heart to beat for someone else.
I owe him so much that I break my rule for him, only for my Alex, for just one moment, for everything we’ll never have. I caress his smooth face, graze across his strong chin and high cheekbones and plant my mouth on his tight lips. I put every fractured part I am in this singular kiss. This is my final goodbye to a man who deserves everything, and not my nothingness, with a hotel corridor, the witness to our stolen intimacy as the lamps broadcast our shadows on the white walls.
Alex encompasses my frame, his hands digging into my flesh as my back hits the wall. His hot mouth sucks my yelp in, lips glued to mine, and his passion ripples on my tongue—the last attempt of a desperate man to bring me back. I feel his heart hammering under my palm, while his moist lips remain pressed against mine. This kiss is for all the years of friendship, for the bond we’ve created, and for everything we will never have. I moan as I feel nothing, like my insides are an emotional blower sending all feeling and sensation aside.
The moment flies by, and I set him free as he releases me. He murmurs, “I love you so much, Bria, and this kills me.”
I wonder what pushes me to continue this peculiar conversation as I keep ascending the self-loathing rope.
“Look at me, Alex, and see me for what I am. You know if I could… God, if I could, I would have given you my all, but I can’t. You deserve someone capable of emotions and someone who can return your love. Love should always be two-sided, Alex, because the other way around only leads to misery.”
His chest is an impenetrable wall covered in a soft black shirt and handmade suit jacket, legs parted and eyes burning. He resembles a gladiator preparing for battle, driven and focused.
“I don’t want someone else or something better. I want you, as incapable of feelings as you are. Don’t you get it? I’ll do everything in my power, I’ll fight with your demons my whole life, but don’t go. Don’t leave me, Bria, and don’t leave yourself.”
My palms find his hard chest as his upper body twitches at the contact, and his eyes plead with me. I tilt my head and answer, “Alex, I think there’s only one thing worse than not being able to feel and comfort the ones who love you, and that’s unrequited love. You can give all you want, but at some point, there is nothing left in you, and what will remain of you then? You can’t offer me closure of my past.”
“But I can give you something, hoping I can stitch you back together.”
My lips tease into a defeated smile. He’s such a dreamer and warrior, and he has a huge savior complex. He is beautiful inside and out.
“What exactly, Alex?”
But at that moment, the air shifts around me as the corner of my eyes catch a pool of steel-blue eyes and the most perfect mouth I have seen and kissed, set in a firm line. His fleshy and soft bottom lip is made to bite and taste, and the perfect bow on the top lip I traced with my finger and tongue repeatedly years ago. Everything stalls as my vision is plastered on a broad frame enclosed in a custom-made dark suit which makes his posture even more imposing than he already is. My breathing halts as a hundred knives stab me in my heart, and my nails gouge into Alex’s arm as his upper arm jerks.
What’s Damien doing here? I didn’t send him an invitation to my party. We had said our goodbyes in a thousand ways, one more painful than the other over the years. So why is he emerging from the suite next to mine? Fate must have a twisted sense of humor, I lament. I am smashed like a baseball between throwing up and fainting as my muscles shiver from within. On instinct, I lean toward Alex in an attempt at something I can’t pinpoint as he shields me. I have seconds to put myself together, but in my stupidity, I forget his capacity to subdue me as he keeps my gaze prisoner to his blazing eyes that are even more prominent due to the dark mask covering half of his face. His stare, akin to fury, vanishes before I can examine it further.
The power he has over me to make me mush is unnatural. Damien’s carved chin cranks, in what is his unique way, a greeting to us, letting his musky and unique scent slap my senses into an undiluted shock stare. I’m left peering at him from under Alex’s twitching jaw. With his hands placed into his slacks pockets, he strides toward us. I’m envious of his noble pace, step after step of flowing precision, taught self-confidence, and layered elegance.
Damien stalls halfway to us and scratches his chin before saying with no inflection at all, as flat as he probably exercised it in the mirror, “Happy birthday, Bria!”
I am left with furrowing eyebrows as I watch him retreating caught in his web of deliberate indifference as though not even recognizing me—us. Anger and the desire to shout at him and punch his perfectly put-together apathy toward me on that portrait of an unrealistically beautiful and rough face surge through me.
Do you remember me? The girl you said you would love until the end of forever. My shattered soul howls but only a sigh leaves my body.
“Bria.” Alex’s stern voice puts an end to my disarray. I crane my head up to see the concern in Alex’s eyes—concern for me and also hatred for the one he holds responsible for everything he can never have.
“I’m fine, Alex.” The lie slips from my mouth like a habit.
“I despise him,” Alex snarls with scarlet cheeks and flaring nostrils.
“You would have loved him like everyone else because he’s the type of person you can’t not love,” I rant believing every single word.
“Do you still have feelings for him? Are you capable of loving him but no one else? Is this the reason, Bria? Some sort of false sense of loyalty you have toward him?” His brows knit together. The air around us drops to chilly. The quietness has something ghost-like about it as I put my hands around me for comfort and take a step back. My mouth hangs open.
He’s never asked me these questions before. No one ever does, and not even I have asked myself in so long. But the answer is simply, yes. I feel on those few occasions when I see Damien or hear about him as an ache swallows me. I plunge into a miserable agony when it’s his birthday and I stay away, the day of our anniversary, the day I lost the… the day my entire world fell apart.
I shake my head as I pull at the invisible chord wrapped around my neck. He’s the one I loved until it ripped me apart. And because I couldn’t feel anything afterward, the love I had for him morphed into the illness that keeps me alive.
“Alex, are you kidding me? You know I’m not capable of feeling love anymore. I am a lost cause.” But as I say it, I realize it’s only a half-truth. My mind chooses that moment to voice a dreadful truth, and that’s whenever he’s around, Damien makes me feel. Even though it’s fleeting, and even though I don’t understand how he does it, it’s there making my core vibrate with the unfairness of it.
“That’s not true,” he replies dryly.
“Well,” I snap as something deep within me dislodges and becomes wild, “then stop it. My heart is a mess. No operation can fix it to function properly again. I was in a coma for three weeks and had multiple heart attacks when I was only eighteen. I was chained to a hospital bed for almost a year. Plus, the best part… was my brain went into an emotional numbing mode to keep me alive. So stop, for once… just stop.”
“If it were me in your place, would you have given up on me? Tell me the truth, please, because I am going crazy here.”
I see his distress rise. It’s so evident in his slightly trembling voice and sunken eyelids, lines carving indentations in his forehead. I answer as I shrug, “Mostly… because I understand how it is to be emotionally detached, how it envelops you. I’m a shell of a human being. I’m empty inside. God, Alex, you’re irrational for knowing what you know and continuing to hope. I am beyond salvageable.” The words rushing from me are causing me physical exertion as I breathe through my mouth.
“Why did you kiss me, then? If he’s the only one. Why kiss me, too? Why now?” he asks, brows raised.
“It was a gift wrapped in a final goodbye to someone who’s kept me afloat. It’s how I want to thank you for being you. I felt nothing, Alex, and don’t compare yourself to him because sadly, you won’t stand a chance. No one else does, not even you.”
I caress his handsome but fallen square-shaped face and add, “Alex, let me go. If you ever loved me… let it be.”
In an instant, his whole demeanor switches into something raw and untamed. His grip on me tightens. “Bri…” That’s all he says, one word to camouflage the thousands he wants to add, but I got the message loud and clear. The conversation is not over, it’s just a pause.
It will be a long, long night.
Can I make it through?
With what energy?
And the worst part is that Damien’s here hunting me.
“Let’s go, Bri. Your guests await you downstairs. Don’t forget I have you, and I’ll catch you.”
As I step downstairs, I keep counting one step after another until I’m greeted by a vast open space of black masks, crystal chandeliers, and high-end black furniture.
Buy on Amazon
About the Author
Nivia Borell is emerging contemporary romance author, voracious reader, daydreamer, and student of life on a mission to awaken emotions in the hearts of her readers through the power of the written word. Her debut novel is a contemporary romance entitled “Shattered Love,” which is Book one in the “Forever us” series.
Amazon | Website | Newsletter | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
