“Who is dead?” She asked searching my eyes.
“My dad”
“Who, Mr Alexander?”
“No Klyee. My real dad”
Apparently, my mum was still on the phone.
“What was his name?” I asked her picking up the phone one more time.
Kylee opened the cabinet and rammed through it, searching for something.
“I thought something happened to you”
My mother cried.
“Mum, his name, tell me what his name was”
“Dante Milano… Everyone call him Dan”
I almost whispered his name, almost.
“I’ll talk to you later mum”
I ended the call and dropped my phone on the counter beside the sink.
Kaylee was holding a bag of cotton swabs and antiseptic.
“Your hands”
“Kylee I’m fine”
“No. You’re spilling blood all over the floor, give me your hands ”
“I don’t want it to get better Kylee. The pain is distracting ” I confessed.
She looked up at me, suddenly mortified.
“Not again Christian ” she said, tears spilled from her eyes.
Not again, what she meant by not again was the fact that whenever I got really hurt or angry, I would inflict physical pain.
Self harm was an easy way to put it. One night, Kylee had caught me with a razor, I was drawing the thin blade over the inside of my elbow and she had walked into the bathroom and she was mortified.
Blood was everywhere and because she had started me, my hand had been jerked forward and the blade had cut into a vein. She rushed me to the ER, I was loosing so much blood I was knocked out of consciousness.
She was sitting by my bed when I woke up the next morning and I could hardly even talk to her.
I didn’t look at her for about a week but she ended up making me have the conversation. It was dreadful, making me spill my insides. I was ashamed of what I did.
She saw me in many ways an employee shouldn’t see their boss. I told her what I was, just an angry and destructive man. Therapy wouldn’t help, it never did. Boxing only weared me out and I constantly beat the fuck out of my opponents and it was getting really boring, the fact that I remained unbeatable. There was no competition.
I knew that something from my past would come to spoil my future. It was my one fear and I was so scared of making mistakes that I became a perfectionist.
Neat and tidy, white and squeaky clean, yet, what remained inside me was gruesome darkness. Only when Jenna was by my side was I truly happy.
When she was there, the both of us, together alone. I would close my eyes and listen to the soft sound of her breathing. I’d make her tell me a memory from her childhood and I’d smile at every sentence she whispered and when she asks me about mine, I would recoil and tell her everything was too simple and boring, when in fact it was the opposite.
I didn’t understand the effect she had on me, it was like witchcraft. I would stare at her and in my eyes, she would become a mystical fairy, a goddess, an angel, something I’m not worthy of, yet something I would never give away.
Sometimes I wonder if she knew that I didn’t deserve her, that I had too many flaws to even come close to her and she knew this too and she pretended that I was perfect… Or maybe she did not know at all and I would become scared because if she finally realizes, she would leave me.
I always knew that something from my past would tear it’s ugly head and take away the only good thing about my life, Jenna.
I never knew it would come in the form of Talia.
The pang in my knuckles brought me back to the present moment. The pain of the present moment was like a dagger stabbing and twisting like a snake in my belly. I could close my eyes and pretend that I was on the cruise ship with Jenna. We’d be in a cabin and we’d hear the water slapping against the ship. I’d probe her to tell me a story, anything, and I’d listen to the way she pronounces each word and the rise and fall of her voice due to excitement or disappointment.
“Christian, are you feeling well at all. Are you thinking of hurting yourself?” Kaylee asked me.
It was her way of inquiring if I wanted to attempt suicide.
I was suicidal once.
About three years ago, my company had become the top in the country and most trusted globally. I was a name changed my multitudes and yet my life felt very empty.
I remember Kylee entering into my office and dropping the invitation card that Marcellino sent over for his wedding and I had confessed to Klyee that I wanted to kill myself.
I would have left the company to her. She’s the best business woman o know. I would have just done it, it was easy and yet I couldn’t bring myself to. Kylee cried that day, more than I’ve ever seen her cry and she insisted on following me home and staying the night at my house.
That night I realized that long ago, we had morphed from being just employer and employee, to Guardian angel and a broken soul. I apologized the next morning but she didn’t leave me even then, she stayed with me for a week.
She was waiting backstage while I spoke at marcellino’s wedding. I did not mean half of what I said that day, I was rambling when I saw a beautiful dark haired angel walk from the back of the hall to the front seat.
I stuttered a few times just watching her and I left quickly because I didn’t know what I was feeling. I went to Klyee immediately and I watched her from the back.
“Her name is Jenna… Christian, she’s marcellino’s step daughter” there was an apologetic look on her face that day and I remember being broken, if I had met her a day before the wedding, I was selfish enough to stop Marcellino from getting married to her mother.
I scowled at the memory and once again, I was brought back to the present moment.
The tile was cold under my feet and Kylee was standing there, head cocked to the side watching me.
“We need to get you to Jenna before you do something crazy” she said as if I was suffering from a disease and Jenna was the only antidote.